University System News:
Growing Georgia
ABAC Writing and Communication Majors Win Awards at ABAC
Students majoring in the Bachelor of Science degree in Writing and Communication at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College are consistent award-winners in a variety of fields. Since the introduction of ABAC’s four-year degree in Writing and Communication in 2017, students in the program have won national and regional awards for their writing, broadcasting, filmmaking, and research. Writing and Communication students from ABAC have been recognized by the Georgia College Press Association and the Southern Regional Press Institute. They have been selected to present their research at the Georgia Collegiate Honors Conference and at National Collegiate Honors conferences in Dallas and New Orleans. ABAC Writing and Communication students were also chosen to share their work at the National College Media Association Conference in Washington, DC. Jaylee Bass, a Writing and Communication graduate from Adel, received the ABAC Alumni Association award which goes to the top bachelor’s degree graduate at ABAC’s recent fall commencement ceremony.
AllOnGeorgia
Energy grant provides Effingham school opportunity to study smart home technology
The project, called Engaging Students in Engineering Education, will bring the curriculum to over 200 students in Effingham County through the lens of smart home devices.
What does a teenager know about energy usage and costs in their homes? That is one of the questions that Georgia Southern University’s Kania Greer, Ed.D., will ask local students with a new grant-funded program in Effingham County. Greer, coordinator of the College of Education’s Institute for Interdisciplinary STEM Education (i2STEMe) was recently awarded a $30,000 grant from energy company Constellation, an Exelon company, for a partnership with the Effingham College and Career Academy and the Effingham County Schools STEM Program.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
University of Georgia to change COVID-19 surveillance testing method
By Eric Stirgus
University of Georgia officials said Monday they will increasingly rely on saliva-based testing for its voluntary COVID-19 surveillance program for students and employees. The university’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has developed a saliva-based test that officials say has proved to be just as reliable as the nasopharyngeal swabs that have been used at the Legion Field surveillance site. Accurate results will be provided within 24-72 hours, they said. …UGA will use its remaining supply of its nasopharyngeal test kits before switching to the saliva-based kits. Georgia Tech used a saliva-based test that it developed last semester. UGA also plans to increase its testing capacity at the Legion Field site and pop-up locations across campus will be expanded to accommodate up to 1,500 tests per day.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Georgia Gwinnett College tennis coach Chase Hodges presented with national award
From Staff Reports
Georgia Gwinnett College head tennis coach Chase Hodges has earned a new national honor, being recognized as the 2020 men’s collegiate head coach of the year by Universal Tennis Rating, an organization of tennis players and coaches supporting growth of the sport at youth, collegiate and professional levels. This is the first year that the organization has presented national coaching awards for men’s and women’s coaches at high school, college, UTR Club and UTR Event Organizer teams.
Health Europa
The traditional mathematical model, which is used to help project the contagiousness and spread of infectious diseases like the seasonal flu, may not be the best way to predict the continuing spread of coronavirus, especially during lockdowns that alter the normal mix of the population, says Dr Arni Srinivasa Rao, a mathematical modeller at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. In a letter published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, corresponding author of the study Dr Rao argues that, while it is never possible to track down every single case of infectious disease, the lockdowns that have become necessary to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic have complicated predicting the disease’s spread.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Jan. 4)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 9,900 | Deaths have been confirmed in all counties but one (Taliaferro). This figure does not include additional cases that the DPH reports as suspected COVID-19-related deaths. County is determined by the patient’s residence, when known, not by where they were treated.
CONFIRMED CASES: 591,106 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
Daily Mail
By Mary Kekatos Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com
Moderna Inc announced on Monday that it will be increasing production of its coronavirus vaccine by 20 percent. The biotechnology company said it plans to manufacture a minimum of 600 million doses – up from the originally projected 500 million – by the end of 2021. The Massachusetts-based firm says it is investing and hiring in hopes it may be able to produce as many as one billion doses by year’s end. It comes as the COVID-19 vaccination effort in the U.S. has lagged, with clinicians inoculating just 4.2 million people – a figure lower than officials had aimed for.
Higher Education News:
The Center Square
2019 college grads in Georgia carried an average of $28,081 in student debt
Last year’s Georgia college graduates on average racked up $28,081 in student loan debt, the 29th-highest average among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a new report from the Institute for College Access & Success. In Georgia, the share of graduates with debt during the 2018-19 academic year stood at 56%, the institute reported, while the total cost of attending college in the state averaged $28,641. Nationwide, 62% of college seniors who graduated from both private and public universities last year had student loan debt, the analysis found. On average, graduates at the nation’s colleges owed an average of $28,950 last year, the data shows.
Inside Higher Ed
DeVos Criticizes Free College, Changing Title IX Rules
By Kery Murakami
As she prepares to leave office, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos urged Congress not to enact President-elect Joe Biden’s proposals to eliminate tuition at public colleges or cancel student debt. “I hope you also reject misguided calls to make college ‘free’ and require the two-thirds of Americans who didn’t take on student debt or who responsibly paid off their student loans to pay for the loans of those who have not done the same,” DeVos wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, as well as to the members of the House and Senate appropriations committees on Monday. “Across-the-board forgiveness of college debts is not only unfair to most Americans, it is also the most regressive of policy proposals — rewarding the wealthiest sector of our labor force at the expense of the poorest,” she wrote.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Sara Weissman
President-elect Joe Biden chose Dr. Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s first Latino education commissioner, to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education. While Cardona’s experience lies in the K-12 sphere, higher education experts are hopeful about what his selection might signal for higher education policy. Announcing the nomination, Biden described Cardona as an “innovative leader” who would “eliminate long-standing inequities and close racial and socioeconomic opportunity gaps – and expand access to community colleges, training and public four-year colleges and universities to improve student success and grow a stronger, more prosperous and more inclusive middle class.”
Inside Higher Ed
NCAA Rolls Out Plan for March Madness Bubble
By Greta Anderson
The March Madness tournament, which includes 67 Division I college men’s basketball games, will take place in one “controlled environment” in and around Indianapolis, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced Monday. The association, which is headquartered in the Indiana city, decided in November to downsize the tournament from 13 sites to one due to the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of teams spreading the virus through interstate travel. A local health provider will test players, coaches and other staff members and officials for COVID-19 throughout the tournament, which spans from mid-March to early April, an NCAA press release said. The medical protocols developed by the NCAA for the tournament were approved by the county health department and include housing all the teams in hotels that are directly connected to a practice facility, the release said.