University System News:
WTOC
Small business development center groundbreaking held
By Dal Cannady
Hinesville, Liberty County, and Georgia Southern University are teaming to give future business owners a place to grow. The small business incubator in Hinesville will be Georgia Southern’s third location. Being here in Hinesville, part of their focus will be helping budding business owners who’re present for former military members looking for a new start. University leaders talked about their plan for the incubator. Besides it being a site for entrepreneurs to rent office space and utilities, it connects them with faculty and students from the Parker College of Business who can offer research assistance to plot their business plan and more.
Savannah Morning News
Savannah State professor: Lessons learned from engaging students online during COVID-19 crisis
COVID-19 forced college professors to explore new ways of teaching and connecting with students.
Serajul Bhuiyan
This is an op-ed by Serajul Bhuiyan, a professor and former chairperson of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Savannah State University. COVID-19 has impacted academia worldwide, particularly with teaching and learning. Dazzled by the potential of technology-enhanced courses online, academic institutions are now compelled to teach to meet the toughest challenges in higher education: allowing more students access to college and helping them graduate on time. Reflecting on experiences teaching fully online during this pandemic, I’ve developed a strategy for creating a dynamic learning environment, integrating values and voices of students’ desire to be actively engaged in synchronous and asynchronous learning. Here are steps taken related to SSU’s contingency plan regarding online instruction in the university’s learning management platform, Desire to Learn (D2L).
AP News
Georgia professors bristle at questions from GOP lawmaker
By Jeff Amy
A Georgia lawmaker is trying to find out whether any of the state’s public universities are teaching about white privilege or oppression, part of a larger national debate over how colleges should teach about American history and race relations. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley asked the system’s 26 colleges and universities on Jan. 21 to research the information after state Rep. Emory Dunahoo, a Gillsville Republican, submitted questions on the topic to Wrigley following budget hearings. Some faculty members are bristling at the questions, saying they intrude into a professor’s academic freedom and are part of an effort by Republicans to impose their vision of history and social relations. Conservatives, though, say they’re fighting left-wing indoctrination by professors.
Savannah Business Journal
Staff Report
An extraordinary estate gift from a daughter and her husband to honor her parents will touch the lives of generations of students to come through scholarships for Georgia Southern University students working to become public school educators. The $1.48 million gift from the late Janice Sapp Castles and her late husband Charles, named for her late parents, Margaret Elizabeth and Cullen Bernice Sapp, is the second-largest estate gift received to date by the Georgia Southern University Foundation.
MedicalXpress
Larger panel finds more gene mutations, treatment targets for leukemia
A gene panel that looks for about 10 times the number of cancer-causing genes as panels currently used to diagnose and fine tune treatment for a variety of cancers is effective at identifying problematic genes in the most common leukemia, investigators report. The 523-gene panel, developed by San Diego-based biotech company Illumina, which includes all genes known to potentially cause cancer, can be readily adopted for use in clinical laboratories to diagnose acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, the investigators report in the journal PLOS ONE. …The MCG investigators retrospectively analyzed 61 bone marrow samples, which included samples from 40 patients with confirmed leukemia and detailed clinical information on 27 of those patients.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.K. variant found in nine Georgia counties, state says
By Johnny Edwards, Yamil Berard
More contagious COVID strain is found throughout the metro area, extending to the Alabama border
The mutant strain of COVID-19 first detected in United Kingdom has been found in nine Georgia counties, including metro Atlanta’s core counties, according to the state Department of Public Health. After declining last week to release any information about which cities or counties have had people infected, citing privacy laws, Public Health has reconsidered and provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a list of counties. The U.K. variant has been detected in Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, Paulding, Cherokee, Carroll, Douglas and Clayton counties, the department said.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Jan. 31)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 12,570 | 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: 749,867 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC poll: Republicans in dicey political territory in Georgia
By Greg Bluestein
After suffering major losses, Georgia Republicans enter a new election cycle in a dire political position, according to an exclusive Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll that found leading Democrats earned significantly higher ratings than their GOP counterparts. The poll, conducted by the University of Georgia, reflects an upended political landscape after Georgia voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1992 — and then two GOP incumbents were swept in runoffs that flipped control of the U.S. Senate.
Higher Education News:
Georgia Recorder
Push to get teachers vaccinated and back in class now pitted against senior priority
By Ross Williams
An ethical dilemma is coming to a boil in Georgia: Who should be at the front of the line to get the COVID-19 vaccine? Health care workers and long-term care staff and residents were first on the list when the shots arrived in Georgia in mid-December. Later that month, Gov. Brian Kemp and Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey announced people 65 and older, law enforcement and first responders would be added to the list. Since then, a new semester has started for Georgia’s schools, and a series of educator deaths along with quarantine-caused staff shortages across the state have spurred calls to bring teachers and school workers onto the list. That would add another 400,000 people to the more than 2 million eligible now.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Tracking Colleges’ Spring-Reopening Plans
Out of nearly 3000 colleges, 3% are fully online. 2% are fully in person. 25% are undetermined.
The Chronicle has teamed up with Davidson College’s College Crisis Initiative (C2i) to present the reopening models of nearly 3,000 institutions for the spring semester. Most colleges have stuck with similar plans to what they had in the fall (we tracked fall plans here), though you’ll notice some differences. Vastly fewer colleges are opening fully online, and many fewer colleges are opening fully in person as colleges move to more mixed options.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Swift Vaccinations, a ‘Normal’ Spring, and Other Wishful Thinking
The leaders of the data team behind our college-reopening tracker assess the semester ahead
By Don Troop
… Many colleges have delayed resuming face-to-face classes.
Among the nearly 3,000 institutions that C2i tracks, a third are categorized as “undetermined” or “other.” That is largely a result of many colleges’ either opting to begin the spring semester online because of the uncertainties of the pandemic or neglecting to update their public-facing Covid-19 announcement pages, Buitendorp says. She is interested in hearing from students, particularly those from abroad, about how they were affected by colleges’ shifts in spring plans. “If you were told a week out” that the start would be delayed, she says, “but you already had your flight booked and you had everything set up to come back, that makes it a little more complicated for students.”
Despite the still-rising toll of Covid-19, the trend is toward more in-person learning.
Inside Higher Ed
You may be reading about record application totals, but they are largely going to the institutions that already have plenty. Other colleges are not doing well. Common App data point to declines from low-income students.
By Scott Jaschik
Last week, many top colleges and universities were celebrating their successes in admissions during the pandemic. The Washington Post noted that Harvard University saw applications rise by 42 percent, while the University of Virginia was up 15 percent. The Post credited the fact that many of these colleges were — for the first time — test optional this year, meaning students didn’t need to submit SAT or ACT scores. The headline: “Applications Surge After Big-Name Colleges Halt SAT and ACT Testing Rules.” …New Data From Common App
The Common Application is the most widely used college application out there — with more than 900 institutions participating. No longer just used by liberal arts colleges, its members include many public institutions serving a variety of students. Newly released data about the Common App show that what has been reported anecdotally in admissions is actually occurring in large numbers. The larger and more competitive colleges and universities are having a good year and getting lots of applications. But smaller and less competitive colleges are not
Inside Higher Ed
Ed Dept. Encourages Approving Aid to Unemployed Students
By Kery Murakami
In a move intended to help college students who’ve lost their jobs during the pandemic, the Education Department wrote financial aid administrators on Friday, reminding them they have the discretion to consider special circumstances in deciding whether students are eligible for federal student aid. And the department “encourages aid administrators to consider the special circumstances that may arise for students and families during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, especially as they relate to unemployment or reduction in work,” said a letter from Annmarie Weisman, who is temporarily performing the duties of the deputy assistant secretary for postsecondary policy, planning and innovation.
Inside Higher Ed
Burr to Be Senate’s Top Republican on Education
By Kery Murakami
Senator Richard Burr, from North Carolina, expects to be named Lamar Alexander’s successor as the Senate’s top Republican on the education committee, a source familiar with the senator’s thinking said Friday. A press release from Patty Murray of Washington, the Democratic chair of the committee, on Friday also referred to Burr as the incoming ranking member, or the head of the minority party on the panel. Burr does not have much of a record on higher education issues, said lobbyists and advocates, who said he will likely not have as great an interest in those issues as Alexander, a former president of the University of Tennessee who retired from the Senate earlier this year. A spokeswoman for Burr said she had no immediate comment on his priorities for higher education.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: States should use pandemic to create more relevant tests
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
President of Southern Regional Education Board says testing should be flexible and focused on students
Stephen Pruitt, president of the nonpartisan Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, writes in a guest column that the pandemic provides an opportunity for states to overhaul tests and make them more relevant and useful. A 16-state compact, including Georgia, SREB is funded by member appropriations, as well as by contracts and grants from foundations and from local, state and federal agencies. Pruitt started out as a high school chemistry teacher in Fayette County and held leadership roles at the Georgia Department of Education. Before coming to SREB in 2018, Pruitt was Kentucky’s state commissioner of education.
By Stephen L. Pruitt
As the pandemic continues to impact schools and families in 2021, Georgia—and every state—should seek to give schools a break from accountability rules that judge their quality based heavily on students’ test scores.