University System News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC On Campus: Emory’s COVID-19 spike, GGC’s lifesaver
By Eric Stirgus
Georgia lawmakers picked up the pace last week by hearing several bills that could alter the state’s public colleges and universities operate and who gets in those schools. Meanwhile, Georgia’s largest private university is making news with a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Here’s some details, and a brief story about a quick-thinking college police officer being credited with saving a woman’s life and a big moment in the national spotlight coming soon for one local choir in this edition of AJC On Campus:
Georgia Gwinnett College’s lifesaver
Georgia Gwinnett College police Officer Ashley Still is getting some well-deserved kudos for her recent work that officials believe saved woman’s life.
Georgia Tech student’s work out of this world
Georgia Tech student Breanna Ivey last summer tested out the math that helps the NASA rover move during an internship last summer. The world saw the benefits of her work last week when the rover landed on the surface of Mars.
Fort Valley State investigates professor’s comments
Fort Valley State University is investigating a complaint that a professor used insensitive language toward a student during a recent discussion that seemingly referenced the high-profile, racially-charged 2012 shooting death of a Black teenager in Florida.
Georgia Gwinnett-Clayton State partnership
Clayton State University and Georgia Gwinnett College last week announced a partnership that allows Georgia Gwinnett Bachelor of Business Administration graduates to enter Clayton State’s Master of Science in supply chain analytics program to avoid the loss of credit hours.
Vaccination volunteers
Students at a few Georgia colleges and universities have joined efforts recently to help with COVID-19 vaccination efforts. Medical students at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership began helping administer the vaccine earlier this month through an arrangement with the Clarke County Board of Health.
WALB
VSU nursing students balance school, work amid pandemic
By Jennifer Morejon
Nursing students have been balancing academics and working the pandemic front lines. The great need for help shows how important their role will be upon graduation. “I don’t think I’ve ever been fearful working through the pandemic, I think, like I said earlier, it’s been a challenge, but what’s life without a challenge? Challenges are meant to grow us and so I think it’s helped us to become better nurses in the long run I believe,” said Meredith Shaw, a nursing student at Valdosta State University (VSU). In a time of need, student nurses stepped up to help serve the community. Shaw and Anais Hall-Garrison are seniors at Valdosta State University. Both began their clinical experience as juniors a few months before the pandemic.
Savannah CEO
Youth Advocates to Gather Virtually for 2021 National Youth-at-Risk Conference
For the first time in its 32-year history, the National Youth-at-Risk (NYAR) Conference is going virtual. From March 8 to 10, the conference will provide resources and training for youth advocates, including teachers, administrators, therapists, community leaders, health professionals and social workers with the goal of creating safe, healthy, caring and intellectually empowering educational environments for the nation’s youth. …The NYAR conference is hosted by the COE and the Division of Continuing Education at Georgia Southern University. NYAR Conference was founded in 1990 by the COE and has grown from a regional conference of 150 participants to a national conference of approximately 1,200 participants from around the world.
WGAC
Augusta University Health Launching New Air Medical Program
According to a recent news release, Augusta University Health is launching a new air medical program. This will be a partnership with Metro Aviation. This new program will be called AU Health AirCare. It will provide rapid transport with highly skilled clinical crews. They will be available for response to on scene emergencies, along with transport to the region’s only Level 1 Trauma Center. The medical crews will consist of AU Health personnel while Metro Aviation will provide the pilots and technicians. Both AU and Metro Aviation are excited about this partnership, as they create the area’s only hospital-based air transport program.
The Millen News
Georgia Southern Teams Up With Local Non-Profit
By Brad Asbury
The Georgia Southern Psychology Clinic has partnered with Project For Better Health to provide low cost mental health services to the citizens of Jenkins County. “We are so excited to offer this service to our repertoire of services currently offered by Project For Better Health,” explains Dr. Sophia Kent, director of the PFBH.
WGAU Radio
UGA Law gets gift from Calloway Foundation
“I’d like to thank the Callaway Foundation and am grateful for their partnership”
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia Law School gets a $200,000 donation: UGA says the money from the Calloway Foundation will be used to expand legal services in rural Georgia.
From Heidi Murphy, UGA Law…
The school envisions scheduling “local legal service days” in Georgia counties, beginning with Troup County this summer.
Savannah Tribune
Junior Achievement of GA Breaks Ground On New JA Colonial Group Discovery Center of Savannah
Junior Achievement (JA) of Georgia ceremoniously broke ground on the new JA Colonial Group Discovery Center of Savannah on Friday, February 19. The event signified the start of the renovation and retrofitting of 25,000 square feet of space on Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus. Together with presenting partners Colonial Oil, Inc. and Georgia Southern University, JA welcomed supporters and partners for a look at the existing space and how it will evolve in the coming months to begin serving students this fall.
Marketechpost
By Amreen Bawa
A recent study conducted jointly by the Georgia Institute and Facebook AI researchers has opened the door to a new method called TT-Rec (Tensor-Train for DLRM). If employed successfully, this method would be a leap forward in the arena of deep learning as it will significantly reduce the size of the Deep Learning Recommendation Models (DLRM) and make the process of their deployment uncomplicated. The driving force behind the reduction of the model’s size will be the replacement of the large embedding tables in DLRM with a sequence of matrix products that would be developed by making use of the tensor train decomposition. It is a tool structured to efficiently work with tensors using a generalization of the low-rank decomposition.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Feb. 23)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 14,761 | Deaths have been confirmed in every county. 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: 808,416 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Counseling Center Use Dropped During Pandemic
By Greta Anderson
“Dramatically” fewer students on average sought treatment from their college counseling centers during the coronavirus pandemic compared to before the pandemic, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, or CCMH, which published a new blog post Tuesday about students’ help-seeking behavior at 63 different colleges. These college counseling centers served 32 percent fewer individual students during fall 2020 compared to fall 2019, the blog post said.
Inside Higher Ed
More College Students Are Eligible for Food Stamps
By Kery Murakami
The Education Department urged colleges and universities to spread the word to students that more are eligible for food stamp benefits during the coronavirus pandemic. Higher education students enrolled at least half-time had not been ineligible for food stamps. But the department in a guidance to the institutions Tuesday said the federal budget passed by Congress in December expanded the program until 30 days after the national pandemic public health emergency has been lifted. Now eligible are students who participate in state or federal work-study and those who have an expected family contribution of zero.
Inside Higher Ed
Academe’s Sticky Pay-Parity Problem
Women make up just 24 percent of research universities’ top earners, according to a new report urging action on pay parity in academe. Women of color are just 2 percent.
By Colleen Flaherty
Women are 60 percent of all professionals in higher education and have been earning the majority of master’s and doctoral degrees for decades. Yet women represent just 24 percent of the highest-paid faculty members and administrators at 130 leading research universities, according to a new study from Eos Foundation’s Women’s Power Gap Initiative, the American Association of University Women and the WAGE project. Women of color are even more grossly underrepresented, at just 2 percent of top core academic earners.
Inside Higher Ed
Common App Adds Questions for Trans Students
While the questions are optional, they are part of an effort to make the application inclusive.
By Scott Jaschik
The Common Application is today announcing a series of changes to make the application more inclusive for transgender applicants. The application will:
Add a question to provide applicants with the option to share their preferred first name.
Add a pronoun question to give students the option to multiselect or add a pronoun set.
Shift the presentation of a question from “sex” to “legal sex” to reduce student confusion.
Inside Higher Ed
Do Students Feel Heard on Campus?
When students have problems or concerns, they are likelier to seek out professors than administrators and to feel faculty members listen more to their perspectives, Inside Higher Ed’s initial Student Voice survey finds.
Melissa Ezarik
Inviting feedback from college students doesn’t necessarily mean they feel heard — just as spelling out campus department functions online doesn’t guarantee students know whom to turn to when an issue arises. With higher ed financial models relying on satisfied students who stay and complete their studies, those realities spell trouble. Add COVID-19 to the mix, and there’s even more reason for concern. Although higher ed institutions transitioned quickly last year to teaching and supporting students from a distance as COVID kept them apart — and continued to enhance their offerings as pandemic life settled in — many students have struggled to access needed help remotely. The above truths emerge as key takeaways for higher ed from the inaugural Student Voice survey of 2,000 undergraduates from 114 two- and four-year colleges and universities.
Inside Higher Ed
Schumer Calls for More NSF Funding to Compete With China
By Kery Murakami
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday he will propose increasing funding for the National Science Foundation by billions to increase research in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and the manufacturing of semiconductor chips to make the nation more economically competitive with China. The bill, Schumer said at his weekly press conference, will “take the key cutting-edge industries and make American investments so we will outcompete China.” He said the bill will be based on the bipartisan Endless Frontiers Act, a measure the Democrat from New York co-sponsored last year with Todd Young, a Republican senator from Indiana.
Inside Higher Ed
Research Libraries Commend Biden’s Use of Science
By Kery Murakami
The Association of Research Libraries commended the Biden administration’s stated intention to rely on science to address issues like the COVID-19 pandemic and said it is an opportunity for the federal government, higher education and the research community to work more closely together. The association, representing 125 research libraries in the U.S. and Canada, called on the administration to build on the bipartisan Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, a bipartisan 2019 law passed by Congress. The law called for improving the use of data by the federal government, including streamlining the process to make it available to researchers.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Are Social Justice and Tenure Compatible?
As Harvard’s denial of tenure consideration for Cornel West shows, universities embrace activist rhetoric, but not activists.
By Corey Miles
…West’s case brings up recurring conversations on race, social justice, and tenure, and this discourse ranges from considerations of how to make tenure equitable to cases for the abolition of tenure. …It must be said that even tenured and tenure-track positions are not completely safe, due to the downward trend in enrollment and the financial impact of Covid-19. Colleges across the country have committed to eliminating tenured, tenure-track, and non-track positions alike, with Wright State University being one of the most recent instances of this trend. While higher ed grapples with how to remain economically stable, it has simultaneously embraced the rhetoric of social justice. One can hardly miss the increase in job ads requiring diversity statements, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and sustained efforts to hire racially diverse faculty members.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
From: Vimal Patel
Subject: Race on Campus: Why Faculty Diversity Remains Largely a Zero-Sum Game
Welcome to Race on Campus. Between 2010 and 2019, the share of Black recipients of doctorates increased less than one percentage point, according to the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates. That’s bad news for colleges that want to diversify their faculty. Until the number of minority doctoral recipients increases, those efforts will mostly fall flat. Vimal Patel explains why. If you have ideas, comments, or questions about this newsletter, write me: fernanda@chronicle.com.
Doctorate recipients are still majority white.
Diversifying the faculty is among the most pressing goals that student activists have demanded from their colleges. And under pressure, many have announced high-profile efforts to create a more representative professoriate. But the latest federal data about who earns doctorates — the cloth from which the tenured faculty is cut — shows that progress over the last decade has been extremely slow. In the decade from 2010 to 2019, the share of Black recipients of doctorates increased less than one percentage point, according to the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates. The gains among other minority groups were similarly meager.