University System News:
The George-Anne
Georgia Southern officials announce 80 positive COVID-19 ahead of it’s fifth week
Mitch Smith, Managing Editor for Print
Georgia Southern officials reported a week of increased positive COVID-19 cases, reporting 80 cases during the fourth week of this spring semester. After completing the fourth full week of classes in the Spring semester, “the report below indicates a continued leveling of total cases from the previous week with 11 university-confirmed cases and 69 self-reported cases last week.” said a disclaimer on the GS’ reporting website.
WGAU
UNG gets more COVID relief dollars
“We understand this additional federal funding will not be sufficient to address all of the hardships students face
By Tim Bryant
There is more federal coronavirus relief money for the University of North Georgia: UNG is getting $6.8 million through the federal government’s Higher Education Relief Fund. The University says the money will help support students who are in need because of the response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
From Edie Rogers, UNG…
The University of North Georgia has been awarded another $6.8 million through the federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund to continue to support students who have an exceptional need due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Fox 5
Georgia universities sweep NSA competition
By Alex Whittler
Georgia’s universities such as the University of North Georgia and Georgia Tech are producing some of the country’s top future malware hunters. These students can be considered the “good guys.” The National Security Agency’s competition tested their ability to hack into different platforms and solve real-world problems, some of which could save lives. Malicious hackers often make the news, but there are good ones, and the world needs more of them. University of North Georgia students Houstoun Hall and Brenna Durham are on the right track to becoming professional malware hunters.
Marietta Daily Journal
Georgia Power Foundation grant to help KSU boost number of black male educators
Kennesaw State University has received a grant from the Georgia Power Foundation for an initiative to increase the number of African American male teachers. Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models), a program launched in KSU’s Bagwell College of Education, will provide academic support, mentorship, tuition assistance and job placement assistance to promote success among black male teacher candidates. The Bagwell College has begun recruiting applicants among incoming freshmen and current students and will welcome its inaugural cohort this fall.
WALB
VSU helping low income families file taxes for free
By Jennifer Morejon | February 2, 2021 at 5:00 PM EST – Updated February 2 at 8:03 PM
Tax filing season officially kicks off with the IRS on Feb. 12. A group of Valdosta State University (VSU) students, led by an accounting professor, are helping low-income South Georgia families file their taxes for free.
The Red & Black
UGA activists call for transparent diversity committee meetings
Emily Garcia | Enterprise Reporter
Students activists like Phaidra Buchanan, a senior at the University of Georgia and member of Beyond Baldwin, were blindsided when UGA announced the Presidential Task Force on Race, Ethnicity and Community had completed its work. She noted that neither the task force nor the UGA Planning Committee on Diversity and Inclusive Excellence released any meeting minutes to the public. Beyond Baldwin is a group of UGA students and alumni whose mission is to leave the university better than they found it, Buchanan said. One pillar of their goal is asking UGA to be transparent with the community about internal decisions. “While they were deliberating [in these committees], we wanted to know what they were prioritizing, what initiatives they considered, which initiatives were suggested to them by the community and the process of how they came to the solutions that they recently released,” Buchanan said. UGA President Jere Morehead announced via email on Jan. 11 that the university’s diversity task force completed its work and “several of their recommendations are already being implemented.” …Members of Below Baldwin also wanted to hold the university accountable for what they said these committees would accomplish.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia up to 37 cases confirmed of U.K. coronavirus variant
INVESTIGATIONS| 15 hours ago
By Ariel Hart
Commissioner: Variant likely widespread here
The coronavirus variant originally discovered in the United Kingdom is spreading throughout metro Atlanta, with 37 cases confirmed in the area as of Monday, according to the state Department of Public Health. That’s a jump from 23 confirmed at the end of last week. The U.K. variant of the virus, and others found in South Africa and Brazil, infect more people faster than the novel coronavirus the globe has been experiencing up to now. Preliminary research suggests that once the patient catches the virus, the British variant might also be more deadly than the main virus has been. Whether or not those findings bear out, since the variants can spread more easily, ultimately more people could get sick and die.
MSN
Opening delayed by 2 days for AU Health vaccination hub
Staff
Augusta University Health was set to open the doors Monday on its new mass vaccination clinic in a former SteinMart on Washington Road. However, the opening has been delayed until Wednesday due to lack of vaccine supplies. The building is owned by Augusta National Golf Club, which has donated its use as well as $1 million toward operating costs. The Community Foundation of the CSRA is also pitching in $1 million.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Feb. 8)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 13,361 | 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: 775,466 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Colleges Could Lose $183 Billion During Pandemic
By Emma Whitford
U.S. colleges and universities stand to lose a collective $183 billion as a result of the pandemic, according to an analysis by Paul Friga, a public higher education consultant for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and a clinical associate professor of strategy at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School. Friga examined budget estimates for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 from 107 U.S. colleges and universities. Revenue losses for higher education institutions could reach $85 billion in fiscal 2021, driven by decreased enrollment, tuition discounting, declining international student enrollment and the suspension of athletic programs, according to Friga. College budgets could be further strained by an estimated $74 billion cut to states’ higher education funding, as well as $24 billion in pandemic-related expenses.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A Brutal Tally: Higher Ed Lost 650,000 Jobs Last Year
By Dan Bauman
Colleges and universities closed out 2020 with continued job losses, resulting in a 13-percent drop since last February. It was a dispiriting coda to a truly brutal year for higher ed’s labor force. Since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, the U.S. Labor Department estimates that American academic institutions have shed a net total of at least 650,000 workers, according to preliminary, seasonally adjusted figures released on Friday. Put another way, for every eight workers employed in academe in February 2020, at least one had lost or left that job 10 months later.
Inside Higher Ed
Giving to Colleges and Universities Flattens in 2020
Higher ed fundraising wakes up to reality a year after flying high with Bloomberg gift. Payouts from donor-advised funds drove an uptick in one giving category.
By Emma Whitford
Charitable giving to colleges and universities was essentially flat in the 2020 fiscal year despite the pandemic. For the first time in a decade, total giving to higher education institutions fell slightly, from $49.6 billion to $49.5 billion, according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s latest annual giving survey. Record-breaking totals last year were inflated by a $1.8 billion gift from Michael Bloomberg’s charities and foundations to Johns Hopkins University. If that gift were removed from the fiscal 2019 results, giving in fiscal 2020 would have increased by 3.6 percent, the survey found. The Voluntary Support of Education Survey, released today, analyzes fundraising data from 873 colleges and universities for the 2020 fiscal year, which began July 1, 2019, and ended June 30, 2020. Surveyed institutions represent about a quarter of U.S. colleges and universities, but together they raised 78 percent of the estimated total voluntary support for U.S. higher education institutions in fiscal 2020. CASE estimates total support from nonrespondents using past data and nonrespondents’ institutional characteristics.
Inside Higher Ed
Women in Economics, Interrupted
Women in economics get asked significantly more questions than men when presenting — mostly by men. Researchers say this is part of deeper gender issues within the field.
By Colleen Flaherty
Female economists probably didn’t need a quantitative study to know that they get asked more questions when presenting than their male counterparts. Indeed, many female academics are familiar with manterruptions, an offshoot of the mansplaining phenomenon. Female economists probably didn’t need a formal analysis of the kinds of questions they get asked to know that they face more patronizing or hostile queries than their male peers, either. But numbers are a good thing — especially to economists — and now there exists such a study, courtesy of a group of prominent economists. These researchers plan to publish the new working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research and otherwise use it to promote change in a field that has historically been unwelcoming to women.