University System News:
WGAU Radio
UGA names scholar for Parkinson’s research
Chair named in honor UGA alum, former Senator Johnny Isakson
By Michael Terrazas, UGA Media Relations
Anumantha Kanthasamy, an internationally renowned researcher of Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders, has been appointed as the first John H. “Johnny” Isakson Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Parkinson’s Research. He will join UGA in fall 2021. “I want to express my profound gratitude to the endowment donors and the Georgia Research Alliance, whose generosity made this development possible,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “This is a significant moment for our institution’s research enterprise as we build our scientific capacity to help so many who face Parkinson’s and related conditions.”
Military Aerospace Electronics
Researchers can synthesize selective biosensor recognition elements using short synthetic peptides, which mimic how antibodies attach to the virus.
U.S. Army scientists have teamed with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and others to build sensors that would detect COVID-19 proteins in the air. Army Times reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
The team of researchers includes Army scientists with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta, Cardea Bio Inc. in San Diego, and the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. The prototype sensor the group is developing would help detect the COVID-19 virus with enough speed and accuracy that users could prevent infection from spreading.
News Medical Net
Online learning platform about COVID-19 pandemic aids frontline workers, educates the public
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced medical students out of classrooms and clinical rotations this time last year, the state of Georgia’s only public medical school had to quickly rethink its traditional curriculum. Faculty and staff at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University were able to quickly adapt and provide an online platform for learning about the pandemic and initiating student-led service projects to aid frontline workers and help educate the public, MCG faculty and students write in a review article in the journal Medical Science Educator.
WALB
GSW nursing student gives over 500 COVID-19 shots, volunteers spring break to give more
By Bobby Poitevint
This week is spring break for Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW), but for Emily Frey, a nursing student, she spent her spring break giving people a COVID-19 vaccine shot. …Last spring break Frey was at the beach with family, but this year she volunteered her time. “I decided why not help with the vaccine clinic because it’s pretty much a monumental moment. So I mine as well help,” Frey told WALB News 10. Frey said she didn’t really have any travel plans and needed to knock out some community service hours for one of her classes. She said she doesn’t believe she’s missing out this spring break because she had more important, life-saving plans.
The Red & Black
UGA community anticipates fall 2021
Shelby Israel | Campus News Editor
The University of Georgia’s 2020-21 academic year began with a future of uncertainty. The abrupt shift to online learning, new health and safety guidelines and the loss of personal connections changed college life. Now, the national daily average of reported COVID-19 cases has been on a decline since January. President Joe Biden plans to make every adult eligible for a vaccine by May 1. As the vaccines offer hope for the pandemic’s end, the future has taken an optimistic turn for some in the Athens and UGA communities. Still, that future is uncertain. Although cases are down compared to the winter surge, they are around the same daily average as late summer 2020, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. After a March 3 ArchNews email announced the intended reopening of campus in full capacity for the fall 2021 semester, faculty, students and administrators are focusing on how to improve their experience at UGA.
Athens Banner-Herald
Athens-Clarke commissioner Mariah Parker to speak at UNG Women’s History Month event
Wayne Ford
The University of North Georgia will host three women, including Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Mariah Parker, as speakers for the school’s Women’s History Month celebration. The public can hear the speeches at noon March 23 on UNGConnect by registering as guests. Joining Parker are Mariela Romero, regional community empowerment director for Univision in Atlanta; and the Rev. Charlotte Arsenault of the Georgia Mountains Unitarian Universalist Church in Dahlonega. Parker, a graduate assistant in language and literacy education at the University of Georgia, has also toured internationally as a performing artist. The Kentucky native is serving her first term as an Athens-Clarke commissioner.
Forbes
The Future Of Higher Ed Fundraising: Building The Virtual Campus
Brandon Busteed Contributor
One of the lasting changes from the pandemic will be a major shift in capital campaign priorities for colleges and universities. Instead of focusing on building more physical campus infrastructure, the future will be defined by fundraising to build the “virtual” campus. In 2019 alone, nearly $50 billion was raked in by higher education institutions from alumni, government, foundations and corporations. Roughly 10% of this giving (~$5B) went specifically to property, buildings and equipment. With ten consecutive years of declining enrollments in U.S. higher education and projections of further declines for nearly a decade to come, we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift from investment in the physical campus to the virtual campus. Doing so will be a boon to equity, access and revenue diversification strategies. …Done at scale, online education can be both less expensive and high-quality. (Exhibit A would be Georgia Tech’s $7k master’s degree in computer science.) It allows colleges and universities to expand beyond their physical footprint (which is often-times their only limiting factor) and serve a fast-growing market of middle-class citizens globally.
News-Medical
Researchers find a better way to identify cells and understand the mechanisms of diseases
In researching the causes and potential treatments for degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, neuroscientists frequently struggle to accurately identify cells needed to understand brain activity that gives rise to behavior changes such as declining memory or impaired balance and tremors. A multidisciplinary team of Georgia Institute of Technology neuroscience researchers, borrowing from existing tools such as graphical models, have uncovered a better way to identify cells and understand the mechanisms of the diseases, potentially leading to better understanding, diagnosis, and treatment. Their research findings were reported Feb. 24 in the journal eLife. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
GrowingGeorgia
New UGA Extension Program Offers Green Landscape Certifications
For some residents, a pristinely manicured lawn free of weeds and undisturbed by insects is the ultimate goal. However, a new program from University of Georgia Cooperative Extension encourages creating a more natural landscape that reduces chemical use and incorporates native plants to promote biodiversity and protect the environment. Launching to the public on March 15, the Georgia Green Landscape Steward certification program provides educational resources to teach Georgians about protecting natural resources, increasing plant and animal biodiversity, conserving soil and water, providing wildlife and pollinator habitat, and improving public and environmental health.
AllOnGeorgia
Georgia Southern Alumni Association Awards Ceremony Honors Service & Achievement
Georgia Southern University Alumni Association recognized the highest levels of achievement and service among the University’s alumni during the annual Alumni Awards ceremony. “This is an exciting time of year as we celebrate the accomplishments of our most distinguished alumni,” said Georgia Southern President Kyle Marrero. “We honor alumni who represent the very best of Georgia Southern. They are leaders and business men and women who continue to give back and support our Eagle Nation.” …In addition, Excellence in Business Awards were given to the following top alumni-owned businesses:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Problem With Venting About Your Students
It might feel cathartic, but it won’t reduce your stress — or provide perspective.
By Beckie Supiano
The professors thought that they were having a private conversation. Instead, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, their harsh assessment of their students — they were going to “bomb” the next test, the instructors agreed; “I don’t care though. Let ‘em fail,” one said — was shared with the entire class, on video. The incident, which involved two co-teachers of a nursing course at Widener University and led to outrage and apologies there, echoed another case of professors caught on video that came to light at Georgetown University’s law school just days before. In both instances, instructors complained about their students’ poor performance. But in the Georgetown case, an adjunct professor — who has since been terminated — linked students’ performance to their race. “I hate to say this,” the professor said. “I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks.” Characterizing students’ abilities based on their race crosses a bright line for many professors. “We know that implicit bias is a problem,” said Karen Head, associate chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. What the Georgetown instructor said, though, was “pretty explicit,” said Head, who is also the executive director of the Naugle CommLab.
The Gainesville Times
Accused Atlanta mass shooter was previously student at a UNG campus
Kelly Whitmire
University of North Georgia President Bonita Jacobs said in an email on Thursday to the school’s students, faculty and staff that Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in a spree of eight murders on Tuesday, March 16, previously attended UNG’s Cumming campus.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coronavirus in Georgia: COVID-19 Dashboard
Latest stats and the news on the coronavirus outbreak
Q: What is the latest on confirmed and probable coronavirus cases in Georgia?
839,823 TOTAL CONFIRMED* CASES
1,040,817 TOTAL INCLUDING PROBABLE** CASES
Q: What is the latest on coronavirus deaths in Georgia?
16,053 TOTAL CONFIRMED* DEATHS
18,420 TOTAL INCLUDING PROBABLE** DEATHS
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Senators Reintroduce Bill to Track Student-Level Outcomes
By Doug Lederman
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Thursday introduced into the new Congress the College Transparency Act, which would remove the federal ban on a student-level data system. Republican senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island reintroduced the legislation, which had gained support from more than half the members of the 117th Congress by the time it completed its work last year.
Inside Higher Ed
By Elizabeth Redden
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 229 to 197 Thursday in favor of the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, which provides a path to permanent residency for young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. as children, as well as for individuals who hold temporary protected or deferred enforced departure status due to unsafe conditions in their home countries. …Universities and many higher education groups have lobbied hard for years for an immigration pathway for Dreamers, a group that includes many college students and young alumni.
CNN
Education secretary says school in the fall ‘will look more like what it was before Covid’
By Donald Judd and Paul LeBlanc, CNN
US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Wednesday projected optimism that the fall will bring a school year that looks “more like what it was before Covid,” but stressed that his focus remains on resuming in-person learning this spring. “My focus really right now is getting as many schools open — pre-K through eight schools — in the first 100 days, but also trying to get those high schools open so that we can get all students back in safely, and engaging with their friends and learning in the classroom, where they learn best,” Cardona told NBC News’ Lester Holt in an interview. The secretary added that students across the country have shown an “inspiring” level of resilience during the pandemic and maintained that there would be a renewed focus on mental health following the passage of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 relief plan.
USA Today
‘Feels like I’m being punished’: College kids describe feelings of FOMO during spring break
Jenna Ryu
…’It feels like I’m being punished for following the rules’
Jess Jang, a senior at University of Virginia, was looking forward to traveling to Puerto Rico for what she calls her “last hurrah before leaving college.” However, the pandemic crushed that opportunity. “I was just hoping at least to be able to travel, and it’s just sad, because in years past my course load has been really heavy and I knew this semester would be chill, so I was looking forward to doing more stuff.” Instead, Jang will be staying safe with her housemates in Charlottesville, but seeing others partying has been hard. …What is FOMO?
The fear of missing out is what it sounds like: an anxiety elicited by feeling left out. “A key component of FOMO is that it is underpinned by a feeling of helplessness that one is missing out on something that is crucial (and is) being experienced by others,” says Jennifer Wolkin, PhD, a New York-based clinical neuropsychologist. Kevin Chapman, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of The Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, says “most anyone can relate to FOMO, because it involves experiencing a wide range of emotions associated with not being able to engage in social activity.”