University System News:
WALB
VSU’s research team discovers effective treatment for COVID-19
By Jennifer Morejon
While many felt like the world stopped last year, scientists began the race to find treatments and a cure for COVID-19. A Valdosta State University (VSU) team, initially working on a Tuberculosis treatment, switched gears when the pandemic hit. Long hours were spent at the lab, developing something that will help fight the virus. Eventually, they created a COVID-19 treatment. It’s one they say shows promise in reducing the overall viral load in an infected person.
accessWDUN
North Georgia universities prepare to vaccinate students
By Tara Brolley Anchor/Reporter
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday that all adults over the age of 16 will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine starting Thursday. As college students now fall into that group, universities are expanding their COVID-19 protocols. According to the University of Georgia’s website, the University Health Center (UHC) in Athens will begin issuing invitations for appointments to the remainder of the faculty, staff and students over age 16. Students and faculty may receive the vaccine at the UHC or from their local healthcare provider or the Department of Public Health. At the University of North Georgia, they began offering COVID-19 vaccinations in January and have since administered more than 315 first doses and more than 100 second doses to eligible individuals. UNG has also partnered with Hall County Government and the Department of Public Health to open a mass vaccination site on UNG’s Gainesville campus.
WGAU Radio
UNG spells out plans for mass vaccination site
Will open in early April
By Tim Bryant
The University of North Georgia is detailing plans for a new mass coronavirus vaccination site that will open early next month: UNG, working with Hall County Commissioners and the Department of Public Health, sets April 6 as the target date for dispensing shots at the North Georgia campus in Gainesville.
MSN
COVID-19 roundup: CSRA hospitalizations plummet as U.S. marks vaccine milestones
Staff and wire reports
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the U.S. is hitting more big milestones in getting people vaccinated against COVID-19. According to the CDC, vaccinations have jumped to about 3 million people per day. That means about one in three adults has now gotten at least one dose. And for adults who are 65 older more than two-thirds have gotten at least one shot. One problem, however, is people just getting the first dose but skipping out on the second. Although the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines reportedly offer some protection with just one dose, two doses are recommended. Augusta University Health is seeing around the same percentage as the state of Tennessee: About 5 percent of patients aren’t returning for their second dose for whatever reason. Hospitalization levels are plummeting in CSRA As vaccinations increase, the number of COVID-19 inpatients at hospitals in the CSRA continues to decline. Augusta University Medical Center is down to single digits with six coronavirus inpatients.
WRDW
East Georgia State College offering full operations starting fall 2021
By Staff
East Georgia State College is making plans to resume classes in the fall semester of 2021 offering the complete campus experience including on-campus housing. All campus services will be fully functioning, including campus dining, student activities, and athletics. EGSC’s campuses in Augusta and Statesboro, hosted on Augusta University and Georgia Southern University, will resume operations under the same guidelines as the main campus in Swainsboro. The decision to resume full operations comes after the college temporarily suspended instruction in March of 2020 for two weeks and then continued the remainder of the semester in an online format because of COVID-19.
WGAU Radio
UGA president to help fund Hunter-Gault endowment
“Giving Voice to the Voiceless”
By Tim Bryant
University of Georgia president Jere Morehead is allocating $25,000 in private discretionary funds to an endowment launched by journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who was one of the first two black students to attend UGA. President Morehead says the money will expand a program designed to support and inspire students from across the university to engage in projects that shed light on unattended societal problems and marginalized communities.
Niche
I Found My Niche at Georgia Tech
“Hi everyone! My name is Linda and I am a freshman at the Georgia Institute of Technology majoring in computer science. I am so fortunate to be able to attend this institute as it genuinely challenges me, and the people that I have been able to engage with are all so inspiring. People may view the school as just academically rigorous but there is so much more to Tech than what meets the eye. Sure our students may be wallowing in misery at times, but the things we get to be a part of outside of classes makes up for it.
Many of our students do research and go on to do co-ops, internships, and even some entrepreneurial programs. Our students are self-driven, ambitious, and creative. I often hear about computer science students creating their own applications of things they want other students to be able to have. For example, I know of someone who created an IOS app to help students keep track of job applications and positions they want to interview for.
WFMZ
Intelligent.com Announces Best Master’s in Information Systems Degree Programs for 2021
Intelligent.com, a trusted resource for online degree rankings and higher education planning, has announced the Top 50 Master’s in Information Systems Degree Programs for 2021. The comprehensive research guide is based on an assessment of 161 accredited colleges and universities in the nation. Each program is evaluated based on curriculum quality, graduation rate, reputation, and post-graduate employment. The 2021 rankings are calculated through a unique scoring system which includes student engagement, potential return on investment and leading third party evaluations. Intelligent.com analyzed 161 schools, on a scale of 0 to 100, with only 50 making it to the final list. …2021 Master’s in Information Systems Degree Programs featured on Intelligent.com (in alphabetical order):
Georgia Southern University; Georgia State University; Kennesaw State University
WGAU Radio
UNG president awards grants to researchers
Presidential Incentive Awards program
By Tim Bryant
University of North Georgia president Bonita Jacobs says upwards of $200,000 will help fund more than two dozen research-related projects at UNG. The money has been awarded through the University’s Presidential Incentive Awards program.
Savannah Tribune
Chatham Retired Educators Association (CREA) News
The March CREA monthly meeting was called to order by President Omie Flournoy on March 8, 2021 on Zoom, After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, Mrs. Rosa Jackson shared an inspirational reading and the Invocation. Members born in March were recognized with “Happy Birthday” Greetings. CREA is proud to announce the recipients of the 2021 Dewey Lee Scholarship. Two $1,000 scholarships were awarded, one to Ms. Jasmine Cook, a student at Savannah State University, and the other to Ms. Alexandria Sledge, a student at Georgia Southern University/ Armstrong Campus.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Raising puppies to serve others is labor of love
By Laura Berrios
Navigating high school during a pandemic is difficult enough, but some metro area teens have taken on the added responsibility of training puppies for those in need. Southeastern Guide Dogs provides guide dogs to visually impaired people and service dogs to veterans at no cost. Many of these work in the Atlanta area, said Teri Smith, Atlanta area coordinator and 10-year-volunteer for the group. These dogs get their initial obedience training from volunteer puppy raisers. Of the nine puppy raisers in the metro area, three are high school students, and one is a third-year student at Georgia Tech who will be moving onto campus in the fall with her puppy, Indy.
MarketWatch
By Howard Gold
Three out of every four students accepted at Penn through early admissions submitted test scores; at Georgetown, that number was 93%
The big story in college admissions this year is the huge surge in applications over the 2019-2020 academic year. And it’s not just in early admissions, as MarketWatch reported in February. Highly selective private colleges and top state universities have seen applications skyrocket. Applications to the University of Pennsylvania increased by a third, to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by two-thirds and to Harvard by 43%, driving the acceptance rate of those already nearly-impossible-to-get-into universities even lower in the single digits. The nine-campus University of California system received a mind-boggling 250,000 applications, 18% higher than last year. The University of Virginia was up 17%, while applications to the University of Georgia soared by 40%. Almost everyone agrees on the reason: Colleges and universities went test-optional this year because of the obstacles COVID19 put on high-school students’ ability to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the American College Testing (ACT) standardized tests. (The College Board, which administers the SAT, also eliminated SAT subject tests for good.)
WGAU Radio
COVID concerns prompt plan to keep Legion Pool closed for summer swim season
Petition drive calls for opening
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia, citing concerns about coronavirus, is talking about a summer without a swim season at Legion Pool. The community that uses the popular pool is pushing a petition drive to change the mind of UGA president Jere Morehead.
WJBF
Augusta University sees increase in cosmetic surgeries amid pandemic
by: Mary Calkins
For a time during the pandemic, non-essential procedures were halted. Now Augusta University has seen a recent increase in requests for cosmetic procedures. “Because of the Zoom meetings and everything, I think people really pay attention to themselves in cameras. The way they look, the distortion in the camera,” plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Maria Helena Lima said. She says as people are spending more time on social media, she’s had requests for procedures people see online. …Dr. Lima says in the past, people scheduled cosmetic work during summer and winter breaks, but with so many working and studying from home, they’re able to fit procedures into their schedules.
The Scientist
After a nearly 30-year hunt, researchers have shown that a neurotoxin generated by cyanobacteria on invasive plants is responsible for eagle and waterbird deaths from vacuolar myelinopathy.
Abby Olena
Late in 1994 around DeGray Lake in Arkansas, people started seeing bald eagles miss their perches as they tried to land and fly into rock walls. Within just a few months, 29 of the animals had died. …In 2001, Susan Wilde was a marine scientist in South Carolina when her husband showed her a news story about at least 16 bald eagles found dead around the Strom Thurmond Reservoir in Georgia and South Carolina, where she’d done her dissertation research. She and her colleague Tom Murphy, an eagle biologist at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, speculated that toxic algae were causing the deaths, even though the researchers who’d investigated hadn’t found any humanmade or algal toxins or infectious disease agents at the sites. Wilde, Murphy, and their collaborators traveled to the lakes in South Carolina where there were birds with AVM and found that all of those water systems had a lot of plants. They determined that in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, the dominant invasive plant was H. verticillata, a long-stemmed perennial with many branches and small, pointed leaves that grows entirely submerged in water. It had invaded waterbodies in the southeast after being brought from India for use as an aquarium plant. Wilde, who is now an ecologist at the University of Georgia, started looking at these plants to see if she could detect any cyanobacteria growing on them that could be a source of the toxin. Using typical methods to isolate cyanobacteria—agitating and washing the plants’ leaves—she didn’t detect any. Then, she turned to fluorescence microscopy, which allowed her to see clusters of cyanobacteria coating the underside of the plants’ leaves.
The Augusta Chronicle
Animal group accuses Augusta University of deaths, abuse
Joe Hotchkiss
Augusta University restated its commitment to laboratory-animal safety Thursday after a watchdog group accused human negligence at the university for causing the deaths and injuries of dozens of animals dating to 2019. The organization Stop Animal Exploitation Now called on the university to launch an independent investigation into the school’s animal experimentation procedures and to “immediately terminate” all staff members found responsible for the deaths and abuse. AU, of which the Medical College of Georgia is a part, maintains a robust research sector that often relies on the use of animal subjects during experiments.
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?
846,745 TOTAL CONFIRMED* CASES
1,051,361 TOTAL INCLUDING PROBABLE** CASES
Q: What is the latest on coronavirus deaths in Georgia?
16,336 TOTAL CONFIRMED* DEATHS
18,751 TOTAL INCLUDING PROBABLE** DEATHS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coronavirus ‘escaped’ from China lab, former CDC director says
By Tim Darnell
‘Science will eventually figure it out,’ Trump appointee Robert Redfield says
Robert Redfield, the former director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, believes the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab and was spreading as early as September 2019. Redfield, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump to lead the agency in 2018, told CNN on Friday he believes the coronavirus “escaped” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “I’m of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory,” Redfield said. “Escaped. Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out.”
Higher Education News:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Decline in Students’ Going Straight to College in 2020 Was Sharp — but Not Catastrophic
By Eric Hoover
MARCH 25, 2021
The number of students enrolling in college immediately after high-school declined by 6.8 percent in 2020, according to a new analysis by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Although that was an unprecedented one-year drop, it was nowhere near the organization’s whopping 21.7 percent estimate from December. A “process error,” the Clearinghouse said in a news release, led to an overestimate of the rate of decline in enrollment in its previous report. The updated analysis — based on approximately 50 percent more data — covers approximately 860,000 graduates from nearly 3,500 high schools. It includes fall enrollment numbers from 87 percent of participating colleges.
Inside Higher Ed
Rutgers Will Require Students to Get Vaccine
New Jersey university may be the first to require COVID vaccination. In mandating the vaccines, which are approved under the FDA’s emergency authorization process, colleges are breaking new ground.
By Elizabeth Redden
Rutgers University announced Thursday that it would require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before coming to campus next fall. The public institution in New Jersey may be the first or at least among the first universities to take the step of mandating students receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Three different vaccines are currently authorized for emergency use, but not yet fully approved, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In making the decision on whether to require vaccines approved through the emergency use authorization (EUA) process, colleges are treading untested legal ground. Antonio Calcado, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Rutgers, said the vaccine requirement had been thoroughly reviewed by the university’s Office of General Counsel.
Inside Higher Ed
Academic Minute: Wastewater and COVID-19 on Campus
By Doug Lederman
Today on the Academic Minute: Brian Mailloux, professor in environmental science at Barnard College, explores the use of wastewater to track COVID-19 on campuses. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.
Inside Higher Ed
Former Pitt Official Indicted for Selling Stolen PPE
By Emma Whitford
A former University of Pittsburgh employee was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly stealing more than $18,000 worth of personal protective equipment from the university and selling it on eBay. Christopher D. Casamento, the former director of emergency management at the University of Pittsburgh, was indicted on a change of interstate transportation of stolen property, Acting United States Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman announced Tuesday. Casamento stole 13,615 pieces of PPE from the university — primarily Aura N95 respirator masks, surgical face masks and particulate respirator masks — and sold them on his eBay vendor page. He made $18,783.50 from selling the equipment.