University System News:
Capitol Beat
University System of Georgia economic impact grows to $18.6 billion
by Dave Williams, Capitol Beat News Service
The University System of Georgia (USG) generated an economic impact statewide of $18.6 billion in fiscal 2020. While that was up 0.6% over fiscal 2019, the system actually produced slightly fewer jobs in fiscal 2020, generating 155,010 jobs directly and indirectly compared to 157,770 in fiscal 2019. Fiscal 2020 marked the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Georgia, forcing the university system to shut down in-person instruction and switch to online classes during the last couple of months of the spring semester that year. “With strong support from the state and significant planning from our campuses, USG’s economic impact on local communities across Georgia held steady despite a challenger year,” said Teresa MacCartney, the university system’s acting chancellor.
See also:
MSN
Ga. state universities’ economic impact estimated at $18.6 billion
Valdosta Today
University System of Georgia state economic impact grows to $18.6 billion
Patch
Kennesaw State Contributes $1.6 Billion To Georgia Economy
Kennesaw State University continues to represent a significant economic engine in the state of Georgia, growing its economic impact.
Gwinnett Daily Post
USG data shows Georgia Gwinnett College has a more than $500 million impact on the local economy
Ledger-Enquirer
Leader who helped Columbus State expand and spark downtown development dies
By Mark Rice
One of the leaders who helped Columbus State University expand and spark other downtown development has died. Tom Helton, retired CSU vice president for business and finance, died Sunday at Piedmont Columbus Regional’s Midtown Medical Center, according to Cox Funeral Home. He was 72. Helton served on several task forces and committees for the University System of Georgia before he retired in 2019. He was executive director of CSU Foundation Properties when he died.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia colleges offer second chance for students derailed by pandemic
By Eric Stirgus
…Georgia Gwinnett and other colleges and universities are offering courses this summer for students who’ve struggled academically through the pandemic. The college began Second Chance Summer, a new program for students to retake a class in which they received a grade of a D or F or withdrew from the class. Georgia State University, nationally recognized for its efforts in using data analytics to improve student performance, also has a program to help students with low grades in a particular course or those who dropped the class. Georgia State and Georgia Gwinnett had 750 and 120 students, respectively, in their programs. Research shows college students across the country had trouble academically during the pandemic. At Georgia State, which has more students than any university or college in Georgia, the school saw an 8% increase in the number of D and F grades and in the withdrawal rate among first-year students.
Daily Iowan
Inhaled COVID-19 vaccine shows promising results in animal models
In a new vaccine study, researchers at the University of Iowa and University of Georgia found that an inhaled COVID-19 vaccine was effective at preventing infection and transmission in mice and ferret models.
Lillian Poulsen, News Reporter
People might have the option to inhale a COVID-19 vaccine, after clinical trials have shown the effectiveness of an inhaled vaccine in animals to protect against the virus. A new study led by a team at the University of Iowa and the University of Georgia found that a single-dose intranasal COVID-19 vaccine fully protects mice against lethal virus infection. The vaccine also prevents transmission between animals, leading the researchers to believe it may be effective in humans.
The Augusta Chronicle
An Augusta lab is now looking for COVID-19 ‘variants of concern’
Tom Corwin
Augusta will get a regular snapshot into what SARS CoV-2 variants are circulating in the area thanks to an ongoing study at Augusta University tracking COVID-19 in frontline workers. The sequencing could also help identify the source of breakthrough infections in the fully vaccinated. The ongoing COVID-19 study, called Project Sparta, is following about 500 people in the Augusta area and regularly collecting saliva and blood samples for them for testing, said Dr. Ravindra Kolhe, director of the Georgia Esoteric and Molecular Laboratory at Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. Using those samples that had higher quantities of virus to sequence, Kolhe ran about 400 that were collected up through May. As expected, the most common one, with more than half of the samples, was the B. 1.1.7 variant, now referred to as the Alpha variant, with small amounts of the variant that began in South Africa, known as the Beta variant, both of which are estimated to be at least 50% more transmissible than the original strain by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
TechRepublic
Cybersecurity lags behind as IoT devices proliferate, according to a new report
by R. Dallon Adams
About one-quarter of respondents do not incorporate any of the listed measures to protect these devices and many feel as though consumers are not responsible for smart and IoT device security.
The modern smart home is brimming with a vast array of interconnected devices to help humans preheat ovens, set the ambiance around the house and even remotely feed the family pet. However, these internet-enabled devices also present new security risks and entry points into the home for cybercriminals. …As we previously reported, smart homes could be ripe for a new type of cyberattack, based on the findings of a Georgia Tech study that illustrated the various ways utility companies and nation-states can use IoT devices en masse to manipulate energy markets. The NordVPN release made note of security risks associated with compromised IoT devices, specifically noting a string of hacked Ring doorbells in 2020. (In January, Ring announced that it was launching end-to-end encryption to eligible devices.)
Best World News
Alexa and other AI robots will soon tell you off for being rude, expert predicts
Alexa and other AI robots will soon be able to tell us off for being rude, an expert claims. Dr Ayanna Howard, 48, said she would “love” for machines to act like her mum and dad. The roboticist at Georgia Institute of Technology told the Marketplace Tech podcast: “They can enhance our quality of life if they’re done right.
Fox 5 Atlanta
KSU police delayed reports of student sexual assaults
By Randy Travis
One of the biggest universities in Georgia faces criticism for how it handled a series of sexual assault complaints on campus. Last year, four Kennesaw State University students told campus police they had been sexually assaulted. Each involved a different suspect and a different location. But all four shared one frustrating result: the KSU police department dragged its feet in forwarding those complaints to campus administrators.
Flagpole
Republicans Cancel Critical Race Theory on College Campuses
by Daniel C. Vock
Professors say the Republican crusade to root out “critical race theory” is taking a toll on college campuses around the nation—places where academic freedom is supposed to encourage thought, discussion and analysis. Much of the “critical race theory” uproar to date has centered on teaching in K-12 schools. But several high-profile incidents, combined with new laws with unexpected effects, are raising worries about political interference in higher education. Some of it may play out this fall as students return to classes and professors sort out what they can and cannot teach. The attempts by lawmakers to influence college curriculums undermine one of the principles that makes U.S. higher education so widely regarded across the globe: encouraging students to reach their own conclusions about the subjects they study. “We haven’t seen this level of intrusion since McCarthyism,” Lynn Pasquerella, the president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, told States Newsroom in an interview. The group says it’s tracked legislative proposals that have taken shape in 20 states. “The consequences are the upending of the American system of higher education,” Pasquerella said. Georgia’s 2021 legislative session ended in early spring before the wave of critical race theory angst rippled across the country, and no bills addressing the subject were filed. But Rep. Emory Dunahoo (R-Gillsville) raised the subject in January when he sent a letter to University System of Georgia administrators asking a series of questions, including whether students are taught about the concepts of privilege and oppression, that some races are inherently privileged, or that white, male, heterosexual Christians are intrinsically oppressive.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated July 20)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 18,632 | 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: 913,775
accessWDUN
Fauci, Paul clash on virus origins, trade charges of lying
By The Associated Press
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, angrily confronted Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday in testimony on Capitol Hill, rejecting Paul’s insinuation that the U.S. helped fund research at a Chinese lab that could have sparked the COVID-19 outbreak. Paul suggested that Fauci had lied before Congress when in May he denied that the National Institutes of Health funded so-called “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a Wuhan virology lab. U.S. intelligence agencies are currently exploring theories that an accidental leak from that lab could have led to the global pandemic.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Seven of the appropriations bills approved by the House committee include funding that would go directly to colleges and universities.
By Alexis Gravely
The House Appropriations Committee has approved more than $272 million in funding through earmarks that would go to projects at 228 colleges and universities, according to an analysis conducted by Inside Higher Ed. The earmarks span seven of the 12 bills the Appropriations Committee has introduced to fund federal departments and agencies for fiscal year 2022 (the other five bills either don’t have earmarks at all or have none related to higher education). Nearly $186 million of the earmark funding is a part of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies bill, which was approved by the committee last week and lays out Congress’s initial appropriations for higher education.
Inside Higher Ed
Department of Education Releases Q&A on Title IX Guidance
By Alexis Gravely
The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education released a question-and-answer document Tuesday to provide institutions with resources to comply with the changes made to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in 2020. The Q&A and its appendix — released as the department continues its comprehensive review of the regulations, which remain in effect — address some of the questions OCR has received from institutions and stakeholders, including during the five days of public hearings it held on Title IX in June. The department also released a full transcript of those hearings Tuesday.