University System News:
Statesboro Herald
Local COVID cases, patients continue decline
Public safety director to discontinue daily updates
…Georgia Southern
New cases reported at Georgia Southern University have dropped for seven consecutive weeks. Confirmed and self-reported cases at Georgia Southern have fallen from 434 across its three campuses the week of Aug. 16–22, to 16 for the most recent week — Oct. 4-10. Of the total number, 11 were on the Statesboro campus, two fewer than the previous week. There were 389 cases reported on the Statesboro campus for Aug. 16–22.
Griffin Daily News
GSC, GPEE host Education Ecosystem Summit
In September, Gordon State College collaborated with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (GPEE) and hosted an Education Ecosystem Summit. The two-day event took place at GSC’s Student Activity and Recreation Center (SARC) and began at 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on both days. Dr. Dana Rickman, President of the GPEE, opened the event with a discussion on how, as a region, it could be continued to enhance and improve on the college going-rate of students within the 14-county primary service region. Dr. Dana Rickman said, “The pandemic has dealt a blow to Georgia’s economy and accelerated concerning trends in the workforce pipeline we were already watching. With technology and automation displacing low-skill workers at a rapid pace, there’s no doubt Georgia needs more students to receive and complete post-secondary training to meet our workforce needs. We are proud to partner with Gordon State College, as it recognizes the magnitude and urgency of these challenges and has assumed a leading role in crafting a regional plan to support their students. They’re exhibiting the kind of leadership we need to ensure Georgia weathers this storm and remains the number one state to do business.”
Valdosta Today
VSU, IDP Properties provide Ashbury residents with educational services
Facilitated by VSU’s Center for South Georgia Regional Impact, this cooperative agreement highlights VSU’s desire to serve as a resource for South Georgia, utilize its highly talented faculty and staff to help drive community and economic development and shape the future of the region, and offer students real-world transformational and experiential learning opportunities.
Asbestos
Asbestos in the Navy: Scholarship Winner Explores Harmful Legacy
DeLon Henderson is majoring in multimedia film and production at Georgia Southern University. He is the second-place winner of the Fall 2021 Asbestos.com scholarship. The United States of America has the most powerful military in the world. Our troops bravely serve every day to protect our rights, our freedoms and our country. Unfortunately, members of the U.S. Navy were indirectly harmed for most of the past century due to the Navy’s use of asbestos.
Eurekalert
Patients with kidney transplants more vulnerable to common, usually harmless bacterium
It’s a pervasive bacterium found in soil and water that rarely causes disease, but a new national review of nocardia infection in people who have had a kidney transplant shows that when it occurs it most commonly causes pneumonia and brain abscess, and reminds their physicians to stay on the lookout for it, investigators say. Nocardia is called an “opportunistic” agent because it doesn’t make most of us sick, but those with compromised immune responses, like patients who have had an organ transplant or cancer treatment, are more vulnerable, says Dr. Stephanie L. Baer, infectious disease physician at the Medical College of Georgia and chief of Infection Control and Epidemiology at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta.
The Red & Black
OPINION: Are college students too medicated?
Dani McAlister
When was the last time you took a drug? Some University of Georgia students are pretty quick to share this information with each other. In class you’ll hear an off-hand comment about the amount of Adderall someone will need to study for that midterm; at a party you’ll hear a semi-incoherent offering of cocaine in their fraternity brother’s room; at a bar you’ll hear a slurred comment about how this is their sixth tequila shot of the night. The language surrounding drug use comes across casual and cool, and at some point after freshman year, you become pretty used to the drastic measures some students take to alter their natural state. Drugs are increasingly relevant in college culture even outside of the stereotypical recreational drugs like marijuana or cocaine. In general, college students have become numb to the idea of numbing themselves. Drugs and college are not unfamiliar with one another, but what’s happening in today’s college culture is feeling less like harmless fun and more like an escape from uncertain futures after graduation.
Patch
Georgia Southern University Museum Reopens, Celebrates Earth Sciences Week
After nearly three years and following extensive architectural renovations, the Georgia Southern Museum, one of the longest-standing educational centers on the University’s Statesboro Campus, reopens to visitors on Oct. 10. …The Georgia Southern Museum serves as the premier institution interpreting the natural and cultural history of Georgia’s coastal plain. The museum displays permanent exhibits and changing exhibits curated by the University’s faculty and students, and provides a place where researchers can explore its collections and students of all ages can learn.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UGA students photograph a day at the fair
By Mark E. Johnson, Senior Lecturer Photojournalism, The University of Georgia
For the last eight years, students in the Advanced Photojournalism course at the University of Georgia’s College of Journalism and Mass Communication have headed down to Perry for a long day covering the Georgia National Fair. Starting at 7:30 a.m., the students spread out across the fairgrounds to show the story of a day at the fair. Surrounded by thousands of attendees, the students have a simple charge: Don’t show what the fair looks like, show what it means.
Tifton CEO
Carter Arts & Lecture Series Presents ‘Churchill’ at ABAC Bainbridge on October 19th
Step back into the past through Andrew Edlin’s play titled “Churchill” on Oct. 19 at 6 p.m. in the Kirbo Center at ABAC Bainbridge. The production is a part of the Carter Arts & Lecture Series presented by Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.Edlin will immerse audience members in the eloquence of Winston Churchill. His powerful performance brings Churchill’s personality to life through speeches, private revelations, comedic stories, and brilliant commentary. …The Thomas M. Kirbo and Irene B. Kirbo Foundation is the Season Sponsor for the series.
Savannah Morning News
Messer named to Georgia Southern Alumni 40 Under 40
Staff reports
C. Brandon Messer has been named to the Georgia Southern Alumni Association’s “40 Under 40” Class of 2021. The annual honor recognizes 40 alumni who have made significant strides in business, leadership, community, educational or philanthropic endeavors.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Bulldogs react to No. 1 national ranking
By Chip Towers
Georgia coach Kirby Smart gave the Bulldogs Sunday and Monday off because they were just bestowed the No. 1 ranking in both the Associated Press and USA Today/Coaches polls. And if you believe that, you might also believe that they’re selling gas for a buck a gallon in Athens these days. No, Smart’s reaction – and that of the players under his charge – was quite predictable when asked Monday about Georgia holding the nation’s top ranking in both opinion polls for the first time since 2008. “It’s just a number, right?” Smart said was during his weekly press conference in the team meeting room at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. “I mean, I don’t see it as a whole different plateau. The goal is to be No. 1 at the end of the season. You always know that; everybody’s goal is there. But to have an opportunity to do that you’ve got to be in the (final) four, and that’s the most critical part.
The Augusta Chronicle
OPINION
They tyranny of the Board of Regents, and probably your boss too
Dustin Avent-Holt
Dustin Avent-Holt is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Augusta University.
Imagine a world where you are exiled from the United States for speaking out against the actions of its political leaders. Kicked right out of the country. We actually don’t have to imagine this. The Gulag system in the Soviet Union did this very thing for decades under the Stalinist regime. The Nazi regime in Germany led many Jewish academics and political activists to flee the country for fear of persecution, and the fascist Mussolini regime imprisoned political dissidents. I assume most of us would find this kind of practice abhorrent in the US today. It violates our fundamental political sensibility that we should be free to engage in activities and speech as our own conscience dictates, and speak out against those we disagree with who are in positions of power. Yet this is the anti-democratic world the Board of Regents, the body governing state of Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia, is trying to create. Not for the country as a whole, they don’t have that kind of authority. But they are currently crafting language in their policy manual that would allow them to fire professors without demonstrating cause.
Article also appeared in:
Savannah Morning News
They tyranny of the Board of Regents, and probably your boss too
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Oct. 8)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED CASES: 1,240,641
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 23,342 | 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.
Higher Education News:
Atlanta Business Chronicle
University use of public-private development partnerships starts to pick up after slow 2020
By Ashley Fahey and Hilary Burns
After a quiet 2020, colleges and universities are starting to return to an increasingly popular option for development that mitigates overall risk and reduces upfront costs: public-private partnerships. Schools from University of Southern Maine to University of California Merced are once again turning to private developers for projects ranging from residence halls, dining facilities and student centers to powering campuses. Developers who work with universities are reporting upticks in requests for proposals for P3 projects this year compared to 2020. Jessica Wood, an analyst with S&P Global, said in a recent interview that P3 projects in higher education aren’t going away and pointed to the “huge growth” in such projects over the past 5 to 10 years.
Inside Higher Ed
Some College Athletes Cash In While Others Lose Out
Star athletes at Division I schools are earning big payouts from the NCAA’s interim name, image and likeness policy, while athletes playing minor sports at smaller schools struggle to make sense of it.
By Maria Carrasco
Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association created an interim policy three months ago allowing college athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness (NIL), some athletes have been cashing in. One of the biggest beneficiaries of NIL so far is University of Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, who by late July had already earned close to $1 million in endorsement deals, AL.com reported. At California State University, Fresno, women’s basketball players Haley and Hanna Cavinder, who are twins, have used their Instagram and TikTok fame to land deals with Six Star Pro Nutrition and Boost Mobile. Some institutions are even seeing opportunities for entire teams or athletic departments. All female athletes at Brigham Young University now have the opportunity to earn up to $6,000 during the academic year through a brand deal with SmartyStreets, a location data intelligence company.