Forbes
Georgia Lawmakers Consider New Financial Aid Program For Struggling Students
Edward Conroy, Contributor
Georgia is considering state-funded completion grants for students near to finishing their degrees. More funding is good news for struggling students, even if it is only available to students who are close to the college finish line. A new Georgia bill would provide grants of up to $2500 for students who are close to completing their degrees but need a little extra funding to get to commencement. The grants would be available to students who have completed 80% of the required credits for their degrees. …Georgia State has claimed that their completion grants help students graduate. However, a rigorous study of completion grants offered at 11 different institutions has found no evidence that the grants helped students graduate at higher rates than students who did not receive additional funds. While additional funding for higher education is vitally important, the lack of evidence for the effectiveness of completion grant programs might be an indication that an alternative, like funding need based financial aid would be a more effective use of funds.
Inside Higher Ed
Chat Bots Bypass ‘Communication Clutter’ to Help Students
Can text messages from a chat bot help keep community college students enrolled? A new study suggests the answer is yes—if designed correctly.
By Sara Weissman
A new study from Georgia State University found that community college students receiving targeted, personal text messages from an artificial intelligence chat bot were more likely to complete tasks critical to staying enrolled. The randomized controlled trial, conducted during the 2020–21 academic year, included about 11,000 students attending Perimeter College, a community college that is part of Georgia State University. Students received personalized text messages—complete with emojis—on their phones reminding them of important deadlines in their academic schedules, telling them how to pay outstanding balances or apply for financial aid, and directing them to campus services. The chat bot also responded to questions from students about campus services and supports, financial aid, and other topics, drawing on thousands of built-in answers to commonly asked questions. Administrators say the findings reveal valuable lessons about when and how to deliver effective nudges, a student engagement tactic that’s been both embraced and hotly debated on campuses across the country.
Omny
Marietta Daily Journal Podcast
News Minute: KSU Teams Up with Active Minds to Prevent Suicide
Kennesaw State will be holding events this week to help shine the light on suicide prevention on college campuses.
CS News
Enmarket Takes Part in Experiential Education Initiative
New facility at Georgia Southern University will serve middle school students in coastal Georgia.
Enmarket held a special ribbon-cutting ceremony for its most unique convenience store yet earlier in March. The ceremony commemorated the opening of the convenience store operator’s storefront inside the Junior Achievement Colonial Group Discovery Center at the Armstrong campus of Georgia Southern University. This new facility is a realistic facsimile of a regular Enmarket convenience store but will serve more as a classroom than a retail store, according to the operator. Middle school students who are participating in the Junior Achievement programs JA Finance Park and JA BizTown will get hands-on experience in how the business world operates at the site. The opening of the center expands Junior Achievement programming access to a total of 15,000 middle school students in coastal Georgia.
The Augusta Chronicle
This week in Augusta: Hear Bruce Hornsby, see a comedy show, kick off Project Happy Water
Miguel Legoas
…Georgia Southern visits Augusta
Georgia Southern’s Greater Augusta Network is putting together a wine tasting and scholarship at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at The Foundry at Rae’s Creek on Boy Scout Road in Augusta. In addition to a wine tasting, there will be a silent and live auction and remarks by the college’s president Kyle Marrero.
WGAU Radio
Hodgson Hall in Performing Arts Center
By Tim Bryant
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is in concert this evening in Athens, a performance featuring pianist Michelle Cann. It’s underway at 8 o’clock tonight in the University of Georgia’s Performing Arts Center.
From the UGA master calendar…
Florence Price was the first female African-American composer to achieve widespread national attention and the first to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. Celebrated concert pianist and Curtis Institute faculty member Michelle Cann brings her “exquisite…technical sparkle and probing humanity of Price’s writing” (Philadelphia Inquirer) to UGA Presents for her debut with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
WRDW
SAT, ACT to remain optional for now at Augusta University
By Staff and Craig Allison
Amid continued uncertainty about the availability of SAT/ACT testing during the COVID-19 pandemic, Augusta University will again waive the testing requirement for qualified first-year students. In the absence of test scores, AU will employ a grade-point average threshold of 3.4 for first-year students for the fall 2022 semester. Students must still meet all other admissions requirements, which include completing the required high school curriculum and providing all other requested documentation. Students with the minimum high school GPA who have SAT and ACT scores are encouraged but not required to submit them.
Valdosta Daily Times
VSU scraps test scores requirement
Select incoming freshmen to benefit
Future Blazers with a high school grade point average of 3.2 or higher will not be required to submit SAT or ACT scores when applying for fall admission to Valdosta State University. Ryan Hogan, director of admissions at VSU, said the goal is to help remove some of the barriers incoming freshmen have been facing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. …The standardized test score waiver applies to all prospective first-year undergraduate applicants, or freshmen, university officials said in a statement.
EurekAlert!
To detect Alzheimer’s earlier, research to map the brain
Zhu leads effort to identify stable brain landmarks called ‘anchor-nodes’
A University of Texas at Arlington computer science and engineering assistant professor has received a National Institutes of Health grant to map the brain in an effort to detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier. Dajiang Zhu will lead the five-year, $2.7 million project, titled “Mapping Trajectories of Alzheimer’s Progression via Personalized Brain Anchor-Nodes” in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Georgia and University of North Carolina. They will use large-scale magnetic resonance images to map the brain upon onset and during the disease at multiple clinical stages.
Patch
Georgia: COVID Pandemic Fueled Massive Growth In Green Industry
Research suggests sales likely to revert back to normal levels, but some buyers will be hooked. Most people would say the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been a great couple of years. But for the green industry, like plant nurseries and greenhouses, it’s been a boon. But will the uptick in gardening last once the last coronavirus restrictions are lifted? Probably not to the same extreme levels, according to new research from the University of Georgia. But for some, the introduction to gardening may have been just what they needed to dive into a new hobby.
Tyler Morning Telegraph
NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: Tyler Junior College Apache Ladies win basketball crown
By Phil Hicks
The Tyler Junior College Apache Ladies are the national champions of NJCAA women’s basketball. TJC, led by Trenia Tillis Hoard who was named Coach of the Tournament, finished off their magical run on Monday in Lubbock with a 92-80 win over Georgia Highlands College in the national championship game of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division I Women’s National Tournament.
The George-Anne
Student vs Faculty Basketball Game
Emmalyne Roper, Staff Writer
The University Programming Board and the Office of Student Activities [Georgia Southern] came together to host the “Students vs Faculty” basketball game on Wednesday, March 2nd, at 6:00 p.m. The event had a modest turnout, but it made up for that with lots of lively spirits. The team in the white jerseys was students, and the maroon jerseys were faculty and staff. The students scored the first shot and stayed mostly ahead during the first quarter to start the game. But, their triumph was short-lived as the faculty and staff team took the lead for the duration of the game. The students fought hard but to no avail. The final score was 51:39, with the faculty and staff claiming the victory. …It was a night of great camaraderie and fun between students and faculty.
Statesboro Herald
Georgia Southern wins 42nd Schenkel Invitational
Eagles finish seven strokes ahead of Notre Dame to earn third Schenkel title since 2014
Seniors Wilson Andress and Mason Williams each shot a 2-under 70 in the final round, and the Georgia Southern men’s golf team won the 42nd playing of the Schenkel Invitational Sunday at Forest Heights Country Club. The Eagles (-25) won by seven strokes over No. 17 Notre Dame (-18). College of Charleston placed third (-14) behind the play of medalist Kieron van Wyk, a freshman who shot a 12-under 204 to win his first college tournament. “This was an incredible victory for this team, this program and Georgia Southern,” said Coach Carter Collins.
WFXG
Fans send off AU Men’s Basketball team to compete in Elite 8 Championship
By Mica Wade
Jaguar fans filled the Cristenberry Fieldhouse to wish Augusta University’s Men’s Basketball Team good luck as they head to Evansville, Indiana to play against Chico State in the Elite 8 Championship. This is the first time in 12 years the team has played in this tournament and fans said they’re ready for the big day. “We’ve got a lot of energy and momentum heading into this. So, we’re excited to see the team heading off,” says Neil MacKinnon. The team won their spot in the Elite 8 after playing Queens University from Charlotte, NC. They won 77-76 from a 3- point shot at the last 2 seconds of the game.
The Red & Black
Athens and UGA communities work to aid Ukrainian refugees
Khushi Kapadia
Following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, local businesses in Athens and University of Georgia organizations have been working to aid refugees trying to escape the war. …Along with local businesses in Athens, Doctors Without Borders, a UGA organization, has been raising money for the International Doctors Without Borders who provide aid to refugees in Eastern Europe. The International Doctors Without Borders is stationed in Ukraine and has been providing aid such as treating wounds and giving Ukrainians food and water. UGA Doctors Without Borders held a fundraiser from Feb. 21-25. Initially, the fundraiser was aimed toward vaccine inequity, but due to the crisis in Eastern Europe, they decided to divide proceeds from the fundraiser between vaccine inequity and International Doctors Without Borders.
Marietta Daily Journal
Kennesaw State student charged with kidnapping, sexual battery
Staff reports
A Kennesaw State University student was arrested on March 17 and charged with kidnapping another student and committing sexual battery, police report. Shortly before 4 p.m. on March 15, Kenan Black, 19, of Gwinnett County, pulled the victim into the handicap bathroom of the Math and Statistics Building located at KSU’s main campus in Kennesaw and touched her without her consent, the warrant said.
The George-Anne
Jabari Gibbs, Co-Editor-In-Chief
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is currently investigating the death of a Georgia Southern University student who was found yesterday on the Armstrong campus. The student’s roommate found the student unresponsive in his room yesterday morning and immediately contacted the authorities. At this time, the cause of death is still not confirmed. The student’s name and location of death have not been released.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated March 21)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
CONFIRMED CASES: 1,922,983
CONFIRMED DEATHS: 30,742 | 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.
MSN
Thousands of deaths could have been WRONGLY blamed on Covid
Eve Simmons, Deputy Health Editor For The Mail
Did official figures overestimate Britain’s grim Covid death toll? It’s a question that has been asked persistently by medics and members of the public alike almost since the start of the pandemic. First, disturbing stories emerged from bereaved relatives of terminally ill patients who died from the disease they’d battled, only to be posthumously labelled Covid victims. Then health chiefs admitted, embarrassingly, that the numbers they’d been feeding the Government were only an approximation – provoking fury from Ministers. More recently it was revealed that a quarter of Omicron deaths included in the daily figures did not, in fact, list Covid as a primary cause. More than two years since Covid-19 emerged, many feel they want a simple answer: how many were killed by this virus?
GDNOnline
CDC reports fewer Covid-19 paediatric deaths after data correction
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported 966,575 deaths from Covid-19 on Friday after it corrected the data earlier this week, which reduced the death tallies in all age-groups, including children. The health agency, in a statement to Reuters, said it made adjustments to its Covid Data Tracker’s mortality data on March 14 because its algorithm was accidentally counting deaths that were not Covid-19-related. The adjustment resulted in removal of 72,277 deaths previously reported across 26 states, including 416 pediatric deaths, CDC said. The reduction cut the CDC’s estimate of deaths in children by 24% to 1,341 as of March 18. Children accounted for about 19% of all Covid-19 cases, but less than 0.26% of cases resulted in death, according to the American Academy of Paediatrics, which summarizes state-based data.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
The Rise of Mental Health Scholarships
Scholarships for students struggling with anxiety, depression and other psychological disorders have proliferated in recent years, often funded by donors who lost loved ones to mental illness.
By Maria Carrasco
When Terence O. Hayes Sr. was 11, he lost his mother, Ethel, to suicide. She was 29. Decades later, Hayes, now in his 60s and a pastor in Dayton, Ohio, is honoring his mother’s legacy with a scholarship designated expressly for students with mental health issues. Because mental health was not well understood or openly discussed in the Black community when he was younger, he suppressed his own feelings, he said, which caused mental health challenges for him later as an adult. “I wanted to do something so my mom’s name was not forgotten,” said Hayes, who holds a doctorate in education. “I did not want another kid to go through what I went through. When I say that, I mean not getting help and not seeking counseling … There’s such a stigma about counseling and seeking help, and I want to remove that stigma.” The Ethel Hayes Destigmatization of Mental Health Scholarship is open to all students who have either personally faced mental health challenges or watched a loved one struggle with them. To apply for the scholarship, students must write a short essay about how their mental health journey has impacted their beliefs, relationships and aspirations. The application closes in June, and Hayes will announce the winners on July 13—his mother’s birthday.
Inside Higher Ed
Enrolling and Engaging Online Learners: A Compilation
By Doug Lederman
“Enrolling and Engaging Online Learners” is a new print-on-demand booklet from Inside Higher Ed. You may download the free compilation of news articles and essays here. On Wednesday, April 27, at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Inside Higher Ed will present a webcast to discuss the themes of the booklet and answer your questions.