Georgia Recorder
Faculty at Georgia colleges facing diminished role in hiring university presidents
By: Ross Williams
The Georgia Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public universities, is set to consider a rule change at Tuesday’s meeting to reduce the role of faculty members in selecting university presidents. Under the current rules, when a vacancy occurs and the university system chancellor and regents decide to conduct a national search, they create a group called an institutional search committee whose majority consists of faculty members, as well as alumni, foundation members, students and members of the community. The proposed revision on the regents’ agenda eliminates the rule that faculty make up a majority of the committee and adds a spot for the regents, the chancellor or designees. If the changes come to pass, the chair of the Board of Regents will serve on the committee and have the ability to appoint any number of other regents, naming one as a chair. As of now, the chair only serves on the committee for openings at Georgia’s research universities – Georgia Tech, Georgia State University and the University of Georgia, and can only appoint six other regents there. The board oversees 26 Georgia public colleges.
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Now Habersham
Faculty at Georgia colleges face diminished role in hiring university presidents
Inside Higher Ed
Georgia Board to Reduce Faculty Role in Presidential Search
WJCL
Savannah State University posthumously honors 90-year old graduate
Savannah State University celebrated its 200th commencement ceremony on Friday
Marvis Herring, Anchor/Reporter
Savannah State University celebrated its 200th commencement ceremony on Friday, including special recognition of a 90-year-old student who died ahead of graduation. More than 350 students attended, receiving their master’s, bachelor’s, and/or associate degrees from SSU, which is one of only a handful of historically black colleges and universities located in Georgia. Charles Woodley, 90, earned his bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies. Unfortunately, he died about two weeks before commencement. The university left a seat open in Woodley’s honor, draping a graduation gown over the chair, which was located by all the graduates. After a special announcement by the university’s president, Woodley’s wife received his posthumous degree.
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U.S. News & World Report
Graduates Celebrate 200th Commencement at Savannah State
The oldest historically Black college among Georgia’s public universities is celebrating a milestone.
By Associated Press
The oldest historically Black college in Georgia’s public university system is celebrating a milestone. Savannah State University held its 200th commencement ceremony on Friday, with approximately 360 graduates receiving their degrees at the campus football stadium. Savannah State was founded in 1890 under the second Morrill Land Grant Act, a federal law mandating that Southern states establish land-grant colleges for Black students. It became the first college to open in Savannah. The 132-year-old campus typically holds two graduation ceremonies each year, in the fall and spring.
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WSAV
‘It means everything,’ Savannah State University holds 200th Commencement Ceremony
WGAU Radio
UGA’s record-setting Class of ‘22 is set to graduate
“I’m proud to be a part of the Class of 2022”
By Clarke Schwabe, UGA Today
The University of Georgia Class of 2022 entered college as a record-setting group, arriving with the highest average weighted high school GPA in the school’s history. They will leave with yet another distinction: 3,047 students made a Senior Signature gift to the university, a record for the 31-year-old program. Through the Senior Signature program, students approaching graduation have an opportunity to make a gift to the schools, colleges, units or programs that impacted their UGA experience. In appreciation of their donations, the university puts student donors’ names on a plaque that is placed in Tate Plaza.
Tifton CEO
Bridges Presides over His Final Commencement Ceremonies for ABAC on May 12th
Staff Report
Two commencement ceremonies in Gressette Gymnasium on May 12 will cap off the 2021-22 academic year at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. For ABAC President David Bridges, it will mark his final graduation duties before he retires later this summer. “Graduation days are my favorite days at ABAC,” Bridges said. “All the graduates have a chance to go out and make their mark in the world. They all have college diplomas from ABAC. “We have said for years that students get more education for less money at ABAC, and our continued enrollment increases prove that students and their parents recognize that fact.” A total of 315 graduates are expected to participate in the two ceremonies, one at 10 a.m. for the graduates of the School of Nursing and Health Sciences and the School of Arts and Sciences, and another at 2 p.m. for graduates of the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Stafford School of Business.
WRDW
Local graduates prepare for hot job market
By Craig Allison
It’s that time of the year. College graduations are kicking off across the river region. We’ve seen celebrations for USC Aiken, Aiken Tech, and Paine College. More graduations are in the lineup, including for students at Augusta University on Thursday at the Bell Auditorium. The post-pandemic job market is ripe with jobs and puts job seekers at an advantage.
Barnesville Dispatch
Gordon Hosts Annual Scholarship Luncheon
Gordon State College hosted its annual Scholarship Luncheon in-person on April 28, at the GSC Collaborative Learning Center in the Nursing, Health, and Natural Sciences (NAHS) building.
Montrese Adger Fuller, GSC vice president for advancement, external relations, and marketing opened the event with a welcome and gave special thanks to the scholarship donors for their support for GSC and its students.
Fortune Education
University of North Georgia to launch online MBA
By Sydney Lake
During the past five years, the number of online MBA programs in the U.S. has jumped 85%—from 284 to 526, according to data from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Eyeing that trend, the University of North Georgia will move its in-person, part-time MBA program online, the school announced Wednesday, and the new online program will launch this fall.
Gainesville Times
Partnership between UNG and NGHS aims to address nursing shortage
The COVID-19 pandemic may be waning, but local hospitals still don’t have enough nurses. In an effort to address the shortage, the Northeast Georgia Health System has partnered with the University of North Georgia to hire more nurses more quickly. The health system has more than 400 open nursing positions. …UNG wants to graduate 280 additional nurses over the next five years as part of an accelerated bachelor of science in nursing program. UNG typically graduates around 200 nurses a year from its standard program.
yahoo!
Kevin and Brittany Kisner recognized with President’s Award from Augusta University
Samantha Winn, Aiken Standard, S.C.
Aiken native and PGA Tour golfer Kevin Kisner and his wife Brittany were recently recognized for their philanthropic efforts in the CSRA. On May 5, Augusta University President Brooks A. Keel announced the couple received the university’s philanthropic award at the President’s Spring Celebration. They donated $1 million to the Children’s Hospital of Georgia, the first installment of a $5.3 million pledge. “One of my greatest honors as president of Augusta University is to present the President’s Award to those who have made a remarkable impact on our institution,” Keel said. “It takes a leadership gift from people in our community like Kevin and Brittany Kisner to truly make a difference in what we do here. The Kisners are not just giving money, they are helping us build a dedicated program in pediatric development and behavioral health that will serve children and impact them for their lifetimes.” The couple created the Kevin and Brittany Kisner Foundation to create positive environments for children through education, health and sports.
Savannah Business Journal
Details finalized for new Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center at Georgia Southern
Savannah Business Journal Staff Report
With final budget approval from the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents, Georgia Southern University has completed planning and is moving forward with development of the Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center. The 95,000-square-foot center is named in honor of the late Senator Jack Hill and his wife of 46 years, Ruth Ann Hill. Both are Georgia Southern graduates. The Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center will be the largest event venue space between Savannah and Macon. Serving as the signature building on Georgia Southern’s south campus, it will be located on University-owned land on the southwest side of the intersection of Lanier Drive and Veterans Memorial Parkway (US 301 bypass).
Nexis Metabase
6 Brunswick High students awarded Ahmaud Arbery scholarship
Atlanta Journal Constitution Online
Six Brunswick High School seniors will receive thousands of dollars for their college education after being awarded scholarships by the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation. …Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, announced earlier this year that the nonprofit would award six $3,000 scholarships to young men of color at Brunswick High, where Arbery graduated in 2012. Ahmaud Arbery’s mom announces scholarships to be awarded on his birthday The scholarships were initially set to help the students in their freshman year. Due to a surge in donations, however, the inaugural scholarship was increased to $12,000 per student, $3,000 for each year of college, the organization said. In addition, the foundation is set to expand the number of scholarships next year for high school seniors across the U.S. This year’s scholarships will be awarded May 23 during Scholarship Night at Brunswick High. The winners are set to attend Augusta University, Georgia State University, LaGrange College, Morehouse College and Reinhardt College.
WJBF
Mental Health Matters: Misconceptions about PTSD and anxiety
The Means Report’s Mental health matters because you matter series continues with Dr. Tracy Casasova, a psychologist the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Medical college of Georgia at Augusta University. She gives us a closer look at post-traumatic stress disorder – something that is not exclusively a veteran or first responder issue – as well as anxiety. Brad Means: We wanna welcome Dr. Tracy Casanova to the Means Report to talk about some of these issues. She is a psychologist. She is with Dr. Casanova, thanks for all you do and for being here today, I appreciate it.
The Tifton Gazette
ABAC opens Merlin, King Arthur exhibit
A multimedia event opening May 11 titled “Stone and Story” explores the literary trail of Merlin the Magician and King Arthur at the Gallery of the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture. A collaboration between the gallery and ABAC’s School of Arts and Sciences, the tantalizing exhibit combines photos, the written word and a documentary film. A “Cookies and Cokes” reception will accompany the 5 p.m. opening, college officials said in a statement. A small group of ABAC writers and filmmakers led by ABAC Professor Tom Grant and cheered on by ABAC Curator Polly Huff embarked on an international adventure in the summer of 2021. The group visited sites in England and Wales, collecting stories, documenting each stop with photographs and filming a documentary.
yahoo!sports
Georgia Gwinnett College wins inaugural Continental Athletic Conference baseball title
The Albany Herald, Ga.
The Georgia Gwinnett College baseball team completed a dominant three-game performance to capture the inaugural Continental Athletic Conference Baseball Championship with a 5-2 victory against Fisher College (Mass.) on Monday afternoon at the Grizzly Baseball Complex.
NewsBreak
UGA to end most campus COVID protocols
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia says this is the final week for most of the protocols that have been in place throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The statement comes from Dr. Shelly Nuss, dean of the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership and co-chair of UGA’s Medical Oversight Task Force. …As we approach the close of the Spring Semester, we would like to express our gratitude to our faculty, staff and students for your patience and flexibility over the past two years. Through your collective efforts, the University of Georgia has persevered through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We offer a special thanks to the members of the Preventive Measures Advisory Board and the Medical Oversight Task Force for their diligent work in keeping the campus community safe. …As the COVID-19 pandemic transitions and public health conditions and treatments improve, UGA will begin treating COVID-19 as we do any other infectious disease cases. On May 16, 2022, we will discontinue the following COVID-19 measures on campus:
The Washington Post
How popular merit college scholarships have perpetuated racial inequities
By Naomi Harris
Need help paying for college? There’s good news, states across the South tell their students. You can earn it. “The Bright Futures Scholarship Program offers opportunity and prosperity for all Florida families!” the Department of Education there tweeted this spring. The message seems simple: Anyone can get most, or even all, of their tuition paid through the state’s signature program. Students just have to get the right grades and standardized test scores. … A generation ago, politicians across the South created scholarships like Bright Futures. Pivoting from the long-standing practice of giving out money for college based on family income, they turned to measures of academic achievement. First in Georgia, then Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and elsewhere, lawmakers talked about keeping the “best and brightest” in state and doing more to help the middle class as the price of college escalated. Many of the programs were funded by state lotteries, so proponents could pitch the aid to taxpayers as if they were getting something for nothing. …Race was part of the conversation from the beginning. …When Zell Miller proposed the HOPE scholarship in Georgia, he touted it as “the most all-inclusive scholarship program to be found in any of the 50 states.” What the governor was saying was that it would also help White, middle-class voters — not just the people those key political constituents might associate with government aid. HOPE would be “not only for those who are minorities or who come from lower-income families,” the Southern Democrat made a point to say in his 1992 State of the State speech, “but also those middle-income families who are devastated with the cost of education and training beyond high school.”
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Inside Higher Ed
Joining Forces to Share Courses
HBCUs are forming collectives to share courses across their campuses and create more paths to graduation.
By David Steele
Seven historically Black colleges and minority-serving institutions are joining forces to make more of their courses available to students who do not have access to them at their own colleges. The organizers of this course-sharing collective believe it will help students complete their studies and graduate sooner—and save money in the process. The HBCU-MSI Course-Sharing Consortium, a collaboration of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and the course-sharing platform Acadeum, will smooth students’ path toward completion of course requirements and degree attainment, said SREB president Stephen Pruitt. Under the new initiative, students who are unable to finish college because their individual institutions don’t offer a course they need will have the option to take that class online through another member institution. …In addition to Benedict, Clinton College in South Carolina, Albany State University and Fort Valley State University in Georgia, Langston University in Oklahoma, Southeast Arkansas College, and Texas Southern University are also part of the new consortium. Enrollments at these institutions range from 119 at Clinton College to more than 7,500 at Texas Southern. Students at the institutions will receive credit at and be billed by their own universities for courses they take at partner institutions and will not have to take extra steps to register for the course.
Inside Higher Ed
Do ACT and SAT Favor Older Students?
Scholar suggests they do and advises standardized tests to adjust some students’ scores.
By Scott Jaschik
The pandemic has been painful for many involved in higher education, especially the standardized testing industry. Most colleges have gone test optional for at least a few years, and many have done so permanently. The colleges that have studied going test optional report that their admitted applicants are doing well. A major criticism of the tests is that students who are wealthier (and who are white or Asian) do better, on average, than students who are Black or Latinx. Now comes a new criticism: age discrimination. The critic is Pablo A. Peña, an assistant instructional professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He makes his case in an article out today in Education Next, which is published by the program on education policy and governance at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
Freakonomics
“I Don’t Think the Country Is Turning Away From College.”
Enrollment is down for the first time in memory, and critics complain college is too expensive, too elitist, and too politicized. The economist Chris Paxson — who happens to be the president of Brown University — does not agree.
Chris Paxson is an economist, first and foremost. She does also sit on a few important boards — the Boston Federal Reserve and the Association of American Universities — and, in her spare time, she’s president of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, one of the eight schools in the Ivy League. But, again, she’s also an economist.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
How the Cost of College Hurts Students and Institutions
Liann Herder
The cost of higher education, and confusion around the financial aid system, is proving to be both a burden to students and to institutions, according to Dr. Phillip Levine in his new book, A Problem of Fit: How the Complexity of College Pricing Hurts Students—and Universities. “The numbers people have in their heads is a lot more than what [college] actually will cost,” said Levine on Monday at a presentation by the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institute, which studies policies that impact the well-being of marginalized American families. Levine, a professor of economics at Wellesley College, shared data collected in a 2015 poll of ACT test takers that showed most students assumed the cost of college was the “sticker price,” and not the net amount calculated based on expected family contribution (EFC) by financial aid.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
This University Piloted Test-Optional Admissions. That Didn’t Last.
By Chelsea Long
On May 27, 2021, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville said it would continue a pilot program that allowed prospective students to choose whether to submit standardized-test scores — a common Covid-era accommodation across higher ed. In a statement at the time, university officials said they planned to continue the pilot, which began in July 2020, “for up to five more years.” They said they’d gather data and evaluate after each academic year, with the possibility that the program would be “refined or suspended.” Less than a year later, Tennessee’s test-optional pilot has ended — even though the university’s data suggest that it was benefiting the institution. The University of Tennessee system announced on Friday that applicants to the system’s institutions would once again have to submit SAT or ACT scores, starting with new students applying for the fall of 2023.
Forbes
Why Having Two Types Of Elite Universities Will Restore Confidence In U.S. Higher Education
Brandon Busteed Contributor
For decades, a disproportionate amount of attention has been paid to and showered upon a tiny number of the most selective colleges and universities in America. Less than one half of one percent of undergraduates in the U.S. attend an Ivy League institution. Yet countless news articles and attention are focused on these and other elite institutions. This week’s higher ed news was dominated by the announcement that one of the wealthiest universities in the world just became $1.1 Billion richer. But for as much as these elites may continue to enjoy a large part of the mindshare of ‘college,’ the future is very much in the hands of a new class of elite university – those that are the fastest growing and most student-centric institutions. And the ‘dueling-piano’ impact from having two types of elite universities will make higher education better for everyone.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Anonymous Donor Pays Off Student Balances of Wiley College 2022 Graduating Class
Arrman Kyaw
The student balances of Wiley College’s 2022 graduating class were paid off by an anonymous donor. The estimated total balance of the 2022 class – they graduated May 7 – was $300,000. Wiley President and CEO Dr. Herman J. Felton. Jr. made the announcement.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
A Likely Post-Roe Future for Higher Education
Rebecca Kelliher
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft majority opinion stunned the country as people brace for a likely post-Roe future. According to the leaked draft, the conservative-majority Court in a month will likely overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that established abortion as a constitutional right 50 years ago. News sent shockwaves across the higher education landscape.