The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kemp signs upcoming year’s budget with teacher pay raises
By James Salzer
Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed a $30.2 billion state spending plan for the coming year that includes a $2,000 pay raise for teachers and continues attempts to slow state government turnover. The budget for fiscal 2023, which begins July 1, builds on the record midyear spending plan that Kemp signed into law in March. Kemp signed the spending plan surrounded by lawmakers at the University of North Georgia’s Blue Ridge campus. Blue Ridge is the home of House Speaker David Ralston, who noted the budget includes $13 million for a campus expansion project and millions more for a new library The midyear budget, which runs through June 30, included $2,000 bonuses for teachers and school workers, and $5,000 cost-of-living raises for most state and university employees.
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The Augusta Chronicle
Georgia 2023 state budget: Kemp signs $30.2 billion plan that includes raises for teachers
accessWDUN
Kemp signs 2023 budget with emphasis on pay raises
GPB
Gov. Brian Kemp signs ‘historic’ $30.2B budget
Albany Herald
State budget will advance UGA priorities in FY ’23
WGXA
Gov. Kemp signs 2023 budget which includes another raise for teachers, funding for MGA
Hypepotamus
Global Tech Companies Want To Tap Into Georgia Talent. These Universities Are Feeding That Demand.
by Maija Ehlinger
You’d be hardpressed to find a tech company recently that doesn’t explicitly mention the local young talent pool as the main reason for setting up shop in the State of Georgia. Airbnb, Nike, Google, Microsoft, and countless other household names have relocated or added offices in the city to connect with young, diverse tech talent coming out of Georgia Tech and the Atlanta University Center Consortium. But colleges across the state are doing their part to feed the talent pipeline. Several have revamped curricula or added new tech programs over the years to keep up with the changing Atlanta tech scene. Georgia Tech’s various engineering programs traditionally rank high nationally, making it a natural breeding ground for company recruiters. But UGA, the state’s oldest university, has become a larger player over the last decade.
WSB-TV
Caring college professors help local nursing student complete clinical training and graduate
By Berndt Petersen, WSB-TV
As part of her college training, Autumn Burgess spent a lot of time in metro area hospitals. First as a nurse, then as a patient. “All I could think about in the ER was, not that I was getting a pacemaker. Not that my husband wasn’t here. It was like, I’ve worked so hard in nursing school. I can’t ‘not’ graduate,” Burgess said. Burgess was in her last semester at Georgia Gwinnett College and in the middle of her clinical training, when she suddenly had to deal with a heart condition. Getting that diploma when she planned was now in doubt. But her professors came to the rescue.
Spot On Georgia
USG Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs named
Today, May 11, University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Sonny Perdue announced the appointment of Dr. Ashwani Monga as the system’s chief academic officer and executive vice chancellor of academic affairs, effective July 1, 2022.
Grice Connect
Georgia Southern’s Model UN team returns with national accolades
This year was the first time the conference was conducted in-person since 2019
Georgia Southern’s Model United Nations team is continuing a legacy of success on one of the largest stages. The 20-student delegation recently attended the National Model United Nations Conference in New York City and returned with another round of accolades, including another “Outstanding Delegation” designation. Think of the Model U.N. Conference like a giant international diplomacy role-playing event. Universities from all over the world had students compete in the national conference by meeting together and acting as countries to solve the world’s biggest dilemmas. Georgia Southern acted as delegates for Ireland.
Times-Georgian
Doctor’s orders: Martin family names UWG scholarship after patriarch
By Julie Lineback
If you were born in Carrollton between 1981 and 2017, there’s a good chance Dr. Rick Martin ’73 helped deliver you into this world. Today, the OB/GYN’s family is honoring their patriarch with a scholarship bearing his name at the University of West Georgia, his alma mater, ensuring his legacy delivers powerful outcomes for generations to come.
Emanuel County Live
Information session for the Bobcat to Eagle Program scheduled for May 20
Statesboro is hosting an information session about the Bobcat to Eagle (B2E) Program on Friday, May 20 from 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. The session will provide important information for students who are interested in attending EGSC and plan to transfer to Georgia Southern University to continue their college career. Representatives from EGSC and Georgia Southern will be there to answer questions. The session will be held at EGSC-Statesboro’s newly renovated location in the Nessmith-Lane Conference Center at Georgia Southern University. The center is located at 847 Plant Drive in Statesboro, Georgia.
Patch
Georgia Southern University: From High-Stakes Fashion To A Special Education Classroom
Former New York fashion merchandiser Celia Ayenesazan helps children with disabilities build confidence in the classroom.
Long Island, New York, native Celia Ayenesazan graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology almost 30 years ago and spent more than two decades working for Federated Department Stores, Inc., one of America’s largest operators of premier retail chains including Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. But nothing brings her more joy than leading her own special education classroom. This week, Ayenesazan walks across Georgia Southern University’s commencement stage to earn a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT), and a second chance at a fulfilling career.
Albany Herald
Albany State University plans summer camps
From staff reports
Albany State University is providing safe, fun, and enriching summer camp opportunities for children K-12. Camps include:
Tifton CEO
ABAC Faculty Members Receive Promotions, Tenure for 2022-23 Academic Year
Staff Report
Seventeen faculty members will receive promotions and 11 faculty members will be granted tenure when the 2022-23 academic year begins at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jerry Baker said the promotions and tenure will become effective July 1 for 12-month faculty members and on Aug. 1 for 10-month faculty members. The 2022 fall semester begins at ABAC on Aug. 15.
Inside Higher Ed
U of Georgia Press Acquires NewSouth Books
By Scott Jaschik
The University of Georgia Press has acquired NewSouth Books, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., and is known for its books on Southern culture and history, particularly civil and human rights. Suzanne La Rosa, the publisher, will join the Georgia press on July 1 and will publish eight to 12 titles annually under the NewSouth imprint at UGA Press.
Morning AgClips
UGA Honey Bee Lab offers beekeeping certification
…According to a history produced by the University of Georgia Honey Bee Program, the Georgia Prison Beekeeping Program started at Smith State Prison in Tattnall County in 2012 when a prison resident, Roy Nichols, started talking with other residents about the bees he used to keep before he was incarcerated. …The first residents involved with the class received a prison certificate of participation but no official designation for their time and effort. A series of phone calls and meetings ensued, involving the then-warden of Smith State, an agent from UGA Cooperative Extension, a retired superintendent of public schools in Georgia, and Bear Kelley, then-vice president of the Ogeechee Beekeepers Association. Kelley agreed with the need for a more formal certification, and his first call was to Jennifer Berry, apiculture research professional and lab manager for the UGA Honey Bee Program in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Berry and Kelley quickly got to work on the details of a certification program at Smith State. Once the first class was certified, there was an immediate waitlist for the program. Since the program’s inception, more than 150 beekeepers have been certified, including several at the master beekeeper level.
Columbus CEO
Staff Report
Before being promoted to the director role, Aiken served as a lecturer in the TSYS School of Computer Science within the Turner College of Business. He was also responsible for developing and expansion of the Cybersecurity Nexus program at CSU. This 12-month certificate program was built to generate work-ready professionals through a boot camp-style approach. Other subjects Aiken taught include business, information technology, and cybersecurity.
The Augusta Chronicle
Faculty leader calls Perdue-backed changes to searches for college presidents a ‘slap in the face’
Abraham Kenmore
University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue defended recent changes to tenure and the selection of college presidents in his first letter to faculty issued Thursday. Earlier this week, the Board of Regents voted to give Regents more control over how University System of Georgia colleges selects presidents. As written, the current policy says that new presidents for non-research universities will be selected by a committee of faculty, alumni, students and others, with faculty making up the majority of members and a faculty member as chair. The revised policy includes members of the Board of Regents, the chancellor or representative of the chancellor, and says that a Regent will serve as chair of the committee. …Some faculty, however, see the changes as way to diminish their say in the process.
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The Hechinger Report
Inside a college counseling center struggling with the student mental health crisis
The University of Iowa doubled the size of its counseling staff between 2016 and 2019, but it’s not nearly keeping up with demand
by Kelly Field
…On college campuses nationwide, the number of students seeking services increased by an average of 30 percent between 2009 and 2015 — more than five times the average rate of enrollment growth — and has continued to climb since then. At the University of Iowa, the number of clinical service hours provided by its counselors rose by nearly 90 percent in the 10 years preceding the pandemic. Caseloads dipped in 2020 as students scattered to their homes and colleges struggled to serve them across state lines. But on many campuses they’re already starting to spike again, as the stress, grief and isolation that many students have experienced over the past two years rise to the surface. In an effort to keep up, colleges have hired more therapists, contracted with networks of telehealth providers and sent more students to off-campus counselors and group therapy. They’ve spaced out appointments, set session limits and added students to waitlists.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
The enrollment cliff is coming for higher education, making affordability even more important
By Hilary Burns – Editor, The National Observer: Higher Education Edition
Deborah Craddock, incoming chairwoman of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, is aware of a business challenge on the horizon. Recruitment is bound to become more difficult for the small, private college in the coming years as the population of college-aged students declines, thanks to lower birth rates during the 2008 Great Recession. Rhodes, which reported a 2020 admissions rate of 50%, is in a better position to face the storm than hundreds of other U.S. colleges with fewer endowment resources per student. Still, the college wants to stay at around 2,000 students and with so much competition, including from less-expensive options, Craddock said in a recent interview with the Memphis Business Journal that becoming more affordable is critical to the school’s success. …A Business Journals’ analysis of Department of Education pricing data from about 1,300 U.S. colleges with enrollment over 1,000 students found that about 60% of schools reported price tags over $30,000 in fiscal 2021 while 418 schools boasted sticker prices over $50,000. Of course, most students don’t pay those full sticker prices, but it’s hard to determine how much they will owe, Levine said.
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Higher Ed Dive
An economics professor discusses why listed tuition differs so much from what families actually pay and how this system harms students.
Inside Higher Ed
Inflation Swells Tuition Prices
College tuition largely held steady during the pandemic. Now rampant inflation is pushing tuition costs up, with some institutions approving steep increases unseen since the recession of 2008.
By Josh Moody
In an email to employees last week, Boston University president Robert A. Brown outlined many familiar challenges in higher education today: the need to help Ukrainian students affected by the war in their homeland, lingering concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and difficulty hiring and retaining talent amid the Great Resignation, which has prompted many workers to leave their jobs. But above all, Brown described inflation as his biggest worry. …This near-historic tuition increase comes on the heels of the best fundraising year in history for Boston University, which brought in $225 million in philanthropic support in 2021. Brown, who declined to be interviewed, is not alone in his concerns about inflation: colleges across the country are grappling with its effects. Nor is BU the only institution to raise tuition prices. Looking ahead, experts say sharp tuition increases may become more frequent if inflation doesn’t slow.
Inside Higher Ed
There’s an easier way on student loans, and it could actually pass.
By Matt Reed
I was struck on Wednesday when I saw this quote attributed to Bryce McKibben, of the HOPE Center, referring to possible policy options on student loan forgiveness: “The land mines on this are everywhere … Their options are an income cap and a political train wreck—or no income cap and broader, automatic-based relief for everyone. There’s not a lot in between.” I know Bryce a little and consider him a good egg, but I have to disagree on this one. To the extent that he’s outlining the policy options as they’re understood in progressive Democratic circles, I’m concerned that a lack of political imagination may lead them to miss a moment in which something really valuable could be accomplished.
MarketWatch
Opinion: You can now use bitcoin to pay college tuition — but should you?
By Ric Edelman
Bentley University, a small private university outside Boston, now lets undergrads pay with cryptocurrency
Coming soon? Nah, it’s already here: you can pay for college tuition with bitcoin. Bentley University, a small business-focused private university outside Boston, now lets undergrads pay with bitcoin, BTCUSD, 7.55% Ethereum ETHUSD, 10.06% and the USD stablecoin USDTUSD, 0.17%. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business accepts crypto for its $3,800 six-week Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets certificate program. Who’s next? Every institution. Accepting crypto in payment is smart business, and Bentley and Wharton are hardly the first vendors to do so. For more than a year, PayPal’s 324 million users have been able to use bitcoin to pay for goods and services with all 29 million businesses on the platform. Luxury retailers, including Gucci and fitness club Equinox (in New York City only), accept payment via bitcoin and other digital assets as well.
Inside Higher Ed
Campus leaders and state policy makers are introducing tuition waivers for Native American students at colleges and universities across the country.
By Sara Weissman
Kyla Aguirre, a junior at Metropolitan State University of Denver, didn’t know if she could afford her last year of college. She’s a full-time student, and she and her husband were struggling to get by on just one income. But she recently found out that she—and all Native American students at the institution—will have their tuition and fees covered from now on, starting next fall. She described the news as “life-changing” for her and her peers. The new grant program will cover all tuition costs not covered by state or federal financial aid for Colorado residents belonging to federally recognized tribal nations. It will also waive tuition for students from other states who are members of tribes historically based in Colorado. … Similar tuition waiver programs focused on Native American students are cropping up across the country ahead of the fall semester. These initiatives come after Indigenous communities nationwide faced staggering COVID-19 infection rates and deaths and related financial losses during the pandemic—all of which exposed the stark economic difficulties and disparities in health care and education faced by tribal communities and aggravated by the pandemic.