WALB
Sonny Perdue talks state of USG and what’s next
By Jim Wallace
Sonny Perdue was named the chancellor of the University System of Georgia (USG) in March 2022. On Monday, WALB’s Jim Wallace sat down with Perdue to talk about what’s next for the USG. “As the new Chancellor, what are some of the first things you want to do on the job? What’s the state of the University System Of Georgia?” Wallace asked. “Well, I think the state of the University System is strong. That’s what I’m assessing currently. A lot of people ask me what is my vision. What am I going to do right out of the box? I’m going to listen. I’m going to visit campuses. We were in Albany just a couple of weeks ago for a board meeting. Albany State did a good show down there. Very professional. And we were very impressed with your town and your academic institution there. But we are going to get around the state, talking to faculty, students, and the Presidents, to others about those in the community, about what they see as the needs. We got a great system here, Jim. It’s not broke, and we don’t have a need to fix it,” Perdue said.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sonny Perdue: My role as USG chancellor is nonpartisan and nonpolitical
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
The former Republican governor says students and taxpayers are top priority
Former Gov. Sonny Perdue has had a long career in politics, most recently serving as the U.S. secretary of agriculture in former President Donald Trump’s administration. Gov. Brian Kemp chose him to lead the state’s public colleges and universities, a decision that prompted criticism that Perdue lacked any background in higher education. The 19-member Georgia Board of Regents voted without opposition two months ago to make Perdue chancellor, for which he will earn annual compensation of about $524,000. In a guest column, Perdue says that he will not approach the job as a politician, but a public servant.
By Sonny Perdue
As election season begins, I want to be clear my role as chancellor of the University System of Georgia is nonpartisan and nonpolitical. I’m here to work on behalf of the students and taxpayers of Georgia. Period.
Statesboro Herald
East Georgia cuts ribbon on GS campus location
Special to the Herald
The East Georgia State College Statesboro location recently held its ribbon cutting and open house at its new location on the Georgia Southern University campus. EGSC-Statesboro completed renovations and moved into the Nessmith-Lane Building on the GS campus in January. The event was held to celebrate the new location and give guests a look around at the newly renovated facility. East Georgia President Dr. David Schecter welcomed everyone to the event and spoke about the history of EGSC-Statesboro.
The Business Journals
Georgia Tech students who won InVenture Prize aim to speed up tornado insurance claims
By Zach Armstrong – Tech and Innovation Reporter
As a volunteer for Hurricane Sandy victims, Georgia Tech student Wesley Pergament saw the vulnerability of homeowners amid natural disasters. But as a software engineer for insurance technology startup Dorothy, he also noticed a gap in insurance protection. Due to limits, exclusions and deductibles in insurance policies, it can take weeks or months for homeowners to get the money they need following a natural disaster. So, Pergament got to work. He built out a proprietary model for an insurance startup that can assist homeowners affected by tornadoes, dubbed “Sola.” That concept won him and his team first place at Georgia Tech’s InVenture Prize, the university’s premier contest for student-led startups.
WSAV
GSU to host voice drive to help people with voice-speech loss
by: Joseph Leonard
Georgia Southern University (GSU) is trying to give a voice to those who have lost theirs. GSU’s RiteCare is hosting its second Voice Drive to collect voice recordings and then submit them to VOCALiD. VOCALiD will create synthetic voices using machine learning and speech-blending algorithms. The recordings can then be used by people with voice-speech loss. The goal of the drive is to aid deaf people and others who have lost their ability to communicate, which is estimated to impact nearly 7.5 million people.
Albany Herald
Georgia Southwestern students showcase research
From staff reports
Georgia Southwestern State University hosted its fourth annual Undergraduate Research Symposium recently featuring student research on topics such as politics and national policy, water quality, psychology, and issues in nursing. Students from a variety of majors and fields shared their research projects with oral presentations and poster presentations.
The Tifton Gazette
Milligan named business student of distinction
Jerry Milligan, a business major from Odum, has been selected as the student of distinction from the Stafford School of Business at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Students of distinction are chosen by faculty through a competitive process. They must first be a superior or distinguished honor student with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher, college officials said in a statement. Many other factors are considered during the selection, including involvement in engaged academic learning activities, active participation on campus in clubs and school/college activities, service to the community, leadership among peers and strong interpersonal skills.
Cision
Nation’s Top Weed Scientists Recognized by Their Colleagues
The Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) and its affiliates have recently singled out a dozen of the nation’s most accomplished weed scientists for Fellows Awards – a recognition honoring their outstanding contributions to the field. “Those honored join a long line of professionals who have advanced the discipline of weed science through innovation, research, teaching, publishing and outreach,” says Anita Dille, Ph.D., president of WSSA. “We are proud to call them our colleagues.” The awards were presented during the most recent annual meeting of each organization, as listed below: …Eric Prostko, Ph.D., is a Professor and Extension Weed Specialist at the University of Georgia. He is responsible for the statewide weed science programs in field corn, peanut, soybean, sunflower, grain sorghum, canola, sesame, pearl millet and winter pea – commodities valued at more than $1.5 billion. He has conducted more than 1,100 field trials and delivered nearly 1,300 educational presentations at local county crop production meetings, extension agent trainings and other industry-sponsored events.
Athens CEO
UGA Public Service and Outreach Awards Recognize Exemplary Service to the State
Staff Report
Seven University of Georgia faculty and staff members were honored during the UGA Public Service and Outreach 31st annual awards luncheon for their exemplary service to the state. Maritza Soto Keen, a senior public service faculty member and associate director at the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, received the Walter Barnard Hill Fellow Award for distinguished achievement in Public Service and outreach. The Hill Fellow is UGA’s highest award for public service and outreach. …Four UGA faculty members received Walter Barnard Hill Awards, recognizing contributions to the improvement of quality of life in Georgia and beyond.
The 2022 Hill Award recipients are:
Pam Knox, a senior public service associate with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, where she serves as the director of the University of Georgia Weather Network and as an agricultural climatologist. …Joan Koonce, a professor and extension specialist in the Department of Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. …J. Scott Pippin, a public service faculty member at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. …Lenny Wells, a professor and extension specialist with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who developed and implemented a nationally recognized pecan program that greatly increased the average yield for Georgia pecan farmers, as well as their gate value. …Pam Bracken, a program coordinator for the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel has worked on face-to-face and online courses requiring collaboration across the university and with outside associations, …
Marietta Daily Journal
KSU students created designs for a downtown Marietta parking deck. Will it ever be built?
By Hunter Riggall
Teams of Kennesaw State University students recently competed for a $2,000 cash prize to design the best possible version of a parking deck in downtown Marietta. But it remains to be seen whether such a deck will ever get built. Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin, the City Council and the Downtown Marietta Development Authority have kicked the tires on building a public, city-owned deck near Marietta Square before. It’s a longtime goal of the mayor’s, something he brought up during his reelection campaign last year. Conversations with the mayor and others, however, indicate the deck is still just an idea, with little headway made recently.
Albany Herald
UGA researchers: Pediatric transplant patients skipping adult appointments
By Leigh Beeson UGA News Service
Young adults who received organ transplants as children may not be regularly attending their doctor appointments after leaving their pediatric providers. Missing these appointments is associated with longer and more frequent hospitalizations and poorer medication adherence, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Georgia found a significant decline in attending adult health care appointments after a patient transfers to adult care, even if they attend their first appointment within the first year. More than one out of every four patients in the study attended on average less than one appointment per year during the three-year study period, with some attending no follow-up appointments at all.
The Tifton Gazette
‘Homespun Heroines’ set for launch
Horseman Press, the only undergraduate student-staffed teaching press in the state of Georgia, will launch the new edition of Hallie Quinn Brown’s “Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction.” The launch is set for 4 p.m., May 3, in Room 100 of Bowen Hall at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, college officials said in a statement. Dr. Rachael Price, advisor to ABAC’s Horseman Press, said the book was originally published in 1926. It is dedicated to women of color and their magnificent achievements. …The new edition was designed, typeset and proofread by students in Price’s publishing class (ENGL 3130).
Albany Herald
Photos contributed by Reginald Christian
These Albany State University seniors are scheduled to graduate this Saturday with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Albany Herald
PHOTOS: Albany State University hosts Golden Rams Evening of Celebration
Photos contributed by Reginald Christian
The Golden Rams gathered together on Wednesday, April 27, 2022, to celebrate their accomplishments with An Evening of Celebration.
Albany Herald
PHOTOS: ‘Rock The Crocs’ – The Albany State University Student Appreciation Block Party
Photos contributed by Reginald Christian
Albany State University held a Student Appreciation Block Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. Check out these students who “Rock The Crocs.”
Clayton News-Daily
By Claire Sanders UGA News Service
Peter Zimmerli, Consul General of Switzerland in Atlanta, implored attendees to expand their thinking regarding technology and sustainability at the opening of the recent Cleantech Symposium at the University of Georgia. …A partnership between the Consulate General of Switzerland, the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the Swiss Business Hub and UGA’s Office of Sustainability, the symposium featured a panel discussion, breakout sessions and a student poster competition focused on the future of innovation in sustainable technology. The UGA Innovation District — the home for faculty and student innovation at UGA — was the venue for the event, which attracted business leaders, academics, scientists and consumers to learn from sustainability innovators.
Georgia Gwinnett Post
Georgia Gwinnett College picked for NAIA Opening Round in baseball
From Staff Reports
The Georgia Gwinnett College baseball team will begin defense of the 2021 NAIA national championship on its home diamond as host to one of 10 National Championship Opening Round campus sites. Host sites were announced Monday, May 2, by the national office. The NAIA Opening Round’s Lawrenceville Bracket will be a five-team, double-elimination tournament May 16-19 at the Grizzly Baseball Complex in Lawrenceville. The other four teams joining GGC in the tournament and the first-round pairings will be announced next week by the NAIA national office.
WRDW
Augusta University recognizes three National Champions at golf banquet
By Nick Proto
Augusta University honored the 2010 and 2011 National Championship-winning golf teams as well as 2018 individual National Champion Broc Everett at The Birdie Club’s golf banquet Monday. Most players from the championship teams were there to celebrate. This was an event years in the making. Event coordinator Dean Newman said they wanted to have this banquet in 2020 to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the first National Championship team, but covid forced them to push it back a couple years. “A small school like AU winning three DI National Championships has never been done and probably won’t ever be done again,” he said. …The club announced Monday they raised more than $1.3 million, all going back to golf programs at AU.
The Produce News
Georgia plays a vital role in providing the U.S. with produce
By Keith Loria
Produce is a big deal in Georgia — its nickname, after all, is the Peach State. Georgia is famous for those peaches, of course, as well as sweet Vidalia onions, but according to the Georgia Farm Bureau’s it’s also the top state in the production of peanuts, pecans, and blueberries, and is near the top in water-melons, cucumbers, sweet corn, Bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes and cabbage. “Georgia is a very important state in the produce industry,” said Seth Grant of Flavor 1st Growers and Packers, headquartered in in Mills River, NC. “As we are coming out of Florida and the late winter and early spring season, we look to Georgia. Georgia bridges a very important gap during the spring and fall, allowing us to have U.S.-grown product 52 weeks out of the year.” Georgia’s climate allows for the growing of just about any crop, and it contributes about $73.3 billion to the state’s economy each year, according to the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development.
Higher Education News:
USA Today
It’s time to demand timely mental health reporting by colleges and universities
What if just one small fraction of the resources being invested in COVID-19 surveillance was allocated to mental health programs?
Dr. Catherine Sarkisian and Dr. Marion Mass Opinion contributors
The top ranked colleges and universities have poured millions of dollars into reporting campus rates of positive COVID-19 tests. Many of these colleges and universities also have invested heavily in mandatory regular asymptomatic testing, even in spring of 2022, when hospitals have close to zero patients admitted due to COVID-19 infection. Meanwhile, though death from COVID-19 is exceedingly rare among college students, it is well known from pre-pandemic data that approximately 100 U.S. college students die by suicide each month. …Rates of mental illness on campus are shocking: As many as 1 in 3 college students are suffering from depression (twice as many as in 2019), and even more have anxiety disorders (1.5 times as many as in 2019). …Getting help on mental health
Yet even though it has been known for more than a year that rates of mental illness have soared, waiting times to see professional mental health care providers on many campuses are still unacceptably long, from weeks to months. Counseling is free speech: Moving to a new state shouldn’t force you to say goodbye to your therapist.
Inside Higher Ed
The national mental health crisis plaguing colleges is stretching disability support offices, where more students are registering psychological disorders to receive classroom accommodations.
By Susan H. Greenberg
The University of California, San Francisco, recently made a new accommodation available to students with disabilities: “release time” to attend medical appointments. “Very often that is therapy,” said Tim Montgomery, director of student disability services at UCSF. “But we don’t say therapy; we just say ‘medical appointments’ and leave it at that.” Like many postsecondary institutions around the country, UCSF is seeing a spike in students registering with disability services to receive accommodations for mental health conditions. At UCSF, which enrolls about 3,200 students in health-related professional and graduate programs, about 14.5 percent of students are registered with disability services, Montgomery said. Nearly 70 percent of those are new to his office. “Our two biggest areas are mental health and learning disabilities,” Montgomery said.
Inside Higher Ed
A Clearer Path Back to College May Yield More Degrees
Too many obstacles block students who left college from returning to get degrees they were close to earning, according to a new report on an initiative to get those students over the finish line.
By David Steele
A report published Monday about a three-year national initiative to boost completion for students who stopped attending college before they earned degrees calls on higher ed institutions and federal, state and local governments to do more to lure students back to college and push them over the finish line. The Degrees When Due (DWD) initiative, led by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, or IHEP, worked with more than 200 participating colleges in 23 states between 2018 and 2021 to find ways to assist students who interrupted their education and get them back on track to earning degrees or training certificates. Much of the plan was centered on underserved groups—students of color and those from low-income backgrounds, first-generation students and older students—and the institutions that serve them.
Higher Ed Dive
Ransomware hits 2 colleges at semester’s end. What can others do?
Natalie Schwartz, Editor
Dive Brief:
Ransomware attacks have disrupted the final days of the spring semester for at least two colleges over the past week, Kellogg Community College in Michigan and Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. Austin Peay reported a ransomware attack last week, which forced the institution to cancel final exams scheduled for Friday before resuming scheduled finals on Monday, according to the university’s latest update. The university has also restored several services, allowing students and employees to start using university computers and plug back into its network. Kellogg Community College, meanwhile, notified students and staff that a ransomware attack has been causing technology issues starting Friday. It closed all five campuses and canceled classes as it investigates the incident, and the college initiated a forced password reset for students and employees.
See also:
Inside Higher Ed