USG e-clips for June 27, 2022

University System News:

WLAQ

Wellstar Grant Expands Nursing Program Offerings At Georgia Highlands College

Wellstar’s continued support of Northwest Georgia Nursing programs tackles training, treatment simulation, and nursing shortages. For almost two decades, Georgia Highlands College (GHC) has had a mutually beneficial partnership with Wellstar Health System. This successful joint venture has allowed GHC to impact the nursing healthcare shortages of northwest Georgia. The multiple grants from Wellstar provided GHC the ability for growth in the nursing program by providing faculty positions, expanding on-site course offerings to multiple counties, provided clinical training as well as improve the student experience through scholarships. Assistant Director of Nursing Shea Walker said the most recent grant has provided the nursing program with the opportunity to enhance educational opportunities for our students.

Columbus CEO

CSU’s Wakoko and Kuforiji Selected for Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship

Staff Report

Dr. Florence Wakoko, an associate professor of Sociology, and Dr. Paulina Kurforiji, a professor of teacher education, leadership and counseling are among this year’s African-born scholars selected for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Uganda to work with Lira University and Makerere University on a eLearning project. The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, now in its fourth year, is a scholar fellowship program for educational projects at African higher education institutions. …The fellowships match host universities with African-born scholars and is one of 56 projects that Faculty fellows come from African-based institutions or are African-born scholars. …As Wakoko noted, hers and Kuforiji’s project is a tangible example of Columbus State’s reimagining education, which strives to develop, experiment with and share effective academic learning methods.

Augusta CEO

Governor Announces Healthcare Workforce Commission Appointees

Staff Report

Governor Brian P. Kemp today announced his 15 appointments to the newly-created Healthcare Workforce Commission. The commission was created by  Download this pdf file. Executive Order  to tackle the significant challenges facing the healthcare industry in hiring and retention of workers. The commission will submit a report on their findings by the end of the year. …Scott Bohlke is the owner and operator of Bohler Family Practice, an independent medical practice outside of Statesboro, Georgia. Bohlke is a board-certified Family Practice Physician specializing in family medicine. In 1987, he graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. Bohlke received his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and completed his residency in Columbus, Georgia. …Sherry Danello has over forty years of experience in the field of healthcare. She graduated from Armstrong State University in Savannah, Georgia, with a bachelor’s degree in Nursing and received her master’s degree from the Medical College of Georgia. …Janee Dock is an experienced nurse administrator professional with several years of experience in healthcare. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Georgia Southern University, …Sally Perry is the Regional Vice President of UHS of Delaware, LLC DBA Coastal Harbor Health System, a nationally recognized program in Savannah, Georgia, providing high-quality, affordable mental health services, including both outpatient and inpatient programs. …Perry received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Psychology from Georgia Southern University. …Pete Quinones is the President and Chief Executive Officer for the Metro Atlanta Ambulance Services (MAAS). He founded MAAS in 2001 after graduating from Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business. …Tanya Sudia is the Dean of the College of Nursing at Augusta University. … Actively involved in national professional organizations, she serves as Chairperson for the Research Leadership Network of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and is Chair-Elect for the Georgia Board of Regents Academic Advisory Committee on Nursing.

The Red & Black

UGA plant biologist named finalist for prestigious 2022 Blavatnik National Award

Lauren Minnick

University of Georgia plant biologist Robert Schmitz was recently chosen as a finalist for the 2022 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, the world’s largest unrestricted prize honoring early-career scientists and engineers, according to an article from UGA Today. Chosen from a pool of 309 nominees from 150 top universities and institutions across 38 states, these awards are known for both their exclusivity and their high distinction. To be qualified as an award candidate, winners must be faculty-level scientific researchers, 42 years of age or younger, and be nominated to the competition by their university or research institution. Schmitz works for UGA as a plant biologist and performs groundbreaking research on plant epigenetics. In his study of chemical modifications to DNA and associated proteins that alter gene expression, Schmitz has been searching for new ways and methods to increase agricultural sustainability and food security.

Griffin Daily News

GSC welcomes Georgia Boys State

By Karolina Philmon Marketing Manager Gordon State College

Gordon State College recently hosted more than 190 high school seniors with the Georgia Boys State program. GSC welcomed the seniors from June 12-18 at its Barnesville campus. Georgia Boys State is a comprehensive one-week course in state and local government and is a program of the American Legion Department of Georgia. It is a “leadership action program” where qualified male high school rising seniors take part in a practical government course.

Polk Today

GHC’s New Marietta location holds first class

Kevin The Editor

Upcoming ‘Apply to GHC’ day waives application fee

The very first class at the newest Georgia Highlands College (GHC) site was a summer course on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and First Aid. Last year, GHC rolled out plans to bring even greater access to one of the most affordable colleges in the state and country to Marietta with a new site. GHC’s newest location is at 1090 Northchase Parkway. The former GHC Marietta location was a small site opened on the Southern Polytechnic State University campus in 2005 (now Kennesaw State University). Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Wellness Jonathan Howard said teaching the first course at the new site produced a better learning experience because of the location’s flexible classroom space. He said the Kinesiology and Wellness program will continue to utilize the new Marietta site and continue to teach courses at the location.

WTOC

Camp at Georgia Southern helps high school students learn about college, career opportunities

By Dal Cannady

A camp at Georgia Southern University is helping some high school students better acclimate to their classes back home. For some high school students, the prospect of going to college can feel as unlikely as going to the moon. But this camp helps them see it as an option that’s well within their grasp. This might look like teenagers playing cards. But it’s a language lesson on synonyms and other intricacies of English. These high school students come from migrant families in counties across the Southeast. …Besides English, they’re also learning about higher education and the careers that it can help them discover.

WRDW

Cyber students build robots at the Georgia Cyber Center

By Will Volk

At the Georgia Cyber Center, students at the GenCyber camp have been busy building their robots. We got a sneak peek ahead of their competition and how they teamed up to get them on the track. “I’ve been interested in robotics since I was 12,” said Shania Hobbs. Students like Hobbs are getting a chance to create and program them. It’s all part of Augusta University’s GenCyber camp.

The Georgia Virtue

Georgia Southern Names Dominique A. Quarles As Associate Vice President For Inclusive Excellence And Chief Diversity Officer

After a national search, Georgia Southern University has hired alumnus Dominique A. Quarles, Ph.D., to be its next Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence and Chief Diversity Officer. Quarles comes to Georgia Southern from Mississippi State University where he serves as the Assistant Vice President for Access, Diversity and Inclusion. In this role he provides leadership for the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, and the Learning and Strategic Initiatives portfolio on behalf of the Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member for the Ph.D. in Educational Leadership (Higher Education) program. He will start August 1, 2022 and serve as a critical member of the President’s cabinet as we continue prioritizing Inclusive Excellence as a strategic pillar and a core value at Georgia Southern University.

Albany Herald

Deltona student selected as president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Ambassadors

Cydney Slapa from Deltona, Fla., has been selected as the new president of the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Ambassadors for the 2022-23 academic year. “Going to ABAC has been one of the best decisions I have made as a young adult,” Slapa said. “Becoming the Ambassadors’ president has been a long-time goal of mine. The Ambassadors are a group of students who love ABAC and want to represent the school.” The Ambassadors represent ABAC in various functions across the campus and the community. It is one of the most prestigious student leadership organizations at ABAC.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

KSU summer program promotes the arts

By H.M. Cauley

In August, when Grayson resident Ashlee McNeill enters Kennesaw State’s Theatre and Performing Studies program, she’ll already have a bevy of friends to connect with. As one of 196 students who spent a week at KSU’s Summer Arts Intensives program, McNeill met other like-minded peers who will be in classes with her this fall. But making friends was just one perk of the program that draws rising ninth graders through high school seniors to campus for faculty-led sessions designed to sharpen their artistic talents. “I look up to people like Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, but theatrical acting is where I lack training,” said McNeill, 17. “This program has given me a lot of confidence. And it’s given me a glimpse of what I’ll be doing every day as a theater major at KSU.”

WFXL

Crisp County Sheriff’s Office receives $12,000 grant

by FOX 31 STAFF

The Crisp County Sheriff’s Office has been approved to receive the $12,500.00 COVID-19 mitigation in Georgia Confinement Facilities Grant. Funding for the grant is provided through the Institute for Health Logistics & Analytics (IHLA) at Georgia Southern University and the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Gwinnett Daily Post

UGA research farms open gates to the public this summer

By Jordan Powers

UGA News Service

Athens-area residents familiar with driving past two University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences research farms will soon have the opportunity to go behind the scenes and learn more about CAES’ role in the future of farming. The J. Phil Campbell Sr. Research and Education Center and the Durham Horticulture Farm will open their gates for the public to learn more about active research projects at CAES on June 28 and July 7, respectively.

Higher Education News:

Higher Ed Dive

Colleges use teletherapy to support students outside of the academic year

Remote mental health services gained popularity during the pandemic. That means colleges have a structure for serving students when they’re off campus.

Laura Spitalniak, Associate Editor

In October, the counseling center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had a waitlist for the first time in 14 years. It would take a week before students could receive support. The center’s solution was virtual. “The university really leapt into action and found us a telehealth option to help expand our capacity quickly,” said Avery Cook, interim director of counseling and psychological services at UNC-Chapel Hill. The center, which already employed 36 health professionals when fully staffed, saw the wait time disappear almost immediately, according to Cook. This month, the university signed its second contract with Uwill, a Massachusetts-based teletherapy company. The first agreement ran from October to the end of May, covering most of the traditional academic year. Some 166 students have used the service through UNC-Chapel Hill since mid-October.

The Hechinger Report

Blurring the lines between education and workforce

A proposition to ‘blur’ the boundaries between K-12, higher ed and the workforce industry

by Javeria Salman

After the disruption of the pandemic, people in the field of education are more open to rethinking traditional ways of doing business in order to better serve students. One idea that’s been gaining steam since last year is to break down barriers between high school, college and career to create a system that bridges all three. The concept is called the “Big Blur.” Recently, the Big Blur was the topic of numerous conversations during a national conference hosted by Jobs for the Future (JFF) in New Orleans, where it was a subject of a panel discussion between industry leaders and two JFF officials: Joel Vargas, the organization’s vice president of programs, and Kyle Hartung, associate vice president. In a July 2021 report, the two proposed blurring the last two years of high school with the first two years of college to modernize our secondary and post-secondary education and training systems and connect them “more tightly to the world of work and careers,” according to Vargas who, with Hartung, was among the report’s authors.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

A Bright Spot for Enrollment Is Showing Signs of Strain

By Megan Zahneis

Graduate-student enrollment has been a rare bright spot for higher education in recent years, as the number of undergraduates has declined. But a new analysis suggests that institutions’ increasing reliance on graduate admissions is based on unrealistic targets, and is putting strain on the staff members who recruit for these programs. Nearly half of graduate-enrollment professionals are considering leaving their posts, according to a new report from EAB and Nagap: The Association for Graduate Enrollment Management. The reasons for that, the paper finds, are clear: Increased workloads for understaffed departments. Just about every department in higher ed is coping with similar challenges, but people working in graduate enrollment are facing distinct frictions.

Inside Higher Ed

Tulane Admitted Two-Thirds of Students Through Early Decision

It admitted only 106 students (for a freshman class of more than 1,800) via regular decision.

By Scott Jaschik

Tulane University has become more and more popular with applicants in recent years. Last year, Tulane received more than 45,000 applications, a record, which was 55 percent more than the university received five years earlier. Last year, the university announced that half of the students who enrolled applied early. At the time, President Michael Fitts said, “While many universities have pared down their expectations and ambitions during the pandemic, Tulane continues to perform at an extraordinarily high level in all areas, including attracting the best and the brightest young scholars from around the country.” Tulane launched early decision in 2016. This year, the numbers of applicants and early applicants (Tulane has two early-decision programs) were even better than last year.

Inside Higher Ed

A ‘Period of Collective Racial Trauma’

Asian students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are calling for more protection after an international student from China was beaten in downtown Madison.

Sara Weissman

Students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are calling on the administration to take action after a doctoral student from China was reportedly punched and kicked by a group of men while walking in downtown Madison near campus. John Karl Scholz, interim chancellor of UW Madison, said in a statement last week that the incident was one of “a series of violent and aggressive attacks that have affected University of Wisconsin, Madison students and have touched many on campus, especially our Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) and Asian communities.” A Chinese undergraduate had a banana repeatedly thrown at him that same night, June 14, and reported injuries from the encounter, according to the statement. Madison police also reported to university officials that another attack occurred in the area on June 12 that involved a white male with no connection to campus and a Latino undergraduate who went to the hospital for his injuries. The same four suspects, who have been arrested by Madison police, are believed to be connected to all of the attacks.

Politico

Roe’s undoing will hit colleges already straining to help pregnant students

“This is a population that is highly invisible and is often left out of conversations around marginalized populations,” the head of one advocacy group for student-parents said.

By Bianca Quilantan

The Supreme Court’s dismantling of abortion rights Friday will likely expand the nation’s ranks of pregnant students — and colleges aren’t ready. Rolling back Roe v. Wade — allowing for broad restrictions on abortion access in at least 20 states — will likely lead to an increase in the number of college-aged students stuck with two choices: raise children on college campuses or abandon their hopes of earning degrees. The former will prove difficult as institutions have struggled for decades to provide everything from private rooms and housing to flexible schedules for pregnant students. Now schools in states where abortion rights aren’t codified into local laws will find themselves straining even more.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

A University Is Investigating 8 Law-School Students Who Criticized a Peer After ‘Roe’ Leak

By Brianna Hatch

Eight law-school students at American University texted in a group chat, criticizing both a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade as well as people who backed the planned reversal of the landmark abortion ruling. Three weeks later, the students were notified they were being investigated for harassment. On May 25, American’s Equity & Title IX Office sent an email to the students saying their messages might have violated the university’s Discrimination and Non-Title IX Sexual Misconduct policy. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE, published the email on Friday with identifying information redacted — the same day that the Supreme Court issued its anticipated ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. The investigation was sparked by a complaint filed by a student in the group chat who identified himself as “a Greek Orthodox Christian and Republican/Moderate-Conservative,” according to the university’s email.