The Brunswick News
School board to vote on system purchase, college partnership
By Lauren McDonald
The Glynn County Board of Education will vote today on several important matters, including the adoption of its fiscal year 2023 budget, the purchase of a new financial management software and an agreement with College of Coastal Georgia to create new educational opportunities for district staff. …In other business, representatives from CCGA are expected to be on hand for the official signing of a memorandum of understanding that will create the Leveraging Education Attainment through Partnerships (LEAP) program, a collaboration between the college and school district. The partnership will provide access to the college’s teacher education program to qualified employees of the school district. Paraprofessionals working for Glynn County Schools will be able to complete coursework at CCGA to earn a bachelor of science in education.
Albany Herald
PHOTOS: Albany State University hosts new student orientation
Photos by: Reginald Christian
June 3 marked the second of 10 orientation sessions at Albany State University for incoming freshmen. Freshmen move-in will take place the week of August 7 with classes beginning the following week.
Ledger-Enquirer
Columbus State university faces budget cuts that might include layoffs. Here’s why
By Mark Rice
Columbus State University’s student enrollment decline has prompted the administration to start planning for budget cuts that most likely will involve employee layoffs if the trend doesn’t improve. “I think that we could very well end up in a position that, if we do not get enrollment where it needs to be, where it really ought to be, I think it would be difficult to get where we ultimately have to land without it impacting some filled positions,” incoming CSU interim president John Fuchko III told the Ledger-Enquirer. Fuchko started working full-time on campus June 1 as the university’s leadership transitions from Chris Markwood, who is scheduled to retire June 30 after seven years as CSU president.
Valdosta Daily Times
VSU offers library scholarship
By Brittanye Blake
The University System of Georgia Foundation has endowed a new scholarship at Valdosta State University. The Merryll Penson Scholarship Fund, a GALILEO initiative honoring the work of a trailblazing former director. The 2021-22 VSU masters in library science recipients of the Merryll Penson Scholarships are: …Penson, served as GALILEO executive director from 2000-16, led efforts to create GALILEO while library director at Columbus State University. She retired in 2016, capping a 32-year career as a spirited advocate for Georgia libraries. GALILEO is the Georgia Library Learning Online. A virtual library, it is operated by the University System of Georgia.
Morning AgClips
Farm stress drawing attention of state and national leaders
While farmers’ mental health challenges continue, there is increasing awareness of those challenges at state, national levels
A pair of events in May – National Mental Health Month – demonstrated that while farmers’ mental health challenges continue, there is increasing awareness of those challenges at the state and national levels. On May 19, the University of Georgia hosted the Farm Stress Summit in Tifton, and on May 31, the USDA and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock held a town hall-style meeting in Musella, hosted by Dickey Farms and Musella Baptist Church. The Farm Stress Summit offered presentations from American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Communications Director Ray Atkinson, UGA School of Social Work Professor Dr. Anna Scheyett and Mercer University researchers Dr. Anne Montgomery and PhD candidate Stephanie Basey. Montgomery and Basey discussed their study this spring on farm stress in Georgia. The study is expected to be published soon.
Tifton CEO
ABAC Professor Demonstrates an Array of Talents
Staff Report
The calf was on the way. But the baby’s mama needed help. Dr. Mary Ellen Hicks was ready. Students at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College will tell you that Hicks, a much-acclaimed Professor of Animal Science for the past 33 years, is always ready, whether it’s in the classroom, in an advising session, or assisting in the delivery of a new calf on ABAC’s J.G. Woodroof Farm. “We hope that calf’s mama will get it done on her own, but I do help those that have problems,” Hicks said. “I don’t like spending long nights up here. But it happens. We pull students in on it too. I expect we had close to 100 calves at ABAC this spring.” Managed by Hicks’ husband, Doug, ABAC’s cattle herd numbers 120 or so. Doug Hicks, an ABAC employee since 2002, is the beef herd manager and in charge of forage production.
North Fulton Today
Researchers in the Waters College of Health Professions (WCHP) at Georgia Southern University are studying why Black adults in America are 30% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease (CVD) than white adults through a study on racial disparities and cardiovascular health. Faculty and graduate students in the University’s Biodynamics and Human Performance Center and Medical Laboratory Sciences program have teamed up to examine the biological basis for these racial differences to aid in the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, training simulations help students, faculty and staff learn how to intervene effectively when they spot a student in distress. Data show it’s working.
By Maria Carrasco
For years, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has implemented a mental health training simulation to teach students, faculty and staff to recognize symptoms of mental illness in students and take steps to get them help. Now a new case study shows the training is making an impact: campus members who completed the simulation were more likely to intervene when a student or peer showed signs of psychological distress. The training comes from Kognito, a company that makes digital learning simulations focused on mental health and wellness. The simulation offers one version for students and one for faculty and staff, but both are 40 minutes long and use role-play conversations with virtual human animations to train participants to recognize signs of distress in others and to effectively communicate their concerns, said Deidre Weathersby, associate director for outreach and prevention at the UIUC counseling center. The goal is to connect the person in distress with mental health support services.
Inside Higher Ed
A University of Nebraska at Omaha program designed to support students who have not yet declared a major is part of a larger drive to increase their graduation rates once they decide on a field of study.
By David Steele
University of Nebraska at Omaha students who enrolled without declaring a major or don’t want to pursue the course of study they initially chose are no longer referred to as “undecided” students with “undeclared majors.” Thanks to a relatively new program at the university, they also no longer occupy a gray area of academia — students taking courses with no defined plan of study and no direct pathway to a degree. The university’s Exploratory Studies program, now in its second year, offers these students a more formalized and supported opportunity to figure out what they want to study. The program also aims to raise their retention and graduation rates in the process. The program goes beyond the occasional academic advising and counseling many institutions typically offer such students and instead provides them with an “academic home,” said Tammie Kennedy, director of the Exploratory Studies program.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A Free-Speech Group Known for Campus Interventions Wants to Be Bigger
By Emma Pettit
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — an advocacy organization that has long intervened on behalf of students and professors across the political spectrum whose free-speech rights were violated or under threat — is expanding beyond college campuses. The organization announced Monday it is rebranding as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression as part of a $75-million campaign that it says will focus on defending free speech through litigation and in the court of public opinion. “It’s important that people believe there’s somebody out there who’s watching the store on this, and we want that to be FIRE,” said Robert Shibley, the organization’s executive director.
Inside Higher Ed
Reform to Student Loans: What Higher Ed Wants
Many experts argue that debt relief without reform will replicate the crisis seen today.
By Meghan Brink
As President Biden moves closer to canceling at least some student debt in the near future, many higher education advocates and members of Congress are concerned that cancellation without broader reforms to the federal loan system at large will merely provide a temporary solution to a much larger issue. “The problems with our system are there are a lot of players involved. We’ve had states disinvesting for decades now, colleges raise tuition, Pell Grants are flat and all of that comes out in the student loan program, where we see more and more people borrowing and borrowing larger amounts,” said James Kvaal, under secretary of education. “You have a student loan program that really is not working for many. So we need to really rethink how we finance higher education in this country.” The issue at hand, advocates say, is the system that created the debt crisis in the first place.
Higher Ed Dive
Pandemic-related government funding totaled $13.2M per college, S&P finds
Rick Seltzer, Senior Editor
Dive Brief:
The median college received $13.2 million in government relief funding over the course of the pandemic, according to a report from S&P Global Ratings that explores just how significantly public money buoyed higher ed institutions. Emergency government funding accounted for over 4% of adjusted operating revenue at more than 30% of colleges in fiscal 2021, S&P found. The figures cover a majority of the 448 institutions whose debt S&P rates. While almost all colleges received public relief money, it was more important for those with low bond ratings — the colleges under the most financial pressure. That’s notable because the bulk of the funding is now ending, increasing colleges’ exposure to market stresses like inflation and declining enrollment.
Higher Ed Dive
New reports describe how education-work pipelines fail many young adults, especially those of low socioeconomic status. What can prompt changes?
Rick Seltzer, Senior Editor
Young adults are facing lengthier and more complicated pathways to quality jobs as postsecondary education has grown more valuable in the labor market — and those pathways aren’t equal for those of different races and genders. That’s the top takeaway from two new reports released Thursday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Most of the oldest millennials didn’t settle into good jobs until their early 30s, the reports found. In contrast, older members of the baby boomer generation mostly found good jobs by their mid-20s. As they aged, the share of millennials with good jobs started to outpace that of boomers when they were the same age, according to the reports.
Bloomberg
College Degrees Lose Luster as Inflation Surges and Student Debt Balloons
Nearly half of parents said they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year university after high school.
By Paulina Cachero
Sam Wren didn’t even consider going to college. The 18-year-old from Utah said the decision was a no-brainer when he compared the nearly $90,000 cost of a four-year degree at Utah State University — his mother’s alma mater— against a two-year trade school program for under $10,000. … High schoolers and their parents are increasingly questioning whether a traditional four-year college education is the right financial decision, with rising costs often resulting in crippling student-loan debt. In a recent poll by Gallup, 46% of parents said they would prefer their child pursue something other than a bachelor’s degree, and more than one-third cited finances as an obstacle. Meanwhile, just 56% of adults under age 30 who went to college said the benefits of their education outweighed the costs, according to a Federal Reserve study.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
How Diversity Became a Bad Word at One State’s Public Colleges
By Chelsea Long
In a course Dyanis Conrad teaches called “The Foundations of American Education,” she spends the first few weeks of the semester establishing that racism is real. Many of the students in Conrad’s University of South Dakota classroom have never had to think critically about race. There are places in South Dakota where people can live their whole lives without bumping into a Black person or person of color, and for a number of her students, Conrad is the first Black person they’ve ever talked to. Those conversations can be difficult. But avoiding them, she believes, would be much worse.
Inside Higher Ed
‘Beyond Rhetoric’ on Diversity
The University of Massachusetts at Boston aspires to be an antiracist institution. Some faculty members disagree with this, saying it’s limiting for a university. But others raise major concerns about the institution’s ongoing treatment of its Africana studies faculty.
By Colleen Flaherty
Earlier this year, a faculty-led committee at the University of Massachusetts at Boston presented first drafts of updated mission and vision statements, both of which declared the university “an anti-racist and health-promoting” institution. “Diversity, equity, shared governance, and expansive notions of excellence are core institutional values,” the draft vision statement said, in part. “We hold ourselves and each other accountable to ensure these values drive all decision-making in research, pedagogical innovations, resource allocation, and the development of policies and practices.” Some faculty members strongly supported embedding these ideals in the racially diverse, urban research university’s mission and vision. Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco also has committed to helping make UMass Boston the “leading anti-racist and health-promoting public research university.”