University System News:

WMAZ
‘This is my first hand-on experience’: Rising seniors hope to share summer research with top scientists around the world
By Kamilah Williams
This summer, seven rising seniors took part in a six-week internship that allowed the students to learn more about different majors. With the help of college mentors and professors, they will take their skills to the next level. The Young Scientist Academy at Georgia College was started by Dr. Catrena Lisse more than a decade ago. For six weeks, the students prepare an independent project of their liking that will be shared with family, friends, and faculty. One student says the work she’s been doing is exciting.

This story also appeared in The Milledgeville Union-Recorder.

Fortune
Graduates with a master’s degree in cybersecurity are reporting average salaries of $214,000
By Rich Griset
When it comes to job demand, it’s hard to beat the field of cybersecurity. By 2025 there will be an estimated 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs across the globe, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, a researcher and publisher that covers the international cyber economy. And that follows a 350% growth in the number of open cybersecurity jobs between 2013 and 2021… “Most come back with an offer of full-time employment when they finish,” says Mustaque Ahamad, a professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech. “You have a job lined up, absolutely.”

Fortune
University of Georgia’s new School of Computing to offer master’s in computer science, cybersecurity
By Sydney Lake
Computer-related jobs are projected to grow about three times faster than all occupations by 2029, according to the the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So with a rise in student enrollment and demand for computer science jobs, the University of Georgia officially launched its School of Computing at the beginning of July. “The University of Georgia is committed to creating synergies across our campus that foster new opportunities for students and faculty and better serve communities in Georgia and around the world,” University of GeorgiaPresident Jere W. Morehead said in a statement. “I am excited about the positive impact the School of Computing will have on research and education in the STEM disciplines at UGA.”

Georgia Virtue
Georgia Southern Enjoys Banner Year Of Community Service
Staff report
Georgia Southern athletics not only had a banner year on the field and in the classroom, but the Eagles were incredibly active in their community service goals for 2021-22. In fact, Georgia Southern University logged 7,267 total department community service hours, surpassing the year’s goal of 7,000. In addition, the Eagles donated 1,000 meals at the January 15 Feed the Boro event. Overall, 100% of Georgia Southern teams participated in some form of community service during the year covering 94 separate service opportunities and aiding 56 different community organizations.

Douglas Now
SGSC Hawks earn NJCAA All-Academic awards

Staff reports

South Georgia State College student athletes and the women’s soccer team earned All-Academic Awards from the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association). Twenty-three individual SGSC Hawks earned at least a 3.6 GPA during the past academic year (2021-22), including seven who achieved perfect 4.0 averages. “The student-athletes at South Georgia State College have a strong work ethic that is shown through their successes, both athletically and academically,” said Dr. Greg Tanner, SGSC Vice President of Advancement, Government Relations and Athletics. “This recognition by the NJCAA is an honor, and each recipient should have a sense of pride in knowing their hard work in the classroom paid off. I congratulate them and know I will see great things from them in the future.” For the second consecutive year, women’s soccer earned Academic Team honors for posting a composite GPA of at least 3.47, ranking them at 17th nationally for team grade point average.

Albany Herald
Food Protection group honors UGA Center for Food Safety director
By Jennifer L. Reynolds
Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety, is the 2022 recipient of the Harry Haverland Citation Award from the International Association for Food Protection. Diez was nominated for the award, which is given “to an individual for years of devotion to the ideals and objectives of IAFP,” by 2003 Harry Haverland award recipient and CFS emeritus faculty member Larry Beuchat. Diez’s “research has been broad in scope in regards to microbiological protection of foods, which includes foodborne pathogens, their behavior in various types of foods, their control, enumeration and detection, and other timely aspects that will help reduce the possibilities of foodborne outbreaks,” Beuchat said.

The Red & Black

UGA database creates directory to reduce food insecurity in Athens

Lauren Minnick

Throughout the Athens community, one of the greatest challenges food insecure populations have faced has not been a lack of food distribution centers themselves, but rather a lack of available resources listing what services are provided. To address this issue, the University of Georgia launched a database that functions as a directory — listing location addresses, the kind of meal or food offered as well as location specific requirements for recipients to receive food. The platform provides residents free access to this information for dozens of food distribution sites throughout the community. Created and operated by UGA, the website is located on the university’s platform Engage Georgia, and is a part of the UGA Office of Service-Learning’s website which also highlights opportunities for local volunteer involvement. Students in UGA geography professor Hilda Kurtz’s class worked initially to gather information on the local food sharing sites, and the site now receives monthly updates which are sent out by email to more than 300 community partners, according to a press release from UGA.

KPVI
New UGA study aims to determine the effectiveness of probiotics
By Marie M. Lameiras
When you take a probiotic supplement, you are likely under the assumption that all those billions of beneficial bacteria will happily establish themselves in your digestive tract, providing a range of health benefits. But despite extensive study, it is not clear how well probiotics can survive the gastrointestinal tract. With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture, University of Georgia researchers are undertaking a comprehensive study to examine the factors that impact this supplement survival — from materials used for microencapsulation to the dynamic conditions in the gastrointestinal tract — to help determine the most effective delivery systems for probiotics and other bioactive compounds.

Forbes
Why The James Webb Space Telescope Matters To Us
By Marshall Shepherd
I am a weather and climate scientist who spent 12 years of my career at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia. During that time, I helped develop satellite missions and scientific research in support of understanding Earth’s weather and climate. At times, I would hear statements like, “Why are we spending all of this money on this space stuff?” or “That money could be spent on things here.” This week President Biden and NASA released the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and I am in awe of this marvel of science, technology, and humanity. However, I bet some of these same questions or statements have arisen.

Douglas County Sentinel
Montes de Oca appointed UWG’s director of admission
Staff report
The University of West Georgia has appointed Dillon Montes de Oca, an experienced recruitment professional who has helped thousands of students Go West, as the university’s director of admissions. “I’m incredibly thankful to have a career in which I can impact the daily lives of our students and their families,” said Montes de Oca, who served as interim director since 2021. “I have fallen in love with making students see they are where they belong and helping launch their careers before they graduate. I have seen firsthand what an educational opportunity like the one UWG offers gives to students around the world, and I’m excited to continue being part of that.”

Grady News

Jooyoung Kim named director of Cox International Center

Sarah Freeman

Jooyoung Kim, the Dan Magill Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Sports Communication, has been named director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research. Tudor Vlad, the current Cox International Center director, will assume a new role as executive director. Vlad has led dozens of international training missions and welcomed hundreds of visiting journalists from around the world to UGA over many years of service to the college. “Dr. Kim brings a highly successful international program, the Business and Public Communication Fellows Program, under the Cox International Center, marshalling the college’s international training center and its resources,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Analysis: Atlanta is a lot more stressed now than it was last year
By Nancy Clanton
These are stressful times not matter where you live. Between rising gas prises and unrest overeas, it’s no wonder people are finding themselves a bit more strung out this year. According to a recent survey by the American Psychological Association, 87% of Americans are stressed out by inflation, and 80% said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has them in survival mode. Workplace-related stress costs the country more than $300 billion a year, according to an estimate by the American Institute of Stress… One reason for work-related stress is mediocre managers, the University of Georgia’s Robert J. Vandenberg told Wallethub. “I have engaged in a number of consulting activities over my 40-year career, and in 95% of the cases, the problems the organization is experiencing have come down to one thing — average to poor management,” said Vandenberg, who is head of the Department of Management in Terry College of Business at UGA. “It is the number one driver of employee turnover, their absences, calling in sick, and simply not being engaged in their work — all broad indicators of the employee’s level of stress.”

 

Other News:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Omicron’s BA5 spreading quickly in Georgia
By Helena Oliviero and Timothy Pratt
With yet another highly contagious omicron subvariant taking hold and fueling a new wave of infections and hospitalizations in Georgia, 21 counties scattered across the state, including Cobb County, are now experiencing high levels of COVID-19 transmission, according to federal data. Dozens more counties in Georgia have moved into medium levels of virus transmission, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID Data Tracker for community levels, which is based on rates of hospitalizations for COVID and rates of new infections. The fast-spreading omicron subvariant known as BA.5 has recently become dominant among new U.S. cases. The CDC estimated on Tuesday it now accounts for 66.5% of all new infections in Georgia and other states in the South, including Florida and South Carolina.

Capitol Beat
Georgia to receive limited monkeypox vaccine supply; new COVID variant rising
By Rebecca Grapevine
The federal government is releasing monkeypox vaccine to Georgia in a phased approach. The state will receive 5,943 doses of the Jynneos vaccine from the Strategic National Stockpile during the first two phases, Dr. Alexander Millman, chief medical officer for the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH), told the agency’s board Tuesday. The DPH will focus that initial supply on two main groups: people who have “high-risk” exposure to a confirmed monkeypox case and others who have “certain risk factors that might make them likely to have had high-risk exposure” to the monkeypox virus. The vaccine doses for Georgia must be carefully managed, especially because each person needs two shots a month apart, Millman said.  

Higher Education News: 

Inside Higher Ed

Business Officers Upbeat Despite Major Headwinds

Doug Lederman 

Scanning the landscape, college and university financial leaders would seem to have plenty to worry about. Student enrollments are declining, and tuition revenues along with them. Inflation is high. The federal government has turned off the tap on the recovery aid that helped many institutions weather the COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. Even colleges and universities with big endowments—those best positioned to weather financial storms—have to be nervous watching the stock market officially enter bear market territory by dropping more than 20 percent so far in 2022. A different picture emerges, though, in the results of Inside Higher Ed’s 2022 Survey of College and University Business Officers, out today in advance of this weekend’s annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers in Denver.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
New Reports Identify Obstacles to College Completion
By Lois Elfman
Tyton Partners, a provider of strategy consulting and investment banking services to the education sector, has published three reports that highlight achievement gaps among students from historically underrepresented groups. Tyton published “Driving Toward a Degree: Closing Outcome Gaps Through Student Supports,” “Hitting Their Stride: Building Momentum Through High-Quality Implementation and Commitment to Change,” and “Time for Class: The State of Digital Learning and Courseware Adoption.” The reports, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, were produced in collaboration with several organizations as well as the participation of 7,400 faculty and administration from approximately 1,500 institutions. They identify areas of progress and highlight practices that have narrowed graduation rate gaps for students of color and low-income students.

Higher Ed Dive

Faculty focus on belonging can improve student experiences and grades, report finds

Laura Spitalniak

Dive Brief: The portion of students who reported positive learning experiences rose 10.5% in the 2020-2021 academic year, when they were in classrooms where faculty members worked to make them feel that they belong, are valued and can succeed, according to a new report from the Student Experience Project, a consortium led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities. Black, Latina, and Native American women who were experiencing financial stress responded to efforts most strongly. Their positive experience rate jumped by 25% according to the report, which compares data from surveys covering the fall 2020 and spring 2020 terms.

National Law Review

Name, Image, and Likeness in US College Athletics: One Year Later

In the United States, college athletics are as popular as professional sports, generating revenues of over $1 billion for the 2021 fiscal year. Despite this popularity, college athletes have long been classified by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) as having amateur status. The NCAA—which promulgates the rules and regulations pertaining to student-athletes’ participation and eligibility in college sports—defines an amateur as “someone who does not have a written or verbal agreement with an agent, has not profited above his/her actual and necessary expenses or gained a competitive advantage in his/her sport.”  Throughout the history of the NCAA, student-athletes were prohibited from making money from their name, image, or likeness—a concept commonly referred to as “NIL.” They could not be paid for signing autographs or entering into sponsorship deals, nor could they profit from the sales of jerseys bearing their name. Put differently, many of the ways in which professional athletes make their money were strictly off-limits to college players. But on July 1, 2021, the world of college sports transitioned into a new era, as the NCAA lifted the ban on player compensation and instituted an Interim NIL Policy.

Inside Higher Ed

Gap Between Online and In-Person Learning Narrows

Susan D’Agostino 

Since the start of the pandemic, law school faculty members have gained proficiency in online teaching best practices and students have gained appreciation for hybrid and online learning options. When the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, one takeaway may be that the crisis marked a positive turning point in which online learning in higher education gained more respect. To be sure, in the early days of the pandemic, few were satisfied with emergency remote instruction, even if teachers displayed “heroic levels of creativity” in the face of a global emergency. But as waves of the virus ebbed and flowed over time and one variant replaced another, faculty members adapted remote learning best practices into their courses. Many students subsequently discovered unexpected benefits in online learning, often leaving them asking for more.

Inside Higher Ed

‘U.S. News’ Unranks 10 Colleges (for 2 Months)

Scott Jaschik 

U.S. News & World Report has “unranked” 10 colleges for errors in the material they provided for rankings. However, the punishment of the colleges only lasts until the next ranking list is released, which will be this fall. The colleges punished include Columbia University, which already announced that it is skipping the next rankings as it investigates allegations that its data were, on several points, false.

Inside Higher Ed

National Park Service Awards $9.7M to HBCUs

Sara Weissman 

The National Park Service announced $9.7 million will be awarded to historically Black colleges and universities to preserve historic structures on campuses. The grants will fund 21 preservation projects in nine states. “For more than 180 years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities have provided high-level academics, opportunities, and community for generations of students,” National Park Service director Chuck Sams said in a press releaselast week. “These grants enable HBCUs to preserve the noteworthy structures that honor the past and tell the ongoing story of these historic institutions.” The money can be used to fund preservation projects and related studies and architectural plans.

Inside Higher Ed

The Failing Links in Higher Ed

Ray Schroeder 

Higher education is suffering from the failure of a couple of essential linkages, resulting in mega-declines in enrollments—down three million over the past decade. I think of higher education as a long chain of processes, services and functionalities that are broadly designed to improve society as a whole. These include such links in the chain as teaching and facilitating the learning for the workforce, assessing and ensuring skills and knowledge, enabling continuing professional development for advancing careers, and assisting with the maturing of teenagers into responsible and engaged citizens. There are many more links in the long chain, but none more important to the success of the overall endeavor than ones linking to bringing students into college and the link of preparing them for careers in the workforce. These two links at the opposite ends of the long higher end chain are critical to the system as we know it, yet they are failing.

Higher Ed Dive
Entrepreneurship education company acquires University of Antelope Valley to build ‘metauniversity’