University System News:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kemp makes appointment to Georgia Board of Regents after resignation

By Vanessa McCray
A member of the Board of Regents, which oversees the University System of Georgia, has stepped down.

Don Waters, an investment company CEO who joined the board in 2013, resigned his seat representing Georgia’s 1st Congressional District. Gov. Brian Kemp announced his departure Thursday. Kemp appointed Patrick Jones, a South Georgia business executive who has donated to the governor’s political campaigns, to fill the vacated spot. Waters previously served as the board’s chairman. His current term was set to expire Jan. 1, 2025. He did not immediately respond to a call requesting comment. Sonny Perdue, who with Waters’ support was named chancellor earlier this year, touted his accomplishments. “Regent Don Waters throughout his life has championed the idea that knowledge and education allow students, no matter where they live in Georgia, to pursue their dreams and build a better life for themselves, their families, their community, and their state,” said Perdue, in a written statement.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Kennesaw State, Georgia Southern among the fastest-growing colleges in US

By Joshua Mann  –  Editor, The National Observer: Higher Education Edition

Despite a broad downward trend in enrollment across colleges and universities in the U.S., some managed to defy the decline and grow over the course of the past several years. In many cases, these institutions managed to grow a lot. Two Georgia universities are among the top 25 institutions to grow. Georgia Southern University in Statesboro was No. 14, adding 5,464 students between fall 2017 to fall 2020, an increase of 30%. Kennesaw State University was No. 17, adding 5,224 students in the same time period, for an increase of 16%. Those increasing enrollment numbers reflect the increased economic impact that both universities have had on Georgia. Each university has more than a $1 billion impact, due to campus jobs, institutional services and student education-related spending.

 

Associated Press
Georgia College & State University forms 3rd cohort to address state nursing shortage
Staff reports
COVID 19, nurse retirement and burnout have led to an all-time shortage of nurses. To address this pressing need, Georgia College & State University (GCSU) has added a third cohort of nursing students to its Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree program. “It is estimated that an additional 175,900 registered nurses (RNs) will exit the workforce each year for personal reasons or through retirement,” said Josie Doss, interim director and associate professor in GCSU’s School of Nursing. “Though Georgia has around 100,000 RNs,” she said, “we still have one of the lowest densities in the nation. We’re preparing nurses to fill that need.”

Valdosta Daily Times

VSU STEAM Center receives utilities grant

Valdosta State University STEAM Center for Applied Creativity and Innovation recently received a $1,000 Renewable Energy STEAM Grant from Green Power EMC and Colquitt EMC. The funds will support the STEAM Center’s efforts to offer “innovative and creative learning activities that increase interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics — while also demonstrating how art plays a central role in driving innovation — this summer,” university officials said in a statement.

Tifton Gazette
Tifton works to obtain grants
By Davis Cobb
The City of Tifton is working to secure grants for several projects. City Manager Pete Pyrzenski informed Tifton City Council during the June 13 meeting that the city is working to secure grants, despite the difficulties presented from navigating the fast-paced environment of state and federal levels. He said he succeeded in either securing some or is on track in negotiating them. He said he had obtained a grant for use in renovating Commerce Way, bumping the funding for that project from $360,000 to more than $1 million. In addition, his department was working to negotiate a federal CHIP grant with Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office, as well as a transportation grant alongside Public Works Project Manager Jeff West and a local engineer that would develop a sidewalk and gutter project near Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

MSN

$9M donation aims to get more medical staff in rural Georgia counties

William Rioux

Out of 159 Georgia counties, 63 don’t have a pediatrician, and 54 have no emergency medicine physician. Earlier this year, we reported $5 million going to Augusta University to help get more medical staff in rural counties. Here’s how a new nearly $9 million donation can help even more. Cayman Bickerstaff is a 3rd-year med student at MCG, enrolled in the 3+ Primary Care Pathway Program. “I knew what I wanted to do, and I wanted to get into the workforce as early as possible, and I saw this program as a really good way to do that,” he said. It allows students who commit to primary care practice in rural or underserved Georgia to graduate in three years and immediately enter a residency in Georgia with free tuition.

Statesboro Herald

Georgia Southern hosts youth basketball camp

Josh Aubrey

This may be the third summer Brian Burg has been in Statesboro, but it’s only his second year of being able to hold his youth basketball camps. The Georgia Southern men’s head coach saw his number more than triple from a year ago as they went from just over 50 campers to over 160 this year. …Besides being a great opportunity for people in the Statesboro community Burg also hopes to see many of these same kids with their entire families during basketball season.

AlmoOon

Dr. Lynne Abruzzo is new chair of MCG Department of Pathology – Jagwire

by Editorial staff

Dr. Lynne Abruzzo, former co-director of the Cytogenetics Laboratory at The James Cancer Center at The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, is the new chair of the Department of Pathology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. Abruzzo, who joins MCG July 1, will help support and develop research programs in the department and will lead efforts to build new collaborative research programs across the medical school that ultimately will result in better treatments for patients. She studies cytogenetics, which is the analysis of chromosomal changes that may be linked to genetic diseases or cancer. Her research by Ella focuses on the genetics and pathogenesis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common leukemia in adults, and other low-grade B-cell leukemias and lymphomas. She is working to identify biomarkers that measure disease progress in patients with CLL, and to determine how those markers may help physicians better manage and treat their patients.

Inside Higher Ed

Parallel Journeys, Lasting Legacies

Gary May, Darryll Pines and Reggie DesRoches first met at the UC Berkeley College of Engineering in the 1980s. Now they all head up large research universities—and remain close friends.

Susan H. Greenberg

When Reggie DesRoches assumes the presidency of Rice University on July 1, he will become the fifth Black leader of a top research institution. He will also be the third Black president in the 65-member Association of American Universities who attended the UC Berkeley College of Engineering, along with Gary May, now the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, and Darryll Pines, president of the University of Maryland, College Park. The three men pursued different disciplines at Berkeley and overlapped for only a short time in the mid-1980s. But they credit the institution with supplying the training and support network that launched their remarkably similar trajectories. “For all of us, [Berkeley Engineering] provided a foundation of excellence and knowledge that we’ve been able to take forward in our careers,” Pines said. Each man rose to the top of his field: May in electrical and computer engineering, Pines in mechanical engineering, and DesRoches in civil engineering. All three served as engineering school deans—Pines and DesRoches at the institutions they now lead, and May at Georgia Tech.

WALB

VSU welcomes migrant students for summer learning

By Alicia Lewis

Valdosta State University welcomed 30 high school migrant students on campus for two weeks to allow them to get hands-on experience of what college life will look like for them. The students used several tools and electronic measuring devices to build their own remote operated vehicles, or ROVs, and raced it on water. This program focused on teamwork, leadership, hands-on learning and critical thinking. Those four things students said they feel will be beneficial to them once they enroll in college.

The Red & Black

OPINION: DACA students deserve better

Carson Barrett

June 15 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This administrative policy, established by former President Barack Obama, protects more than 800,000 young people from deportation and extends certain civic privileges to them such as driver’s licenses, Social Security numbers and work permits. However, the program has a turbulent history. In 2017, the Trump administration announced the termination of the policy and told Congress that they had six months to find a permanent legislative remedy. A federal judge blocked this decision temporarily, which was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Shortly after his inauguration, President Biden ordered the attorney general and secretary of homeland security to begin “preserving and fortifying” DACA. Later that year, another federal judge ruled the program unlawful and blocked new applications. This ruling was appealed, which will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit next month. Despite the past and ongoing legal challenges, DACA has been a life-saver for many undocumented immigrants, especially in terms of education.

Georgia Law News

Georgia Dreamers, plagued by college roadblocks, now face a legal threat to DACA status

Atlanta’s Jaime Rangel is traveling to New Orleans next week, where an appeals court will decide the fate of an Obama-era program that allows 600,000 young undocumented immigrants to live and work in the United States. For Rangel, the Georgia director of immigration affairs at the immigration policy group FWD.us, it’s a business trip, but for him the case is personal. “I was brought to this country when I was about five months old,” Rangel told the Atlanta Civic Circle. “The first steps I took as a toddler were on American soil.” The 31-year-old is one of 20,000 young immigrants in Georgia enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.

discrimination in education

Back in Georgia, Rangel and other Dreamers already face hurdles that US citizens and green card holders don’t have to worry about, especially when it comes to getting a college degree. Although they are graduates of Georgia high schools and pay state and federal taxes from work, a law in Georgia prohibits Dreamers from attending three of the state’s top public universities: the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College and State University. For the other schools in the state university system, these Georgia residents must pay out-of-state tuition. “It created a lot of financial responsibility,” Karla Rivas, who came to Georgia with her family from Mexico as a toddler, told Atlanta Civic Circle. Rivas dreams of becoming a primary school teacher. …University: Sophomore at Dalton State College, majoring in Education.

accessWDUN

New Georgia laws aim at schools; some laws already in effect

By Associated Press

It’s a strange July 1 for new Georgia laws. Friday, the first day of the month, is when most new laws passed by the General Assembly customarily take effect. But this year, many of the most important measures either became law as soon as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed them, while a few of the General Assembly’s most consequential accomplishments won’t take effect until January or even later. But there are some notable changes that begin Friday, including a raft of conservative-inspired school legislation, higher lawmaker pensions and an increase in lawmaker pensions. …Here’s a look at some key laws that take effect Friday: CRITICAL RACE THEORY: House Bill 1084 bans the teaching of certain racial concepts that Republicans say are divisive. Opponents say the measure would frighten teachers away from an honest classroom discussion of race in history and the present. …FREE SPEECH: House Bill 1 bars public universities and technical colleges from setting areas of campus as free speech zones, instead allowing speech in all generally accessible areas. Administrators could still regulate the time, place and manner of speech.

NBC News

America’s middle class is deteriorating. The death of Roe will make it worse.

The Supreme Court’s reproductive rights decision is poised to deliver a blow that many in a squeezed middle class cannot sustain.

By Lynn Stuart Parramore, cultural historian

On Friday, America was forced to face a harsh reality: The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights was gone. In the aftermath, we will hear more about how this ruling will negatively impact Americans. One big example is the disproportionate effect increased restrictions will have on poor women. This is absolutely true. But middle-class women will also suffer economically, and some could even slide into poverty. The loss of reproductive rights is poised to deliver a crashing blow that many in America’s already-precarious middle class cannot sustain. …Some assert that women with resources or those with “privilege” will be fine — they will just have to fork over more money for out-of-state abortions or pay illegal providers in the state where they live. …The price of short-notice flights and accommodations alone is beyond the reach of many middle-income women. The Detroit Free Press’ Nancy Kaffer offered this reality check: “I’m a middle-class, college-educated woman who has held professional jobs since 1998, and I’m not ashamed to admit that for all of my 20s, most of my 30s, and some of my 40s, coming up with a thousand dollars on short notice would have been challenging, if not impossible.” Some women will have to wait to come up with necessary funds — and could end up waiting too long. Mayra Pineda-Torres, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Economics, warned in an email that even for middle-class women, “arrangements can be so costly or impossible to make that some may end up not accessing abortion services.”

The Augusta Chronicle

Political science professor: What happens now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned?

Hank Edmondson Guest Columnists

Hank Edmondson is a Professor of Political Science & Public Administration at Georgia College.

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, released on Friday, June 24 does not mean there is no right to abortion. It means there is no constitutional right to abortion. Those who wish can still argue that there is a moral or political right to abortion. Indeed, many states are, in essence, creating a statutory right to abortion, that is, enacting it into state law.

The road to Roe and Dobbs

Newsweek

Robots Become Racist and Sexist Bigots Due to Flawed AI, Study Says

By Joseph Golder, Zenger News

Robots become sexist and racist bigots because of flawed AI. This is according to an international study conducted by a number of universities, including Johns Hopkins University, which said in a statement obtained by Zenger News on Tuesday: “A robot operating with a popular Internet-based artificial intelligence system consistently gravitates to men over women, white people over people of color, and jumps to conclusions about peoples’ jobs after a glance at their face.” The research, conducted by experts at Johns Hopkins University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Washington, and the Technical University of Munich in Germany, is “believed to be the first to show that robots loaded with an accepted and widely-used model operate with significant gender and racial biases.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia Tech hotel hosting conference by election deniers

By Chris Joyner

A meeting of activists spreading debunked theories about the 2020 presidential election, vaccine misinformation, and conspiracy theories about supposed global “shadow government” will take place this holiday weekend in an unexpected place — the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. The Nations in Action “Solutions and Strategy Summit” is scheduled to be held in the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, a midtown hotel run by the Georgia Tech Foundation, the university’s non-profit fundraising arm. Nations in Action, an organization founded by former Georgia lobbyist and Republican activist Maria Zack, bills the conference as an opportunity “to learn strategies and tactics to win America back.” …Mia Bloom, a Georgia State University professor and expert on extremist groups, said the descriptions of the panels for the conference mirror language commonly found on QAnon channels on Telegram. She said the fact that it is being held on Georgia Tech’s campus is troubling.

Higher Education News:

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Millions of Students Experience Food Insecurity. But Campus Food Pantries Can Make a Difference.

By Brianna Hatch

In a push to support students’ basic needs, the University of California system has added a food pantry to each of its 10 campuses — and students who use them regularly are improving their well-being, according to a new study. Researchers surveyed nearly 2,000 students across the UC system before and after their visits to campus food pantries in 2019. Students who frequently visited the pantries self-reported a reduced number of depressive symptoms, better overall perceived physical health, and increased amounts of sufficient sleep. Those frequent users also reported a greater improvement in their health in comparison to peers who used the pantries less. The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice Elected SREB Chair

Arrman Kyaw

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has been elected chair of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). “I am incredibly proud to take on the role of chair of the Southern Regional Education Board,” said Justice. “Since my first day as Governor of West Virginia, I’ve always said that we need to make education the centerpiece of everything we do, because our children are our future.”

NBC News

There’s a new way to help college students transfer: Admit them to two schools at once

Dual and guaranteed admissions are taking root as strategies to boost falling transfer rates for community college students.

By Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report

This story about college transfer students was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

Amoni Hall will move this summer from one higher education institution to another, a process that can be disruptive, complex, frustrating and fruitless when credits don’t transfer and other unanticipated obstacles crop up. But Hall, 20, will barely even notice the change. She’s among a small number of students at community colleges who have been guaranteed seats at partner four-year universities, with the idea that they’ll go on to earn the bachelor’s degrees to which the vast majority of students like Hall say they aspire. Guaranteed and dual admissions — under which students are accepted to both two- and four-year programs at the same time — are designed to smooth their paths.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Doctoral Training Is Ossified. Can We Reinvent It?

Lessons from the short-lived Next Generation Humanities Ph.D. program.

By Zeb Larson

In 2016, Todd Butler, an English professor at Washington State University’s main campus, joined a committee charged with exploring changes in graduate education. At first, the group’s planning sessions felt typical: the slow consensus-building, the circling conversations. But then something shifted. “Two months into our planning process, the dean of the grad school said to all of us who were assembled there, ‘Are we just going to talk about doing something, or are we going to do it?’” Butler perked up: “I was not interested in writing another internal white paper that would get read, be appreciated, and stall out somewhere.” He saw the work as vitally important — an opportunity not just to improve graduate education, but to articulate the importance of the humanities to a rural, land-grant university like Washington State. Butler and his colleagues had received a grant from National Endowment for the Humanities under a new grant program called the Next Generation Humanities Ph.D. Begun in 2015, its mandate was broad, offering funds for graduate institutions to rethink doctoral education in the humanities. The goal was to focus on what the NEH delicately called “disparities between graduate-student expectations for a career in academe and eventual career outcomes,” and to further the role of the humanities in public life.

Inside Higher Ed

Pandemic Boost for Digital Course Materials

Instructors’ awareness and use of open educational resources and their recognition of the efficacy of digital texts rose sharply this year, an annual survey finds.

Doug Lederman

Many experts have been predicting for years that digital course materials would take off, replacing print textbooks and curricular supplements as the preferred choice of instructors, students and institutions alike. But despite growing concerns about the high price of print textbooks, major investments by states and foundations in open educational resources (OER), and a big push by commercial publishers for “inclusive access” programs that make digital course materials available to all students more affordably, faculty embrace of digital materials has risen slowly. Until now, it seems. The COVID-19 pandemic created a breakthrough for digital materials generally and open educational resources in particular, the latest iteration of an annual report on faculty use of curricular materials suggests.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

2020 Increases in Student Persistence Mask Pandemic Inequities

Jon Edelman

Three quarters of college students who began their studies during fall 2020—with the pandemic in full swing—remained enrolled at a U.S. institution one year later, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC). This represents a 1.1% increase over the previous cohort, whose spring semester was disrupted by the advent of COVID-19, but falls short of the pre-pandemic level of 75.9% persistence. The report, which is based on data from roughly 97% of American Title IV degree-granting institutions, found that the persistence increase was driven by a rebound in the rate of students transferring to new schools, after a sharp drop in the 2019 cohort. Persistence rates for all major racial and ethnic minority groups except for Native Americans improved after declines in the previous year. However, experts cautioned that the increases obscured a more troubling picture.

Higher Ed Dive

New Louisiana law strengthens due process protections in college disciplinary procedures

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Senior Reporter

Dive Brief:

Louisiana public colleges must allow an attorney or other adviser to represent students during disciplinary proceedings for the most serious nonacademic infractions, under a new state law enacted this month.  The law infuses due process protections into public institutions’ adjudication procedures for offenses for which a student or student-run group could be suspended for 10 days or more. These safeguards include an express presumption that a student is innocent. The law also gives students access to administrative files that contain all of the evidence collected in their cases.

Inside Higher Ed

Stop WOKE Act Survives Initial Legal Challenge

Josh Moody

Florida’s Stop WOKE Act—which aims to bar the teaching of “divisive concepts”—survived a legal challenge Monday that sought to prevent the controversial law from going into effect tomorrow. The measure, passed earlier this year, aims to crack down on subjects such as critical race theory, a once-obscure academic concept that is not taught in public K-12 schools yet now looms large as a conservative bogeyman. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has claimed the law protects residents from “discrimination and woke indoctrination.” …A nonprofit organization known as Protect Democracy filed another lawsuit against the legislation earlier this month, according to The Hill. That lawsuit argues that the Stop WOKE Act violates both the First and 14th Amendment rights of Floridians.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Education Officials in Multiple States Partner with IHEP to Work on Improving Student Outcomes

Arrman Kyaw

Education officials from state agencies in Arkansas, Indiana, and Kentucky have come together with the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), The Coleridge Initiative, and Insight Policy Research to form a group focused on improving student outcomes through the use of postsecondary data, the Postsecondary Value Data Collaborative (VDC). The group aims to better understand postsecondary and workforce outcomes and inform better policymaking in each state.

Inside Higher Ed

U of Arizona Covers Tuition for Native Americans

Sara Weissman

Native American students in Arizona will no longer have to pay tuition and fees at the University of Arizona’s Tucson campus starting this fall, according to a news release from the university Monday. Full-time students living in Arizona who belong to any of the 22 federally recognized tribes in the state will be eligible to receive grants after they complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The Arizona Native Scholars Grant will cover the remaining costs of in-state tuition and any mandatory fees. More than 400 students enrolled at the University of Arizona last year would qualify for the program.

Inside Higher Ed

University of Cincinnati Removes Founder’s Name From Campus

Josh Moody

In a unanimous vote by its Board of Trustees, the University of Cincinnati decided Tuesday to remove the name of founder Charles McMicken from campus, citing his status as a slave owner. University of Cincinnati president Neville Pinto formally made the recommendation Tuesday, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The move had been under consideration since 2019. McMicken, who also fathered two children by enslaved women, donated money and land in the late 1800s to establish the University of Cincinnati for “the education of white Boys and Girls.” Multiple buildings and gathering spaces will be renamed following the board’s decision.

Inside Higher Ed

State to Investigate Sexual Harassment in Cal State System

Scott Jaschik

California’s state auditor will investigate how the California State University system and three of its campuses handled sexual harassment complaints, the Los Angeles Times reported. The investigation follows scandals in which senior officials are alleged to have ignored or done too little about harassment. Member of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee cited Los Angeles Times investigations that uncovered inconsistencies in how sexual harassment is handled in the 23-campus system and detailed millions of dollars in payments to system leaders, some of whom resigned amid sexual harassment controversies.

Forbes

Biden Has Canceled $400 Billion Of Student Loans, But Lawmaker Says No More Student Loan Forgiveness

Zack Friedman Senior Contributor

President Joe Biden has canceled $400 billion of student loans, according to a top Republican in Congress. Here’s what you need to know — and what it means for your student loans.

Student Loans

Will Biden enact wide-scale student loan cancellation?

Inside Higher Ed

What Biden’s Title IX Rules Mean for Due Process

Critics of newly proposed Title IX regulations fear that the Biden administration is stripping away due process; others believe the Department of Education is striking an appropriate balance.

Josh Moody