Athens CEO

University of Georgia Announces Fulbright Awards for 2022-2023

By Robert Derrik

The University of Georgia Office of Global Engagement has announced that James Martin, Magdalena Zurawski, Fausto Sarmiento and Walker DePuy have received Fulbright Scholar Program awards for the 2022-2023 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Martin, Zurawski, Sarmiento and DePuy are among more than 800 U.S. citizens who will conduct research and/or teach abroad for the 2022-2023 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Additionally, more than 1,900 diverse U.S. students, artists and early career professionals in more than 100 different fields of study receive Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants annually to study, teach English and conduct research overseas.

Columbus CEO

CSU Again Saluted as a ‘Military-friendly’ School

For the third year in a row, Columbus State University has been recognized as a “Military Friendly School” by “G.I. Magazine,” The university’s most recent honors include the designation as a “Military Friendly School for Spouses” and as a “G.I. Magazine’s” Bronze institution. The Military FriendlyⓇ Schools list is a significant resource for veterans and active-duty members as they consider higher education studies. The list serves as a guide as to which schools will provide them with the best benefits, opportunities and support in achieving their educational goals. “G.I. Magazine” evaluates more than 1,800 institutions through a public survey, with only 665 schools receiving some level of Military FriendlyⓇ designation.

 

Gainesville Times

Hall County Schools, UGA reach enrollment agreement in agriculture

By Ben Anderson

Hall County high school seniors wanting to kick start their careers in agriculture now have another dual-enrollment option: The University of Georgia. On Monday, Hall County Schools signed a “history making” agreement with UGA, creating a new dual-enrollment program called the Ivester Rising Scholars Program. The Howard E. Ivester Early College, a dual-enrollment campus in Hall County with about 450 students, will partner with UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The story also appeared in Access WDUN.

 

Grice Connect

Georgia Southern adds new online-only Professional Communication and Leadership master’s program

In a constantly changing world with new mediums for communication, it’s critical for professionals to be adaptive to the latest communication strategies. Georgia Southern University is continuing to lead the country in this digital transformation by expanding its Master of Arts (M.A.) program in Professional Communication and Leadership to online platforms. The Master of Professional Communication and Leadership is designed to further professional development. It accomplishes this through coursework in written and verbal communications skills, critical thinking, and leadership.

Grice Connect

Coffee and Collaboration: How BIG Cafe is helping local entrepreneurs connect

By Erin Chambers

Business owners in southeast Georgia have a unique advantage when it comes to networking. That advantage is attending events held by Georgia Southern University’s Business Innovation Group (BIG), located in downtown Statesboro. One of the group’s most successful events is the Georgia Southern BIG Cafe. Since 2015, BIG has been helping local entrepreneurs by hosting monthly business innovation sessions that create a space for advisors, peers, and mentors.

Gwinnett Daily Post

Georgia Gwinnett College’s Emanuele Sordi earns Continental Athletic Conference honor

Scoring the game-winning goal in both matches has earned Georgia Gwinnett College men’s soccer junior Emanuele Sordi recognition as the Continental Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week award. It is the conference’s first weekly honor for the 2022 season. Sordi made quite the first impression to his GGC career by scoring three goals, including game-winning tallies in both matches to start the fall season. The forward tallied a pair of first-half goals in last Wednesday’s match at Reinhardt University.

Marietta Daily Journal

Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College offers season tickets for arts, cultural events

From Carole King melodies to classics from the Beatles in a bluegrass band format, the new season of dazzling arts and culture events at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College is about to jet out of the starting blocks. The ABAC Presents series includes five events beginning with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 25, followed by the Atlanta Chamber Players on Oct. 10, the California Guitar Trio on Feb. 26, the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Bluegrass Band on March 14, and trumpeter Scotty Barnhart performing with the ABAC Jazz Ensemble on April 20. The ABAC at the Tift series features “Tapestry, The Carole King Songbook” on Sept. 15, and “The Highwaymen Show” on Jan. 26.

National Cybersecurity News

VSU Professor Discovers Creative Classroom Strategies Through Teaching Fellowship

By Jessica Pope

Dr. Colette Drouillard returns to the helm of her virtual classroom this fall with a few new creative strategies for transforming her courses into authentic, intellectually engaging, and meaningful learning experiences. The Department of Library and Information Studies associate professor says her renewed enthusiasm for training and developing librarians for professional work in academic, public, and special libraries across the nation is due, in large part, to her recent participation in the annual Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program. Offered through the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia, the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program provides higher education faculty members from accredited public and private colleges and universities across Georgia with expanded opportunities for developing important teaching skills. It was established in 1995 by former Georgia Governor Zell Miller.

 

Savannah Business Journal

Abbie DeLoach Foundation Sponsors True Blue 5K and Abbie’s Adventure Race on Sept. 24

The Abbie DeLoach Foundation (ADF) will continue their support of the annual True Blue 5K/Abbie’s Adventure Race events in 2022, held in partnership with Georgia Southern University (GSU) Campus Recreation and Intramurals. The events will be held during the school’s homecoming weekend on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, starting at the Recreation Activity Center (RAC), 2687 Akins Blvd. in Statesboro, which lead up to the day’s spirited GSU football game against Ball State University. “Let the races begin,” said Jimmy DeLoach Jr., Abbie’s dad and ADF president and founder, who will kick off the races. “This is a great way for current students, alumni, parents and supporters of Georgia Southern to spend quality, healthy time together while also honoring my late daughter Abbie, who was full of school spirit, was competitive and enjoyed doing good works.”

Savannah CEO

Georgia Southern Receives STARS Bronze Rating for Sustainability Achievements

Sustainability Programs at Georgia Southern University, known as Sustain Southern, spearheaded the initiative to report accomplishments for the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement showcasing the many initiatives for students to get involved in sustainability on campus. “Sustain Southern has many goals such as increasing the awareness of sustainability issues and providing incentives for faculty, staff and students to incorporate sustainability in research, teaching and service,” said Jodi Kennedy, director, Office of Leadership and Community Engagement. “The STARS rating confirms our best practices in sustainability.”

 

South East AgNet

GCC, GPC Invite Farmers to Annual Field Day

By Clint Thompson

The Georgia Cotton Commission (GCC) and Georgia Peanut Commission (GPC) invite producers to the Cotton and Peanut Research Field Day, scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 7, in Tifton, Georgia. University of Georgia (UGA) cotton and peanut team members, who specialize in agronomy, entomology, plant pathology, fertility and breeding will provide growers timely information pertinent to two of the top row crops in Georgia.

 

The Peoples Gazette

UDMA, University of West Georgia sign MoU on research

The Federal University Dutsinma (FUDMA) in Katsina has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of West Georgia in the United States on teaching, learning and research. According to FUDMA spokesperson Habib Umar-Amin, in the university’s bulletin issued to journalists on Monday, the MoU, which is for initial five years, was aimed at boosting teaching, learning and research.

 

Times Georgian

75 local students named to UWG President’s List

A total of 75 students from the the local area were named to the 2022 Summer President’s List at the University of West Georgia. The President’s List is an elite class of UWG Wolves who achieve a 4.0 grade point average for the semester.

Valdosta Today

VSU associate professor considered a top expert on third parties in U.S. politics

Valdosta State University’s associate professor of political science, Dr. Bernard Tamas, is considered a top expert on third parties in U.S. politics. Valdosta State University’s Dr. Bernard Tamas has researched third parties in United States politics for well over a decade. His 2018 book, The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties, established him as a highly sought-after expert on the topic. Tamas was recently featured in The Conversation’s “A New Third Party for U.S. Politics: Three Essential Reads on What That Means,” on C-Span’s Washington Journal with Bill Scanlan, on CNN’s Full Stop with Mark Preston, where the other guest was former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, and in The Guardian’s “Forward! Is America’s Latest Third Party Marching to Power — or Oblivion?”

 

Wired Focus

Twelve startups selected in first batch of Savannah Logistics Innovation Center and Plugand Play’s Accelerator Program | Newsroom – Georgia Southern University Newsroom

The Savannah Logistics Innovation Center (SLIC), a public-private partnership co-led by Georgia Southern University, and Plug and Play, a Silicon-Valley based venture capital firm and corporate innovation platform that recently located an office in Savannah, have chosen the first cohort of startup companies for their accelerator program. Startup accelerators programs support early- to-late-stage, growth-driven companies through education, mentorship and financing. This program is offered through the SLIC, a public-private partnership led by Georgia Southern University and the Savannah Economic Development Authority designed to establish Savannah as an innovation leader in the supply chain and logistics technology industries; create a supply chain and logistics accelerator program in the Savannah region to support and cater to the needs and demands of the local and regional logistics community; and drive business and growth opportunities for the local corporate ecosystem in supply chain and logistics startups. Additional partners include Georgia Ports Authority, Savannah State University, Georgia Power, Savannah Technical College, The Foram Group and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

 

WGAU

Athens artist creates benches to honor Holmes and Hunter

By Heather Skyler

Renowned artist and Athens native Harold Rittenberry Jr. was there the day Charlayne Hunter (now Hunter-Gault) and Hamilton Holmes arrived at the University of Georgia. He had just left his girlfriend’s house on the east side of Athens and was walking through downtown when he saw two vehicles pull up in front of the Arch with an unruly crowd pressing in on the cars. “I came home and turned the TV on and found out what I’d just seen: They had just integrated the University of Georgia,” Rittenberry said. UGA President Jere W. Morehead commissioned Rittenberry to create two benches in honor of Hunter-Gault and Holmes to be included in a restored courtyard that pays tribute to the UGA icons outside of the historic Holmes-Hunter Academic Building after it has been fully renovated.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Opinion: Feds pushed student loans; they should forgive all of them

By Maureen Downey

Joe Spearing and Kali Thompson are doctoral students at the University of Georgia. Spearing is an economist, and Thompson researches education. In a guest column, the two applaud the student debt forgiveness plan announced last week by the Biden administration. But they urge the federal government to cancel all student debt in light of how the nation’s leaders pushed young Americans to attend college and assured them the loans were a good investment.

Albany Herald

Georgia Museum of Agriculture plans murder mystery

Participants can test their skills of deduction throughout the Murder Mystery at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture this fall. The murder mystery event will be held Oct. 1 with four sessions available from 4:30 to 9 p.m. Tickets for the murder mystery are now available at https://abacgma.eventbrite.com . Tickets are $25 per person and must be purchased in advance. Tickets will not be sold at the event. Only 80 tickets are available for the four sessions of the event. The first group will begin at 4:30 p.m., with additional one-hour sessions starting at 5:30 p.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. The murder mystery is designed for a maximum of 20 people per session. The event is recommended for ages 13 and over. All minors must be accompanied by an adult.

 

Higher Education News:

Axios

Tuition inflation isn’t as bad as you think

By Felix Salmon

Note: Net cost of attendance is published cost of attendance minus grant aid. Data: College Board; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals.

Here’s something you might think you know: The cost of going to college has been rising a lot faster than inflation for many years. In fact, college costs haven’t been rising in real terms. For private four-year colleges, they’ve actually been falling.

Why it matters: President Biden’s decision to forgive billions of dollars in student debt has inevitably raised the specter of college cost inflation. Now that this precedent has been set, there has been a worry (or concern trolling) that colleges will feel free to hike their tuition costs, on the grounds that anybody taking out loans to pay that tuition will ultimately get a significant chunk of their debt forgiven anyway.

 

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Making History

By Lois Elfman

Precedents in military research will be set within the next few months. The U.S. Air Force will establish its first University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), and for the first time a UARC will be located at an historically Black institution. “The Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act required the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish a plan to elevate a consortium of Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCUs/MSIs), assess their ability to participate and compete in engineering, research, and development activities, and report the plan to Congress,” says Laura M. McAndrews, media operations, Department of the Air Force Public Affairs. “The goal is to grow and diversify the available pool of scientists and engineers to support more comprehensive solutions to the department’s most challenging problems.”

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Oregon State University Creates Instructional Toolkit for Common Application

By Arrman Kyaw

Oregon State University has created a free online resource to help students with college applications. The resource launches on Sept. 1. AXS Companion – developed with the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) – includes instructional videos for the Common Application, a college application platform used by more than 1,000 colleges and universities in 50 states and 20 countries.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

New Jersey Institute of Technology Given $1.1 Million to Help Low-Income and First-Gen Students With College

By Arrman Kyaw

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been given three Upward Bound grants by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) – a total of $1,168,939 – to help high school students, particularly those who are first-generation or are from low-income families, reach higher ed. Upward Bound — one of seven federal TRIO programs — funds higher ed pathways for students from low-income families and first-gen students. The $1.1 million will support the TRIO Upward Bound Program at NJIT’s Center for Pre-College Programs (CPCP), funding intensive college prep training for nearly 250 more Newark high school students over five years, starting September 2022.

Hechinger Report

One state offers lessons in how to cope with the college enrollment crisis

By Jon Marcus

Maine has been dealing for a decade with the student decline now happening everywhere. Chris Richards took in the scene around him and breathed a sigh of relief. It was the first day of freshman orientation at the University of Maine, and students were arriving in droves. For Richards, who as vice president of enrollment management is in charge of recruiting each new class, “this is kind of a celebration of the hard work we do.” It’s been much harder work here than in many other places. With the highest median age of any state, Maine has seen an estimated 10 percent decline over the last 10 years in its number of new high school graduates — precisely the people Richards needs.

Higher Ed Dive

3 ways to visualize which income groups likely benefit from Biden’s debt forgiveness package

By Rick Seltzer

Estimates show most loan forgiveness will go to those making between $50,796 and $82,400 per year. It’s easy to get lost in the rhetoric as Democrats and Republicans try to use President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness program to score political points against each other. One of the biggest arguments over the plan, which Biden announced last week, is whether it’s a handout to high earners who don’t need it or relief for low-income families that would otherwise be unable to repay their student debt. That’s a conversation that cuts to the heart of a key concern for higher ed leaders: college’s value proposition for different groups of students.

Higher Ed Dive

Biden signs bill clarifying VA 85-15 rule

By Natalie Schwartz

Dive Brief:

President Joe Biden signed a bill into law Friday that clarifies an exception to the 85-15 rule, a statute meant to prevent veterans from enrolling in low-quality college programs. The 85-15 rule bars students from using education funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, such as GI Bill benefits, to pay for academic programs where more than 85% of students receive VA aid. Colleges that enroll low shares of veterans can receive exemptions from the rule, but recent VA regulatory changes created headaches for institutions that qualify for the exemptions. The new law aims to streamline that process.

Higher Ed Dive

Florida senator, a DeSantis ally, has clear path to become next leader of the state’s university system

By Laura Spitalniak

Dive Brief:

Florida state Sen. Ray Rodrigues is set to become the State University System of Florida’s next chancellor after a search committee unanimously recommended him for the position Friday. Rodrigues, a Republican, is known as an ally of the state’s governor of the same political party, Ron DeSantis, and has sponsored several pieces of legislation that roiled higher education in Florida. They include a bill signed in 2021 that requires Florida public colleges to distribute a questionnaire aimed at gauging “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on campus. He also sponsored a measure signed into law this year to allow the university system’s board of governors to create a new post-tenure review system and to require public institutions to change accreditors every accreditation cycle. The full university system governing board is expected to vote on hiring Rodrigues at its next meeting scheduled for Sept. 14.

Inside Higher Ed

Fla. Students Largely Ignore ‘Intellectual Freedom’ Survey

By Liam Knox

A controversial “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” survey issued to students and employees at Florida public universities elicited a remarkably low number of responses given its reach. Just over 2 percent of the 368,000 students who received the survey—or about 8,000 students—submitted a response. The response rate among employees was slightly higher: just over 9,000 out of 73,000, or about 12 percent. The survey was sent out in April after a judge refused to grant an emergency injunction against it. United Faculty of Florida, the state’s faculty union, encouraged students and professors to ignore the survey; the numbers suggest UFF’s campaign was successful.

Inside Higher Ed

Study: College Reopenings Increased Community COVID-19 Cases

By Josh Moody

A new peer-reviewed study published Monday found that when colleges that went online during the coronavirus pandemic reopened in the fall of 2020, COVID-19 case counts increased in the surrounding community as students returned to campus. The paper, titled “College openings in the United States increase mobility and COVID-19 incidence,” analyzed data from a college reopenings database from the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College, coronavirus case count data from the CDC and USA Facts, and cellular GPS data from SafeGraph to gauge the number of people on campus.

Inside Higher Ed

Hand Signals Improve Zoom Meetings

By Susan D’Agostino

Students who use a set of gestures in video gatherings feel closer to their classmates and believe they learn more than students who don’t, a new study suggests. Using emojis doesn’t deliver the same benefits. Classes and other meetings sometimes have problems in execution. An instructor or leader may arrive unprepared. Students or attendees may check phones or talk among themselves. Discussions that are intended to flow freely sometimes have lulls. Even those who engage may dominate or remain silent. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and meetings migrated to Zoom, everything got worse.

Inside Higher Ed

New Bill Targets Endowments

By Meghan Brink

Federal legislation would require public and private colleges with endowments over $1 billion to cover between 25 and 75 percent of all students’ cost of attendance. Higher ed experts say colleges won’t be able to do that, given strict rules around endowment spending. The latest bill targeting wealthy colleges and universities would require those with endowments over $1 billion—around 136 public and private colleges nationwide—to cover a certain percentage of all students’ cost of attendance. The Changing Our Learning, Loans, Endowments, and Graduation Expectations (COLLEGE) Act was introduced in the Senate at the beginning of August by Republican senator Rick Scott from Florida.

Inside Higher Ed

Black Menaces Want to Educate You

By Sara Weissman

A group of Black students started a popular TikTok account where they ask their peers questions about race and identity. Now they’re encouraging others to do the same at campuses across the country. A group of five Black students at Brigham Young University, who call themselves the Black Menaces, started a TikTok account earlier this year where they post videos of themselves posing questions to their mostly white classmates about race and identity. Questions range from what Juneteenth commemorates to whether students have queer friends on campus and whether institutional racism exists. The answers range from thoughtful to painfully awkward.

Inside Higher Ed

The Case for Gender-Diverse Research Teams

By Colleen Flaherty

Study finds that male-female research teams produce more innovative, impactful research than all-male or all-female teams, and the more gender-balanced the diverse teams are, the better. Mixed-gender research teams remain significantly underrepresented in science. At the same time, male-female teams are more likely to produce novel and highly cited research than are same-gender teams. Both findings are from a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper focuses on academic medicine, as its authors started writing it during COVID-19 and academic medicine is a funding behemoth. But when the authors ran similar analyses for medical subfields and other science fields, their results held.

 

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Florida Lawmakers Enacted an Intellectual-Diversity Survey. Students Weren’t Interested.

By Marcela Rodrigues-Sherley

Last year Florida enacted a law requiring an annual survey of public-university students and employees to assess the climate of intellectual diversity on their campuses. Some faculty members criticized the effort from the start, calling it an attempt by the state’s Republican legislators and governor, Ron DeSantis, to gin up support for the claim that conservative students feel unwelcome in college classrooms. The results of the first survey are in, and one thing is clear: Students weren’t very interested in filling it out. Only 2.4 percent of the more than 364,000 students who were sent the survey completed it, a response rate so small it casts doubt on the findings themselves. The response rate for employees was slightly better: 9.4 percent of the over 98,000 employees who received the survey participated, most of them staff members, not instructors.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Elusive Civil Classroom

By Sam Kalda

Two-dozen professors put their heads together on productive classroom discussions. They landed in different places. When Agnes Bolinska was an undergraduate, she didn’t talk much in class.  “I was scared of being judged, and I was scared of saying the wrong thing,” said Bolinska, who is now an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. “I would have learned more if I wasn’t like that.” She later found that speaking, in and of itself, is a powerful way to explore and sharpen nascent ideas. Now Bolinska teaches controversial topics, like abortion in the context of medical ethics. It’s already a struggle to get every student — not just the outspoken ones — to talk in class, let alone about polarizing issues like abortion. She sometimes suspects that even the students who are willing to share are tempering their real opinions, hedging their bets so they don’t take a potentially taboo stance.

The Hill

What colleges are up against if the Supreme Court bans affirmative action

By Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman

In the coming year, the Supreme Court appears poised to ban or sharply limit affirmative action in college admissions, reversing 40 years of precedent and overturning admission practices at hundreds of colleges and universities. Affirmative action has been the subject of heated controversy for decades. In a series of decisions dating back to 1978, the Supreme Court concluded that the educational benefits of diversity constitute a compelling governmental interest justifying some consideration of race in college admissions. Decades of social science research and “the overwhelming consensus of American universities” support that conclusion. Affirmative action is also justified, we would add, because, as Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi have observed, discrimination against groups, like radioactive waste, “has a long, diffuse, and toxic half-life.”