Ledger-Enquirer
These are the folks who will help select the next Columbus State University president
By Mark Rice
A University System of Georgia Board of Regents policy allows the board to hire a president for one of its institutions without conducting a national search and without local input in the selection process. That’s why Columbus State University biology professor Brian Schwartz, president of the American Association of University Professors CSU chapter, praised the board’s announcement that it’ll select the next CSU president through a national search with local input on the search committee. “I’m pleased that the chancellor has formed the search committee,” Schwartz told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Wednesday. “It looks like all constituencies are well represented, including the faculty. I continue to advocate for an open search in which the finalists meet with members of the university and local communities and stakeholders are able to provide feedback to the committee.”
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Columbus CEO
Columbus State University Presidential Search Committee Named
The Red & Black
New majors & minors: 3 recently added programs at UGA
Maddie Brechtel
The University of Georgia added a slew of new majors, minors and certificates in the last year that stretch from STEM to law. The new programs offer an expansion on several departments and new opportunities for students to explore different topics more in depth.
Regenerative bioscience major
School of Computing
Minor in law, jurisprudence and the state
WGAU Radio
UGA, Clarke Co School District partner to build leadership, problem solving skills
“We will offer students preparation along the way to discover their passion and purpose”
By Charlie Bauder, UGA Media Relations
A University of Georgia summer program is equipping Clarke County high school students to lead and look for innovative solutions to challenges they encounter. During InnovateU, around 20 Athens-Clarke County high school students were grouped into teams to develop new solutions for helping high school students transition to adulthood. One team, the Kollaborating Kangaroos, developed the P3 Program, an idea for a three-year program where students participate in different classes and activities to find their passion. They are then matched with potential careers based on their passion and engage in virtual reality example of the careers. This gives the students firsthand exposure to careers before deciding on and announcing their chosen path. “So with this program, we will offer students preparation along the way to discover their passion and purpose,” said Gillian Williams, a rising ninth grader at Clarke Central High School.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Leadership Gwinnett announces Class of 2023
From staff reports
Leadership Gwinnett recently announced the 48 leaders who will make up the Class of 2023 — the 37th class of the organization’s signature program for established community movers and shakers. Since 1985, Leadership Gwinnett has ensured that the community’s most influential and esteemed leaders are knowledgeable about issues, well-networked, and passionate about the success of the county and the region. These individuals will spend nine months immersed in an active learning experience, diving into the community’s history, assets and challenges, emerging ready to create positive change alongside a network of influencers and decision-makers.
…The Class of 2023 includes:
Greg Armstrong, Assistant Director of EMBA & PMBA Academic Affairs, University of Georgia/Terry College of Business Executive & Professional MBA Programs
Darcie Johnson, Director of Development, Georgia Gwinnett College
Georgia Trend
Georgia is quickly becoming the hub for a completely new automotive industry.
By Patty Rasmussen
A remarkable and deliberate shift occurred in Georgia’s automotive industry over the past five years and accelerated in the last 24 months. Seemingly almost out of nowhere, an entire electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem began to flourish. Since 2020, the state has announced more than 20 EV-related projects, from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to suppliers that include lithium-ion battery (LIB) manufacturers and recyclers, green hydrogen producers, providers of EV charging infrastructure solutions, seat manufacturers and engine parts providers. All told, these projects will invest more than $13.54 billion in the state and create close to 18,000 jobs.
…Building Batteries
One of the first big automotive electrification players wasn’t an OEM at all. SK Battery America finalized its $1.67 billion deal to build two EV battery production plants in Jackson County in 2019. The company invested an additional $940 million in 2020 and began production in January 2022. “SK views itself as a foundational member of Georgia’s fast-growing EV ecosystem,” says Timothy Jeong, CEO of SK Battery America. “SK On, the headquarters of SK Battery America, is now one of the top five makers of EV batteries in the world, and SK Battery America, located in Georgia, is playing a critical role in the electrification of America.” He says the state’s location, logistics network and support from technical colleges and universities made Georgia an appealing location. “SK Battery America is in the early stages of a research project with Georgia Tech to advance all-solid-state batteries – a type of battery that could lead to even longer driving ranges in a more compact battery,” Jeong says. “As the EV ecosystem evolves, we look forward to exploring other collaborations where we can combine our expertise across U.S. and Korea teams.”
WSB-TV
Rent and high enrollment rate have Georgia college students scrambling to find housing
By Ashli Lincoln, WSB-TV
As school nears return, metro Atlanta college students are finding it difficult to find housing. “People are scrambling, trying to find roommates, trying to sublease an apartment,” Georgia State University student Jaures Williams said. Thousands of Georgia college students are experiencing apartment anxiety while the clock is ticking to find housing for the upcoming fall semester. … Georgia State University said that demand for on campus housing has increased significantly this year. Currently, it has more than 1,000 students awaiting housing. However, this problem isn’t isolated to GSU. Both Kennesaw State and Georgia Tech say they’re dealing with long waiting lists as well as a problem that’s being seen on campuses across the nation.
WJCL
As people watch their spending, GSU professor explains how close the United States is to a recession
With prices on the rise and people not spending money, professor Michael Toma breaks down the current state of the economy.
Nikiya Carrero, Reporter
High prices and no spending, as economic experts say, with the cost of living at an all-time high, we could be headed into a recession. People are pinching pennies and closing their wallets to small businesses. “U.S. economy will experience a mild recession. It may, in fact, be the case we’re already in the opening stages of that recession right now,” said Michael Toma, a Georgia Southern University economics professor. As the price of gas, groceries and housing continues to climb people, like Sabrina Dobyam, are selective with what they spend their money on. …Georgia Southern University Economics professor Michael Toma says one of the telling factors for recession is negative business cycles, Which he says happened the last two quarters.
U.S. News & World Report
University of North Georgia’s President to Retire in 2023
University of North Georgia President Bonita Jacobs says she plans to retire in June.
By Associated Press
University of North Georgia’s President to Retire in 2023
University of North Georgia President Bonita Jacobs, the school’s first woman to hold the position, said she plans to retire in June. In a news release Monday, Jacobs said she announced her plans to “ensure the Board of Regents has ample time to select UNG’s next president and to provide for a stable transition over this next year as we celebrate North Georgia’s sesquicentennial — our 150th anniversary.”
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Athens Banner-Herald
Lars Tate, among UGA football top all-time rushers, dies. ‘He was a heck of a player’
Marc Weiszer
Lars Tate, who led Georgia in rushing in back-to-back seasons in the mid-1980s and had the third most carries in program history, died late Monday, according to his son Donavan. Tate, 56, helped the Bulldogs make a claim to be RBU, a program with a rich running back tradition. Tate was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer about a month ago, Donavan Tate said. He was to begin chemotherapy this week and passed away in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he lived for the last three years with girlfriend Kelli Edwards. …Tate rushed for 3,017 yards, which is sixth most in program history, leading the Bulldogs with 954 yards in 1986 and 1,016 in 1987 when he rushed for a combined 30 touchdowns those two years.
Blackthen
African-American Bodies Stolen From Graves: The Dark Past Of Old Medical College Of Georgia
Posted By Jae Jones
Grave robbing was carried out in many cases. The Old Medical College of Georgia has a history behind it of stealing the bodies of dead once enslaved black people. The grave robbing was carried out by a 36-year-old Gullah slave who was purchased by the Old Medical College of Georgia for the tasks. Grandison Harris’ (also known as “The Resurrection Man”) assignment was to rob the graves of deceased African Americans at Augusta’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. Although it was against the law to teach slaves to read and write, the faculty and students at the college taught Harris to do both. …Harris died in 1911 from heart failure and ironically enough he sleeps in a grave a Cedar Grove Cemetery.
Higher Education News:
The Wall Street Journal
Colleges Scale Back Covid Precautions for Fall, Saying Pandemic Phase Over
Requirements for masking, testing, vaccinations and isolation decrease even as virus surges
By Isabelle Sarraf and Melissa Korn
Colleges this fall are no longer treating Covid-19 as an emergency upending their operations, shifting to eliminate mask requirements and mandatory coronavirus testing and letting students who contract the virus isolate in their dorms with their roommates. With easy access to vaccinations and low hospitalization rates among college-aged adults—even during the latest surge in BA.5 subvariant cases—administrators said it is time to lift or at least rethink restrictions and redefine the virus as endemic, not a pandemic. That means scaling back mass testing, removing bans on large indoor gatherings and preparing for a fall term that more closely resembles life before Covid.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Researchers Did a Deep Dive Into Efforts to Restrict Critical Race Theory. Here’s What They Found.
By Sylvia Goodman
Since Republican lawmakers began backing bills to limit diversity training or ban the teaching of “divisive” topics, most national news coverage has focused on such efforts in red states. But a new analysis reveals that restrictions like these have popped up in nearly every state, with local governments and school boards taking matters into their own hands when the state doesn’t act against critical race theory. The new CRT Forward Tracking Project follows and analyzes anti-critical-race-theory legislation, regulations, and administrative policies on a national scale. Begun by the University of California at Los Angeles’s law school on Tuesday, the project has analyzed almost 24,000 articles and found nearly 500 instances of attempted limits on the teaching of critical race theory. The project’s director, Taifha N. Alexander, said the most surprising result of her work is that the group has found cases in nearly every state. Alexander said that, while it may seem like these measures are being introduced only in conservative states, that perception reflects state-level activity, ignoring local action. In California, for example, the project has not identified any state-level efforts but has found many anti-CRT measures at the school-board level.
EdSurge
More High School Students Are Taking College Classes. But Not Everyone Gets the Chance.
Can better pathways help schools, colleges and students avoid “random acts of dual enrollment”?
By Rebecca Koenig
Dual-enrollment programs help nearly 1.4 million high school students take college courses each year. It’s an opportunity that offers lots of proven benefits, like enabling more people to graduate from college, saving families money on higher education and helping community colleges attract more students during an era of falling enrollments. It’s even popular across the political spectrum. But as dual enrollment grows across the country, access to the option is not distributed equally, according to a new report produced by nearly two dozen higher ed researchers and experts, with funding from the Joyce Foundation. Called “Research Priorities for Advancing Equitable Dual Enrollment Policy and Practice,” the report highlights the fact that there is less participation in dual-enrollment programs among racial minorities, low-income students, boys, English language learners, students with disabilities and youth who are in foster care or experiencing homelessness. Additionally, access to dual-enrollment programs is less available at schools that serve more low-income students and students of color.
Higher Ed Dive
What to know about Opportunity Insights’ new economic mobility data
Colleges scored poorly on a measure of whether people are likely to form friendships across class lines — a challenge for the higher ed sector.
Laura Spitalniak, Associate Editor
College has long been viewed as a pathway for upward mobility. But an expansive new research project found something else that’s important to climbing the socioeconomic ladder: students forming friends across socioeconomic lines. How likely students are to form those connections across divisions of class and wealth varies greatly from campus to campus, according to the research, which is from Opportunity Insights, a center at Harvard University directed by economics professor Raj Chetty. A college’s standard operating procedures and cultural norms influence the relationships students form.
Higher Ed Dive
Survey: 66% of adults say college doesn’t meet needs of today’s students
By Lilah Burke
Dive Brief:
Adults across party lines are concerned about the high tuition, student debt and time commitments they associate with getting a college education, according to polling results released in July by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization. Two-thirds of respondents said they see colleges as “stuck in the past” and not serving the needs of today’s students. Respondents were only moderately supportive of increasing public funding for higher ed generally. But they strongly supported specific state initiatives to expand college access and affordability, and 89% said all high school graduates should have an equal opportunity to get a college education, regardless of race, ethnicity or income. Findings suggest that institutions may need to change what they’re offering to the public, while policymakers might have success winning public buy-in by being specific about plans and initiatives, said David Schleifer, vice president and director of research at Public Agenda.
Inside Higher Ed
Helping Students and Staff as Inflation Soars
Some higher ed institutions are working to ease financial burdens on students and employees as the cost of food, gas and basic essentials continues to rise.
By Sara Weissman
Kayla Williams, a sophomore at Sam Houston State University, chose paying her tuition over buying groceries last year. The cost of both had gone up, but as a student supporting herself through college, staying enrolled seemed more important. She scrambled to work as many hours as possible as an information desk assistant for the campus student center, but it wasn’t enough to meet all her needs. “It’s either I pay my tuition … or I save the money to buy me something to eat,” she said. “It got bad—to the point where I would just go days without eating.” Williams later discovered the campus food pantry, where she now works. Sam Houston State and other campuses across the country are steeling themselves to support many more students like Williams who are financially burdened by rampant inflation—the highest inflation rate in 40 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics—and the rising costs of food and other day-to-day essentials. As many colleges and universities take belt-tightening measures and raise tuition as their own institutional expenses rise, some are also trying to ease the financial struggles of students, faculty and staff members.
NPR
College is increasingly out of reach for many students. What went wrong?
Terry Gross
Journalist Will Bunch says instead of opening the door to a better life, college leaves many students deep in debt and unable to find well-paying jobs. His new book is After the Ivory Tower Falls.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. How did college go from being the doorway to the American dream to the nightmare of starting adult life deep in debt, unsure of whether your degree will help you get a job that even pays enough to pay off that debt. How do we go from the 1944 GI Bill, which offered World War II veterans – or at least white ones – easy access to college, to now the stress of today of trying to get into the right college? And how did colleges and universities become a target of the right? My guest, Will Bunch, addresses these and other related questions in his new book, “After The Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke The American Dream And Blew Up Our Politics – And How To Fix It.”
Bunch is a national columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, focusing on social injustice, income inequality, politics and government.
Inside Higher Ed
Journal Prestige Still Matters
Global survey of academics finds citation scores remain highly important factors in how scholars judge each other, despite international efforts to reduce their impact.
Jack Grove for Times Higher Education
Research citation scores and the prestige of journals in which academics publish remain highly important factors in how scholars judge each other, despite international efforts to reduce their impact, a Times Higher Education survey of almost 10,000 academics has found. The Times Higher Education logo, with a red T, a purple H and a blue E. Aside from an individual’s personal interactions with another academic, the perceived quality of the journal where a researcher publishes is the most influential factor when forming an opinion on their academic standing, with almost half (49 percent) of 9,609 respondents saying it is important and 12 percent saying it is most important. Asked about citation metrics, 24 percent say a scholar’s h-index and other similar measures are important, and 5 percent say they are the most crucial factor.
Inside Higher Ed
OPINION Reimagining Student Affairs
The challenges facing students and institutions call for a holistic approach that centers student success, well-being and belonging, Mary Dana Hinton writes.
By Mary Dana Hinton
The idea of holistic well-being has been a part of our higher education lexicon for decades. The iterations of this idea have ranged from one-stop shopping so students can address multiple transactional needs in one area to the now ubiquitous (and essential) offering of health and counseling services on campus. It is easy to find mission statements that discuss holistic support or refer to holistic learning. While we have long done an excellent job articulating the importance of attending to the whole student, we have been less attentive to what that means for us as institutions. While a full-service approach to campus life does allow institutions to make life a bit easier on students, it’s rare that those efforts focus on the transformational elements of the collegiate experience so much as the transactional: pay your bill, see the registrar and get a parking pass all in the same place! Sign up for your classes, explore an internship opportunity and meet an adviser in one stop! While these are important efforts—the transactional often enables the transformational—when we talk about the holistic learner, should we limit our perspective and efforts to the transactional?
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Why This Provost Doesn’t Want to Recognize a Grad-Student Union
By Isha Trivedi
As graduate-student instructors have been advocating for union recognition and increased compensation, Indiana University at Bloomington leaders announced this week that they’d waive the students’ mandatory fees and increase their minimum stipends. And that decision, Indiana’s provost said in a rare interview on Wednesday, is evidence that grad students don’t need a union after all. Rahul Shrivastav said the university is showing it can respond to students’ concerns and make changes through existing structures, which aligns with recent guidance from Indiana’s Board of Trustees. The trustees wrote in a letter to the faculty in late May: “The process to enhance the experience for our graduate students is best accomplished through the existing channels of shared governance and collaboration, some new and some that have long driven IU’s progress.” “To me what this shows is that the mechanisms we have in place work,” Shrivastav said. He continued, “This is the charge that the trustees gave to the president and to me: Fix the problems, but fix them within the structures that exist, and that’s what I’ve done.