Tifton CEO
ABAC Economic Impact Over $429 Million on South Georgia
Staff Report
With a strong bounce back over the pandemic year, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College had an economic impact of $429,357,879 on South Georgia during the 2020-21 fiscal year. Dr. Renata Elad, Dean of the Stafford School of Business at ABAC, said the college forged ahead from an economic impact of $390,015,778 during the 2020 fiscal year. “ABAC’s numbers show that we are edging closer to pre-pandemic levels,” Elad, who analyzed the data from the University System of Georgia (USG) report, which showed that the USG contributed a total of $19.3 billion to Georgia’s economy between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. “ABAC continues to be a steady engine for social and economic development in the region,” Elad said. “Driven by initial student spending of $42,062,490.80 as well as spending on personnel services and capital outlay, ABAC continues to thrive.” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue applauded the effort of all 26 colleges and universities in the USG for the $700 million increase in economic impact to the state over the previous year.
Middle Georgia CEO
Georgia College receives $980,000 grant for School of Nursing
Staff Report
Georgia College will continue training nurses to meet the specialized-care needs of sexual assault and rape survivors, thanks to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration (HRSA) grant extension of $980,000. The grant will fund another two years of the university’s Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) training program, which provides supplemental training focused on survivors of sexual violence. …This is the first grant extension the university has received for its sexual assault and rape care training program. SANEs are a group of specially trained forensic nurses prepared to provide safe and effective care to victims of sexual assault.
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11Alive
UGA residence hall named after first African American trail blazers
The university is honoring its history with a new residence space.
Author: 11Alive Staff
The University of Georgia is honoring its history Thursday with a new residence hall. UGA leaders held a dedication ceremony to celebrate the naming of Black-Diallo-Miller Hall, the university’s newest living quarters. Tucked away on Athens’ Baxter Street, the residence hall highlights Harold Alonza Black, Mary Blackwell Diallo and Kerry Rushin Miller, the first African American students to enroll as freshmen and complete their undergraduate degrees at UGA. The hall will house 525 first-year students starting this fall, marking the 60 years since the three icons enrolled as freshmen, and all three were there to see their legacy solidified on campus.
Athens CEO
Seven More Georgia Organizations Selected for UGA Leadership Initiative
Charlie Bauder
Now in its third year, a University of Georgia leadership initiative will add seven more organizations from around the state that are strengthening their communities through new leadership development programming. Started in 2020 by the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, a unit of UGA Public Service and Outreach, the Innovations in Community Leadership Initiative provides resources and technical support to communities and organizations in Georgia seeking to enhance their leadership development efforts.
WTOC
Statesboro’s Kiwanis Club starts program to pay for field trips
By Dal Cannady
A Statesboro civic group wants to expand education for Bulloch County children. They’ve started a program to help pay for field trips right in their own backyard. The price of a child’s ticket on a field trip might not sound like much. But, multiply it by hundreds of students each time and it adds up. Georgia Southern University and Bulloch County Schools now have a plan thanks to one local club. Statesboro’s Kiwanis Club presented a $20,000 donation for the university and the school district. The money will go to elementary school classes in Bulloch County to visit university places like the Wildlife Center, the Planetarium, the Botanical Garden and others. The money will cover the usual cost of admission. It also helps sets up a plan where certain grades will visit certain sites so students will visit them all over the course of elementary school.
U.S. News & World Report
There’s Stress, and Then There’s ‘Good Stress’
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
A tight deadline at work. A tough exam at school. A big vacation that requires tons of planning. A home repair that’s gone awry. These sources of stress are anything but pleasant, but a new study suggests that they might actually be good for your mental health in the long run. Low to moderate amounts of daily stress can prepare the mind to deal with tougher and more chaotic times, much as a vaccine protects a person against future infection, said lead researcher Assaf Oshri. He is an associate professor with the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences, in Athens.
Healthcare IT News
New perspectives on maternity care: The Georgia Moms Project
Video – Heidi Altman, associate professor at Georgia Southern University, describes how the initiative puts the focus on health disparities, access to care and the lack of rural providers.
Monroe County Reporter
Girl & A Goat an Everyday Hero
Steve Reece
Forsyth’s small-town charm made a big impression on Carmen Davey when she was a teenager commuting from Macon to Barnesville to attend Gordon College, but she never thought she’d live here. Now, decades later, after a career as a registered nurse, she owns “a girl & a goat” at 14 East Main Street selling goat milk soap and natural body products, and lives with her husband in a house less than five hundred feet away from her store. Carmen was born in Macon, graduated from Central High School, attended Middle Georgia State College and Gordon College, and graduated from their nursing programs. …They share two children, Chandler, 24 a graduate of the University of West Georgia, and Griffin, 20, who is also in the nursing program at the University of West Georgia.
Times-Georgian
Role playing : UWG grad stars in Oprah produced “The Color Purple”
By Julie Linebeck Uwg Communications And Marketing
University of West Georgia theatre alumnus Terrence J. Smith ’14 thought this to himself many times during his first day on set of “The Color Purple.” In this musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel about the struggles of an African American woman living in the South during the early 1900s, Smith plays Adam, son of protagonist and narrator Celie. The cast and crew features legends of stage and screen — including Louis Gossett Jr., Taraji P. Henson, Quincy Jones and Fantasia Barrino — so the energy was palpable. …On the first day of filming, a surprise guest from the original 1985 movie visited — producer Oprah Winfrey. …Long before earning a role in “The Color Purple,” Smith said he progressed from being a child obsessed with the “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” to a high school drama student at Stephenson High School and then a UWG theatre major.
Effingham Herald
Recognizing our law enforcement partners
Rep. Jon Burns
Friends,
As we all know, but unfortunately are reminded of occasionally in the wake of tragedy, our law enforcement communities are often our first line of defense. In the 159th District, our sheriff and our police departments continue to serve as our front line, protecting our way of life in the wake of pressures from the continued growth we’re seeing in our community. That is why I’ve been proud to have had several recent opportunities to support these men and women in the 159th District and statewide. I recently had the opportunity to meet with sheriffs from around Georgia at the annual Georgia Sheriffs’ Association meeting – men and women who represent vastly different communities around our state. In large urban counties, they may represent hundreds of thousands of people, working closely with the county court system and local police agencies to keep their constituents safe. In more rural areas, the sheriff and his or her team are often the only local law enforcement around, patrolling their jurisdictions and working with their communities and state leaders to stretch their resources as far as they can. …Another hometown-hero also deserves our congratulations. Today, Lt. Christopher Rodewolt has been appointed to serve as captain and commander of Troop F. Capt. Rodewolt has 21 years of service including being an officer at the Georgia Southern University Police Department and the Newington Police Department, before joining the Georgia State Patrol. His territory encompasses sixteen counties, including I-16, I-95, Georgia Southern University, and metro-Savannah. Congratulations to both Captain Rodewolt and Sheriff McDuffie on their new leadership positions.
Gwinnett Daily Post
From Staff Reports
Georgia Gwinnett College has been selected to host four Continental Athletic Conference postseason championship tournaments during the 2022-23 athletic season. This marks the 10th straight year that the college will be hosting a conference championship event. Conference crowns — and their NAIA national tournament-qualifying berths — will be on the line when teams compete in the men’s and women’s soccer championships this fall along with softball and baseball next spring. The CAC Soccer Championships will be four-team tournaments for both genders, with semifinal matches on November 11 and championships decided November 12, at the Grizzly Soccer Complex.
Union-Recorder
NATIONAL HONOR: Andalusia Farm is America’s newest National Historic Landmark
Leah S. Bethea
Fewer than 3% of all historic sites in the United States are designated as National Historic Landmarks. Andalusia, the historic home of Flannery O’Connor, recently became the second place in Milledgeville to boast the prestigious title. Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion received the designation back in the ‘70s, and Georgia College received a bronze plaque and certificate from the National Park Service (NPS) on July 25, making Andalusia’s designation official. The ceremony was held on the lawn in front of the famed farmhouse where O’Connor lived prior to her early death of lupus. Matt Davis, director of historic museums at Georgia College, said it’s a process that has been years in the making.
WJCL
Scientists using robots off Georgia’s coast to improve hurricane forecasts. Here’s how it works
The robots are helping scientists better predict the intensity of hurricanes.
Brooke Butler
Anchor/Reporter
A team of scientists is using robots dozens of miles off Georgia’s coast to improve hurricane forecasts. “So what we’re doing today is deploying a glider, an underwater robot, near where we have deployed a robotic surface vehicle that’s collecting meteorological data,” said Catherine Edwards, an Associate Professor at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. Edwards told WJCL that while the weather community is skilled at predicting where and when a hurricane will make landfall, they’ve struggled to predict how intense a hurricane will be. …That’s where the robots come in. A torpedo-shaped robot called a glider moves up and down in the water and measures things like temperature and salinity. That data is transmitted back to shore every few hours.
Macon Telegraph
These giant spiders are invading Georgia. Have you seen them?
By Chelsea Madden
Trigger warning: We are talking about spiders ahead. Now that you’ve been warned, these huge, yellow, blue-black and red Joro spiders are all over Georgia, spinning webs up to 10 feet wide. According to the University of Georgia (UGA), the Joro spider has actually been around since 2013. But, the state has recently seen an overabundance of the colorful arachnids. Sure, their webs are spun on mailboxes, across porches and power lines — and yes, they are creepy to many of us, but having them around actually helps get rid of mosquitoes, stink bugs and certain biting flies.
WGAU radio
UGA: wildfires disproportionately impact poor
“None of us, really, in this day and age can be blasé about wildfire risk”
By Leigh Beeson, UGA Today
August 05, 2022 at 5:02 am EDT
With fires raging from California to Alaska, the 2022 wildfire season is off to a violent start. It’s an ominous sign of what promises to be another record-breaking fire season in the U.S. Roughly 2 million acres burned last month. And major fires are currently scorching Idaho, Utah and California, threatening tens of thousands of Americans’ homes and livelihoods. Many of those at risk are lower-income Americans who face canceled homeowners insurance policies and rising premiums, according to new research from the University of Georgia. Published in Forests, the study found that counties with moderate-to-high wildfire risk are more likely to have higher poverty rates. Many of these counties reside in states that are dominated by a handful of insurance companies. Homeowners’ options in these areas may be limited if they need to replace a policy that has been terminated.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Colleges Brace for a New Viral Threat: Monkeypox
As the Biden administration declares a national health emergency, colleges are preparing for potential campus outbreaks while avoiding unnecessary panic and anti-LGBTQ+ stigma.
By Liam Knox
When students return to campus this fall, the latest COVID variant isn’t the only virus they’ll have to worry about. Monkeypox, a painful but nonfatal virus spread primarily through skin contact, is on the rise—and with the fall semester rapidly approaching, many institutions are starting to prepare for potential outbreaks. There have been over 6,600 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over half of which were reported in the past two weeks. Yesterday, the Biden administration declared the virus a national health emergency; California and Illinois declared states of emergency last week, as did New York City. Colleges have not been immune to monkeypox even during the quiet summer months, when places of potentially high transmission—such as dormitories, gyms and lecture halls—are largely empty. Confirmed cases have been reported at the University of Texas at Austin; Georgetown University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.; and West Chester University and Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
Inside Higher Ed
Republicans introduce a bill that would block the Biden administration from enacting mass debt cancellation and reform some aspects of the federal student loan system.
By Meghan Brink
As the Biden administration inches closer to a final decision on whether to erase billions in student loan debt, House Republicans have introduced an alternative proposal. The bill would reform certain aspects of the federal student loan system, including simplifying repayment methods, decreasing the impact of interest and establishing new borrowing limits. Republicans have long argued that President Biden does not have the authority to enact sweeping student loan cancellation, and that debt cancellation would do little to reform the system that places students in debt in the first place. It would also allow Pell Grants to be used for short-term programs, like technical training and workforce development.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Abortion Bans Put Colleges in Legal Limbo
Post-‘Dobbs,’ weak medical privacy endangers students — and the rest of us.
THE REVIEW | OPINION
By Katie Rose Guest Pryal
Imagine this troubling scenario: A college student in Texas is raped and becomes pregnant. Though abortion is banned, a trusted professor helps the student obtain a medication abortion from an out-of-state doctor. Then word gets out. Suddenly, that professor is facing a lawsuit under the state’s 2021 “bounty” law. The professor and the student turn to college administrators for help. In the chaotic aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this is the sort of possibility that colleges need to take seriously. Due to a legal loophole in student-records law, all of us in higher education are more vulnerable to punishment under new abortion bans. Our students’ medical records — which may contain information about their abortion care, miscarriages, contraception, and more — are not as well protected as most people think. When this information leaks, our students, and everyone close to them, could be in legal danger.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
How to Solve the Mystery of ‘Summer Melt’
The way to retain students is not to try to control every possible thing that could go wrong, but to give them one or two good reasons to stay.
By Aaron Basko
For anyone in enrollment management, June through August are often the most painful months, and a major contributor to that pain is what we call “summer melt.” In many cases, admissions and financial-aid offices have been working with students for 18 months or longer to bring them to the point of making a commitment to attend the college or university. In the weeks leading up to the start of classes, however, some of these committed students “melt” away, citing a host of reasons, or no reason at all. Lost students leave gaps in campus budgets and classrooms. For enrollment leaders, a summer melt of 8 to 10 percent or more can often turn a winning enrollment cycle into a loss. What causes melt? A wide range of potential factors — only some of which we control — can spark a break between the student and the institution at this point. …Over the last decade, enrollment managers have ramped up our efforts to combat melt.
Higher Ed Dive
Even interested students wonder: Is college a worthwhile investment?
Rick Seltzer, Senior Editor
Dive Brief:
More than half of high school students who’ve shown some interest in college — 53% — wonder if it is a worthwhile investment, according to a survey released Thursday by Modern Campus, a higher ed software provider, and Ruffalo Noel Levitz, an enrollment, student success and fundraising consultant. Potential first-generation college students were slightly more likely to wonder if college was worth the time, money and effort than were students who would not be the first in their families to attend college, 56% versus 49%, the survey found. Meanwhile, 65% of survey respondents said they expect colleges to provide them with specific skills they will be able to use in the workplace. About half, 49%, expect to have a job offer when they graduate.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Taylor Swaak
One student labors to write essays because they struggle with typing. Another scrambles to complete assignments on time because they don’t know the campus has fast, designated Wi-Fi. Yet another grasps the course material, but doesn’t know how to take notes in their digital textbook. These are just a few scenarios that administrators and faculty members at California State University at Northridge have found some students face — a reality check that’s informing new digital-literacy projects on the campus. In a spring survey of more than 200 students across grade levels on what tech competencies needed sharpening, 91 percent listed basic computer skills. Gaps in digital literacy — broadly defined as the ability to navigate and use technology to its fullest extend — are not unique to Cal State at Northridge. Even before tech became inextricably woven into classes during the pandemic, a 2016 Educause report found that nationwide, nearly four in 10 students wished they’d been better prepared for institution-specific technology, including learning-management and course-registration systems. …The university last spring piloted a “peer to peer” educational model, hiring a handful of student “digital ambassadors” to post TikTok-like videos on Instagram on how to access tech-related resources on the campus. One video shows a student ushering viewers with him across the campus to the bookstore, where the university provides free iPads. This model was born from understanding that students won’t necessarily seek out adults for assistance.
Inside Higher Ed
Black Medical Students More Confident at HBCUs
By Sara Weissman
A new study found that Black medical students at historically Black colleges and universities feel more confident in their academic abilities and a greater sense of belonging than their peers at predominantly white institutions. Researchers from multiple universities surveyed participants three times during their second year of medical school. The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in July, found that medical students at HBCUs also felt more self-assured that they would be accepted to a top 10 residency program.
Inside Higher Ed
One scholar’s account of having to pay full conference registration to attend an award ceremony sparks new debate about high meeting costs.
By Colleen Flaherty
Ashley Ruba, a light-skinned woman with wavy hair, holds her award from the APA. Ashley Ruba with one of two awards she received from the APA (Ashley Ruba via Twitter)
Should scholars who earn disciplinary honors have to pay full conference registration fees to attend their award ceremonies? The notion struck a nerve with academics this week after one developmental psychologist said the American Psychological Association would not waive full registration fees for its annual meeting—happening now in Minneapolis—so that she could publicly accept two awards she’d earned. As the scholar, Ashley Ruba, wrote on Twitter, “So, let me get this straight. I won not one, but two @APA awards. But, in order to accept these awards at the conference, I need to pay nearly $600 in registration fees. No one day pass. No fee [waiver]. No way to attend a 50 min ceremony. Conferences are a scam. I’m not going.” Ruba also posted an email exchange with an APA conference organizer in which she asked, “So just to clarify—there is no way I can receive these awards at the ceremony unless I sign up for the whole conference (which for me would be $595, since I am not a student or an APA member)?” The APA official responded, “That is correct. Registration is required.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Strange, Secret History of Tenure
Academe’s most important and embattled idea comes from the judiciary.
THE REVIEW | ESSAY
By Adam Sitze
Academic tenure is again the object of public criticism — but this time feels different. Conservatives have long claimed that tenure allows professors to become lazy, politically intolerant elitists who are unaccountable to the public. Recently they’ve prosecuted this case with renewed vigor: In the last several years, governors, state legislatures, and university boards across the Midwest and South have debated or successfully passed new restrictions on tenure. These developments, already cause for concern, are more worrisome still because of the growing momentum of a set of specifically progressive objections. These newer critics argue that tenure inhibits racial diversity and gender equity, authorizes an ugly sense of privilege and hierarchy, and wrongly protects professors accused of misconduct — all while also failing to protect the job security of the great majority of those who today are actually responsible for teaching and research in the academy.
Higher Ed Dive
3 in 5 higher education employees feel unheard at work, survey says
Laura Spitalniak, Associate Editor
Dive Brief:
More than half of higher education employees, 59%, reported feeling unheard at work, according to a new survey from consultant Grant Thornton. Only 17% of respondents said they are actively looking for a new job, but 49% would consider a switch if a new opportunity presented itself. Faculty and staff also expressed discontent about their pay and compensation. Just 37% said their pay allows them to live the lifestyle they choose. That’s compared to 46% of respondents from Grant Thornton’s cross-sector State of Work in America survey. Similarly, 39% of higher ed employees said they thought their benefits plan offered something other employers couldn’t. That’s significantly less than the figure researchers found across fields, 51%.