11Alive
Georgia Degrees Pay launches for prospective Georgia college students
Georgia Degrees Pay holds data from all 26 USG institutions and compares the most researched college statistics from cost of attendance to future earnings.
Author: Sydney Spencer
Finding the right college just got a little easier for Georgians. The University System of Georgia (USG) recently launched a new website called Georgia Degrees Pay which Board of Regents Chancellor Sonny Perdue said allows users to make critical decisions regarding affordability and value when it comes to higher education. Georgia Degrees Pay holds data from all 26 USG institutions. It is a one-stop-shop to compare the most researched college statistics, including the cost of attendance, future earnings and student success. The site also points users in the right direction for financial aid with links to resources for free and reduced-cost textbooks, federal aid education and comparative student loan outcomes.
Albany Herald
Fort Valley State chosen as top university in South for social mobility
From staff reports
Fort Valley State University is the top public institution for social mobility among all regional universities in the South, according to the 2022-2023 U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges rankings. FVSU remained the top public HBCU in Georgia for the fifth consecutive year. FVSU moved up two spots from nine to seven as a top performer in social mobility. Institutions ranked one through six are private institutions. Social mobility measures the ability to enroll and graduate many students that are awarded Pell grants. At FVSU, 96% of students receive Pell grants.
Gainesville Times
UNG wins $1.5 million science grant for lower-income students
Ben Anderson
The University of North Georgia was recently awarded a six-year $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which will allow lower-income students to earn scholarships toward degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Tifton CEO
ABAC President Visits Bainbridge Campus, Attends Martha Mitchell Portrait Unveiling
Staff Report
Dr. Tracy Brundage, the new president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, made her first trip to the ABAC Bainbridge campus recently, meeting with many of the top officials on campus and leaders from the community. Brundage spent a portion of her day at the ABAC Bainbridge library where a portrait was unveiled honoring Martha Mitchell. Mitchell started her career as the assistant librarian at Bainbridge College when she moved to the community in 1973. She held that position until her retirement and later became a library associate until her death in August 2021. “This was a fitting tribute to a woman who obviously meant so much to this college,” Brundage said. “It was an excellent visit, and I enjoyed meeting and talking with the faculty, staff, students, and members of the community. “ABAC Bainbridge is a tremendous resource, and it’s obvious that the college means a lot to this community.”
Gwinnett Daily Post
PHOTOS: Georgia Gwinnett College hosts Hispanic Heritage Month Art Exhibition and Festival
Photos by Rod Reilly/GGC
Thirteen countries were represented, with performances including Mexican Folklore Dancing, the Grizzly Percussion Drumline and singing at the festival, held Sept. 16 at Georgia Gwinnett College. Along with art which told the stories of Hispanic legends and culture, the event included activities, music, myriad foods and drinks representative of the countries which were displayed at the event.
yahoo!news
Business shines a light on future of agriculture
The Albany Herald, Ga.
Next time you sit down to a crisp, green salad, take a moment to think about where your leafy greens come from. Traditional agriculture is highly weather dependent, and many producers of high-value crops are shifting over from field production to controlled environment agriculture. That is where the University of Georgia’s Marc van Iersel comes in. Van Iersel, the Vincent J. Dooley Professor of horticultural physiology in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, defines controlled environment agriculture, or CEA, as both greenhouse production that relies on natural sunlight and vertical farms that use an electrical light source.
WJBF
Bill could provide funding for security enhancements at Augusta University
by: Deirnesa Jefferson
If a new bill passes, $2.6 million in funding would provide additional security cameras, gunshot detection tools and license plate readers to law enforcement at Augusta University. “So, we’re leveraging technology to be able to help us make sure we’re providing that safe campus,” AU Police Chief Jim Lyon said. AU Police Chief Jim Lyon said it would help to enhance security on campus and could also help to create a real – time crime center. “We hope that they’re going to work in unison through our video management system to help create a real time crime center so that way we can be alerted to crime as it is happening so that way, we can react to it,” Lyon said. In light of recent violence, some students said the enhancements would be a needed upgrade to campus security. …Lyon said additional security cameras and license plate readers will be proactive measure to preventing crime.
Albany Herald
‘Walk Out of Darkness’ program to offer suicide awareness to Dougherty teenagers, college students
By Alan Mauldin
Grade-school students and those now in college went through a lot as a result of being sent home during the worst of the pandemic, from isolation to depression to loss of loved ones from the disease. With that in mind, local organizers are going to take area students on a walk Wednesday evening to talk about suicide prevention and dealing with issues. The “Walk Out of Darkness” is scheduled for 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at the Albany State University East Campus. …Johnson said expects as many as 50 to 100 to show up for the event, which will focus on suicide prevention and awareness. Teenagers can be affected either by having those thoughts or if they have parents who are struggling or themselves considering suicide. …But college students also can feel isolation or failure due to poor grades or a relationship gone bad, Jonnson said.
Augusta Business Daily
Ethics lecture series will examine building trust in leadership
By Gary Kauffman
Few things determine the success of a business, or any organization, like good leadership. How to create leadership that can be trusted will be the topic of the next Russell A. Blanchard Distinguished Lecture Series in Ethics at Augusta University on Thursday. Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Leslie C. Smith, vice president for leadership and education for the Association of the U.S. Army, will present “Why Leadership Matters: Building Trust in Organizations” at 6 p.m. Sept. 22 in the Dr. Roscoe Williams Ballroom in the Jaguar Student Activities Center on the Summerville Campus of Augusta University. The event is free and open to the public. Smith previously served as the Inspector General, Office of the Secretary of the Army, for three years, retiring in 2021. His military career began in 1983 when he received his commission from Georgia Southern University as a field artillery officer.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How you can take your kids to these Georgia attractions for free or a discount
By Anagha Ramakrishnan
Enjoying sites and adventures around the state doesn’t have to break the bank
Taking a family trip to Georgia attractions don’t have to burn a hole in your wallet. Instead, visit your local library and check out a pass. Certain passes allow you to visit museums, state parks and the zoo for free or for a discounted price. Through the Library Loan program, Georgia’s State Park System has partnered with the state’s Public Library Service to offer free passes to state parks and historic sites. You can even check out a discover backpack along with a pass to use while camping, fishing, hiking and exploring. The program started in 2008 and has saved Georgians more than $1 million in parking and admission fees.
WGAU Radio
Local briefs: Warnell School holds career fair, Commissioners meet in Elberton
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources hosts a career fair today: it gets underway at 9 and lasts til 2 at the School on East Green Street in Athens.
13WMAZ
Houston County library’s pollinator garden provides captivating site for kids to read
The pollinator garden was funded by the Georgia Public Library Service and other sponsors.
Author: B.J. Patterson
The Centerville branch of Houston County’s public library has a cool garden children and family can watch while reading their favorite books. There are plenty of books and activities you can find here at the library in Centerville. One of those things is a pollinator garden that was funded by the Georgia Public Library Service and other sponsors.
Vegetable Growers News
Pollinator conference seeks public engagement this year
The national Protecting Pollinators in Urban Landscapes conference is Oct. 10-12 in Athens, Georgia. The annual conference brings together researchers, educators, practitioners and others interested in bee conservation through discussions, talks and education sessions. It is the first time in the history of the conference that it is in the Southeast. “We’re looking forward to getting to network, participate and meet people,” said Kris Braman, one of the coordinators for the event and entomology department head at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “We’re having speakers come in from all over, but also some who are local. I’m really looking forward to getting to have this interaction.” The conference is emphasizing public engagement this year with the help of UGA Cooperative Extension county agents, who have been advertising the event to those beyond the research realm. To make the event more accessible, the conference offered scholarships to six applicants to cover registration, lodging and travel costs.
Phys.org
Scientists unveil new system for naming majority of the world’s microorganisms
by University of Nevada, Las Vegas
What’s in a name? For microorganisms, apparently a lot. Prokaryotes are single-celled microorganisms—bacteria are an example—that are abundant the world over. They exist in the oceans, in soils, in extreme environments like hot springs, and even alongside and inside other organisms including humans. In short, they’re everywhere, and scientists worldwide are working to both categorize and communicate about them. But here’s the rub: Most don’t have a name. … Nearly 850 scientists representing multiple disciplines from more than 40 countries participated in a series of NSF-funded online workshops in 2021 to develop the new SeqCode, which uses genome sequence data for both cultivated and uncultivated prokaryotes as the basis for naming them. … “The key pieces are in place for an orderly expansion of prokaryotic systematics to the entire prokaryotic tree of life,” said William B. Whitman, SeqCode corresponding author and University of Georgia microbiologist. “This expansion will serve the research and the broader community by providing a common language for all prokaryotes that is systematically organized and supported by data-rich genomic datasets and associated metadata.”
The Red & Black
LETTER: UCWGA responds to UGA about salary information
UCWGA-UGA Officers
The United Campus Workers of Georgia UGA Chapter (UCWGA-UGA) began a Living Wage Campaign in 2020 urging the University of Georgia and University System of Georgia Board of Regents to pay its full-time employees a minimum of $15/hour. As members of UCWGA-UGA, we were happy to see that within the next two years, UGA announced that all “regular staff” would be paid $31,500 per year, or $15.14 an hour. Further UGA was “pleased” that they have also “increased minimum hiring and hourly rates on multiple occasions” for “temporary staff” to $12.75. However, these wins came too little, too late. By this point, UCWGA-UGA had already adjusted the campaign’s demand, urging a minimum of $20/hour by 2024 given that $15/hour was no longer liveable in Athens, Georgia — not for anybody.
Higher Education News:
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
The White House HBCU Equity Initiative to Host Annual National HBCU Conference
Arrman Kyaw
The White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity through Historically Black Colleges and Universities will host its annual national HBCU conference Sept. 20-23 in Washington, D.C. The conference will coincide with the celebration of National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week. It will be held in-person for the first time since 2019, with more than 2,000 in-person participants and 1,500 virtual attendees, including HBCU presidents and chancellors, set to attend. The conference – designed to provide practical solutions to barriers that HBCUs face – will give participants the opportunity to engage with leaders, such as Biden cabinet members, federal agency officials, private sector executives, and financial aid experts.
Inside Higher Ed
Create More 4-Year Community College Degrees
Opening up more baccalaureate degree programs at your neighborhood community college can play an important role in addressing income inequality, Sonya Christian writes.
By Sonya Christian
It is an unfortunate reality that in America the gap between rich and poor has grown over the last 50 years. This increasing wealth gap has come at the expense of the middle class, once a defining characteristic of the American dream, now a sort of economic vanishing point on a horizon of distress and unrest. Jobs demand education. The health and stability of the American economy depends on the innovation of its public educational system and, in particular, the innovation of its community colleges.
Inside Higher Ed
Black Enrollment Declines, Gaps Increase
A new report details disparities in academic outcomes for Black community college students.
By Sara Weissman
While Black students disproportionately attend community colleges, their enrollment at these institutions has significantly dropped and gaps in their academic outcomes have more than doubled over time compared to their white peers, according to a new report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on advancing Black communities. The report, released today, examines student success metrics for Black community college students, mainly drawing on data from IPEDS, the primary federal data source for higher education; the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center; and the U.S. Census Bureau Current Population survey.
Inside Higher Ed
The Evolving Faculty Affairs Landscape: A Compilation
By Doug Lederman
Inside Higher Ed is pleased to publish today a free compilation of articles and essays exploring “The Evolving Faculty Affairs Landscape.” A copy of this booklet is available for download here.
Inside Higher Ed
Report: Campus Police Use AI to Track Student Protests
By Katherine Knott
A social media monitoring company allowed campus police to surveil student protests, The Dallas Morning News reported. The newspaper investigated Social Sentinel, which has since been renamed Navigate360, for many months with the help of the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network and the investigative reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Through interviews and documents, the reporting team found that colleges have used the service to monitor students on social media. For example, Kennesaw State University campus police used the tool to follow student protesters online before a 2017 town hall. Other emails show Social Sentinel representatives pitched officials at North Carolina A&T State University on using the service to monitor social media chatter after a cheerleader said she was raped and accused her coaches of failing to report the allegation.
Inside Higher Ed
Why Emporia State Axed 33 Employees
Emporia State cut tenured faculty as part of a controversial workforce-management policy. Officials promise a reinvestment of resources, but critics distrust leadership and fear the worst.
By Josh Moody
At approximately 1:00 p.m. last Thursday, Dan Colson’s phone rang. The tenured professor of English at Emporia State University answered the call and was told to report to a university-owned off-campus building at 2:00 p.m. Little information was provided about the meeting. With threats of job cuts hanging in the air, Colson already sensed what was about to happen. When he arrived, Colson said, Emporia State administrators reading off a script fired him. Suddenly, after 11 years at ESU, Colson was no longer a tenured professor, though he and others will remain on the payroll and in the classroom through the end of the academic year.