USG e-clips for October 3, 2022

University System News:

WRBL

Columbus State University unveils new pediatric simulation lab

by: Nicole Sanders

Future nurses and motorcyclists alike gathered at Frank D. Brown Hall this past Thursday to celebrate a new addition to Columbus State University’s nursing program. The pediatric simulation lab, funded by the Miracle Riders charity organization, features animatronic and life-like models for nursing students to practice on as they continue to develop their skillset. Along with the lab, students can now enjoy a colorful and child-like mural featuring a teddy bear riding a motorcycle. These additions were made after the Miracle Riders raised over $225,000 for CSU’s nursing department.

See also:

Ledger-Enquirer

‘We wanted the room that would capture the spirit of Lyle.’ CSU’s new lab for nursing students

Albany CEO

Gaynor Cheokas Talks About the New Executive MBA Program at Georgia Southwestern State University

Gaynor Cheokas is Dean of Business and Computing at Georgia Southwestern State University. She talks about the creation and development of the new MBA program.

The City Menus

Mapping it out: UWG geography class creates points of interest digital app

By Sam Gentry

The University of West Georgia strives to provide a 21st-century learning environment for its students. As part of those efforts, students from the university’s Department of Natural Sciences within the College or Arts, Culture, and Scientific Inquiry recently had the opportunity to work on a cutting-edge digital mapping project. The project was conceived by Dr. Jung Eun (Jessie) Hong, professor of geography, when she considered that students, particularly new ones, tend to lack a sufficient familiarity with the community outside of campus.

Athens Banner-Herald

‘Everyone has a hard time:’ UGA athletes navigate careers with mental health in the balance

Marc Weiszer

In September of her senior year at Crean Lutheran High in Newport Beach, Calif, Eva Merrell committed to swim for Georgia over Cal. A month later, she was hospitalized. …She got bloodwork done and medical testing and concluded she had an issue with food. Her hair was thinning and stomach hurt and she often felt like she would pass out. …She graduated high school in 2018 and UGA set her up with an eating disorder specific therapist and a sports dietician and she also saw a psychiatrist to manage her meds for anorexia nervosa. About 44 percent of Georgia athletes had at least one individual meeting with a Georgia mental health and performance clinician in the 2021-2022 academic year, according to the school. …Merrell is one of many mental health stories of Georgia athletes past and present. Here are some of them:

See also:

Athens Banner-Herald

How UGA and other SEC schools are responding to meet mental health needs of its athletes

WALB

GSW hosts annual Science Day

By Fallon Howard

Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) hosted its annual Science Day on Friday. Over 100 students from Lee and Marion counties got the chance to do all kinds of experiments. Liquid Nitrogen Ice cream is one of the unique experiments that was made during Science Day. …Students got to spark their interest in science degree fields. …This is the first time Science Day is back since the pandemic. This will inspire the next generation of scientists.

Gwinnett Daily Post

PHOTOS: Georgia Gwinnett College hosts Campus Safety and Preparedness Fair

Photos by Rod Reilly/GGC

In accordance with National Preparedness Month, Georgia Gwinnett College hosted its annual Fall Safety Preparedness Fair on its campus. Area local, state law enforcement agencies, first responders, community health providers and local organizations were on hand to share safety information and provide real-time demonstrations, such as CPR and tourniquet training and a “jaws of life” demonstration.

Albany Herald

Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College presents Run for the Nurses

From staff reports

The annual Run for the Nurses 5K and half-marathon will be held on Oct. 29 at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Registration begins at 6:30 a.m. at the ABAC Agricultural Sciences Building on Perimeter Road.

WTOC

Skidaway Institute of Oceanography to assess impact of Ian to Tybee Island

By Alyssa Jackson

With Ian out of our area, it’s time for a research institution to track any impact to Tybee Island. They start by going out to get drone footage of the shoreline. Dr. Clark Alexander with the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has been studying shoreline changes for 30 years documenting changes over time. They’ve been studying Tybee specifically for about two years now. “Before and after storms, we also do this kind of research where we will go out before a storm is due to arrive to map the shoreline and shortly thereafter to map the shoreline again to see what a single storm can do to the coast.” …The data they collect will help the City of Tybee prepare their beaches so they are resilient for the next storm like where the dunes could start eroding so they can put more sand there.

BG Independent News

Historian explores the shifting views of the Vietnam War

By Julie Carle

Memories about the Vietnam War have been part of history for more than 50 years. Over time, those memories have evolved but not disappeared. “The Vietnam War is still with us because there is a living memory,” Dr. Bill Allison said during the recent Gary R. Hess Lecture hosted by the Bowling Green State University Department of History. Allison, who received a Ph.D. in history from BGSU in 1995, was one of Hess’s graduate students. He is a professor of history at Georgia Southern University, specializing in military history, and an author of numerous books. He also hosts with Brian Feltman the “Military Historians Are People, Too” podcast.

News Medical Life Sciences

Simple nasal wash can prevent hospitalization and deaths from COVID-19

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.

Simple nasal washes with mild saline water can prevent hospitalization and deaths from COVID-19, if applied twice daily following a positive diagnosis, according to research led by the US-based Augusta University. Reducing the amount of virus entering the body cuts the severity of the disease, says the study published September in the Ear, Nose & Throat Journal. It found that nasal washes conducted within 24 hours of diagnosis can prevent the virus from entering the lungs and possibly causing permanent or fatal damage to patients.

Physicians Weekly

Rubella Elimination Likely to Be Achievable in All Countries

Rubella elimination is likely to be achievable in all countries, but measles elimination is likely in only some countries, according to a study published in the October issue of The Lancet Global Health. Amy K. Winter, Ph.D., from the University of Georgia in Athens, and colleagues modelled the probability of measles and rubella elimination between 2020 and 2100 under various vaccination scenarios in 93 countries. Measles and rubella burden and elimination were calculated across two national transmission models and one subnational measles transmission model. The vaccination scenarios included a business-as-usual approach and an intensified investment approach.

SciTech Daily

50 Years of Searching – Promising Treatment for Chagas Disease Discovered

Tens of millions of people in the Americas are affected by the condition, yet there are no effective treatments. Researchers at the University of Georgia have identified a potential treatment for Chagas disease, marking the first medicine with the potential to effectively and safely target the parasite infection in more than 50 years. AN15368, a medication with antiparasitic properties, will start human clinical trials over the next several years.

Successful Farming

REUSING POULTRY LITTER CAN REDUCE ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT SALMONELLA

When many of us hear about bacteria, we associate it with illness. However, certain bacteria can be helpful in preventing disease, not causing it. For example, consuming probiotics, or beneficial bacteria, to improve gut health has risen in popularity in recent years, both for human and animal wellness. A joint research collaboration between the University of Georgia’s Department of Poultry Science and the U.S. National Poultry Research Center, housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, has been investigating the role that bacteria plays in poultry health and food safety. New research from this group has found that the type of litter broiler chickens are raised on plays an important role in their pre-harvest health.

WTOC

Georgia Southern University police looking for suspects following an armed robbery

By WTOC Staff

Georgia Southern University police are investigating Saturday night after an armed robbery at their Statesboro campus. The robbery took place at the Southern Courtyard. The witness described the suspects as 3 males. One suspect is in custody and the other two suspects ran towards the University Villas Construction site. One male was last seen wearing a white hoodie with black pants.

See also:

WJCL

Georgia Southern issues warning to students following on-campus armed robbery

The university sent out an alert Saturday night informing students about an armed robbery on campus.

Higher Education News:

Inside Higher Ed

Battered Florida Colleges Regroup in Ian’s Wake

After the historic hurricane, institutions in the Sunshine State take stock of the damage on campuses while students deal with record flooding and power outages.

By Liam Knox

Colleges and universities in southwestern and central Florida are assessing damage and evaluating reopening plans in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Some colleges that prepared for severe conditions, including the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida, emerged from the storm with minimal damage and were able to reopen residence halls by Friday morning. Others were hit harder. Bethune-Cookman University, a historically Black institution in Daytona Beach, is located in the center of what the Federal Emergency Management Agency designated a “special flood hazard area” of the storm. The university evacuated all students and staff from campus last Monday in anticipation of the dangerous conditions. By Friday afternoon, flooding and severe winds had done significant damage to much of the campus, including historic buildings.

Inside Higher Ed

New California Law Furthers Remedial Education Reform

Sara Weissman

California governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Friday a bill to further reform remedial education at California community colleges. The new law, Assembly Bill 1705, bolsters a 2017 law, which prevented community colleges from using placement tests to assign students to remedial courses and required them to put students in classes that earn credit unless students are determined “highly unlikely to succeed” in those courses. Assembly Bill 1705 clarifies that colleges are required to enroll students in math and English courses in which they’re most likely to progress toward completing their degrees and transfer requirements. The law also prevents colleges from requiring students to repeat math and English classes they passed in high school and stresses that colleges are responsible for providing supports to help students succeed in credit-bearing coursework, among other measures.

CyberSecurity Dive

C-suite, boards are prioritizing cybersecurity, but still expect increased threats

Senior executives around the world are taking risk management more seriously, PwC research found, but many are still concerned about business resilience.

David Jones, Reporter

Dive Brief:

Corporations around the globe are taking steps to prioritize cybersecurity with support from senior executives and board members, according to a study from PwC. However, many of those executives expect to see increased threats, according to the 2023 Global Digital Trust Insights study from PwC.  Two-thirds of executives see cyber criminal activity as the company’s leading threat. And almost half of security and IT executives expect to see a further increase in ransomware attacks in 2023, while 2 in 5 expect to see more serious attacks in the cloud, according to the study.  The study shows more than half of chief risk officers or COOs are very concerned or extremely concerned about the ability of their companies to withstand a supply chain attack.

CyberSecurity Dive

Microsoft investigating 2 zero-day vulnerabilities in Exchange Server

One vulnerability is a server-side request forgery, while the second allows remote-code execution when an attacker has access to PowerShell.

David Jones, Reporter

Dive Brief:

Microsoft is investigating reports of two zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019, according to a blog post issued Friday. The vulnerabilities do not affect Microsoft Exchange Online Customers. The first vulnerability, CVE-2022-41040, is a server-side request forgery vulnerability, Microsoft said. The second, CVE-2022-41082, allows remote-code execution when a threat actor has access to PowerShell.  Microsoft confirmed it was aware of limited targeted incidents with attackers using the two vulnerabilities to compromise systems. During the incidents, an attacker can use CVE-2022-41040 to allow an authenticated attacker to remotely trigger CVE-2022-41082.

Inside Higher Ed

Ed Department: Debt Relief to Cost $300 Billion

Katherine Knott

The Biden administration’s student debt-relief plan will cost about $30 billion a year over the next 10 years, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Education. The estimate, released late Thursday, comes after the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan research arm, said last week that the one-time relief would cost the federal government $400 billion over 30 years.

Higher Ed Dive

6 states sue to block Biden administration’s debt forgiveness

Rick Seltzer, Senior Editor

Dive Brief:

Six states sued the Biden administration Thursday in a Missouri federal court in an attempt to stop a wide-ranging student loan cancellation plan the president announced last month. President Joe Biden’s plan infringes on powers the Constitution gives Congress and skirts proper regulatory procedures, the lawsuit argues. It was filed by Republican attorneys general from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina, as well as Iowa’s solicitor general. The states are asking the court for an immediate restraining order to stop debt forgiveness from going forward. That’s necessary because the Biden administration signaled it could start forgiving debt as soon as next week, the lawsuit says.