Capitol News Beat
University System of Georgia balks at budget cut
by Dave Williams
The University System of Georgia is pushing back on a $66 million cut to its fiscal 2024 budget the General Assembly approved on the last day of this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers signed off on the reduction Wednesday after House and Senate budget conferees shrank the cut from a $113 million reduction from the system’s teaching formula in the version of the spending plan the Senate adopted last week. “This is an incredibly disappointing outcome, given the work done over the years by our state leaders to elevate higher education and send Georgia on a path to ascension,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said Thursday. “It will have a significant impact on institutions and the services that students and families depend on to advance their prosperity and help Georgia succeed.” Perdue said the cut comes on top of a reduction of about $230 million the system sustained at the beginning of the pandemic three years ago, funds that have never been restored. The system also was already due to receive a $71.6 million reduction for the coming fiscal year before the $66 million cut because of enrollment declines.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia lawmakers pass expansion of college need-based financial aid
By Vanessa McCray
A bill to provide more need-based financial aid to Georgia college students won approval Wednesday from the Georgia General Assembly. House Bill 249 expands on legislation passed last year to help students who can’t afford their tuition. The update, which now heads to the governor for his signature, increases the maximum award students can receive to $3,500, up from $2,500. Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, called that additional funding the “best thousand dollars we could ever invest in the state of Georgia.”
Americus Times-Recorder
GSW students volunteer in tornado-ridden Kentucky on Spring Break
By Ken Gustafson
Three different student groups from Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) spent their Spring Break volunteering in Mayfield and Ages, KY after an EF4 tornado ripped through their towns in 2021 traveling for 165 miles at one mile wide for three hours. Seven members of the President Jimmy Carter Leadership Program (PCLP) travelled to Mayfield, KY where they partnered with Go Serv Global and helped rebuild homes. They had the opportunity to shingle and side a garage, do demo work, clean up debris left behind by the tornado, pour a concrete foundation, and get the front wall of a home up.
41NBC
Middle Georgia State University is partnering with Heart of Georgia College & Career Academy to offer core courses and a potential path into the nursing program to dual-enrolled students. High school students at Heart of Georgia College & Career Academy can take up to 26 credit hours of core courses and seamlessly gain admission into MGA’s associate’s or bachelors’ degrees in nursing based on the Dublin campus. Dr. Tara Underwood, Dean of the School of Health and Natural Sciences at MGA, encourages students to take advantage of the program.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech’s successful innovation hub may expand across Georgia
By Amy Wenk – Staff Reporter
Georgia Tech says it is studying how to expand the Tech Square model to other parts of the state. The hope is to create a regional innovation hub, potentially spurred by new federal funding.
Athens CEO
Flavor of Georgia Grand Prize Goes to Barlow’s Foods
Jordan Powers
Barlow’s Foods won the grand prize at the 2023 Flavor of Georgia food contest for their product, Barlow’s Peach Cobbler Syrup. Barlow’s Foods is a packaged foods company located in Atlanta, Georgia. The woman-owned business creates pancake mixes and assorted breakfast staples, including their Peach Cobbler Syrup. … Flavor of Georgia, a University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Signature Event organized by the Department of Food Science and Technology (FST), has helped launch small, start-up food companies while garnering recognition in new markets for established brands since 2007. The contest is supported by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and Georgia Grown.
41WMGT
Andalusia Farm opens new center preserving the legacy of Flannery O’Connor
Celebrations are taking place at the home of an acclaimed middle Georgia author as a new center is established to preserve her legacy.
By Andrew Willis
Andalusia Farm, the former home of celebrated author Flannery O’Connor, has opened a new Interpretive Center in Milledgeville to commemorate what would have been the writer’s 98th birthday on March 25. The center’s grand opening was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday. More than 100 guests attended the opening, including one of O’Connor’s first cousins, Frances Florencourt, who spoke about her memories of summers at Andalusia Farm. …The Interpretive Center houses many of O’Connor’s personal belongings and will serve as a space for interpretive programming, exhibitions and as a point of entry for visitors. “It’ll also serve as a wonderful window about a dairy farm in the mid-1950s,” Georgia College and State University‘s Director of Historic Museums Matthew Davis said.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Georgia Gwinnett College competition promotes the importance of math to young students
From staff reports
Mary Barboza Beltran was one of the more than 130 students who attended the Olifer Math Competition held March 25 at Georgia Gwinnett College. As she sat still in her chair, her eyes focused on the paper in front of her, the sixth-grader from Dacula Middle School displayed an impressive amount of patience beyond her years as she methodically worked through each problem. Her concentration would have made the late Dr. Andrei Olifer proud. The event, hosted by GGC’s School of Science and Technology, is named for Olifer, a mathematics professor who founded and organized the competition.
See also:
Georgia Gwinnett Daily Post
PHOTOS: Olifer Math Competition held on Georgia Gwinnett College
Albany Herald
Albany State students take part in national HBCU events
From staff reports
Albany State University students Kalia Qawiy and Stephan Pierre are spreading the university’s name beyond the boundaries of southwest Georgia. Pierre, a graduate student in the university’s Public Administration program, was selected to play in the 2023 Historically Black Colleges and Universities Legacy Bowl played recently in New Orleans. The game, broadcast on the NFL Network, is a postseason all-star game that showcases the best NFL draft-eligible football players from HBCUs. This year, it featured 100 of the top players in the country.
Grice Connect
Major General Randall Simmons, former commander, Ga. ARNG, retires
Maj. William Carraway
Major General Randall Simmons, former commander of the Georgia Army National Guard, retired during a ceremony at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga. on March 25, 2023. The ceremony served as a homecoming for Simmons who entered military service with the Georgia National Guard unit in Statesboro and later earned his bachelor’s degree at GSU.
Gridiron Heroics
Albany State University Golden Rams Honor Grover Stewart
By Antonio Daniels
Albany State University Golden Rams honor Grover Stewart with a 2023 Blue and Gold Gala Young Alumni Award. The Albany State University Foundation selected him for this award because he is “a skilled player and influential community member.” He graduated from Albany State University in Albany, Georgia, in 2017 with an undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice. The gala will occur at Albany State University on April 1, 2023. All proceeds from this formal event will go to merit and needs-based scholarships for Albany State University students.
Savannah Morning News
From mountains to beaches, Georgia’s natural wonders subject of PBS travel show
Wayne Ford, Athens Banner-Herald
With a camera in hand, Chris Greer recently put his boots to the ground along Georgia’s rocky mountain trails and down black-sandy roads of coastal jungles. What the Watkinsville, Georgia resident and his camera found will air Saturday on Georgia Public Broadcasting. The second season of the outdoors show “View Finders” airs at 9:30 a.m. with 10 episodes intermittently running into the fall. This season, Greer, a professor of instructional of technology at Georgia College & State University – Milledgeville, is joined by a new co-host, Paul Daniel, as they explore some of the most scenic and often secluded natural places in the Peach State.
The Union-Recorder
Rich compost from student-led GCSU program will be sold to public
You can’t get there by GPS. There are no signs to direct you. But just yards from Hwy 49 in Milledgeville, a little hillside with a great view is abuzz with the sounds and smells of rotating and baking leftover food. An all-female team works this spot and plans to sell their compost, starting this fall. Not many universities have a student-led compost program. The site diverts about 1,000 pounds of food waste from the Georgia College & State University dining hall every week. That’s roughly 25,000 pounds per year or 1,000 cubic feet of food waste that doesn’t end up in landfills. Currently, about one-fourth of all landfill garbage is food, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
WTOC
Tourism continues to grow on Tybee Island, Little Tybee Island seeing litter issues
By Shea Schrader
With tourist season ramping up, city leaders on Tybee Island are gearing up to accommodate tens of thousands of visitors. A new study by Georgia Southern University confirms what leaders have thought for years, Tybee is seeing more and more people each year. The study took place from July 2021 to September 2022, both online and in person. Researchers found that over half of the people that visit Tybee throughout the year aren’t local to the area, but play a critical role in the local economy.
Albany Herald
Georgia ag museum plans summer Camp Wiregrass
From staff reports
Exploring farms of the past and present, meeting wildlife and livestock, making bug hotels, and learning to lasso are a few of the activities that children can enjoy during Camp Wiregrass sessions this summer at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture. Children from 4 to 9 years old can experience these and many more adventures when they explore Georgia’s agriculture, history and natural resources.
Savannah CEO
New Interactive Aquarium Exhibit Explains Marine Life Cycles
Michael Sullivan
A new display at the University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant’s aquarium on Skidaway Island translates the complex life cycles of marine animals into an easily understood snapshot of the ocean ecosystem. The display was created by UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography scientist Adam Greer, UGA graduate student Taylor Kilgore and the UGA Aquarium staff.
Inside Higher Ed
OPINION
Diversity Work, Meaningful Work and Faculty Workload
Joya Misra, Dawn Culpepper and KerryAnn O’Meara offer four strategies for ensuring workload and rewards systems equitably recognize the efforts of women faculty of color.
Research, including our own work funded by the National Science Foundation, shows that faculty workloads often differ by race and gender in ways that particularly disadvantage women of color. Those workload imbalances matter for faculty diversity, inclusion and retention. Faculty members facing workload inequities report lower satisfaction, less engagement and increased burnout. …We are excited to see many higher education institutions and disciplines implementing some of the equity-minded workload policies we found to make a difference. …We know of other examples of institutional efforts at the University of Denver, George Mason University, Georgia Southern University, Loyola University Chicago and Wayne State University.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Republicans: Campus Free Speech Under Attack
Several lawmakers suggested that Congress could take action to better protect free speech on college campuses—but how they would do so is unclear.
By Katherine Knott
Republicans on the House higher education subcommittee painted a bleak picture of the state of free speech on college campuses during a hearing Wednesday. “Far too many higher education institutions claim to uphold this right, accept funding from the American taxpayer and then purposefully turn their backs and betray us,” said Utah representative Burgess Owens, a Republican who chairs the House Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee. Lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing pointed to incidents on campuses where students disrupted speakers, the use of bias reporting systems and a perceived lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty, staff and students, among other examples, as they sought to show how universities are failing to educate students and creating a climate of self-censorship.
Inside Higher Ed
U.S., Other Countries Issue Statement Supporting Academic Freedom
By Ryan Quinn
The United States and about 70 other countries issued a joint statement Wednesday supporting academic freedom. “Academic freedom is key to human rights education but also essential for technical and scientific progress and for the development of the creative industries and the arts,” says the statement, issued at the 52nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. “It is intrinsically linked to the effective enjoyment of other rights and freedoms, such as participation in public affairs, freedom of opinion and expression and the right to education, demonstrating the indivisibility of all human rights.
Inside Higher Ed
U of California Proposes Guaranteed Transfer Plan
By Scott Jaschik
The University of California has proposed, for the first time, a guaranteed admission plan for all qualified community college students, but the plan applies to the UC system, not individual campuses. So students would be assured of a spot in the system, but not on a particular campus, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Inside Higher Ed
Addressing an ‘Epidemic’ of Hatred
A group of Black and Jewish students from Adelphi University went to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and National Museum of African American History and Culture as a part of an academic exercise in understanding and empathy.
By Sara Weissman
Small groups of students recently walked through a hallway of portraits at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., quietly staring up at the rows of framed faces that seemed to stare back at them. … The students from Adelphi University in Long Island, N.Y., visited the two Washington museums earlier this month to learn about their own histories, and each other’s, as a part of an inaugural trip for Black and Jewish students. The two-day trip was emotionally packed, with multihour visits to the two museums, a meeting with a Holocaust survivor and talks by historians and other experts. …The most recent data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows hate crimes skyrocketed 11.6 percent nationwide between 2020 and 2021.
Inside Higher Ed
DeSantis Pitching GOP Lawmaker on Florida Atlantic Presidency
By Josh Moody
Could a Republican politician soon be taking the helm of another Florida university? Florida representative Randy Fine said recently that Republican governor Ron DeSantis has pitched him on the presidential post at Florida Atlantic University, Florida Today reported. Fine, who has served in the Florida House of Representatives since 2016, said that DeSantis has approached him about taking the position, but he has not yet formally applied for the role. Fine’s term is set to end next year, but he has already filed to run for a State Senate seat.
Inside Higher Ed
The King’s College Hit With Show Cause Order
By Josh Moody
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education has issued a show cause order to the King’s College in New York City, which has faced recent financial issues and possible closure. The accreditor issued the show cause order Wednesday, noting that there was “insufficient evidence that the institution is in compliance” with MSCHE standards on “planning, resources, and institutional improvement.” The show cause order is due April 18 and must demonstrate that the King’s College “has achieved and can sustain ongoing compliance with commission’s standards, requirements, policies and procedures, and federal compliance requirements.” MSCHE previously required the college to submit a teach-out plan.