The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC On Campus: Columbus State’s next prez, Georgia Tech’s ‘Survivor’
By Vanessa McCray
A biweekly roundup of news and happenings from Georgia colleges and universities
Stuart Rayfield has been named the sole finalist for president of Columbus State University. …Georgia legislators will be toiling away under the Gold Dome Monday to pass bills, including at least one of interest to college students. …This month, more than 40 Georgia colleges and universities will waive application fees for high school seniors. … Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a journalist and one of the first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia, is being recognized for her lifelong work. … A Georgia Tech student traded in the classroom for tribal council. … Georgia Tech recently announced it is offering help to more Georgia students from low-income families.
See also:
WGXA
USG Board of Regents names finalist for Columbus State University Presidency
WALB
GSW wins Peach Belt Conference championship
By Aaron Meaux
The Canes of GSW claimed the Peach Belt Conference title Saturday afternoon defeating Young Harris 83-64. Ava Jones and Jaquelyne Levay combined for 54 points and Jones was named tournament most valuable player.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: Georgia’s at the epicenter of nation’s EV revolution
By Katie Kirkpatrick and Ángel Cabrera (Katie Kirkpatrick is president and CEO, Metro Atlanta Chamber. Ángel Cabrera is president, Georgia Institute of Technology.)
We are living in a watershed moment for cleantech manufacturing, and the state of Georgia has swiftly positioned itself to become the nation’s preeminent hub for electric vehicles. Georgia’s emergence as a leader in EV manufacturing is especially meaningful as the industry continues to experience record-breaking growth and competition heats up to capture more jobs. …Our state has the seventh largest higher education enrollment in the nation, with most of our students served by the University System of Georgia. And thanks to robust state appropriations and the second-most generous state financial aid in the nation (awarded through programs like the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships), net tuition at our public universities is the seventh lowest in the nation. University research expenditures in Georgia are also now the eighth highest in the nation. Emory University, Georgia State University and the University of Georgia all spend more than $200 million each year and Georgia Tech has exceeded $1 billion each of the past two years. This growth in research is producing remarkable breakthroughs — not only in cancer treatment, cell-based therapy and vaccines, but also in batteries, motors, electronics and artificial intelligence, which are critical to the EV industry.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kennesaw State makes history with first trip to NCAA Tournament
By Doug Roberson
The Kennesaw State men’s basketball team is going to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Terrell Burden hit a free throw with 0.7 seconds remaining to lift the top-seeded Owls past Liberty 67-66 on Sunday in front of a school-record announced attendance of 3,805 to win the ASUN Tournament and earn their automatic invitation to the NCAA Tournament.
The Tifton Gazette
Emily Groat, a senior agriculture major from Ruskin, Fla., was crowned Ms. ABAC at the 53rd annual pageant held at Howard Auditorium on the campus of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Groat, who was sponsored by ABAC’s Stallion Society – orientation staff, also won the Interview Award and Miss Congeniality, which is voted on by contestants in the pageant, college officials said in a statement. … While at ABAC, Groat has served with the Stallion Society, been a member of the horticulture club, a leader with the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, president of the Sigma Alpha sorority and is a social media content creator for the ABAC Admissions office. Also, Groat has continued to work with Learn and Serve Tampa, a nonprofit organization that works to introduce K-12 students to service-learning projects in her hometown.
Ledger-Enquirer
Grit and generosity help these Columbus State piano students escape war in Ukraine
By Mark Rice
When they play Tuesday night during the Columbus State University Schwob School of Music piano students’ recital, Anastasiia Zakharchenko and Nikol Bazalytska will represent the grit and generosity that enabled them to escape a war zone and return to honing their skills on the instrument they love. The March 7 recital starts at 7:30 p.m., in Legacy Hall at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts. Admission is free. Anastasiia and Nikol are from Ukraine, where Russian troops invaded in February 2022. A year later, the war continues. But these students have a brighter outlook, thanks to their Columbus connection.
Middle Georgia CEO
Middle Georgia State University Waives Application Fee for March
Staff Report
Middle Georgia State University (MGA), already the most affordable public state university in Georgia, is even more of a bargain for anyone who applies for admission this month. March is “Apply to College For Free Month.” MGA is supporting the effort by waiving the application fee for anyone who applies for admission all during the month. Throughout “Apply to College For Free Month,” the Georgia Student Finance Commission and other state education agencies invest extra effort in providing high school seniors an opportunity to apply to college using GAfutures.org.
The West Georgian
THE STRUGGLE OF CHOOSING A MAJOR
Andrew Will, a Department of Mass Communication professor at UWG, went through the major indecision like most college students, not knowing what to major in until much later in his college experience.
Andrew Will, a Department of Mass Communication professor at UWG, went through the major indecision like most college students, not knowing what to major in until much later in his college experience.
By Myles Williams
“When I started college I declared engineering as my major since I heard they made a lot of money,” said Will. “But after I saw my teacher put those numbers on the board I knew this wasn’t for me, then I majored in fine arts for about a year but then I thought what kind of job I could get with this. “I thought about what I enjoyed when I was a child and what I enjoyed was having my own radio station,” continued Will. “I had a dyno-mic that would allow me to bleed over a radio frequency and would allow people to hear my voice, but only across the street. My little brother would help me make commercials and I remember having fun doing that so after that I decided to major in Communications and it was no turning back.” Will started teaching part time in 2011and became full time at UWG in 2015, totalling him 12 years at UWG today. While being at the University of West Georgia for that long, Will has taught his fair share of classes.
ASBMB Today
How active learning affects STEM students with learning disabilities
By Katie Cowart
Active learning is an instructional approach that involves engaging students with the learning process through group work, case studies, class discussions and other methods. This type of approach places a greater degree of responsibility on the learner. Students with disabilities may have unique experiences in active-learning STEM courses because most active-learning practices were designed with limited input from students with disabilities. Researchers in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences investigated how the incorporation of active-learning practices influence the learning and self-advocacy experiences of students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific learning disorders (SLD) in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses.
SP News
Prevented Ocean Plastic and the University of Georgia announce a new research project to broaden our understanding of how litter on land ends up in the ocean. The research entitled ‘Inland Litter Hydrodynamics: Characterizing the Litter Transport during Wet Weather Events in Communities’ will help to create a tool to support stakeholders and community leaders to identify: the scale and type of plastic coming into their community; how it is used and what alternatives are available; how it is managed and what is leaking out into the environment. Community-level data provides an opportunity to reduce leakage and prevent ocean plastic pollution.
FOX54
‘It’s saving the world’ | UGA tests lead to breakthrough honeybee vaccine
Researchers aim to reverse the decline of vital pollinators.
Author: Doug Richards
A groundbreaking project based at the University of Georgia may save the honeybee. Researchers said it’s a breakthrough that could have implications for food sources worldwide. UGA entomologist Keith Delaplane is among the beekeepers who have fretted for years over declining honeybee populations.
WRBL
by: Chuck Williams
This week’s Sunday Conversation: is with Columbus State University’s Dr. David Kieran. He is an associate professor and the Col. Richard R. Hallock Distinguished Chair in Military History at CSU. Kieran is a historian of war and society in contemporary U.S. culture, with a particular interest in the Vietnam War, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the organizational culture of the United States Army.
Savannah Morning News
Savannah Morning News, Savannah State to host panel on Tripwire podcast, Thiokol explosion
Zach Dennis
Join the Savannah Morning News and Savannah State University on Wednesday, March 29, at 6 p.m. for an event detailing the Tripwire podcast and its investigation into the 1971 Thiokol plant explosion that killed 29 people in Woodbine, Georgia. The podcast, which is available online at SavannahNow.com and on podcast platforms, looks at the circumstances leading up to February 3, 1971, a day that has become lost in the Georgia history books.
WGAU Radio
Local briefs: UGA begins spring break, Oconee Co BOE meets
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia begins its week of spring break: students and faculty will be returning to UGA classrooms one week from today. …There is a top honor for Oconee County School Superintendent Jason Branch: Branch has won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Georgia’s College of Education. Branch, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UGA, will be recognized alongside other alumni winners in an event scheduled for April.
WJCL
Police records shed light on reported sexual assault at Georgia Southern University
A 20-year-old student is facing charges following a reported sexual assault on the campus of Georgia Southern University. Tristan Thomas Manning, a student residing at the Freedom’s Landing apartment complex, was recently taken into custody, charged with aggravated sexual battery, aggravated assault-strangulation and rape. According to police records provided this week to WJCL, the incident allegedly happened on January 31 involving Manning and a woman.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Fossil Fuel Industry Gave Hundreds of Millions to Higher Ed
By Liam Knox
Fossil fuel companies gave over $700 million in research funding to 27 colleges and universities from 2010 to 2020, according to a new study from the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress. The top recipients of fossil fuel research money included the University of California, Berkeley ($154 million); the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($108 million); Stanford University ($56 million); and the University of Texas at Austin ($40 million). Six fossil fuel companies—including BP, ExxonMobil and Shell—were found to have given the bulk of the funding to higher ed.
Higher Ed Dive
First-of-its-kind court ruling says college esports don’t fall under Title IX
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Senior Reporter
Dive Brief:
Competitive video gaming, known as esports, does not count as athletics for the purposes of the federal antidiscrimination law Title IX, according to a February court decision that legal experts have labeled the first of its kind. In a ruling last month, U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza wrote that esports programs at a private nonprofit college, the Florida Institute of Technology, do not offer “genuine participation opportunities under Title IX,” which bans sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools. Colleges must ensure equality between men’s and women’s athletics to meet their Title IX obligations. Florida Institute of Technology, or FIT, had been sued by six members of its varsity men’s rowing program in October, alleging the institution’s decision to shift the team to the club level violated Title IX and that men were underrepresented as athletes compared to the institution’s student body. But FIT argued it was near parity when esport participants were taken into account.
Higher Ed Dive
College politically engages students, but doesn’t make them more liberal
Laura Spitalniak, Associate Editor
Dive Brief:
People who attend college are slightly less likely to be politically moderate than those that don’t — but higher education affects men and women differently, according to peer-reviewed research published in PLOS One, an open-access journal.
Researchers found college politically mobilizes women more than men in general. Colleges were also more likely to have made women more liberal in the past than they do today.
While men may become more politically aware in college, higher education doesn’t make them more likely to lean liberal or conservative, the research found.
Inside Higher Ed
Report: Undocumented Students Struggle With Financial Aid
By Safia Abdulahi
A new report by the California Student Aid Commission outlines the difficulties undocumented students experience trying to access financial aid. While nearly 100,000 undocumented students reside in California, only 29 percent of them who applied for financial aid through the California Dream Act Application during the 2021–22 academic year enrolled in college and received aid, the report said, and only 14 percent of the estimated undocumented student population in postsecondary education received financial aid.
Inside Higher Ed
16 AGs Call Out DeSantis for Seeking Trans Students’ Data
By Josh Moody
A group of 16 attorneys general sent a letter to Florida governor Ron DeSantis Friday, raising concerns about a state plan to collect data on transgender and gender-nonconforming students, specifically seeking details on how those students have interacted with campus health centers.
Inside Higher Ed
San Diego District Rolls Back Discipline for Unvaccinated Workers
By Sara Weissman
The San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees announced Friday that employees no longer risk termination for not complying with the district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, ABC 10 News reported. The announcement comes after four employees lost their jobs for not getting vaccinated, an issue discussed at a heated Thursday board meeting. The board issued a press release saying the mandate would remain in place, with religious and medical exemptions, and the board would consider accommodations for those who had been fired or subject to disciplinary action.
Inside Higher Ed
Monthlong Temple Strike Enters Possibly Pressing Week
This week looms large, with a possible no-confidence vote for university administrators and public dissent within the graduate student workers’ union.
By Ryan Quinn
A group of striking graduate student workers, of various races and genders. Temple University graduate student workers have been on strike since Jan. 31. (@stnlyjcllns/Twitter)
The Temple University graduate student workers’ strike for better pay and benefits has entered its second month, but this coming week could increase pressure on both sides to settle. The university has already eliminated the strikers’ pay and health coverage. As of Thursday, Temple said only about 30 percent of the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association union members are actually striking. The union, abbreviated TUGSA, has contested the university’s count before but didn’t provide its own figure last week.