WRDW
AU students pitch their innovations in competition
By Macy Neal
Augusta University announces its 2023 student innovation competition, Solutions For Nonprofits to be held at the end of March. A student team member from Innovate 2022 tells AU, “It was the best two hours of my academic time spent in many months. It was a great opportunity to connect with students, faculty, and business leaders in the community on the importance of creativity and innovation to address community issues.”
Grice Connect
GS junior Jordan Moreno is changing the education paradigm
Jordan Moreno, a junior in the College of Education (COE) at Georgia Southern University, recalls not having a Black teacher until the 7th grade. Since then, he’s dreamed about being a part of a paradigm shift in education while pursuing his passion for teaching and mentoring elementary students. “I’ve always wanted to change the game in education,” Moreno said. “As far as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a teacher. It’s really the only career for me. It ticks all the boxes and I’m able to impact my future students so they can impact the world.” As a member of the inaugural 2022-2023 cohort of Georgia Southern’s Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) program, Moreno is doing just that. In partnership with Clemson University, the Call Me MISTER program aims to increase the number of Georgia teachers from diverse backgrounds and experiences; recruit, retain and nurture participants; and build educator talent in high-need areas.
Athens Banner-Herald
Meet Natalia Gonzalez, the UGA science student who makes her own movies.
Andrew Shearer
Natalia Gonzalez’s “Supercut” is a gorgeously-photographed slice-of-life tale of two strangers who meet under average circumstances and bond over their shared love of art. But a purposeful sense of unease grows as the characters spend more time with one another. By the end, Gonzalez proves herself as a gifted storyteller with an already masterful grasp on the language of cinema. “Supercut” is scheduled to screen during the University of Georgia’s Backlight student film festival, which will take place Apr. 13-15. In this conversation with Banner-Herald arts and culture reporter Andrew Shearer, Gonzalez traces her interest in film back to her family’s history in Barranquila, Colombia and speaks about her intent to bring that story to the screen.
WFXG
Augusta University Jaguars win Peach Belt Conference Tournament Championship
By Abby Bradshaw
The Augusta University Jaguars won the Peach Belt Conference men’s basketball tournament Sunday, March 5. This title win marks the second year in a row, as well as the third time in the last five years. Sunday afternoon, the team defeated Lander University 86-72 at Christenberry Fieldhouse. AU’s Tyshaun Crawford was named as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
Albany Herald
Albany State students take part in learn-to-hunt program
By Georgia Wildlife Federation
Eleven Albany State University students received firearms training recently at the Flint River Skeet & Trap Club by members of the community. The following day, six of those students went on a guided hunt with the Georgia Wildlife Federation’s Academics Afield program. Coach Dan Land and Valerie Wallace from ASU joined as academic advisors, and Quail Forever’s Jennifer Ward volunteered her time assisting hunters. The hunt, hosted at Quail Country by property owners Tracy and Kay Hatfield, was successful with two squirrels being harvested. Afterward, students were taught to field dress their harvests and were offered a meal with game meat.
WTOC
Georgia Southern students increase access to African-American Heritage Trail
Students at the Armstrong campus add audio to digital trail
By Sam Bauman
For the past month or so, students at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus have been working on an important project. “This project is about recreating, digitally, the African-American Heritage Trail that WW Law had established in 1979,” explains Assistant Professor of History at GSU Armstrong Dr. Kurt Knoerl. While they first established a digital copy a few years back, Dr. Knoerl and his students are making an important update. “What we’re doing now is adding audio files to it, so if people don’t want to read it, they can just listen to the story map.”
Georgia Law News
More than 5,500 undergraduate students have access to all required textbooks, lab manuals, access codes and electronic book versions before the first day of class Barnes and Noble College (BNC), a Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. (NYSE:BNED) company and a leading solutions provider to the education industry, today announced the upcoming launch of First Day® Complete at Georgia College & State University (GCSU). . . Barnes & Noble College (BNC), which manages BNED’s campus bookstores and associated school-branded e-commerce sites, will launch First Day Complete in August 2023 for the 5,500 undergraduate students attending Georgia College.
Albany Herald
Darton Health Professions Foundation sponsors Albany State faculty at conference
By Darton Health Professions Foundation
Albany State University faculty attended and presented at the 2023 Georgia Association of Nurse Educators, “GANE” conference recently. Their attendance was made possible by the Darton Health Professions Foundation, which sponsored 15 nursing professors to attend the conference at Young Harris. “We were so excited to participate by investing in the attendance at this conference and sponsored an ad highlighting our next continued education course,” Randae Davis, the Foundation’s executive director, said in a news release. “It is an awesome opportunity to support ASU educators who presented to their peers, knowing that some of what is gleaned will be utilized throughout the state.
The Gazette
New Prairie High medical pathway training future nurses
Grant Wood Area Education Agency also launches health care apprenticeship with $1.2 million Iowa Workforce Development grant
Grace King
Tre’onna Herr-Williamson is training toward a certified nursing assistant license at Prairie High School’s new medical career pathway. Herr-Williamson, 17, a senior at Prairie High, wants to be a travel nurse someday, taking temporary nursing positions in high-need areas so she can travel. The medical career pathway means Herr-Williamson can be one step closer to her career goals and graduate with a certified nursing assistant. When she goes to college at Georgia Southern University — where she was accepted last month — she can work in health care while finishing her nursing degree.
Morning AgClips
UGA’s Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture to host international conference
The two-day event will feature 25 speakers presenting a range of topics
Crop and livestock farms throughout Georgia are in a perpetual exchange of ideas and innovations to solve challenges that have tangible impacts on the state’s—and the country’s—food supply. But these concerns aren’t relegated to the southeast corner of the United States. Indeed, global shifts in agriculture—from new technologies to changing regulations—are felt throughout the industry, from Georgia’s peanut farms to cornfields in Nebraska, Greek olive groves and beyond. This May, the University of Georgia’s Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture will host an exchange of these ideas at the Integrative Precision Agriculture International Conference – Local Solutions Through Global Advances, where global thought leaders from industry and academia will share a vision for how integrative precision agriculture can be applied to solve critical issues facing crop and animal production.
Savannah CEO
Staff Report
A Georgia Southern University Business Innovation Group (BIG) client and Statesboro-based business won $2,500 and claimed the runner-up spot at the 2023 GRIT Conference Startup Stage Pitch Competition held in January. Whiskey Grail, a business co-owned by Georgia Southern alumnus and entrepreneur Jim Walker and Statesboro entrepreneur Adam Tsang, offers handmade, American white oak drinking vessels with a charred interior designed to mimic the barrels where bourbon whiskey ages. Each grail is hand-crafted by expert artisans in BIG’s Fabrication Lab (FabLab) in downtown Statesboro.
WTOC
Georgia Southern preparing to participate in Savannah St. Patrick’s Day celebrations again
By Dal Cannady
With St. Patrick’s Day just two weeks away, Georgia Southern University is getting ready to be part of the celebration again. From Statesboro to Hinesville to Armstrong, Georgia Southern will once again bring True Blue tradition to Savannah’s greenest day of the year. From the cheerleaders to the ROTC cadets, the university will have a large presence in the parade once again. GSU has been part of the parade since 2010. University spokesperson Jennifer Wise says art students are already working on the float to get it ready to show the university’s connection with the region.
GPB
Researchers recover skeleton of Doc, an 11-foot alligator, deep in Okefenokee Swamp
By: Devon Zwald
Researchers studying alligators in the Okefenokee Swamp recently recovered the remains of an 11-foot alligator they had been tracking. The GPS tracker on the alligator, named Doc, stopped sending locations in August 2022 after Doc had moved into a secluded part of the refuge. A few months later and with the help of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, researchers found 60% of Doc’s skeleton more than 14 miles into the refuge. Mark Hoog is a master’s student at Georgia Southern University and researcher with the UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant. He was part of the team that found Doc’s skeleton.
WSAV
Tybee Island Marine Science Center hosting turtle education event
by: Angel Colquitt
The Tybee Island Marine Science Center is hosting their “Low Country Turtles: Coastal Diamonds, How You Can Help Them Shine!” event Wednesday, March 8. The event is part of their news series of programming called “Coastal Waves.” WSAV NOW spoke with Beth Palmer, Operations Director at the science center, about the turtle focused event. “You get to learn more about them- learn more about how to protect them as well,” she said. “Unfortunately they are the ones getting hit during their nesting season, crossing that road out here to Tybee.” …Georgia Southern professor Kathryn Craven, a turtle biologist, will be teaching at the event.
Augusta Business Daily
Businesses lay groundwork for future hires at career expo
By Josh Heath
More than 30 CSRA businesses will be looking for future employees at this week’s Columbia County Career & College Expo. Alison Couch is one of them. She owns Ignite Accounting & Business Advisors in Harlem and is currently looking for staff accountants. Couch also wants to talk to local high school and college students interested in pursuing careers in accounting. The third annual Career & College Expo on Thursday, March 9, from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Columbia County Exhibition Center in Grovetown should provide an opportunity for her and for potential employees. …Representatives from many universities and technical colleges throughout much of the Southeast, including Augusta Technical College, Augusta University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Alabama, will also be available to talk to students at the Career & College Expo.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UGA: Could be ‘several months’ before Stegeman Coliseum reopens
By Chip Towers
Last week was not the first time that concrete fell from the ceiling of Stegeman Coliseum. It also happened in May 2018, not long before a University of Georgia commencement ceremony was held in the building, and again in 2020. This time, though, the piece of concrete that landed in a seating section of the 60-year-old facility was big enough to facilitate a shutdown. In an email circulated Monday afternoon, UGA officials identified the chunk that fell into a spectator area of the 10,523-seat facility as “palm-sized.” “While still small, it was the largest piece discovered to date,” James Hataway, UGA’s assistant director of media relations, said in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The facility was immediately closed out of an abundance of caution. Safety is the university’s top priority, and the facility will not reopen until necessary repairs, improvements and inspections are complete, which could take several months.”
See also:
Athens Banner-Herald
UGA relocates Graduate Commencement and details ‘closely monitoring’ Stegeman since 2018
Higher Education News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia House votes to expand need-based aid for college students
By Vanessa McCray
A bill aimed at making more Georgia college students eligible for need-based financial aid received overwhelming support Monday in the state House of Representatives. House Bill 249 cleared the House on Crossover Day, the deadline by which bills must pass one chamber to progress. The bill would expand need-based financial aid eligibility to more of Georgia’s low-income students by reducing the number of credits students must have completed before they qualify for help.
Inside Higher Ed
Half of Provosts Support Tenure Alternative
By Scott Jaschik
The cover of the chief academic officers’ survey report, by Doug Lederman and Scott Jaschik.
A small majority of provosts (52 percent) would favor a system of long-term contracts over the current tenure system, according to the 2023 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers, published today by Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research. The survey was answered by 401 provosts (or the equivalent position if a college doesn’t have a provost). The respondents are nationally representative and produce a margin of error of 4.51 percent. Provosts are deeply committed to academic freedom, but they are open (or 52 percent are) to other ways of protecting it.
Inside Higher Ed
Private Student Loan Lender Sues to Restart Payments
By Katherine Knott
SoFi Bank, a private student loan lender, says it has lost $300 to $400 million in total revenues because of the three-year pause on federal student loan payments, and it wants that pause to end. In a lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, the bank argues that the latest extension of the pause violated federal law, and that a federal judge should order, at minimum, the Education Department to restart payments for those who are not eligible for student loan forgiveness. SoFi Bank CEO Anthony Noto has criticized the pause and broad-based debt relief.
Cybersecurity Dive
LastPass aftermath leaves long to-do list for business customers
Organizations using the password manager are exposed after a major breach compromised credentials and, potentially, business secrets.
Matt Kapko, Reporter
Business administrators that entrusted LastPass with their organization’s login credentials have some work to do to regain a defensive posture. A monthslong cyberattack compromised most of the highly sensitive customer account data held by the password manager, with the exception of users’ master passwords, which LastPass said it doesn’t store or maintain. The exposure is broad and potentially ruinous for organizations that don’t take additional steps to protect against unauthorized enterprise account access. Business administrators need to assess their organization’s risk across multiple components and heed the recommendations LastPass said it shared last week in a security bulletin with about 100,000 business customers.
Inside Higher Ed
North Carolina at the Crossroads
The University of North Carolina system is grappling with accusations of partisan overreach by state legislators and their governing board appointees, fueling concerns that the system is headed down a dangerous path.
By Liam Knox
Early last month, the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors approved a ban on “compelled speech,” preventing colleges from requiring prospective students or employees to “affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate.” The vote was taken in response to an application question that North Carolina State University introduced in 2021, which asked applicants to affirm their commitment to “building a just and inclusive community.” N.C. State removed that question a few days before the board’s vote. Nathan Grove, a chemistry professor at UNC Wilmington and the chair of the campus’s Faculty Senate, said that vote served as a wake-up call for him and his colleagues. They saw it as a sign that the Board of Governors, which was “usually pretty hands-off,” he said, could take “a more heavy-handed approach” on certain issues. Worse, Grove said, the decision was based on a misunderstanding.
Inside Higher Ed
USC Professor Recalls Book After ‘L.A. Times’ Finds Plagiarism
By Ryan Quinn
A University of Southern California professor has recalled his new book after the Los Angeles Times found at least “95 instances of plagiarism,” the newspaper reported. Dr. David Agus—a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering who directs USC’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine and its Center for Applied Molecular Medicine—didn’t provide comment to Inside Higher Ed Monday.
Inside Higher Ed
AAUP Censures Indiana U Northwest
By Ryan Quinn
The American Association of University Professors has now censured Indiana University Northwest (IUN) for firing a tenured Black professor after IUN alleged he said “words to the effect that ‘the only way to end racism is to kill all the white people.’” An AAUP report released in January called “implausible” the allegation that Mark McPhail “actually threatened to hurt white people,” noting one person it interviewed called his manner “mild and soothing.” “The [AAUP] committee cannot help drawing the sad conclusion that, if Professor McPhail had not questioned the racism on campus and at IU, he might have been spared, at least temporarily, from becoming a target of it,” the report said.
Inside Higher Ed
Lawsuit Alleges Retaliation by New Mexico State University
By Jaime Adame
A former director of the Office of Institutional Equity at New Mexico State University has filed a retaliation lawsuit claiming her civil rights were violated under a state whistle-blower statute, The Las Cruces Sun-News reported. Laura Castille, who also served as the university’s Title IX coordinator, alleges that she was forced to resign last year after reporting that a New Mexico State system administrator, Vice Chancellor Ruth Johnston, improperly helped a “close ally” land a chief auditor position. The lawsuit also alleges “gross mismanagement, abuse of authority and violation of university policy,” according to the Sun-News. In December, a former provost, Carol Parker, also sued the university, alleging she was fired after trying to investigate pay discrimination issues.
Inside Higher Ed
UC Berkeley to Close 3 Libraries
By Johanna Alonso
The University of California, Berkeley, will shutter three libraries—the anthropology, physics-astronomy and mathematics statistics libraries—in the next few years, part of a long-term plan to save money, Berkeleyside reported. The closures aim to “cut costs in the face of rising financial pressures, including inflation, repairs for aging campus infrastructure and the wage increase won by graduate students during the recent strike,” according to Berkeleyside. Currently, libraries make up 1.3 percent, or $42 million, of the university’s $3.2 billion budget, down from 3.5 percent of the total budget in 2006.
Inside Higher Ed
Opinion
How to Kill Innovation: The Florida ‘Master Plan’
Attacks on institutional autonomy, academic freedom and tenure, and diversity initiatives undermine the climate for innovation, Michael Lanford and William G. Tierney write.
By Michael Lanford and William G. Tierney
Projected declines in student enrollment. Reduced state funding. Demoralized faculty and staff leaving for jobs in the private sector. Questions about the relevance and return on investment of degree programs. A series of headwinds bedevil higher education, requiring institutional and systemic innovation. What we all too often find, however, are political leaders and boards of trustees who wish to lay siege to our institutions under the rhetoric of disruption. The decimation of tenure and the appointment of contingent faculty. An obsession over impactful student and faculty support initiatives that account for less than 1 percent of an institution’s budget.