Augusta Chronicle
AU Health, Wellstar merger hailed by some, dreaded by others
Abraham Kenmore
The merger of Augusta University Health with the Atlanta-based Wellstar Health System has drawn praise from Gov. Brian Kemp, University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue, and leaders of both Augusta University and Wellstar. Others, including state lawmakers and consumer advocates, are more skeptical, particularly given that Wellstar, a nonprofit health system, shuttered two facilities in Atlanta last year which they said were consistently losing revenue. The facilities, Atlanta Medical Center and Atlanta Medical Center South, served largely Black populations.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Capitol Recap: Kemp veto keeps tuition out of Georgia legislators’ hands
By Jim Denery
Governor is off to early start in striking down legislation
It took Gov. Brian Kemp just six days after the legislative session ended to veto his first piece of legislation, a measure the General Assembly approved to give itself some control over tuition increases in the University System of Georgia. Lawmakers seemed happy with their handiwork when they inserted the measure — which would have made the General Assembly’s approval necessary before state universities could raise tuition or fees by more than 3% — into an otherwise low-profile bill. … Raising tuition has not been a priority of the regents in recent years. Last spring, the board voted to bump up tuition at just one of the 26 schools it oversees, marking the fourth time in five years that most students in the University System did not see an increase in tuition and fees.
WGAU Radio
Plantfi takes top UGA honor in entrepreneurial competition
By Amanda Budd, UGA CAES
Plantfi, a novel system to track plant moisture, sunlight and overall houseplant health, is the winner of University of Georgia’s 2023 FABricate Entrepreneurial Initiative competition. Alex Breazu, the UGA mechanical engineering student who leads Plantfi, got the idea while on his own “plant parent” journey, during which he overwatered and killed his fair share of houseplants. The Plantfi system aims to help save countless other houseplants from the same fate.
Times-Georgian
UPD Officer recognized for assistance given to CPD
By NOAH SCHROYER
The University of West Georgia Police Department recognized Officer Genesis Jimenez not just for her work for UWG but also for assisting the Carrollton Police Department. Jimenez was awarded the Meritorious Conduct Medal for her assistance to CPD by providing translations during two felony investigations. Jimenez’s work as a translator led to CPD making the arrest of both people responsible in those felony cases.
Athens CEO
University of Georgia Golf Course Recognized for Environmental Excellence
James Hataway
The University of Georgia Golf Course has achieved designation as a “Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary” through the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses. Scott Griffith, the course’s director of agronomy, completed the effort to obtain sanctuary designation on the property. The course is now one of over 900 courses in the world to hold certification from Audubon International. “University of Georgia Golf Course has shown a strong commitment to its environmental program. They are to be commended for their efforts to provide a sanctuary for wildlife on the golf course property,” said Christine Kane, CEO at Audubon International.
Athens CEO
UGA Partners with the Department of Defense
Staff Report
For years, UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant has been helping coastal communities in low lying areas build resilience into planning efforts. Sitting adjacent to some of these communities are U.S. Department of Defense military installations that are just as vulnerable to coastal hazards. In 2019, the Department of Defense identified climate challenges facing military installations across the country in its “Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense.” …To help protect coastal installations and surrounding communities, UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant secured funding from the Department of Defense and the National Sea Grant College Program to hire Michelle Covi as the country’s first Coastal Resilience DOD Liaison in 2021.
Fox5 Atlanta
Kennesaw State hires new men’s basketball coach
After a historic season that ended in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Kennesaw State has named former Alabama assistant Antoine Pettway its new men’s basketball head coach. Pettway follows Amir Abdur-Rahim as the eighth head coach in Kennesaw State history. The Owls are coming off their most successful season ever, setting numerous school records on the way to their first-ever ASUN regular season and tournament championships and NCAA Division 1 tournament appearance.
Atlanta Magazine
The future of Georgia’s salt marshes
Natural can be a deceptive concept
By Sam Worley
With one-third of the salt marshes on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, the Georgia coast is celebrated for its natural beauty—but natural can be a deceptive concept. Humans are part of nature; to effects good and ill, we’ve shaped the world around ourselves. That includes the coast. “When the first settlers came to the U.S., there were not huge salt marshes,” says Herbert Windom, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. Arriving in Georgia, European colonists converted vast amounts of forestland to agriculture, thereby loosening the soil, which made its way into the rivers flowing seaward—the Savannah, the Altamaha, and others—and thus to the coast, where it collided with another powerful phenomenon: Georgia’s tides, the highest on the East Coast. The countervailing force of the tides caused some of the sediment to settle at the mouths of the river deltas, expanding the marshes to what they are now. The salt marsh results from the meeting of river and tide.
Albany Herald
ASU to present Tony Award-winning musical ‘The Color Purple’
From staff reports
The Albany State University Department of Visual and Performing Arts will present the Tony Award-wining Musical “The Color Purple,” with performances scheduled April 14-16 at the Billy C. Black Auditorium on the ASU East Campus
Food Tank
World’s First Vaccine to Save Honeybees from Deadly Disease Approved by USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the world’s first-ever vaccine intended to address the global decline of honeybees. It will help protect honeybees from American foulbrood, a contagious bacterial disease which can destroy entire colonies. … Keith Delaplane, Professor of Entomology at University of Georgia, agrees the development of the vaccine is encouraging. “It is not a silver bullet, but it is not only a new tool, it’s a new category of tool – a remedial vaccine,” Delaplane tells Food Tank. He believes the discovery of inherited immunity has the potential to alter scientific approaches to other infectious honeybee diseases, as well as other remedial products for cultured bumble bees, mealworms, and crickets. According to Delplane, inherited immunity is a relatively new discovery in insects. He believes this technology could be applicable to many other infectious honeybee diseases, alongside other remedial products for cultured bumble bees, mealworms, and crickets.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: Affirmative action ban may widen debate on college admissions
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
In a major ruling anticipated in the next few months, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to end affirmative action in college admissions. The high court’s decision on whether colleges can use race-conscious admissions may come as early as June. Lawsuits by Students for Fair Admissions allege admissions policies at Harvard, the country’s oldest private university, and the University of North Carolina, the first public university to admit students, penalize academically superior Asian American applicants to the benefit of less-qualified whites and minorities. (University System of Georgia policy does not consider race in its admissions process.)
WGCU
Four finalists named in FGCU presidential search; final interviews scheduled May 4
By WGCU Staff
Florida Gulf Coast University’s Presidential Search Advisory Committee is recommending four finalists be considered by the Board of Trustees for the university’s top position, including one candidate currently at FGCU. The finalists are: …Neil J. MacKinnon, Ph.D. – Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Augusta University
Higher Ed Dive
OPINION
Merger Watch: Cannibalism as a way to increase enrollment
Colleges try to boost enrollment by recruiting students from other institutions, but it’s a declining pool, Ricardo Azziz argues.
By Ricardo Azziz
Ricardo Azziz has held numerous executive positions in higher education and led the merger that resulted in Georgia Regents University, now Augusta University. He is principal at Strategic Partnerships in Higher Education Consulting Group. He writes the regular Merger Watch opinion series on corporate restructuring in higher education.
We all know that enrollments are dropping. However, considering the many services and webinars that purport to help improve student numbers, it seems that few recognize that it’s not the enrollment of an individual college that is tumbling— it’s the enrollment of the entire sector. But where are the students that everybody wants coming from? Or better said … what colleges are you going to cannibalize students from? Let’s look at the facts.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Is Gun Violence Scaring Off International Students?
Campus shootings have become a major concern for those from abroad, particularly Asia. For many, a U.S. education is still worth the risk—but experts say each incident makes recruitment harder.
By Liam Knox
hen Zhenyang Xu, a second-year international Ph.D. student at Michigan State University, first received the alert that there was an active shooter on campus, he barely thought twice about it. “I looked at my phone and I just thought, ‘Oh, OK. Another one,’” he said. “It’s so normalized here and we get so much news about shootings that I didn’t notice it was something entirely different and scarier until more alerts started coming.” …The fear of being caught in a mass shooting like the one at MSU has become a major factor in international students’ decisions about whether to study in the U.S. According to a fall 2018 survey by the Institute of International Education, the issue with the biggest year-over-year increase in concern among international applicants in 2017–18—a year in which U.S. institutions saw a decline in international enrollment—was their “physical safety in the U.S.”
Higher Ed Dive
How colleges can start up a senior living community successfully
This model can benefit students and retirees while generating revenue for institutions — but only if done correctly.
By Lilah Burke
Ideas about who attends college and lives on campus are expanding beyond 18- to 22-year-old students. Some campuses are looking well past that age range and thinking about how they might work with a different population: senior citizens. Building senior living communities on college campuses, proponents say, gives retirees a lively and academic atmosphere while providing students with new mentors and internship opportunities. The college, of course, gets a little help with its bottom line.
Higher Ed Dive
When it comes to college basketball coach pay, the ball is in revenue’s court
By Ginger Christ, Reporter
Dive Brief:
Women’s college basketball coaches get paid less than their counterparts in men’s programs. However, when pay as a percentage of revenue is calculated, coaches of women’s teams are paid comparatively or more than coaches of men’s teams, an analysis released March 30 by WTW, an insurance broker and advisory firm, found. The maximum fixed compensation, which combines base salary and annual guaranteed pay, of coaches of women’s programs was a median of 29% of program revenue, while coaches of men’s programs had a median of 24%. But, analysts note, that’s an “imperfect” measure of pay equity because men’s programs generally make about $5 million more in revenue annually.
Analysts were unable to compare gender pay equity in women’s and men’s programs because of the lack of women coaches in men’s programs. But, on women’s teams, women coaches are paid more than men in every pay category, including as a percentage of revenue, the analysis found. Women earned a median maximum total compensation of $817,500, while men made a median $485,154. “We cannot say that there is necessarily equity in coaches’ pay, as the clear disparity in revenue of men’s versus women’s basketball is difficult to reconcile; however, we are encouraged that while absolute dollar-for-dollar pay still has room for improvement, universities and the NCAA appear to continue their investment in infrastructure, including increasing exposure for women’s basketball and corporations engaging in more sponsorship deals with women’s basketball programs,” the analysts said.
Inside Higher Ed
Speaker Says She Was Assaulted at San Francisco State
By Scott Jaschik
Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer, says she was assaulted during an appearance at San Francisco State University, where she spoke against allowing transgender women to compete on women’s teams, CNN reported. “I was physically assaulted by one person. I was struck twice, both times hitting my shoulder with the second strike grazing my face,” Gaines said. “The rest of the protesters just ambushed and cornered me before I was able to move out with the help of campus police.” A video shows her walking after the speech, trailed by protesting students shouting, “Trans rights are human rights.”
Inside Higher Ed
Binghamton to Pay Ex-Dean $1.5 Million
By Scott Jaschik
Binghamton University of the State University of New York has paid a former dean $1.5 million after a judge ruled that the university refused to return equipment and other materials to him, WIVT News reported. Seshubabu Desu, who received the funds, is the former dean of the Watson School of Engineering. Desu sued the university in 2020, accusing it of stealing equipment, supplies and research notes that he had brought with him to the university.
Inside Higher Ed
UC Riverside Shuts Down Economics Center Opposed by Faculty
By Scott Jaschik
The University of California, Riverside has shut down an economics research center after some faculty members urged an investigation into an arrangement with private consulting firm Beacon Economics to run the center, using what the faculty members said was corporate funding for reports “attacking proposals to improve the lives of working Californians,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Inside Higher Ed
New College Faculty Asked to Drop Tenure Bids
By Josh Moody
Richard Corcoran, the interim president of New College of Florida, has asked seven faculty members to relinquish their bids for tenure, according to faculty union leaders, The Tampa Bay Times reported. The paper noted that the professors’ only remaining hurdle to tenure was approval by the Board of Trustees. The move comes amid a self-declared “hostile takeover” by conservative trustees appointed by Republican governor Ron DeSantis. The trustees appointed Corcoran, a former Florida lawmaker, as president, giving him a $400,000 raise over his predecessor, Patricia Okker, who was pushed out due to what the board considered liberal drift under her leadership.