University System News:
Albany Herald
Albany State to honor 800 graduates at commencement ceremony
Albany State University will honor more than 800 graduates at the fall 2023 Commencement Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Dec. 9 at the Albany Civic Center. Doors will open at 8:30 a.m., and the processional will begin at 10 a.m. Rashad Richey, a well-known television, radio, streaming and digital personality, will serve as the commencement speaker. He is the first political analyst to earn an Emmy nomination at CBS News Atlanta. He is also America’s youngest inductee into the National Black Radio Hall of Fame, where trailblazing leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, Oprah Winfrey, and Ambassador Andrew Young, are all honored recipients.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech envisions car-free campus with reopened Third Street Tunnel
Georgia Tech is banking on a car-free campus, thousands of new student beds and a second life for a shuttered tunnel to support future growth. The university’s Department of Planning, Design and Construction recently completed a comprehensive plan to guide expansion over the next 10 years. The roadmap focuses on adding density to the campus core, connecting innovation hubs, spurring new pockets of development and addressing ecological challenges. One proposal for linking Tech to Midtown: reopening the Third Street Tunnel, which allowed pedestrians to travel underneath the Downtown Connector until it closed in 2008 due to crime concerns. The plan suggests pairing the walking path with a nearby pedestrian and bike bridge to Fourth Street.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Afghan doctor starts new life as Georgia Gwinnett College nursing school grad
To hear Said Pasoon describe it, where he grew up was like paradise. “Nangarhar is one of the greenest provinces in Afghanistan,” he said. “It has four seasons, tall mountains, freshwater rivers and is popular for its olive and sweet orange produce.” … After seven years of waiting, Pasoon was granted a visa to join his family in the U.S. in 2016. “I chose the beautiful state of Georgia by luck,” he said. “My sister, Naheeda, lived in Georgia since 1996, and brought my parents here, followed by my siblings, so this is where I came when I finally got my visa. Georgia gives me internal happiness with its true green nature — it reminds me of Nangarhar.” Soon after he and his family were safely settled into their new home in Snellville, he realized that the knowledge and experience he had attained through years of dedicated work in Afghanistan did not all translate to the medical field in America. “Many variations exist between the medical practice of Afghanistan and that of the United States,” he said. “In addition, language and cultural barriers added to my challenges. To function as a competent medical professional, I researched all possible options and eventually found my way to Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC).”
Barnesville Herald-Gazette
Gordon’s Meaghan Pearson honored
Meagan Pearson, Gordon State College interim director of advancement, has been named the 2023 Outstanding Newcomer in Advancement by the Georgia Education Advancement Council (GEAC). Pearson was among several advancement professionals honored at the GEAC Annual Conference held on Nov. 13-15. The GEAC Awards recognize higher education professionals who have distinguished themselves in the areas of development, marketing, career services, and alumni relations. Candi Babcock, GSC advancement coordinator, nominated Pearson, who joined the GSC Advancement Office in 2022. Babcock said that she had the privilege of onboarding and training many new employees in her 33-year career, which encompassed roles within both the University System and the Technical College System. However, she has never come across a colleague who “hit the ground running so fast that she had to run to keep up.”
11 Alive
VIDEO: Georgia Gwinnett College welcomes first-ever sorority
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. now has a brand-new chapter at the Lawrenceville college.
Ledger-Enquirer
Meet the ‘tenacious’ Chattahoochee Riverkeeper who’s cleaned up Columbus water
In the early 90’s when Ashley Desensi was a child, she ran barefoot through the Columbus woods, caught snakes and lizards, climbed trees, read in tree forts, and played in her neighbors’ greenhouse on Armour Rd. She collected rocks from the Chattahoochee River and the surrounding creeks and painted them with her Grandma. Together they would make salads with blueberries, persimmons, and plums. … Desensi’s love for nature runs deep and would eventually captivate her love for biology, science, animals, and plants. At 35, she is protecting Columbus’s water resources, advocating for native plant growth and invasive species removal, and finding joy through nurturing her three children. The Chattahoochee River and the surrounding waterways are cleaner because of Desensi. She’s tracked and stopped sources of illegal pollution that break clean water laws. As a Columbus State University (CSU) biology professor she mentors a handful of graduate and undergraduate students. She serves as a committee member of the Columbus Botanical Garden Naturalist Symposium group and will serve as a board member for the Sierra Club Middle Chattahoochee chapter in 2024.
AccessWDUN
DeSantis, Newsom set for Thursday night debate in AlpharettaAccessWDUN sat down with UNG Political Science Professor Carl Cavalli to learn more about the upcoming debate between California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The two governors are set to square off on the debate stage in Alpharetta on Thursday evening at 9 p.m. with Fox News political commentator Sean Hannity acting as moderator. AccessWDUN spoke with Political Science Professor Carl Cavalli, who teaches at the University of North Georgia, ahead of the debate to get the scoop on why the pair are debating. “It’s definitely not commonplace to have, a year before the election, prominent members of the two major political parties debating each other,” Cavalli said. “I expect it to be very explosive, these are two people with very, very different visions for their states and for the United States. We know that Ron DeSantis has presidential ambitions. It is almost certain that Gavin Newsom has presidential ambitions.”
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher EdBiden administration to take another swing at accreditation rules
The Biden administration is moving forward on its ambitious plans to update the regulations governing accreditation and the definition of distance education, among other topics, the U.S. Education Department announced Tuesday. The planned negotiations could be the Biden administration’s last chance to leave its mark on federal higher education policy before the 2024 presidential election. Any regulatory updates likely wouldn’t take effect until 2025, but experts and advocates see an opportunity to make the higher education system work better for students and to build in more consumer protections.
Higher Ed Dive
University of Nebraska-Lincoln proposes staff cuts to remedy $12M deficit
Dive Brief: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln plans to cut about 30 full-time-equivalent positions and reduce funding for teaching assistants as a way to remedy a $12 million structural deficit, the flagship announced last week. The university plans to achieve more than a dozen of the reductions by eliminating vacant staff and faculty positions. The proposal also calls for reducing state-aided funding for graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants by more than $900,000. Another $800,000 in cuts would come from the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion budget. The plan would lay off three full-time-equivalent staff members and find alternatives to state funding for another four positions within its DEI office.
Higher Ed Dive
Employers willing to pay ‘premium’ for AI-skilled workers, survey finds
Dive Brief: Hiring workers with artificial intelligence skills is a priority for nearly three-quarters (73%) of employers, but the majority of them are struggling to find such talent, according to a recent survey commissioned by Amazon Web Services. Organizations indicated they would be willing to hike pay levels for AI-skilled workers across business functions, with salaries potentially rising by an average of 43% in sales and marketing; 42% in finance; 37% in legal, regulatory, and compliance; and 35% in human resources. “The anticipated pay premiums across departments is because AI’s key benefits — automating tasks, boosting creativity, and improving outcomes — have dispersed applications across departments and tasks,” the report said. “Employers anticipate that workers with AI skills will be able to drive additional productivity and higher-quality work, which would command a salary increase.”
Higher Ed Dive
Jewish groups sue UC system over alleged ‘unchecked spread of anti-Semitism’
Dive Brief: Two Jewish groups are suing the University of California system and its Berkeley campus, alleging they’ve allowed a “longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism,” according to federal court documents filed Tuesday. The Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights nonprofit, alleged that at least 23 student groups at the UC Berkeley School of Law are excluding Jewish students, faculty and academics by requiring them to disavow Zionism. Campus leaders have intentionally not enforced the university’s antidiscrimination policies in an evenhanded way, the lawsuit says. It alleged the student groups’ rules violate civil rights laws, the U.S. Constitution and UC-Berkeley’s own policies.
Inside Higher Ed
Youngstown State taps controversial congressman as president
The surprise hire of Representative Bill Johnson as president of Youngstown State University is raising concerns among faculty, students and alumni, both for the way the hiring process was handled and about Johnson’s record, which includes questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Youngstown’s Board of Trustees hired Johnson, a 26-year U.S. Air Force veteran and businessman who was first elected to Congress in 2010, during a special meeting shortly before the Thanksgiving break. Now, campus constituents are bristling at the decision to hire the local congressman, a Republican hard-liner who backed some of former president Donald Trump’s most controversial decisions, including a 2017 travel ban on entrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Inside Higher Ed
Worries of harm lead to scientific censorship
A new paper points to an unexpected source for scientific censorship: scientists themselves. According to the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as a “perspective” piece, scientists commonly censor scientific findings for “prosocial” reasons, such as the fear that those findings could have harmful impacts, especially on marginalized groups. That censorship can take many forms, including professors calling for the dismissal of their peers who study controversial topics and ethics boards more frequently rejecting research proposals that investigate discrimination against white men compared to other races and genders. Scientists also regularly censor themselves, the authors wrote, citing a survey of faculty at four-year institutions in which 25 percent reported that they were either “very” or “extremely” likely to self-censor in their academic publications.