University System News:
Discovering Bulloch
East Georgia State College celebrates new president, 50th anniversary
This year, East Georgia State College is celebrating its 50th anniversary and also welcomed a new president to lead the college. Newly installed EGSC President Dr. David Schecter, 56, was born back when the school, now with a main campus in Swainsboro and additional locations in Statesboro and Augusta, was still in the idea phase. As early as the mid-1950s, leaders in Emanuel County began urging state leaders to create a two-year college in the area. Following a study to determine the need for more such colleges, in 1970, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved six possible locations, including Swainsboro, with the stipulation that each county with a prospective site would provide the land or property for a new campus and the funding for constructing and furnishing the initial physical plant.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech project would reshape an entire city block with housing, offices, hotel rooms
Georgia Tech wants to redevelop an entire city block on the western edge of its Midtown campus with almost 2.5 million square feet of housing, hotel rooms, stores and offices — a development nearly twice the scale of Bank of America Plaza, the city’s tallest skyscraper. A rezoning application was filed this week for a roughly 7-acre property at Marietta Street and North Avenue, next to Georgia Tech and across from The Coca-Cola Co. headquarters. It’s unclear what the timeline may be for the project. Georgia Tech wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Five years ago, the Georgia Tech Foundation paid $36 million for the property, which houses the century-old woodworking buildings of the former Randall Bros. headquarters.
WGAU
UNG students become Business School Fellows
There’s a new program at the University of North Georgia, with ten UNG students getting fellowships in the University’s Cottrell College of Business. From Clark Leonard, UNG … The University of North Georgia’s Mike Cottrell College of Business has launched a new program this fall to help students grow their leadership and workforce skills. Ten students are part of the initial cohort of the Cottrell Leadership Fellows program. Fellows have access to academic scholarships, study abroad support opportunities, and undergraduate research avenues. The three-year development program includes mentoring, theory and practice, portfolio creation, and programming for MCCB undergraduate students.
Grice Connect
Institute for Health Logistics and Analytics hosts grand opening, celebrates monumental achievements
The Institute for Health Logistics & Analytics (IHLA) at Georgia Southern University hosted its grand opening on Thursday, November 30, 2023 amid a buzzing crowd. The downtown Statesboro location that formerly housed Cake Bistro and Bakery has been transformed into a modern and welcoming office environment where the IHLA team has been working since September. Remarks began with IHLA Director, Dr. Jessica Schwind, who introduced Georgia Southern University’s Provost, Dr. Carl Reiber. Reiber applauded the efforts of the IHLA team and thanked the many distinguished guests and community members in attendance. “It is my great honor to welcome you to the grand opening of the Institute for Health Logistics and Analytics. Today marks a pivotal moment in the history of Georgia Southern University as we unveil the breadth of a groundbreaking institution that embodies the spirit of our commitment as a public impact university.”
WGAU
UGA Small Business Development Center gets federal grant
The University of Georgia’s Small Business Development Center is the recipient of a $6.2 million federal grant, money from the US Treasury Department UGA says will be used to expand assistance for small businesses that have difficulty accessing traditional banking avenues. From the University of Georgia website … The University of Georgia Small Business Development Center has been named a sub-recipient in the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) Grant. A $6.2 million grant funded by the U.S. Department of Treasury and administered through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA); this grant was created to expand business assistance for small businesses that have difficulty accessing traditional banking opportunities. This grant is part of a $10 billion federal program intended to support small business and expand access to capital through business loans.
Georgia Trend
Bulloch County: Success breeds success
If you are looking for a sign of the times for Bulloch County, you need look no further than the business card of Benjy Thompson, CEO of the Development Authority of Bulloch County. One side looks like a typical American business card. The other side is in Korean. The development of the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant just over the county line in Bryan County is having a profound effect in the region, and aside from Bryan County itself, Bulloch is seeing the most impact. Three Tier-one suppliers to the plant are starting construction in facilities in southeast Bulloch near I-16, pacing to match or beat the Hyundai completion date of early 2025. A fourth automotive parts manufacturer, not directly related to Hyundai, has broken ground in Bulloch while a fifth major foreign-owned industrial company with no automotive connections at all is also building a plant there. This newfound industrial might is forming a third prong of economic development for Bulloch County, joining agriculture (which has always been the county’s backbone) and the now fast-growing Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. The result is a diverse mix that economic developers seek as the ideal situation. And meanwhile, Statesboro is transitioning, poised on that hard-to-define border between large town and small city.
Athens Banner-Herald
How can a doctor diagnose a patient through a screen? A UGA student is working to figure it out
Imagine you’re feeling achy. You have a cough, and you might have a fever. It’s flu season, so you want to have a doctor check you out. Almost a quarter of Americans now opt for a telehealth visit, which public health experts say has helped to keep sick people out of community spaces where they can spread illness. But the transition to telehealth visits also means rewriting some of the rules clinicians depend on to make diagnostics decisions. “We know that telemedicine is working identifying high-risk patients, but we know that we can do better also,” said Zane Billings, an epidemiology and biostatistics doctoral student in the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health.
The Union-Recorder
GCSU tradition continues with 27th performance of The Nutcracker
Georgia College Community Dance Program’s performance of The Nutcracker is celebrating its 27th year this Christmas, but it remains a holiday tradition with a new twist every year. “One thing that we do every year that we’re very proud of is we have all new choreography, and most dance companies in the world repeat choreography every year, or they change it very little,” said Ameilia Pelton, GCSU director of dance. Pelton said she and colleague Natalie King divide choreography each year, and they swap their respective halves yearly. “We try to play to the strengths of the individual dancers themselves, and it’s just fresh every year,” Pelton said.
Augusta CEO
University of Georgia helps new park project come to life in Thomson
Downtown Thomson is getting a new park based on community engagement through the UGA Institute of Government’s Renaissance Strategic Visioning Program (RSVP). The project builds off the community’s participation with the UGA Archway Partnership™ which started in 2017. Among the many recommendations the community identified during the RSVP process was additional gathering space downtown, such as a playground or additional greenspace. Thanks to UGA College of Engineering students working through Archway, a full design for a park was developed for the property adjacent to the government complex on Railroad Street in downtown. The Railroad Street Park design was based on concepts developed during the RSVP work with the UGA Institute of Government. Comprehensive plans included a playground, event space and the infrastructure required for a project of this magnitude.
WSB-TVGeorgia Tech to pay $90,000 settlement after researchers convicted for defrauding university
The U.S. Department of Justice said the Georgia Institute of Technology will pay $90,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act over a lack of oversight in their research department. The allegations stem from a multiple-year investigation into three university employees who were indicted, and later convicted and sentenced, for committing and conspiring to commit fraud using funds supplied to Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Corporation. Channel 2 Action News has covered the story for almost 10 years, after James Maloney, James Acree and James Fraley were first accused of the conspiracy, and fired from Georgia Tech after a university audit found they’d been misusing funds.
Higher Education News:
Higher Ed Dive
House Democrats press Education Department over Title IX rule delay
Dive Brief: House Democrats are urging the U.S. Department of Education to finalize its two highly anticipated Title IX regulations as quickly as possible, arguing their continual delay leaves sexual assault survivors, transgender students and other historically marginalized groups without adequate civil rights protections. The Biden administration missed the October deadline it set to release the two rules. One would direct how federally funded schools must investigate and resolve sexual assault complaints, while the other would prevent blanket bans on transgender students participating in athletics aligned with their gender identity. The Education Department has not disclosed when it will issue the final regulations. That delay preserves Trump-era policies “that weakened protections for sexual assault and harassment survivors and sowed confusion about the extent of students’ protections against sex discrimination,” 66 lawmakers wrote in a letter to the department Thursday. The agency received and will review the letter, a spokesperson said Thursday.
Inside Higher Ed
UC faculty oppose plans for ‘viewpoint-neutral’ Middle East history
A group of at least 150 faculty members in the University of California system recently signed an open letter to the system’s president asking him to rescind plans to start educational programs that teach “viewpoint-neutral” Middle East history as part of a wider strategy to address antisemitism and Islamophobia on campuses in light of the Israel-Hamas war. Dr. Michael V. Drake, president of the UC system, said at a Nov. 15 Board of Regents meeting that people within and outside the system have expressed “anger, fear, frustration, horror and sadness about how they see this conflict playing out on our campuses” as tensions among students, staff and faculty members on opposing sides of the conflict continue to escalate.
Inside Higher Ed
U of Michigan shuts down student vote on Israeli, Palestinian resolutions
A three-day student voting period on two competing ballot resolutions asking University of Michigan officials to take a stand on the Israel-Hamas war was slated to end Thursday night at 10 p.m. But well before the deadline, administrators shut down the voting. In an email to the student body, university vice president and general counsel Timothy Lynch said the referenda were canceled due to election interference by a large coalition of pro-Palestinian student organizations that supported one of the resolutions. Known as AR 13-025, the initiative called on the university to recognize that the people of Gaza are “undergoing genocide,” “acknowledge that 75+ years of Palestinian-Israeli tensions have been created through systems of settler colonialism” and establish a committee to investigate the ethics of the university’s investments. Such a committee could consider divesting from companies with ties to Israel, including those that manufacture weapons.
Chronicle of Higher Education
A tech giant is pitching a robot dog for campus security. It’s a hard sell.
It can run up to seven miles per hour, and swim. It can climb steps and scale hills at a 40-degree gradient. It can be outfitted with sensors, night vision, arms, and deployable drones. It is a robotic dog — a “quadruped” platform developed by Ghost Robotics and enhanced by AT&T that, to date, has been used to patrol military zones. Now, the telecommunications giant is pitching a new use for this AI-friendly technology: campus safety. “We started thinking outside the box,” said Arthur Hernandez, a principal technology program manager at AT&T who’s been in the U.S. Navy Reserves for more than 20 years. The team thought, “‘Why can’t we use this in other types of scenarios?’”
Higher Ed Dive
Vermont college system selects Bethany College president as new chancellor
Dive Brief: The Vermont State Colleges system said Wednesday it tapped Elizabeth Mauch, the president of Bethany College, an Evangelical institution in Kansas, to be its next chancellor. Mauch is slated to take over the system on Jan. 1. She will lead the Community College of Vermont and the system’s newly merged four-year institution, Vermont State University, created through a union of Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College. That merger has been particularly fraught. Though consolidating intended to clean up the three institutions’ finances, Vermont State is still pursuing program and faculty cuts. It, and the system, have also seen rapid leadership turnover.