WGAU Radio
Marty Kemp to speak at UGA’s legislative outlook session
By Tim Bryant
First Lady Marty Kemp is among the speakers at today’s Georgia Legislative Outlook session in Atlanta, an annual event hosted by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs. UGA political scientist Charles Bullock is also taking part. …Funds raised for the event support the initiatives of the Alumni Board which include support for need-based scholarships for study abroad, MPA students, and top funding priorities established annually by the dean of the School of Public and International Affairs.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
University of Georgia announces $7.3 million in campus security upgrades
The changes come amid demands for more safety measures after Laken Riley’s killing
By Vanessa McCray
The University of Georgia on Tuesday said it has committed more than $7.3 million on new safety measures, including emergency call boxes and a bigger police budget, following the death of Laken Riley, who was killed on the Athens campus last week. UGA President Jere Morehead said he met with campus law enforcement officials Tuesday morning to hear their recommendations and approved each one. The $7.3 million investment includes what UGA said will be a permanent 20% increase to the police department budget to recruit and retain officers by offering more competitive pay and to add more safety personnel. The current budget for the UGA police force covers just over 100 personnel. …The funding also will pay for more cameras, lighting and perimeter fencing, license plate readers and the installation of emergency call box systems across campus.
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accessWDUN
Family of Laken Riley releases statement in wake of murder
By Austin Eller News Director
The family of an Augusta University nursing student who was murdered Thursday on the University of Georgia’s campus has released a statement in the wake of her death. …Riley’s father issued a statement on behalf of the family Monday on a GoFundMe page. “On behalf of our entire family we would like send out a heartfelt thank you for your donations and overwhelming support,” wrote Riley’s father, John Phillips. “Laken was an amazing daughter, sister, friend and overall person in general. Her love for the Lord was exemplified in every aspect of her life. She will be missed every day, but we promise to honor her life moving forward in a very big way. Every single dollar donated will go towards starting the Laken Hope Riley Foundation and will be used to drive homicide awareness and safety for women. Again, thank you for your kind support and we love you all!” Phillips’ statement follows immense community support on the GoFundMe page, which had raised about $140,000 as of 2 p.m. Tuesday. The page also said Riley was a class of 2025 BSN student at Augusta University’s Athens Campus and an active member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority at UGA.
WSAV
Augusta University teams up with Medical College of Georgia to create new Savannah campus
by: Tyler Carmona
In May of last year, the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta University announced that the two would be coming together to bring the Medical College of Georgia campus to Savannah. By this summer, some medical students will already be taking courses at the new MCG’s medical college on the Georgia Southern Armstrong campus. By fall 2024, the school is set to be open to its full capacity Elizabeth Gray serves as the associate dean at the Southeast Campus of the Medical College of Georgia. However, by the next school year, she will be the founding dean at MCG’s four-year campus on Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus.
Flagpole
UGA Is Set to Take Over and Expand Athens’ Medical School
by Lee Shearer
A University of Georgia medical school could quickly add millions of dollars annually to the local economy, but it will take a while before it puts much of a dent in the state’s serious doctor shortage. Under a feasibility plan approved by the University System Board of Regents earlier this month, the planned medical school’s enrollment would grow incrementally from the 60 students per year now admitted to the Augusta University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership, operated as a kind of satellite campus of Augusta University’s Medical College of Georgia since it launched with 40 first-year medical students in 2010. Unlike the regents’ 2008 vote to establish the medical partnership, this week’s approval came as a routine vote without controversy. When UGA moved to take over the shuttered Navy Supply Corps School’s campus in 2007—during University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue’s gubernatorial administration—Augusta officials pushed back against a UGA-run medical school. But this time Augusta University is on board with the plan. Students who graduate from the partnership, housed on UGA’s Health Sciences Campus in Normaltown, currently receive their degrees from the Medical College of Georgia. Beginning with the first class to enter an accredited standalone UGA medical school, as early as fall, 2026, they’ll be enrolled at UGA.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: Georgia’s HBCUs deserve more funding and attention
By Burt Jones
For far too long, our state’s historically Black colleges and universities have not properly received the recognition or the funding that they deserve. …I’ve had the opportunity to see firsthand how our HBCUs are impacting higher education, economic growth and workforce development in positive ways across the state. This past fall, I had the honor of joining Democratic state Sens. Sonya Halpern and Freddie Powell Sims, along with three members of the majority caucus, for a tour of Georgia’s public and private HBCUs. …During the tours, we met with presidents, leadership staff, faculty and students to learn more about each campus, their unique programs and their initiatives to address a variety of needs across Georgia.. …I enjoyed working with Sen. Halpern and the rest of my colleagues in the Georgia state Senate Monday to pass Senate Bill 235, legislation creating the HBCU Innovation and Economic Prosperity Planning Districts Commission.…Another investment we are making into our state’s HBCUs is a $100,000 appropriation for a feasibility study for a veterinary school at Fort Valley State University. This study would determine the economic and developmental impacts of a veterinary program at Fort Valley State and would be the first of its kind at a HBCU in Georgia.
13WMAZ
Isaac J. Crumbly’s name is now on the auditorium on Fort Valley State’s campus. Crumbly has been making an impact since he got to campus back in the 60s.
Author: Cecily Stoute
After almost 60 years at Fort Valley State University, Isaac J. Crumbly is a legend on campus and now he even has an auditorium named after him. The Interim Vice President of Advancement, Karen Wright, said people on campus gave him a fun nickname because of his decades of impact on the wildcat community. “Lovingly they refer to Dr. Crumbly as the goat. The greatest of all time,” Wright said. Crumbly’s name is now the name on the auditorium in the computer technology and mathematics building. “The fact that my name is over that you know over the entrance, I feel good about that,” Crumbly said. Crumbly saw a need when he came to Fort Valley State University nearly 60 years ago. He started a dual degree program decades ago. …(and) started the Cooperative Developmental Energy Program better known as CDEP.
11Alive
Aging out of foster care at 18, this organization is helping teens get a college education
Aging out of foster care at 18 in Georgia, teens face huge challenges but also a chance to pursue higher education.
Author: Bill Liss
Every year, hundreds of Georgia teenagers age out of foster care at age 18. For many, that means confusion, bewilderment and even homelessness. But for others, it has brought a life-changing opportunity, thanks in great measure to a local non-profit. It is an opportunity for teens who have aged out of foster care to set a path to pursue higher education, and it’s free. “School was all that I knew that was my way out and was my way of hope, and so without education, I don’t know where I would be,” said Eshontee Rowe, who spent years in four different foster homes. For Rowe, the opportunity for higher education meant graduating from Albany State and becoming an advocate for young people in foster care. At the forefront of funding and mentoring foster teens aging out of foster care is an Atlanta nonprofit, the nsoro Educational Foundation, making the dreams of a college education a reality by providing all the support necessary to ensure a total college experience. And Eshontee Rowe is not alone. …And for another student, Riheem Jefferson, who had been in foster care from age two in 15 different homes, higher education changed his life. “I felt like I didn’t have the guidance or the tools that I needed to even get through high school,” he said. Jefferson went on to graduate from Savannah State, then joined an accounting firm, and he is now close to becoming a certified public accountant. And for Jamie Kelley, it’s a proud milestone. She was determined to go to college after spending 10 years in two different foster homes. She graduated from Georgia Gwinnett College. … However, reaching for a college degree takes significant support.
Morning AgClips
FFAR Grant Addresses Emerging Pine Needle Diseases
Loblolly pines across the southeast are infected by fungi that cause pine needle diseases
Loblolly pine is a highly valuable tree for pulp, paper and lumber products and the tree provides a habitat for numerous wildlife species. This important pine is currently plagued by needle diseases, about which still too little is known. Current reports from industry and government forest managers indicate a recent increase in the prevalence of needle disease in the southeastern U.S., raising concern about the stability of this important commodity in the region. To address this growing concern, the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) awarded a $74,111 Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research (ROAR) program grant to the University of Georgia Research Foundation to develop diagnostics that detect and identify loblolly pine needle fungal pathogens. The Southern Pine Health Research Cooperative, the University of Florida Board of Trustees and the University of Georgia Research Foundation provided matching funds for a total of $148,237 investment.
Savannah Morning News
Fort Pulaski celebrates the heroic life of Black Savannah boatman March Haynes
Ben Goggins
…From 10 .a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 2, Fort Pulaski National Monument celebrates March Haynes Community Day, and everyone is invited. Admission is free for a day full of programs that connect the fort to Savannah’s African American history. …There will be guided tours and remembrance ceremonies. Historians from Georgia Southern University will show a documentary film about the African Americans played at the fort, from its earliest days when plantation owners leased their slaves to the U.S. Army to build it.
WTVM
Columbus State University to host annual dance marathon
7 hours of dance for a good cause
By Steve Pineda
The community is invited to dance all night long at CSU’s annual dance marathon! Cougarthon is scheduled for February 29 from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Funds raised from Cougarthon will go to the future Bill and Olivia Amos Children’s Hospital, West Georgia, and East Alabama’s Children’s Miracle Network hospitals.
The Red & Black
Make It Count: UGA Miracle hosts 29th annual Dance Marathon
Anna Izquierdo
UGA Miracle, the largest student-run philanthropy at the University of Georgia, hosted the 29th annual Dance Marathon on Feb. 24 and 25 in the Tate Grand Hall to raise money and awareness for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Despite the deaths of two students that the Athens community faced that week, Dance Marathon was still held as a way to promote fellowship and support one another, UGA Miracle said in an Instagram post. This year’s theme was “Make It Count,” after UGA Miracle executive director Tess Abraham’s motto. The theme was created to help motivate and inspire each UGA Miracle member to embrace everything the year has to offer, UGA Miracle said in an Instagram post. There are Miracle families and members who count on the year-long fundraising but also on UGA Miracle’s positivity and dedication to champion each child daily.
Times-Georgian
Birden named GSC Field Athlete of the Year
By Jared Boggus UWG
T’oni Birden of the University of West Georgia has added another honor to her growing trophy shelf. She has been named the Gulf South Conference’s Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. The award comes just over a week after Birden garnered Most Outstanding Overall and Most Outstanding Field Athlete at the 2024 GSC Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Athens Banner-Herald
Where Georgia athletics’ push for inclusivity stands now with DEI programs facing backlash
Marc Weiszer
There are still visible signs on game days in the form of black shirts with the message “Commit to Change, Unity, Equity, Action.” They were worn this past season by football players Oscar Delp, Smael Mondon and Ladd McConkey and last week by basketball player Russel Tchewa. More than three and a half years ago in the summer of 2020, Georgia and many other athletic departments looked inward and pledged to address issues surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion after a national reckoning about racial inequality following the murder of a Black man, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer that prompted social unrest in the country. The football program—Georgia’s most prominent and successful in recent years—led the charge with its “Dawgs for Pups” program which raised $100,000 for Wi-Fi hotspots for Clarke County students, $103,000 to the Downtown Academy school from spring game proceeds and collected 30,000 pounds of snacks for the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia. That came after conversations about being change agents in the community.
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Savannah Morning News
How Georgia athletics, SEC are trying to cast a wide net for hiring coaches, administrators
Marc Weiszer Athens Banner-Herald
Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks wants to “grow the pipeline,” for coaches, ADs and administrators of the next generation. To do that, he’s looked to some graduating students from underrepresented backgrounds to fill internships and assistant jobs to get their foot in the door, hiring former Bulldog athletes for roles in development and the business office. In his more than three years as AD, Brooks has made 10 head coaching hires. Two of them—track coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert and soccer coach Keidane McAlpine—are Black. “Every search for me is an open search,” Brooks said. “I want the best candidate for the University of Georgia, but I think when you truly have an open search, that’s when you get great candidates like Caryl Smith-Gilbert and Keidane McAlpine.”
HER Campus
6 College Students On How They’d Feel Safer On Campus In The Wake Of The UGA Murder
Addie Whightsil
Many college students can agree that it can sometimes be hard to feel safe on campus — especially when issues like school shootings, stalkings, and break-ins are prevalent headlines in modern society. Feeling safe on your college campus is extremely important, not only for your own comfort, but because it’s a right. In the wake of a murder that occurred on campus at the University of Georgia on Thursday, Feb. 22, students are being reminded how important safety on campus is. …The reality of campus safety is that there are always things that can be done to help students feel more secure, whether it be extra street lights or the reassurance of a constant contact to police. Her Campus spoke to six college students about the specific things their schools could do that would make them feel safer on their college campuses.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GSU student body president ‘outraged’ over shootings, won’t run for re-election
By David Aaro
Georgia State University’s student body president says he won’t be running for re-election this year amid growing frustrations over recurring violence near his campus in downtown Atlanta. Zayvion Sheppard, who has served as president since May 2023, penned a letter Monday to the GSU community on Instagram after 21-year-old Javare Shakir-Fulford was fatally shot Sunday near a student housing center and RaceTrac gas station on Piedmont Avenue. It was the latest shooting on or near campus, which Sheppard said has left him heartbroken and striving for change. He said the majority of students he has spoken with expressed feelings of hopelessness and apathy.
Savannah Morning News
‘This is literally our lives’: Savannah State students keep up the fight for arts programs
Rob Hessler
Savannah State University Visual and Performing Arts students rally outside the Student Union building to protest proposed deactivation of programs. “This is literally our lives,” said Savannah State University (SSU) art student Maya “Star” Beckett in response to recent threats to deactivate her chosen major. “This is where I moved so that I could study here. This is the one that I picked, so don’t take it away from me.” Beckett was one of about a hundred students who gathered in front of Savannah State’s Student Union building on the morning of Feb. 19 to protest cuts to the HBCU’s visual and performing arts programs, which remain under review by university administrators and the University System of Georgia (USG). Beckett, who is studying to become a digital illustrator, first heard about the proposed cuts on Feb. 15 via SSU’s Art Club group chat.
Governing
The Poisonous Patriarchy of Higher Education
As recent ousters illustrate, patriarchy’s a particular issue for Black women in top administrative positions at colleges and universities. Education leaders and public officials need to take it seriously.
OPINION • Jabari Simama
Last month, Harvard University pressured its first Black president, Claudine Gay, to step down from her leadership position amid allegations of plagiarism and continued controversy over her response to incidents of antisemitism on the campus. A week later, Antoinette Candia-Bailey, who had been vice president of student affairs at Lincoln University of Missouri, committed suicide after she was fired following allegations of insubordination and other infractions. She had complained of bullying by the Jefferson City college’s president. And in December, Clayton State University fired Kimberly McLeod, the suburban Atlanta college’s first African American provost, over alleged citation problems with publications listed on her curriculum vitae. She had been in the position for less than a semester. Those cases shine a light not only on the unchanged patriarchal environment of higher education but also on the particular plight of Black women in top administrative roles on both public and private campuses.
Higher Education News:
Higher Ed Dive
Transfer enrollment rose 5.3% in fall 2023, pointing to pandemic recovery
Some of the biggest gains were among historically disadvantaged students, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data showed.
Laura Spitalniak, Staff Reporter
Dive Brief:
Transfer enrollment in fall 2023 rose by 5.3% year over year, according to new National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data released Wednesday. The bump represents almost 63,000 students. The number of students transferring directly from one college to another increased by 6.5% in fall 2023, and transfers returning after a stop-out grew by 3.7% year over year. Large increases in transfers came from historically disadvantaged students. Black and Hispanic students saw the biggest increase in transfer enrollment among racial and ethnic groups, at 7.8% and 5% respectively.
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Inside Higher Ed
Black, Hispanic Students More Likely to Drop Out
By Liam Knox
Black and Hispanic students are more likely than their peers to consider dropping out of college, according to a Gallup and Lumina Foundation survey of current students conducted last fall. The most common reasons they gave for stopping coursework were emotional stress and personal mental health, followed by cost. Forty-two percent of Black current students and 40 percent of Hispanic students said they had considered withdrawing from their program in the past six months, compared to 31 percent of white students. Overall, 35 percent of students across racial groups considered abandoning higher education. The findings were true across all postsecondary program types, including credential and industry certification pathways. Gallup surveyed 6,015 currently enrolled students, 5,012 adults who enrolled in a postsecondary program after high school but did not complete it and 3,005 adults who had never enrolled.
Inside Higher Ed
Views
The Program-Level AI Conversations We Should Be Having
Now is the time to progress to program-level conversations around curriculum and learning outcomes, Kathleen Landy writes.
By Kathleen Landy
For those not already working in the field of artificial intelligence, the rise to prominence of generative AI platforms—primarily, ChatGPT—seemed to happen overnight in November 2022. Since that time, institutions of higher ed have been responding in (understandably) reactive ways. In many colleges and universities, newly assembled institutionwide committees developed guidelines to help individual faculty members establish course-level policies. Simultaneously, many centers for teaching and learning swiftly deployed faculty development programming to support instructors trying to familiarize themselves with these new platforms while ameliorating concerns about academic integrity. Programs included listening sessions to capture faculty concerns, platform-specific overviews (on ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and AlphaCode, to name a few examples), and assignment-design workshops.
Higher Ed Dive
Congressman seeks to block Labor Department’s new overtime rule
The bill is just one example of the pushback the agency has received since the proposed rule’s 2023 publication.
Ryan Golden Senior Reporter
Dive Brief:
A House bill introduced Feb. 16 would prohibit the U.S. Department of Labor from moving forward with its proposed rule updating the minimum salary threshold for determining overtime eligibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under the bill, introduced by Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., the Secretary of Labor would be prohibited from finalizing, implementing or enforcing the overtime rule proposal. In a press release, Burlison said the bill would “ensure that businesses can manage overtime compensation in a way that benefits both business and employees.” DOL last August proposed to raise the overtime eligibility threshold to $55,068 per year, up from the $35,568 per year mark set in 2019, and it would provide for automatic updates every three years. DOL has slated a final rule for publication in April.
Inside Higher Ed
Fostering Mental Health Support for Instructors: Academic Minute
By Doug Lederman
Today on the Academic Minute: Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, clinical assistant professor in the education, health and behavior studies department at the University of North Dakota, examines the mental health needs of our classroom leaders.
Inside Higher Ed
Mississippi Bill Would Mandate 3 College Closures
By Josh Moody
A new bill in the Mississippi Legislature aims to close three state universities. The legislation—Senate Bill 2726—doesn’t specify the three, deferring that decision to the Institutions of Higher Learning, which oversees the state’s eight public universities. If the bill passes, IHL will have until June 30, 2025, to select them, with closure mandated by 2028.
Inside Higher Ed
Saint Augustine’s Loses Accreditation Appeal
By Josh Moody
Struggling Saint Augustine’s University has lost an appeal to maintain its accreditation and now plans to file an injunction to ask the courts to weigh in, SAU officials announced Tuesday. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges stripped the university of accreditation in December over financial and governance issues. However, SAU remained accredited until the appeal process played out. Now litigation is SAU’s only lifeline. “While SAU leadership is understandably disappointed in the SACSCOC decision, the president and his team look forward to continuing this fight in court,” officials said in a statement.