University System News:
Daily Citizen-News
DSC names new provost and VP for academic affairs
Bruno Hicks has been named the next provost and vice president for academic affairs at Dalton State College effective Feb. 1, 2020. Hicks, who has a doctor of education from the University of Maine, was hired following a nationwide search. He has worked in both higher and K-12 education since the 1980s, serving in several capacities including his current position as dean and professor of education of the School of Education at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts.
WJBF.com
Master of Arts in Intelligence and Security Studies program has first graduate
By Brandon Dawson
Augusta University has its first graduate of its newly created Masters of Arts in Intelligence and Security studies program: Kim Toler. “It feels very relaxing right now that I was able to get through,” said Toler. The program combines intelligence studies with strategic cyber security and classic security studies.
Clayton News Daily
Clayton State, Fox Theatre partner for archives internship
Staff Reports
Clayton State University and the Fox Theatre in Atlanta have teamed up to provide a unique internship program that gives students the opportunity to explore the archives of the historic performance venue. Clayton State students in the Master of Archival Studies degree program will intern with Fox Theatre Institute as a Fox archives assistant, supporting the mission of the arts organization by working with staff to research collections and prepare documents and other items to be added to the Fox Theatre’s records. Students will also be awarded a $2,500 scholarship.
Albany CEO
Georgia Southwestern ceremony kicks off $3.4M Academic Center for Excellence renovation
Staff Reports
On Friday, December 13, Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) held a ceremony to celebrate the beginning of renovations to the Academic Center for Excellence (ACE), GSW’s primary advisement building. During the ceremony, GSW President Neal Weaver thanked the legislative delegation that worked diligently to secure $3.4 million for the renovations in Georgia’s Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) budget. Two of those state legislators, Sen. Freddie Powell Sims and Rep. Mike Cheokas, were in attendance. Sen. Greg Kirk was unable to attend.
Albany Herald
ABAC Nursing honors graduates at pinning ceremony
Staff Reports
Taylor Kight from Moultrie, Summer Landeros from Ashburn, and Shelby Stacey from Valdosta received the three top awards presented by the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College at the recent fall semester pinning ceremony.
Griffin Daily News
UGA student helps design new store
By Jennifer Reynolds
University of Georgia Interior Design student Haley McMullen, through the UGA Archway Program, has helped design a new store in Griffin.
Georgia Budget and Policy Institute
A two-generation approach: Solutions to support student parents and their children
By Alex Camardelle and Jennifer Lee
A parent’s educational level can be a strong predictor of their child’s own educational success and economic outcomes. … Genesis Appiah, 32, is a student at Clayton State University and aspires to be a school psychologist. Her daughter is four years old. This is not the first time Genesis has been in college, but it is the first time she is in school as a parent. She says, “Being a single mom, it was more important for me to finish college than when I started at 18.” And while her daughter provided motivation, paying for child care is also a challenge.
Georgia Public Broadcasting
How a ‘living building’ provides AC without a power bill
By Grant Blankenship
How do you design a building in the South to cope with 100 degrees in the summer and sub-freezing temperatures in the winter without pumping more climate changing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? That’s a challenge being tackled in an experimental building on the campus of Georgia Tech. Shan Arora is the director of the Kendeda building on the Georgia Tech Campus, which could be the first of its kind in the South. It’s something he calls a living building.
Control Engineering
Using 3-D printers to trap cancer cells for early detection
By John Toon
Finding a handful of cancer cells hiding among billions of blood cells in a patient sample can be like finding a needle in a haystack. In a new approach enabled by 3-D-printed cell traps, researchers are removing the hay to expose the cancer cells.
Trapping the white blood cells – which are about the size of cancer cells — and filtering out smaller red blood cells leaves behind the tumor cells, which could then be used to diagnose the disease, potentially provide early warning of recurrence and enable research into the cancer metastasis process. The work, led by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, could advance the goal of personalized cancer treatment by allowing rapid and low-cost separation of tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream.
Higher Education News:
The Washington Post
What the $1.4 trillion budget deal has in store for education
By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Laura Meckler
The $1.4 trillion budget deal approved Thursday by Congress boosts spending on early-childhood education and college access and affordability programs, rejecting deep cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
AJC.com
New TCSG leader, Trump’s order, UGA goes Hollywood
By Eric Stirgus
State leaders in the last week have proposed ways to improve higher education in Georgia and are looking at a veteran official to improve operations at the organization that manages its technical college system. Meanwhile, President Trump, someone who wants his job and another leader in Washington drew up plans they believe will improve campus safety and make college more affordable.
Georgia Recorder
Georgia unemployment rate at record low in November
By Stanley Dunlap
The state Department of Labor announced Thursday that last month Georgia’s unemployment rate dipped to 3.3%, the lowest since the federal government began tracking jobless rates in 1976.
Diverse Education
Study shows higher ed for single mothers pays dividends
By Lois Elfman
Single mothers who earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree earn more, pay more in taxes and require little if any public assistance according to a new study. A study from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) provides state-level analysis on the economic and social returns for single mothers who are able to access higher education and earn their degrees.
Diverse Education
By Sarah Wood
A new report by the Aurora Institute, previously known as iNACOL, details the need for higher education institutions to create systematic changes within the teaching field. Titled “Transforming Teaching: What University Presidents and Deans of Colleges of Education Need to Know about Modernizing the K-12 Educator Workforce,” recommends three main policy changes including the need to “diversify the workforce, modernize teacher preparation and promote continuous professional learning and development.”
Diverse Education
University of California system faces civil rights lawsuit over standardized testing
By Sara Weissman
The University of California system was hit with a civil rights lawsuit last week over required standardized testing. The plaintiffs – four students, six nonprofits and the Compton Unified School District – accused University of California regents of knowingly putting student of color and students with disabilities at a disadvantage by requiring the SAT or ACT from applicants.
Inside Higher Ed
By Madeline St. Amour
Student loan borrowers may soon be able to pay down their debt using money from 529 savings accounts. President Trump is expected to sign a spending bill that includes this provision Friday. The amendment would let those with 529 spending plans use the money toward expenses related to registered apprenticeship programs as well as qualified education loan repayments.
Forbes
The college admission ‘deadline’
By Brennan Barnard
Let us begin with the premise that nobody is getting shot over their college application. Despite what some students may think, when one applies to college is not a matter of life or death. Still, as with many things in life, there are basic expectations and rules to follow. The origins of the term “deadline” are unclear but it has been suggested that it came from Civil War prison camps where there was a physical line, which if crossed, prisoners would be shot. Again, despite perceptions, college applicants are not prisoners, nor will their lives be in jeopardy if by January 1 their application is not complete. Perhaps we need to strike the word deadline from the admission vernacular and instead focus on “due date” or another less violent term.
Inside Higher Ed
Has the master’s degree bubble burst?
By Lindsay McKenzie
The explosion of new master’s degree programs in recent years hasn’t corresponded with a surge in students, analysis by the research and technology services company EAB suggests. Megan Adams, managing director of research at EAB, said many colleges have overestimated the popularity of new degree programs. They may anticipate awarding hundreds of degrees per year, but the true number is often a single digit, she said.