University System News:
Douglas Now
SGSC Nursing School Participates In Telehealth Training
The Southeastern Telehealth Resource Center (SETRC), through CARES Act funding, is providing telehealth training for graduating college students preparing to enter the healthcare workforce. The goal is to provide a “Telehealth Ready” workforce capable of addressing the increased demand for the delivery of virtual healthcare created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Training began during the Fall 2020 Semester and continues thru the Winter and Spring 2021 semesters for other universities. Telehealth is a vital mechanism for providing access to safe, cost-effective quality care to patients at a distance. As such, it is important for medical doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, behavioral health clinicians and other providers to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to utilize telehealth technologies in practice. …The South Georgia State College School of Nursing (SON) is a recipient of a $3,000 award from SETRC to support the administration of the telehealth training for its students.
WJBF
Pandemic course giving medical students hands-on experience
by: Chloe Salsameda
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, students at the Medical College of Georgia wanted to step in and help. However, they were no longer allowed in hospitals and could not directly treat COVID-19 patients. Within 11 days, faculty created a pandemic elective course allowing students to research and learn about the virus while sharing their knowledge with others. “It gave students the opportunity to fill leadership positions and really make a difference in the community,” Amanda Delgado, a second year MCG medical student, described. Many students, including, Amanda Delgado and Joe Elengickal, jumped on the opportunity. They and their classmates set up the MCG COVID-19 response website and social media pages to update Augusta residents on the pandemic. Other students began working at COVID-19 testing sites. When vaccines were approved, Delgado volunteered to administer them.
WRBL
Columbus State expands student mental health services through new partnership, smart phone app
by: Sam Sachs
Columbus State University expanded mental health services for students in its CougarsCare program through a new partnership with the University System of Georgia, Christie Campus Health, and the Jed Foundation. Students at CSU will be able to get access to real-time support from licensed mental health clinicians or therapists any place, any time, 24 hours per day, every day of the year, just by calling the university Counseling Center phone line at 706-507-5740. … Rose says the partnership does not replace in-person services that are available to students, but instead augments the services that are already available. The expansion comes as mental health challenges are on the rise, according to USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley.
Marietta Daily Journal
Kennesaw State expands mental health resources for students
Staff reports
Building on its longstanding commitment to providing a healthy and supportive learning environment, Kennesaw State University is expanding the mental health services and resources available to students. KSU has launched Wellbeing@KSU, a comprehensive mental health wellbeing initiative that includes services such as a 24/7/365 mental health support line for in-the-moment support and linkages to next steps, regardless of the time of day or the caller’s location; wellness peer mentors; and expanded access to psychiatric assessments. Wellbeing@KSU builds on KSU’s existing resources offered through Student Health Services, Health Promotion and Wellness, Counseling and Psychological Services, Sports and Recreation, and the Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery.
WFXG
Nursing students join the fight against COVID-19 by helping administer vaccines
By Mary Klingler
Vaccination efforts at Augusta University Health continue to grow as local nursing students join the fight against COVID-19. At vaccination sites across Augusta, nursing students are helping to administer the COVID-19 vaccine and they’re getting opportunities unlike any other. More than just medical experience. They also get to be a part of history. Augusta University is training the students for the future through real-life experience. According to Augusta University President Brooks Keel, Augusta University Health has vaccinated more than 20,000 people so far.
Gainesville Times
How federal grants are helping students navigate pandemic
Gabriela Miranda
Alejandra Garcia said she saw her uncle, who died in January from complications of COVID-19, as a second father. The University of North Georgia junior said shortly after her uncle’s death, she became the designated funeral coordinator. And as she grappled with the family loss, she left her part-time job to help her family. The financial and emotional burden of the death made it difficult for Garcia to focus in class. That is, she said, until UNG announced the second round of federal grants aiming to help students like her. …On Jan. 14, the US Department of Education announced UNG was awarded $6.8 million from the second phase of federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund grants, which aim to assist students with “exceptional need due to COVID-19.” However, Carson said the university receives the HEERF II funds on a reimbursement basis. Once UNG disperses the funds to students it will request a reimbursement. To date, UNG has disbursed more than $2 million to about 5,100 students, Carson said.
Douglas Now
SGSC Receives Final Approval For New Four-Year Degree
The highly awaited eighth baccalaureate program at South Georgia State College (SGSC) has been given a final endorsement and is preparing to accept students for the fall 2021 semester. SGSC has received approval from Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to offer the new Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology (BSMET) degree beginning this fall. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia initially approved the new program on September 15, 2020 before its consideration by SACSCOC.
Gainesville Times
Robbie Sequeira
Last month, Rep. Emory Dunahoo, R-Gillsville, sent a legislative request to Georgia colleges and universities asking: “what are Georgia’s universities and colleges teaching its students about White privilege?” The response? A 100-page document compiled with responses from 26 Georgia colleges and universities stating that curricula teaching White privilege does not “malign” students or people who are White, male, heterosexual or Christian.
Claxton Enterprise
Senator Billy Hickman Recognizes Louise Wilkerson For Her Contributions
By Julie Braly, Editor
Last Thursday, Georgia Senator Billy Hickman made his first appearance on the Senate floor since being elected. Hickman used his opportunity to speak to recognize who he called, “A great Georgian and resident of Claxton for her contributions to our area – Louise Wilkerson. “Louise Stewart Wilkerson is a native of Evans County,” said Hickman. “She is a 1958 graduate of Evans County High School, and a 1962 graduate of Savannah State University, earning advanced degrees from Armstrong State University and Georgia Southern University.
Marietta Daily Journal
AROUND TOWN: Witnessing the desegregation of UGA
It is fitting that during Black History Month the University of Georgia marks the integration of UGA 60 years ago. Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter became both trailblazers and targets when they walked onto the Athens campus as the first enrolled Black students. Their court-ordered admission sparked campus protests by thousands opposed to desegregation. Former Marietta mayor Bill Dunaway had a front row seat to that history. It was his senior year in 1961 and Dunaway, along with a like-minded group of UGA students, saw the storm clouds coming with the arrival of Holmes and Hunter and wanted to help quell the expected turmoil that would accompany one of the first desegregation efforts of a major southern university. “There was a group of students — we were not a highly organized group — and we wanted to make sure there weren’t going to be any bad problems. So we decided we wanted to try to do something about it.” That “something” was to shadow the new students as they walked to classes in order to deter conflict. He said two of his group would walk 20 yards ahead, two 20 yards behind and others to their flanks.
Savannah Tribune
Center for Africana Studies to Celebrate Black History Month
The Georgia Southern University Center for Africana Studies is hosting “Go Back and Fetch It! African Folktales Traditions, Meanings, and Relevance,” featuring Gullah Geechee storyteller and Armstrong alumna Lillian Grant-Baptiste (’13). The event is in celebration of Black History Month and will take place over Zoom on Feb. 25 at 12:30 p.m. Maxine Bryant, Ph.D., assistant director of the Center for Africana Studies, said the goal for the event is for people to realize the value of African American folktales and their use as a tool of resistance, preservation and reconciliation. She said attendees will also learn about Gullah Geechee culture, which is prominent in the coastal region of Georgia.
Athens Banner-Herald
‘This is the beginning’: Athens-Clarke commission unanimously passes Linnentown resolution
Stephanie Allen
The Athens-Clarke County Commission voted Tuesday to approve a resolution in support of recognition and redress for Linnentown. The vote passed unanimously and comes after Mayor Kelly Girtz issued a proclamation of apology earlier this month. “More than anything, what this does more than looking back, more than casting sorrow upon very dire circumstances that were thrust upon people, it’s also looking ahead and it’s asking, ‘how do we cast new light and new opportunity?’” said Girtz. Linnentown was a 22-acre area where primarily Black families in Athens began to settle as early as 1900. Today, the community would sit in the bounds of Baxter Street, Church Street, and South Finley Street. The properties in Linnentown were acquired through eminent domain and sold to the University System of Georgia, displacing those residents. The resolution passed would seek to recognize and provide redress for Linnentown and its descendants. …The government will seek a partnership with Linnentown residents and USG to install an on-site “Wall of Recognition.” Another partnership with USG would seek to create and co-fund a local Center on Slavery, Jim Crow, and the Future of Athens Black Communities.
Growing Georgia
ABAC Phi Theta Kappa Chapter Presents Historic Scrapbooks to History Room
Thanks to the Omega Delta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the History Room in Tift Hall at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College recently received two treasured artifacts from ABAC’s past. Dr. Charlotte Klesman, an Associate Professor of Communication in the School of Arts and Sciences, presented two scrapbooks from the honor society to Mike Chason, Director of Public Relations Emeritus at ABAC. Klesman is the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) advisor. “One scrapbook celebrates the first 25 years of Omega Delta Chapter history,” Klesman said. “Our ABAC chapter was chartered in 1973. The other scrapbook records 10 years of chapter history serving the ABAC and Tifton community.” The academic honor society was formed in 1918 and was modeled on the senior college honor society Phi Beta Kappa. PTK chapters focus on community service and assisting undergraduates who want to continue their educations.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia surpasses 14,000 coronavirus deaths
By Tim Darnell
Georgia surpassed 14,000 coronavirus deaths Tuesday, as the state continues to battle the impact of a global pandemic that has claimed more than 2.4 million lives worldwide. On Tuesday, the state Department of Public Health reported 180 more confirmed COVID deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing the state’s official total to 14,176. Overall, 794,349 confirmed cases have been reported since the pandemic began, with 1,872 new ones recorded Tuesday. Globally, more than 109 million cases have been reported since the pandemic began last year. The U.S. continues to lead the world in total confirmed cases — 27.7 million — and deaths, with more than 487,000.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Combating Cheating in the COVID Era: The Key Podcast
By Doug Lederman
Are more students engaging in academic misconduct now than is normally the case? Should colleges be turning to proctoring services and lockdown browsers to fight cheating? Or are they better off encouraging instructors to assess students in new and different ways that are less susceptible to gaming? We explore those and other questions in the new episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast.
Inside Higher Ed
Zoombombing Often an ‘Inside Job’
Research suggests that attackers who disrupted online classes often did so at the invitation and encouragement of students in those same classes — which instructors need to know if they want to guard against noxious interruptions.
By Lindsay McKenzie
The Zoombombing trend, where digital disruptors join online meetings and spew hateful comments, play loud music and share lewd content, thankfully seems to have died down in recent months. As staff, students and faculty at some colleges approach nearly a year of working and studying remotely, perhaps the novelty of ruining someone’s day by inviting strangers to commandeer their conference call has worn off. Some would-be intruders may have been spooked by the FBI encouraging people to report incidents of Zoombombing as cybercrimes. Or perhaps meeting hosts have simply taken measures to make it more difficult for unwanted visitors to gain access.
Inside Higher Ed
The Skinny on Teaching Evals and Bias
New analysis seeks to make sense of what’s really going on with respect to gender and other kinds of bias and teaching evaluations. It offers suggestions for meaningful evaluations during COVID-19 and beyond.
By Colleen Flaherty
Many studies criticize student evaluations of teaching as biased or a poor measure of teaching effectiveness, or both. But none of these papers are as expansive as a new metastudy of more than 100 articles on these student evaluations, or SETs. The new study’s breadth means its authors can cut through the sometimes contradictory research on SETs. And instead of looking at just measurement bias (how well SETs reflect good teaching, or don’t) or just equity bias (how SETs advantage certain groups of instructors over others, or don’t), the study contextualizes both.
Inside Higher Ed
Report Outlines Pandemic Challenges for Student Veterans
By Lilah Burke
Student veterans are reporting increased need for support due to the pandemic, suggests a study from Operation College Promise and the Texas A&M University system. The survey sampled 75 institutional respondents and 230 student veteran respondents. Students reported difficulties studying and learning, as well as a lack of presence in the community, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the shift to online has been preferential for some military students, others have said that their “educational experience” has been diminished. Student veterans are more likely to have children than other student populations, and several respondents said they struggled to balance their children’s online learning with their own. The survey also found growing gaps in institutional support for military students, likely caused by financial challenges brought on by the pandemic.
Inside Higher Ed
Campus Infrastructure Shudders Under Record Cold
Campus closures have stopped COVID-19 testing and vaccinations while some colleges struggle through power outages and burst pipes displacing students.
By Emma Whitford
Record-breaking low temperatures and winter storms across the southern and central United States caused widespread power outages and forced dozens of colleges to close for at least several days. The storms hit shortly after many colleges began what will likely be another challenging spring term. More and more institutions are transitioning to some in-person instruction amid the pandemic and welcomed more students to campus than they did in the fall. In some cases, the recent bad weather shut down campus COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites and threw a wrench in colleges’ efforts to keep students and employees socially distant.