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Georgia Southern University: Student-Led Media Group Wins Package Of Awards For Innovation
The George-Anne Media Group, a student-led news team at Georgia Southern University, has earned a bundle of awards, including one that some consider to be the highest national honor among student media. The headline prize was the Pacemaker Award.
Albany Herald
Google grant will allow Georgia State to enhance computer literacy
From staff reports
Georgia State University associate professor Lauren Margulieux received $234,268 in funding from Google to work with teacher education faculty members at the university on incorporating computer science lessons into their curriculum for all K-12 grades and then study how these lessons are used in classrooms throughout Georgia. The grant will be led by the new Snap Inc. Center for Computer and Teacher Education, a center housed in Georgia State’s College of Education & Human Development that prepares educators to integrate CS into all disciplines and works to diversify the CS education field. Margulieux, director of the Snap Inc. Center, and her team are using the funding to establish the Computing Integration Faculty Fellowship Program.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech scholarship drive raises goal to $3.5 million
By Ken Sugiura
With Georgia Tech supporters having met the goal of a $2.5 million athletic scholarship drive in less than six weeks, the institute has raised the objective to $3.5 million. Contributors to the Competitive Drive Initiative include new football coach Brent Key and his wife, Danielle, who made the gift that raised the total to the $2.5 million mark. With the Georgia Tech Foundation pledging a dollar-for-dollar match up to $2.5 million, the drive has introduced $5 million in new money to the cash-strapped athletic department. Supporters have until Dec. 31 for their gifts to the scholarship fund of the athletic department’s Alexander-Tharpe Fund to be included in the matching program.
WGAU Radio
Demand for UGA education continues among student applicants
By Staff
The University of Georgia continues to be a top destination for students across Georgia and the country, as applications for the undergraduate Class of 2027 recently demonstrated. Students from 49 states and Washington, D.C., including 125 counties across Georgia, applied for early acceptance to UGA, continuing the trend for rising academic excellence among incoming students. Admission was offered to those deemed academically superior: the group averaged a GPA of 4.26, SAT score of 1435, and an ACT score of 33.
Inside Higher Ed
Contest Outcome Prompts Dr Pepper to Award 2 $100K Prizes
By Safia Abdulahi
Bowing to crowd pressure, Dr Pepper awarded two $100,000 tuition prizes—rather than just one—after two students tied during a halftime competition at the SEC championship football game Saturday, Fortune reported. Midway through the game, between Louisiana State University and the University of Georgia, contestants competed for the prize money from Dr Pepper by throwing footballs into giant soda cans. The highest scorers, Kayla Gibson of the University of St. Augustine and Reagan Whitaker of Baylor University, tied in both the first and second rounds. Time constraints prevented a tiebreaker, so Dr Pepper named Whitaker the winner based on a rule that includes points from a previous qualifying round. The crowd was audibly furious, and the hashtag #JusticeforKayla began circulating on social media.
Athens CEO
UGA Extension Specialist, Agents Honored with Industry 40 under 40 Awards
Amanda Budd
Four experts at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and UGA Cooperative Extension have been recognized as members of the Fruit and Vegetable 40 under 40 Class of 2022. The list honors 40 early-career agricultural professionals for exemplary accomplishments, representing “the best in the industry.” The class includes growers and farm market operators, Extension agents, industry suppliers and many others who contribute to the success of their agricultural industry.
WGAU Radio
By Staff
Today is Reading Day at UGA, with the last day of classes for the Fall Semester having taken place yesterday. Final exams will begin tomorrow and will run through Wednesday, December 14th.
WTOC
Savannah State University possibly making changes to programs
By Camille Syed
Changes could be on the way at Savannah State University. The university’s provost has sent recommendations to the president of the school about programs that could possibly no longer be offered at Savannah State. State representative and former Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson said she brought up concerns during a legislative meeting that Savannah State may have to cut some programs. She says low admission rates may be to blame. Rep. Jackson made the comments during the Savannah Chamber of Commerce Eggs and Issues Legislative Breakfast.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPINION: Forced happiness makes us feel bad
By Nedra Rhone
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Joyous New Year. These are the greetings we have grown accustomed to hearing at the close of the year and, though we may not realize it when we call out to friends, family or strangers, those wishes can sound more like a directive to anyone who isn’t feeling the holiday spirit. The hyping of happiness is in overdrive this time of year, but it never really goes away. …But Fadel Matta, Terry Dean’s Advisory Council distinguished professor at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, argues that while happiness is a great goal and a preferable state of mind, it is better not to fake those feelings when you are starting from a low point. In a recent study, Matta tracked daily emotions of hundreds of workers at different organizations throughout the U.S. Even when people ended up in a place of happiness, the benefits were erased if participants took a steep emotional journey to get there, Matta said.
WSB-TV
UGA researchers tracking alligators to understand more about climate change impacts on reptiles
By WSBTV.com News Staff
UGA PhD students and researchers are out on a remote lake just over the Georgia-South Carolina border working to understand how changes in the earth’s temperature may impact reptiles. Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen went with the team on a lake called Par Pond. …The work UGA is doing on Par Pond could tell us whether reptiles like alligators or turtles may face possible extinction as temperatures rise. It’s a year-round project that starts at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. An alligator’s gender is not decided until after eggs are in the nest. Cooler nest temperatures produce females. Warmer ones produce males. Dr. Benjamin Parrott is an assistant professor at UGA’s Odom School of Ecology. He told Petersen “As they climate warms, we are predicting that there will be many more males than females.” That may eventually mean fewer reptiles and an uncertain future for the ones already on the endangered species list.
EurekAlert!
Hurricane’s effects killed sturgeon in Apalachicola River
Juvenile fish, though, showed resiliency in the years since the Category 5 storm
As hurricane Michael churned through the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall near Florida’s Apalachicola River in 2018, it left a sea of destruction in its wake. The path was easy to follow on land, but debris and infrastructure failures also diminished the river’s water quality and led to the death of roughly half the gulf sturgeon population there. A study by researchers at the University of Georgia with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveals new details in how a decrease in oxygen levels affected the river’s ability to sustain life in the days following the historic Category 5 storm.
WJCL
Newscast
Georgia Southern political analyst discusses Warnock win
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Flu Returns to Campus With a Vengeance
College campuses that avoided major flu outbreaks for two years are now seeing the virus spread early and fast, with COVID restrictions gone and student immunity low.
By Liam Knox
Influenza outbreaks have always been of particular concern on college campuses, where close-quarters living, crowded lecture halls and fluid social circles make airborne transmission especially easy. But the past two flu seasons were almost nonexistent on campuses, thanks to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic—which kept them empty—or masking and social distancing policies when students returned. This winter, as colleges and universities cast off two years of caution, the flu is returning to campuses early and spreading fast. The problem goes beyond densely populated campuses. While flu season usually peaks in late December or January, this year’s strain swept across the country last month, and infections are already at levels not usually reached until January or February, according to the latest CDC data.
Higher Ed Dive
How many unique education credentials exist? More than 1M, according to a new count.
Nonacademic providers offer the most credentials, followed by postsecondary institutions. Researchers want more information.
Rick Seltzer, Senior Editor
Almost 1.1 million unique educational credentials exist in the U.S., according to a new tally mapping a sprawling web of certificates, badges, licenses, diplomas and the like — as well as who offers them. The count comes in a report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Credential Engine, which is trying to improve the available information about learning and career pathways. The report sorted its estimated count of credentials into four buckets: 350,412 from postsecondary institutions awarding degrees and certificates, down 9,301 from its 2021 tally. 13,014 from MOOC providers awarding course completion certificates, microcredentials and online degrees from foreign universities, up by 3,624. 656,753 from nonacademic providers spanning credentials like badges, course completion certificates, licenses, certifications and apprenticeships, an increase of 107,041. 56,179 from secondary schools, including diplomas, alternative certificates and high school equivalency diplomas, up 7,260.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Liann Herder
After nearly 50 years of funding community colleges based on enrollment and outreach, the state of Texas is considering making the switch to outcome-based funding, rooted in metrics like retention, completion, and the successful transfer to four-year programs. “The current model is one that’s based upon contact hours, heavily influenced by enrollment and type of courses offered,” says Ray Martinez III, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC). To build the new model, Martinez says Texas’s higher education stakeholders and policy makers have come together to ask, “What do we need to do as a matter of state policy to ensure that students have the support they need, the scaffolding to ensure they can be successful in completing a post-secondary credential?”
Inside Higher Ed
Opinion
Higher Ed Data Should Be Trans Inclusive
In collecting data on gender, we in higher ed should think carefully about what we’re asking and how the data will be used, write Jessica Taylor, Daniel Ginsberg and Aly W Corey.
By Jessica Taylor, Daniel Ginsberg, and Aly W Corey
Even as many institutions in U.S. higher education work to create inclusive environments for trans and/or nonbinary people—especially students—current practices for collecting and using gender data impede these efforts. Recent reports by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and the Center for American Progress on sexual orientation and gender identity data call for change in clinical and research data collection. In higher education, things are beginning to change, but some parts of the system still limit options to male and female, while others fail to consider the function of gender data, hindering institutions’ abilities to craft trans-inclusive policies—or even track the extent to which trans and/or nonbinary people are failed by current practices.
Inside Higher Ed
Florida to Hold Closed-Door Meeting of Presidents
By Josh Moody
A private gathering hosted by the Florida commissioner of the Department of Education and the chancellor of the State University System of Florida is expected to draw 40 presidents from across the state when executives come together today, according to The Tallahassee Democrat. But exactly why the meeting is closed to the public remains unclear. The meeting will include presidents of members of the Florida College System and the State University System of Florida, who will discuss educational goals and share best practices, according to a statement the Florida Department of Education’s spokesperson provided to the newspaper.