University System News:
www.ajc.com
Chancellor Steve Wrigley talks with new Secretary of Education
http://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/chancellor-steve-wrigley-talks-with-new-secretary-education/URZ5ungeiwmUVxYzxYPcGP/
Christopher Quinn
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley and state Rep. Earl Ehrhart of Cobb County, who sits on Georgia’s Higher Education Committee, met Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in Washington.
Wrigley spoke with DeVos about improvements the Georgia system has made, such as consolidating universities, its goals for educating more students, and concerns that are weighing on higher education. Wrigley addressed the importance of the Pell Grant program, which helps students pay for schooling; the importance of maintaining regional accreditation, and the need to reform the FAFSA, which are complex documents students must fill out yearly to quality for student aid. He also talked to DeVos about the system’s Title IX policy changes adopted last year, which has to do with how allegations of sexual assaults on college campuses and other issues of sexual discrimination are handled. He stressed giving the policy changes time to work.

www.wmbfnews.com
Albany State visits area high schools to recruit students
http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/35129955/albany-state-visits-area-high-schools-to-recruit-students
By Desirae Duncan, Reporter
Albany State University is focusing heavily on recruiting students in southwest Georgia as the university works to battle declining enrollment numbers following the school’s recent consolidation with Darton State University.  Just ahead of the merger, the two schools saw the biggest drops in enrollment for the 2016 fall semester, compared to other schools in the University System of Georgia, according to USG enrollment reports. The ASU Office of Admissions and Recruitment is traveling to high schools in the 26-county region as part of its recruitment plan. On Tuesday, the university visited Monroe High School to provide students with information about the university’s academic offerings and opportunities.  President Dr. Art Dunning said the tour is important to show students the value of higher education and what’s available to them in their own backyard. He said while enrollment numbers are a concern, recruitment efforts go beyond boosting numbers. “This is a serious endeavor for us is to educate and elevate our citizens. So this is not just about recruiting students, this is about changing the lives of our region, that’s how significant this is,” Dr. Dunning said. Administrators said they’re seeing promising results.

www.savannahnow.com
Georgia Southern president addresses academics, diversity, unease at Armstrong forum
http://savannahnow.com/news/2017-04-12/georgia-southern-president-addresses-academics-diversity-unease-armstrong-forum
By Dash Coleman
Georgia Southern University President Jaimie Hebert fielded questions about diversity, academics and organizational structure Wednesday during a forum at Armstrong State University about the impending consolidation of the two schools. By next year, in a move mandated by the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents, the schools will combine as a multi-campus institution that keeps Georgia Southern’s name and president. Armstrong, in Savannah, has about 7,000 students, and Georgia Southern, in Statesboro, has about 20,000. At the forum, Hebert said the combined school’s health sciences college will be centered at Savannah, and its engineering college will be centered in Statesboro. Some programs from each of those colleges will be offered at both campuses. “We have a wonderful nursing program in Statesboro,” Hebert said. “That program is not going anywhere.” He said, however, that most nursing students at Georgia Southern wind up commuting to Savannah for clinical work, and Armstrong’s variety of health sciences programs make it ideal to serve as an “epicenter” for such programs. Cameron Coates, the director of Armstrong’s engineering program, wondered if engineering options would expand in Savannah, even though the program will be centered in Statesboro. Currently, Armstrong offers a two-year transfer program in engineering, and Georgia Southern offers several bachelors and masters degrees in the field. Hebert said that decision will be data driven, and that it was not off the table. “The epicenter will be in Statesboro, but there may be some opportunity to bring some engineering here if there are workforce needs and if there are student demands for those programs,” he said. …In the meantime, the uncertainty about non-senior organizational structure has many employees feeling uneasy.

www.wtoc.com
Georgia Southern president holds Q&A session for Armstrong students
http://www.wtoc.com/story/35130209/georgia-southern-president-to-hold-merger-qa-session-for-armstrong-students
By Tesia Reed, Reporter
Georgia Southern University President Dr. Jaimie Hebert held a question and answer session for Armstrong State University students and faculty on Wednesday at the Fine Arts Auditorium. “There’s anxiety associated with change we know is happening and there is anxiety that is associated with the unknown,” said Dr. Hebert. While there weren’t very many specifics laid out just yet about how many people will be staying from each school, Dr. Herbert promised that they would look internally first. “There will be ample positions available for everyone who works on both campuses,” he said. Right now, he says there’s a lot going on behind the scenes structurally and there in the process of narrowing down senior administration and putting them into place within the next few weeks. …Dr. Hebert says while it’s hard to give a definite timeline on things right now, they do know the epicenter for the health sciences department will be on the Armstrong campus and the engineering department will be based out of Statesboro. “That’s a very big deal with our focus on health care, as you know the situation with our three local hospitals. They need that support and service,” said Don Waters, with the Georgia Board of Regents. Waters is an Armstrong alum, but says it’s all about growth into a powerhouse university. “Focus on the opportunity. It’s really not a notion of cutting and shrinking, it’s a notion of growing the Savannah market,” Waters said.

www.statesboroherald.com
Admin chart for ‘new’ Georgia Southern unveiled
Armstrong merger on track for 2018; Regents to vote on mission statement
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/79383/
BY Al Hackle
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley has approved a new organizational chart for the top leadership of the new three-campus Georgia Southern University being formed by the merger with Armstrong State University. A mission statement for the consolidated university goes to the state Board of Regents for approval next week. Although these steps are farther removed from the everyday concerns of students than previous decisions about academic and athletic programs, officials refer to the mission statement as a milestone in the consolidation process. Meanwhile, the chart shows that the university will have at least five vice president posts, down from eight vice presidents currently at the two universities. But a new leadership position, which may or may not carry a vice presidential title, will be created for oversight of the Armstrong campus in Savannah and the Liberty campus in Hinesville.

www.northfulton.com
UNG Cottrell MBA named in top five public programs
http://www.northfulton.com/miltonherald/stories/ung-cottrell-mba-namedin-top-five-public-programs,104143
The University of North Georgia’s Cottrell Master of Business Administration program has been ranked as the fifth best public, part-time MBA program in Georgia by the U.S. News and World Report 2018 Best Graduate Schools report. The complete list of top five public part-time MBA programs is:
Kennesaw State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Georgia
Georgia State University
University of North Georgia
According to U.S. News, part-time business programs play a vital role for working professionals who are unable to attend business school full time.

www.onlineathens.com
Walton EMC offering scholarships to local students at UGA engineering college
http://onlineathens.com/oconee/local-news/2017-04-12/walton-emc-offering-scholarships-local-students-uga-engineering-college?utm_source=eGaMorning&utm_campaign=f82dbca95c-eGaMorning-4_13_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54a77f93dd-f82dbca95c-86731974
By Staff Reports
Walton EMC is offering college scholarship opportunities to the University of Georgia to encourage “good engineering talent.” The Walton EMC Engineering Leadership Scholarship Fund will provide five $10,000 scholarships to students who study in one of the bachelor degree programs within the UGA College of Engineering. The scholarship is open to residents of the counties served by Walton EMC, including Oconee, Athens-Clarke, Barrow, DeKalb, Greene, Gwinnett, Morgan, Newton, Rockdale and Walton. To apply, students must be majoring or intending to major in any bachelor degree program within the College of Engineering and have a minimum 3.7 grade point average. Recipients will remain eligible for up to four years if they keep a 3.7 GPA in their chosen engineering discipline.

www.onlineathens.com
UGA engineering students show off senior projects
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2017-04-12/uga-engineering-students-show-senior-projects?utm_source=eGaMorning&utm_campaign=f82dbca95c-eGaMorning-4_13_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54a77f93dd-f82dbca95c-86731974
By Lee Shearer
Fourth-year students in the University of Georgia’s College of Engineering showed off their senior projects Wednesday — so many of them that they spilled over from the Georgia Center for Continuing Education’s Mahler Hall into the public area outside the large meeting hall. This year’s senior design competition was the largest for the fast-growing college, which launched just five years ago and counted more than 1,800 majors this year. Two big new groups swelled the entries from about 40 to 45 last year to 65 this year, seniors in electrical and mechanical engineering majors that began four years ago in 2013. “What’s really exciting,” said College of Engineering Dean Donald Leo, was how many of the student  teams worked with actual partners or sponsors on their specific projects, some of which might actually come to fruition. Reflecting the diversity of majors in the college, the seniors tackled a wide variety of tasks, projects like a moon buggy for NASA, an improved blower for cleaning poultry houses, a mechanical harvesting system for coastal Georgia oyster growers, a greenway trail improvement and a bridge-crossing design for south Georgia’s Grady County.

www.ledget-enquirer.com
American Museum of Natural History gives UGA archaeological collection with more than 109,000 artifacts
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/education/article144254019.html?utm_source=eGaMorning&utm_campaign=f82dbca95c-eGaMorning-4_13_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54a77f93dd-f82dbca95c-86731974
BY LARRY GIERER
The University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology has been given an archaeological collection by the American Museum of Natural History with more 109,000 cataloged artifacts and 2,650 radiocarbon samples. A story by Elizabeth Elmore on the UGA website says the collection includes artifacts and other paleonenvironmental materials recovered by the American Museum of Natural History during a decade of excavation led by David Hurst Thomas on St. Catherines Island, Ga. Included in the collection are animal bones, mollusk shells and plant remains as well as prehistoric ceramics, arrowheads, bone tools, shell beads and shell ear plugs.

Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
DeVos’s Rollback of Servicing Guidance Raises Fears Among Borrowers’ Advocates
http://www.chronicle.com/article/DeVos-s-Rollback-of/239778?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=9c022fcd7bfb43a9b6a0f4511b577eab&elq=c12e99a603cf4aba861cb5f94ec546f7&elqaid=13458&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=5588
By Adam Harris
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s decision to withdraw Obama-era directives aimed at streamlining student-loan servicing for borrowers is adding to fears among some advocates about the erosion of student protections early in her tenure. This week, Ms. DeVos rescinded three memos — issued last year by the former secretary of education John B. King and under secretary Ted Mitchell — that were part of an ambitious effort by former President Barack Obama’s Education Department to rethink how loan servicing looked and worked. One problem with Ms. DeVos’s action, student advocates say, is that in halting a new vision for student-loan servicing, she did not offer a detailed alternative. That left some higher-education experts wondering how the department would hold the companies that service federal student loans accountable. Those companies came under intense scrutiny during the Obama administration. The decision to withdraw the memos, coupled with the current outage of an IRS data-retrieval tool that makes it easier for borrowers to certify their eligibility for income-driven repayment plans, have raised alarms that the department is not focusing enough on borrowers’ interests.

www.insidehighered.com
The (Temporary?) U.S. Education Team
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos makes first official announcement of key aides, many of them in acting capacities and including some controversial choices.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/13/department-education-makes-first-official-senior-hires?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8f89a45cf8-DNU20170413&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8f89a45cf8-197515277&mc_cid=8f89a45cf8&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Andrew Kreighbaum
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced the hiring of nine senior staff members Wednesday, including an acting under secretary with significant experience working on student aid and postsecondary issues. The hiring of most of the individuals in the announcement had previously been discussed publicly, but it was the first official announcement from DeVos about who would fill key staff positions. Like other federal agencies in the Trump administration, the Department of Education has gone nearly three months without naming appointees to a number of political positions.