University System News:
www.11alive.com
Doctors urge Georgia college students to get Meningitis B vaccine
http://www.11alive.com/news/doctors-urge-georgia-college-students-to-get-meningitis-b-vaccine/464768795
Jennifer Leslie, WXIA
Four physician groups in Georgia will hand-deliver a letter to University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley Wednesday to urge him to encourage students to get a new meningitis vaccine. The Georgia State Medical Association, Medical Association of Georgia, Georgia Academy of Family Physicians and Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians want to make it clear that most teenagers and young adults are not protected against meningitis B. Georgia law requires public and private university students living in on-campus housing to be vaccinated against meningococcal disease, but it is likely that students are protected against just four of the five strains of meningitis. Meningitis B protection requires a separate, relatively new vaccine. “Many of our students are likely vulnerable to meningitis B because it requires a separate vaccination in addition to the so-called ‘meningitis conjugate vaccine,’ which protects against the other serogroups – A, C, W, and Y,” the groups wrote in the letter to Chancellor Wrigley.
www.bizjournals.com
$50 million to Burning Bright campaign sets another Georgia State record
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/08/14/50-million-to-burning-bright-campaign-sets.html
Eric Mandel Digital Producer Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia State University continued the state’s trend of record-breaking educational fundraising, by securing more than $50 million for its Burning Bright campaign. GSU said the $50 million for Burning Bright broke the annual fundraising record in the fiscal year that ended June 30, bringing the campaign total to more than $272 million. The previous campaign record of $43 million was set in 2015. “This milestone in fundraising is in keeping with the unprecedented upward trajectory we’re on across Georgia State,” said GSU president Mark Becker in a press release. The $300 million Burning Bright campaign began in 2015 and is the largest fundraising initiative in Georgia State’s history. GSU says the campaign raises funds for “student success programs, initiatives to encourage and augment faculty excellence, and Georgia State’s continued dynamic transformation of downtown Atlanta.”
www.albanyherald.com
GSW professor’s gift will benefit study-abroad programs
Harold Isaacs spent nearly 50 years on Georgia Southwestern State University campus
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/local/gsw-professor-s-gift-will-benefit-study-abroad-programs/article_49d451a7-9514-5609-89c6-99f1064e034b.html#utm_source=albanyherald.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1502884808&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline
Staff Reports
Harold Isaacs, the late professor emeritus in history, spent nearly 50 years on the campus of Georgia Southwestern State University. A beloved and respected member of the GSW community, Isaacs’ legacy will live on for generations to come thanks to a bequest that was recently finalized worth more than $600,000. In addition to providing need-based academic scholarships for history and political science majors, Isaacs’ planned gift will benefit GSW study-abroad programs, the Harold Isaacs Third World Studies Collection, the Harold Isaacs Third World Lecture series, and the University’s Third World in Perspective Program Seminar Series.
www.bizjournals.om
Georgia State scrambling to find housing for 500 students
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/08/16/georgia-state-scrambling-to-find-housing-for-500.html
Jessica Saunders Managing Editor Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia State University is scrambling to find housing for about 500 students just as fall classes are set to begin. The cancellation rate for fall semester on-campus housing was about half of normal, WXIA 11Alive reports. “Because of the increasing popularity of living on Georgia State’s Atlanta campus, University Housing has experienced an unusual increase in the number of applicants desiring housing for the fall academic term,” the housing department said on the university’s website. GSU representatives told 11Alive that they usually have about 1,000 cancellations. But so far, they only have about 500. More students are applying to live on campus than there are places to live.
www.insidehighered.com
11 Research Universities Start Aid Initiative
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/08/16/11-research-universities-start-aid-initiative?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8cc88b7bfe-DNU20170816&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8cc88b7bfe-197515277&mc_cid=8cc88b7bfe&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
ByAshley A. Smith
A consortium of research universities announced today that it is starting a new initiative to provide students with grants that help them face financial challenges as they near graduation. The new initiative from the University Innovation Alliance — which includes 11 public research universities — will provide completion grants to students facing financial pressure in their last semester. Early data shows that about 4,000 Pell-eligible college seniors who are in good academic standing are at risk of being dropped from their classes or not allowed to graduate because they owe less than $1,000 to their institutions. The emergency aid will be available to students this fall through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates. …The UIA member universities include Arizona State, Georgia State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Oregon State, Purdue and Ohio State Universities and the Universities of California, Riverside; Central Florida; Kansas and Texas at Austin.
www.diverseeducation.com
Faculty Chemistry Pays Off at Georgia Gwinnett College
http://diverseeducation.com/article/100336/?utm_campaign=DIV1708%20DAILY%20NEWSLETTER%20AUG16&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
by C. Douglas Johnson, David Pursell and Patrice Bell
Can you imagine a new state college having a junior faculty member chairing an open rank chemistry search committee? This occurred at a new college, Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), which is within the university system of Georgia. GGC was established in 2006 with 13 charter faculty and 120 students, and has now grown to 458 full-time faculty, 240 adjunct faculty and well over 11,000 students. The nine searches for full-time chemistry faculty have resulted in a diverse group of colleagues. Students tend to look to faculty as role models. And it is greatly encouraging for a student to identify with the person in authority in the classroom. The accompanying graph shows that the statistics of gender, race and ethnicity of the faculty at GGC actually reflects the student population it serves. Experts say faculty diversity and inclusion within STEM is attainable through two approaches: top-down and bottom-up. …The strategy to mentor and retain faculty after the hiring process at GGC has been developed over the last decade. It is essential to provide ongoing professional development to faculty members at all career levels through mentoring, collaborations and training in new pedagogical methods and technologies. Active mentoring of adjunct faculty has also been implemented so that they become competitive for full-time positions.
www.myajc.com
Making the Grade: Robotics comes full circle; student becomes teacher
http://www.myajc.com/news/local/making-the-grade-robotics-comes-full-circle-student-becomes-teacher/lNQPsRXXmIT6O26bzSQerL/?utm_source=eGaMorning&utm_campaign=6f1c2521c9-eGaMorning-8_16_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54a77f93dd-6f1c2521c9-86731974&mc_cid=6f1c2521c9&mc_eid=32a9bd3c56
By H.M. Cauley – For the AJC
In 2005, Jon Welsch was president of the robotics club in his Forsyth County high school. “We made little Erector Set robots and entered robotics competitions where we’d build huge ones,” he recalls. “Every January, we’d compete with different schools. That’s what got me going on this track.” That track wasn’t being an engineer or designer. Instead, Welsch so enjoyed working on the team projects that he earned a degree in career and technical education from UGA in 2012 an immediately went into the classroom. “I knew I wanted to come back and work with the next generation of students,” he said.
www.myajc.com
Georgia native recognized as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street
http://talktown.blog.myajc.com/2017/08/14/georgia-native-recognized-as-one-of-the-most-powerful-women-on-wall-street/
By Nedra Rhone
A Georgia native and Wall Street heavyweight was honored at the Black Girls Rock! 2017 Awards on Aug. 5. Savannah-born Suzanne Shank, CEO and co-founder of the investment firm Siebert Cisneros Shank (SCSCO) was recognized at the event as one of the most powerful women in the financial industry with the 2017 Shot Caller award… The Georgia Institute of Technology graduate began her career in engineering before shifting to the world of finance. After graduating with an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, she headed to Wall Street looking for a job.
Higher Education News:
www.washingtonpost.com
Getting into college was the easy part. Staying there is becoming harder than ever, experts say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/08/14/getting-into-college-was-the-easy-part-transitioning-to-college-life-is-becoming-harder-than-ever-experts-say/?utm_term=.cbf3169165cf
By Valerie Strauss
However difficult getting into college may have been, it turns out, that may have been the easiest part of the transition to college life, admissions officials say. Inadequate preparation, unrealistic expectations and other issues that college freshmen don’t anticipate can become important obstacles to happiness and success. With about one-third of undergraduates transferring at one point in their careers and an even bigger percentage dropping out for financial and other reasons, staying in college is becoming increasingly hard for many students. So what do students and parents need to know to avoid disaster? Here is a piece offering advice from the professionals — counselors and students who have been through the transition process.
www.insidehighered.com
‘Degrees of Difference’
Author discusses new book on how the value of higher education is discussed — and how issues of gender influence that discussion.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/08/16/author-discusses-new-book-gender-and-value-higher-education?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8cc88b7bfe-DNU20170816&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8cc88b7bfe-197515277&mc_cid=8cc88b7bfe&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Scott Jaschik
If most undergraduates are women, does that mean women have the upper hand in today’s economy? Should lagging enrollments of men (or of minority men) be discussed as a problem? These are some of the questions raised in Degrees of Difference: Women, Men and the Value of Higher Education (Routledge). The author is Nancy S. Niemi, director of faculty teaching initiatives at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale University. She responded via email to questions about the book.