University System News:
www.albanyherald.com
Albany State officials say no current students impacted by terminated degree programs
ASU officials say programs being ended had few students enrolled in them
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/local/albany-state-officials-say-no-current-students-impacted-by-terminated/article_f79af779-a60b-5025-94b5-6c5cdc42ac25.html#utm_source=albanyherald.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1507896028&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline
Staff Reports
ALBANY — Albany State University officials say that the announced terminations this week of 15 degree programs will not adversely affect any students enrolled at the university. ASU issued an emailed statement Wednesday night on the action taken by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents at its two-day meeting in Macon. “The process of analyzing academic programs is a common practice and ensures programs meet the needs of students and can lead to degree completion,” ASU officials said in the statement. “As part of a systemwide effort, 429 programs have been terminated across the University System.” Several of the terminated programs had no students enrolled in them, university officials said. Students who are enrolled in any of the programs will be allowed to complete their studies. “Associate-degree programs selected for termination were chosen due to lack of student enrollment,” university officials said. “There were no enrollments in these programs for the last two years and no students are impacted by the terminations.” Bachelor’s degree programs that were ended had “limited student enrollment,” ASU officials said. “Students continuously enrolled in affected programs will be allowed to continue to completion,” the university said.
www.walb.com
Students respond to ASU academic program terminations
http://www.walb.com/story/36584272/students-respond-to-asu-academic-program-terminations
By Amanda Hoskins, Reporter
Albany State University students are weighing in about new changes to some of their academic programs. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved a request from ASU officials to terminate 15 programs earlier this week. If you walk into the new state-of-the art music facility at Albany State University, you’ll likely find music students hard at work. “I want to teach at the high school level. And maybe pursue my graduate degree,” explained one of those students, Terrell Mitchell, a senior at the school. On Thursday, Mitchell and Sterling James Hunter were practicing their senior pieces. They are both on track to graduate with Bachelor’s degrees in Music Education, one of the 15 programs the university terminated. “Everybody, of course, is nervous, but it’s nothing but a name change,” explained Hunter. It’s what he said his professors have been telling him. “Instead of being a Bachelor’s in Music Education it will be a Bachelor’s in Visual Performing Arts with a concentration in music education,” explained Mitchell. In a statement about the termination, ASU officials said the university will continue to offer degree programs in education, science and art. It said the programs have been streamlined to give students clearer paths. While the name change may be true for programs like music education, it’s unclear how many programs will be flushed from the school.
www.mdjonine.com
Protesters support Kennesaw State University cheerleaders who kneeled during national anthem
http://www.mdjonline.com/news/protesters-support-kennesaw-state-university-cheerleaders-who-kneeled-during-national/article_c6e19f5e-afcf-11e7-a267-bb1a0c61e3d6.html#utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
By Madeline McGee MDJ Correspondent
KENNESAW — As contention builds over five Kennesaw State University cheerleaders who kneeled during the national anthem at a football game on Sept. 30, about two dozen supporters gathered near the university’s campus on Wednesday to defend their demonstration. The cheerleaders were absent during the anthem at Saturday’s game against Texas Southern, a move Mike DeGeorge, a spokesman for KSU Athletics, said was the result of a restructuring of the game day schedule. The cheerleaders’ protest gained public attention after Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren expressed his outrage over the cheerleaders’ actions to the Marietta Daily Journal. At an event Wednesday organized by the Cobb chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, KSU students, faculty and alumni, along with members of the community, criticized this response and affirmed their support for what they called, “the Kennesaw Five.”
www.thewestgeorgian.com
Tasers Vs Guns
By Jaenaeva Watson in News
An armed student was shot and killed by an officer on Sept. 17 on the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology. The 21-year-old student was a part of the LGBT community and an engineering major. After his death, several suicide notes were found in his apartment. The officer that took the fatal shot claimed to only be doing what he felt was necessary in the situation. When news started circulating about the incident, many people were confused. The 23-year-old officer has only been a part of the department for 16 months and didn’t feel prepared for the situation he faced. People talked about how the officer could have done something different. But there is something many people didn’t know. Georgia Tech police officers aren’t equipped with tasers. A taser could have been used as an alternate option. Depending on the training and the equipment that an officer is given, his or her preparedness will be affected. The equipment given to an officer is meant to serve and protect. In this situation, an officer felt the need to use his firearm that resulted in the death of a student. …Even though some people voiced their concerns with the new campus carry law at University of West Georgia, a committee of key staff members put together the plan that they felt would best ensure the safety of everyone on the UWG campus. Tom Saccenti, Director of Public Safety and the new Chief of UWG’s Police Department, began his first semester at the University of West Georgia this fall. He has yet to see a situation where a weapon had to be used on a student, on or off campus.
www.insidehighered.com
Georgia Tech Program Boosts Total U.S. CS Master’s Degree Grads
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/data/2017/10/11/georgia-tech-online-program-boosts-total-number-us-computer-science
By Mark Lieberman
Georgia Institute of Technology has graduated 582 students from its online master’s degree program in computer science since the program’s 2013 inception, according to a new report from the institution. The report cites research from Harvard University indicating that the annual production of computer science master’s degrees in the United States is projected to increase 7 percent each year as a result of the Georgia Tech program, which launched with help from Udacity and AT&T. “Since we started small and [the] first classes are relatively small, we are not there yet,” Zvi Galil, dean of the institution’s college of computing, told “Inside Digital Learning.” Galil projects more than 400 additional graduates by the end of the year, which would put the total around 1,000. Roughly 11,000 Americans earn master’s degrees in computer science each year [1], which means the increase courtesy of Georgia Tech from 2016 to 2017 would be 9 percent, even higher than the Harvard prediction.
www.ledger-enquirer.com
$1 million gift to convert historic barn on UGA campus into cafe
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/education/article178521856.html?utm_source=eGaMorning&utm_campaign=1138469072-eGaMorning-10_13_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54a77f93dd-1138469072-86731974&mc_cid=1138469072&mc_eid=32a9bd3c56
BY LARRY GIERER
A historic barn on the University Georgia Griffin campus will be converted into a cafe thanks to a $1 million gift. The news was reported Thursday on the University of Georgia website, www.uga.edu/. A story by Sam Fahmy says the renovation is possible because of a donation from the Dundee Community Association in Griffin, Ga. …The gift will completely cover the cost of the renovation and will create the first dining facility at UGA-Griffin.
www.ajc.com
KSU professor explains why he was passed out, ‘intoxicated’ on campus
http://www.ajc.com/news/local/kennesaw-state-cops-found-professor-passed-out-drunk-student-center/pEHxg52c6XlFZmSJ5HpnEI/
Ben Brasch The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Kennesaw State University professor says there’s a reason he was found by police passed out, seemingly drunk, inside the school’s student center with a half-empty beer and assorted pills in his truck. Brent Christopher Allsup, of Acworth, was arrested Oct. 5 on three felony drug charges and an open-container misdemeanor count. Allsup blames it on forgetfulness and an accidental medication mix-up of taking both Hydrocodone and Xanax. Tiffany Capuano, a KSU spokeswoman, said that Allsup was working part-time as a professor in the business college’s school of accounting but is no longer teaching classes due to the investigation. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution unsuccessfully tried to contact Allsup for comment on Wednesday. But after the story was published that day, Allsup reached out to The AJC for an interview. “There was no alcohol involved,” Allsup told The AJC, “I mean, there was an open container in the vehicle, but” he said that the half-empty, 16-ounce aluminum beer bottle in the center console found by police was from tailgating at the Falcons-Bills game on Sunday. He was arrested on a Thursday.
www.ajc.com
Leadoff: Can Tech president, Hawks vice-chair help clean up college hoops?
http://www.ajc.com/sports/leadoff-can-tech-president-hawks-vice-chair-help-clean-college-hoops/b9ZuW3zccpHPDEhjbi4anK/
Tim Tucker
Georgia Tech’s president and the Hawks’ vice chairman are members of a commission named Wednesday by the NCAA to examine “a system that clearly is not working” in college basketball. Tech president G.P. “Bud” Peterson and Hawks vice chairman/part-owner Grant Hill are among 14 people appointed to the Commission on College Basketball. The commission was formed in the wake of a federal fraud and bribery investigation that has rocked the sport. “The recent news of a federal investigation into fraud in college basketball made it very clear the NCAA needs to make substantive changes to the way we operate, and do so quickly,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement. “Individuals who break the trust on which college sports is based have no place here.
www.bizjournals.com
Study: State needs to increase research funding
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/10/13/study-state-needs-to-increase-research-funding.html?ana=e_mc_prem&s=newsletter&ed=2017-10-13&u=xw%2BDRjRaikB6EdaliSJBWQ0ae2f198&t=1507903294&j=78984561
By Maria Saporta – Contributing Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
When Atlanta CEO Larry Gellerstedt recently met with 60 of Cousins Properties Inc.’s investors, he heard one message loud and clear. “Don’t tell us about your airport,” they told him. “All we want to hear about is your university infrastructure.” Gellerstedt recalled that exchange at the Oct. 5 quarterly meeting of the Georgia Research Alliance, a public-private partnership of top business leaders, presidents of the state’s research universities and key officials in state government. Gellerstedt also happens to be the current chairman of GRA. Georgia’s university infrastructure has now become a nationally-recognized asset — a harvesting of the 27 years that GRA has been in existence attracting eminent scholars to the state and leverage their research into new ventures. But a McKinsey & Co. report analyzing the value proposition of GRA sounded a major warning signal for Georgia. State investment in GRA has dropped from a peak of about $42 million a year to only $5 million in the past couple of years. (The historical average is $25 million, meaning current levels of funding represent only a fifth of that). …Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson confirmed that trend. “We are seeing the cost of start-up is going up, but the resources available from GRA to assist with that has gone down,” Peterson said. “A lot is not coming from the state or GRA. A lot is coming from philanthropic sources.” Jere Morehead, president of The University of Georgia, agreed. “The costs are going to have to be borne by the institution,” he said.
www.bbc.co.uk
Antibiotics and Farming, Molten Metal Pump, Acoustic Biodiversity, Athenia
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0977v58
The agricultural use of antibiotics is contributing to the global spread of resistance to these life-saving medicines. What do we know about farming’s role in the world’s antibiotic resistance crisis and what are the critical outstanding questions? Adam Rutherford talks to Matthew Avison of the University of Bristol and Elizabeth Wellington of the University of Warwick. A team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has built a record-breaking mechanical pump. The machine pumped molten tin at 1200 degrees Celsius continuously for 72 hours, and it has worked at even higher white hot temperatures. The pump is fabricated entirely from a heat-resistant ceramic material. Georgia Tech’s Asegun Henry is developing the technology to transform the contribution that solar and wind energy generation can make in storing energy and supplying the electricity grid.
www.smh.com
In China, the war on coal just got serious
http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-china-the-war-on-coal-just-got-serious-20171011-gyyvi6.html
Kirsty Needham
In Australia, politicians continue to debate the existence of climate change. Donald Trump’s Environment Protection Agency declared this week that the “war on coal is over”. In China, the outlook could not be more different. The war on coal reached fever pitch here this month. As a deadline looms to achieve clean air targets by the end of 2017, October has seen unprecedented measures come into force to curb air pollution and reduce emissions… The Georgia Institute of Technology’s research suggests Arctic sea ice loss and increased Eurasian snowfall have changed China’s winter monsoon, reducing winds and trapping pollution over northern Chinese cities.
www.wtoc.com
Savannah researchers study black gill parasite in shrimp
http://www.wtoc.com/story/36575322/savannah-researchers-study-black-gill-parasite-in-shrimp
By Sean Evans, Reporter
A single-cell organism continues to cause multiple problems for shrimping, an industry that’s called the Georgia and Carolina coasts home for decades. In their fourth year of research, the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography took its Research Vessel Savannah out and gave WTOC a firsthand look at their continuing effort to understand a still relatively unknown foe: black gill. The group spent Tuesday cruising the intercoastal waterways and gathering samples of shrimp as a part of an effort to learn more about black gill. The Annual Black Gill Stakeholder Cruise left early and brought together many different minds, perspectives, and experiences. From a lifelong shrimper to scientists from the Skidaway Institute of the Department of Natural Resources, the trip was about collaboration.
www.connectsavannah.com
From the microscope to the open ocean at Skidaway Marine Science Day
Hands-on aquatic activities for all ages on Oct. 14
https://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/from-the-microscope-to-the-open-ocean-at-skidaway-marine-science-day/Content?oid=5896740
By Jessica Leigh Lebos
THE ANCIENT philosopher and researcher Aristotle once said that the more we know, the more we don’t know, and that continues to hold true for the study of the world’s oceans. Recent research has revealed faceless fish in Australia’s deep seas and that the Caribbean Sea emits a low whistle in the key of A flat that can be heard from space. Such mind-blowing new discoveries means scientists aren’t going stop trying to understand the aquatic world and its many inhabitants any time soon. The relatively tiny corner of ocean off of Savannah’s coast has enough mysteries to keep the biologists, chemists and geologists of the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography busy for years, from the study of shifting sediments to how the dispersion of plastic particles affects marine life. Aspiring scientists and underwater adventurers have a chance to make some discoveries of their own at SKIO’s annual Marine Science Day on Saturday, October 14. …“We want everyone to touch to their heart’s content without worrying about breaking anything,” laughs Mike Sullivan, SKIO’s external affairs manager of the event that attracts more than 2,000 people a year. “The goal is give people a taste of the many research projects we have happening here.”
See also:
www.dosavannah.com
Learn what’s in Savannah’s sand, marsh and waters at free Skidaway Marine Science Day
https://www.dosavannah.com/article/tue-10102017-2106/learn-what-s-savannah-s-sand-marsh-and-waters-free-skidaway-marine-science
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Only 1 Percent of Students Would Consider Disrupting Speakers Violently, Survey Finds
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Only-1-Percent-of-Students/241426?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=3a35138b05a3491d828d21e106dcd8e0&elq=77d0c1d0b5d54441b5283e8e8e727cce&elqaid=16034&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6919
By Julia Martinez
It can be difficult to cut through the noise on campus free speech, an issue that arouses strong — and sometimes poorly informed — opinions both inside and outside higher ed. The issue is so charged that even survey data can be shrouded in controversy. After several news outlets reported last month on a Brookings Institution survey that found a significant percentage of students agreed that violence could be used to combat hateful speech, several scholars contended the survey’s methodology was poor. One even called it “junk science.” The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, an organization that advocates for free speech in higher ed, on Wednesday released its latest report on free-speech attitudes on campuses. The results draw on responses last summer from 1,250 undergraduates attending two- or four-year colleges in the United States.
www.chronicle.com
House Democrats Propose Making Obama-Era Title IX Guidance Into Law
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/house-democrats-propose-making-obama-era-title-ix-guidance-into-law/120615?elqTrackId=dfde599d42ba4c42b382f9ed3ede7144&elq=c4f8a0b0adea478da9a2ffea1281d4b8&elqaid=16058&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6930
by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz
A group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wants details of the Obama-era guidance on campus sexual assault to be written into law, Politico reports. Their legislation, the Title IX Protection Act, would codify parts of the recently rescinded guidance on the gender-equity law known as Title IX. In September the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights rescinded a 2011 letter on how colleges should handle campus sexual assault and a 2014 question-and-answer document about colleges’ compliance with the law.
www.chronicle.com
With an Ambitious Merger Proposal, Wisconsin Charts Its Own Course for Change
http://www.chronicle.com/article/With-an-Ambitious-Merger/241440?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=809b92132ed04ba4b1b19307cf4492fa&elq=c4f8a0b0adea478da9a2ffea1281d4b8&elqaid=16058&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6930
By Eric Kelderman
The list of pressures facing public higher education in Wisconsin would be familiar to policy makers in many states: an aging population, declining enrollment, scarce public dollars, and growing demands from employers and lawmakers to meet work-force needs. The solution that the University of Wisconsin system is considering is, however, ambitious. System officials announced this week a proposed restructuring that would merge all of the state’s public two- and four-year campuses. The changes are meant to combat the broad demographic challenges that are affecting higher education across the Midwest and northeastern United States. While mergers are being planned or carried out in several other states, the proposal in Wisconsin is, on its face, one of the most sweeping. …The system is also responding to the realities of a state where lawmakers have made steep cuts to higher-education budgets in recent years while demanding better outcomes, said Thomas L. Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
See also:
www.insidehighered.com
Whittling Down Wisconsin’s Colleges
Professors fear an ambitious systemwide merger plan is rushed, but system president argues it is necessary amid tight budgets and declining enrollment at Wisconsin’s two-year colleges.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/13/wisconsin-merger-plan-stokes-controversy-some-see-upside?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=bc4431ffd6-DNU20171013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-bc4431ffd6-197515277&mc_cid=bc4431ffd6&mc_eid=8f1f949a06