University System News:
www.metroatlantaceo.com
Georgia’s Regent Emeritus to be Honored by Atlanta Metropolitan State College
Staff Report From Metro Atlanta CEO
Elridge McMillan, regent emeritus of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan State College scholar-in-residence, and president emeritus of the Southern Education Foundation, will be honored as an outstanding community citizen by Atlanta Metropolitan State College. He will be recognized for his incredible record of leadership, service, and generosity which has made a lasting difference in metropolitan Atlanta and beyond. The annual Celebration of Leadership Awards is AMSC’s signature fundraising event to support need-based continuation scholarships and financial assistance for Atlanta Metropolitan State College students. Students receiving funds raised at COL are typically students within a semester of graduating and in need of financial assistance to continue their education. Funds needed can often be as little as $250.
www.ajc.com
Report: Georgia public colleges get mixed grades for black student enrollment, grad rates
By Eric Stirgus
Georgia’s public colleges and universities are doing an average job of enrolling and graduating black students along with hiring black faculty members, according to a report released Tuesday. The state was tied for 18th with Tennessee in rankings exploring the ability for black students to succeed published by the University of Southern California’s Race & Equity Center. Massachusetts had the best ranking while Louisiana had the lowest ranking. Researchers based the rankings of schools on the percentage of black students in comparison to the state’s black population, graduation rates, the black student-to-faculty ratio and gender breakdown of black students. Georgia’s largest schools received the lowest marks for the percentage of black students in comparison to the state’s black population. Georgia State scored an “A,” but the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State each received “F” grades. About 36 percent of the state’s 18- to 24-year-olds are black. Georgia State is the only one of the four exceeding the statewide average.
www.time.com
This Is the Best College in Every State
http://time.com/money/5401092/best-college-in-every-state-2018/
By KAITLIN MULHERE
There are plenty of factors to weigh when researching your potential list of colleges … One of the most important? Location … Roughly half of freshmen at four-year college go to a college with 100 miles of their home, according to an annual survey of freshmen from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles. That means while it may be interesting for rising juniors and seniors to learn about the country’s top-ranking colleges; it’s likely more useful to pay attention to how the colleges in your home state perform … Georgia – Georgia Institute of Technology. Overall rank: 19. Est. 2018-2019 price with average grant: $14,300. Early career earnings: $68,100. Courses at Georgia Tech are demanding, but they pay off. Graduates report early career salaries that are 19% higher than graduates of similar colleges.
www.savannahnow.com
Bill Astary: Training in high-demand careers, grants available
By Bill Astary For Business in Savannah
Georgia employers spoke and the state listened. In response to a critical need for skilled workers in several key industries, Gov. Nathan Deal launched the High Demand Career Initiative in 2014. Initially, the state worked with key employers in strategic industries around Georgia to identify current and future workforce needs. Now that these needs have been identified, the Universities and Technical College Systems of Georgia, including Georgia Tech’s Savannah Campus, have developed curricula to address workforce shortages and provide training in high-demand and well-paid careers. The initiative seeks to create public and private partnerships that will develop a locally trained, reliable workforce that can sustain the state’s current thriving industries and attract new companies.
www.moultrieobserver.com
ABAC curator to receive Ga. Archives Award
Staff Reports
TIFTON, Ga. — Sixteen weeks of sequestering herself in a windowless room while she cataloged the archives of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College has paid off for Polly Huff. Huff, the curator at ABAC’s Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village, will receive the 2018 Award for Excellence in Archival Program Development on Oct. 16 at the Georgia Archives Awards Ceremony and Reception in Atlanta. “It was just overwhelming considering the amount of material and the condition of some of the items,” Huff said when she completed the ABAC archival task in May. “I knew it could be done but I thought it would take a lot longer. My two interns, Britt Fuller and Will Hunnicutt, helped a lot. In 44 work days, we packed over 600 boxes.” “The interns and I considered ourselves privileged to have had the opportunity to dust off and illuminate 110 years of stories that make ABAC who she is. What got us through the task was the goal of preserving those stories for the next few generations of students, staff, and researchers.”
www.daily-tribune.com
AHS grad attends cybersecurity conference in Estonia
http://www.daily-tribune.com/stories/ahs-grad-attends-cybersecurity-conference-in-estonia,20039
BY DONNA HARRIS
Adairsville’s Holden Gossett couldn’t pass up an opportunity to spend a week of his summer break learning more about his field. The cadet first lieutenant at the University of North Georgia attended CyCon X: Maximizing Effects, a cybersecurity conference hosted by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia, the last week of May as part of the college’s study abroad programs to expand students’ global knowledge. Members of the cybersecurity community were invited to bring their own choice of the most topical cybersecurity issues from technical, legal, policy, strategy or military perspectives to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the International Conference on Cyber Conflict and to address current cybersecurity challenges in an interdisciplinary manner through keynote speeches, plenaries, focused sessions and breakout discussions. “The conference offered an opportunity to network and be involved within the world cyber community,” said Gossett, 21, who left for Estonia May 25 and returned June 2.
www.redandblack.com
Students outraged by anti-immigration email sent by UGA library employee
Erin Schilling | Editor in Chief and Sofi Gratas | Staff Writer
Hispanic Heritage Month is usually a time for students to celebrate their culture, but an email sent out by a University of Georgia library employee has left some Hispanic students feeling unsafe at their college. “As a student, I feel like I’m threatened. I feel like I was targeted because the email explicitly says, ‘children of immigrants,’ and I am one,” said UGA student Annette Aguilar during a meeting about the email. The email was written by a UGA Main Library employee Kay Altschul, who expressed her political and social opinions about the “injustice and lawbreakers,” which Altschul believes comes with undocumented immigrants. Altschul’s email was in response to one sent from the American Library Association with the subject line “American Library Association outraged by the refugee family separation policy.”
www.ksusentinel.com
University logos removed from LGBTQ gender-neutral pronouns pamphlet
ARIELLE ROBINSON
The American Studies Student Organization of Kennesaw State released a statement on Thursday, Sept. 13, stating that the LGBTQ Resource Center was forced to remove university logos from a resource center pamphlet about gender-neutral pronouns. The LGBTQ Resource Center provides pamphlets to students that contain information about various pronouns used by transgender and non-binary students. The AMSTO’s statement said that this pamphlet — along with pamphlets located on the Kennesaw and Marietta campuses informing students, staff and faculty on the whereabouts of single-stall and gender-neutral restrooms — were also removed from the LGBTQ Resource Center’s website.
www.wsbradio.com
3D-PRINTED TECHNOLOGY USED IN LIFE SAVING PEDIATRIC SURGERY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE SOUTHEAST
By: Sabrina Cupit
Linda Long gets to hold her baby for the first time after he undergoes a groundbreaking pediatric surgery at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Amir is just 7 months old and is battling both congenital heart disease and Tracheobronchomalacia, a condition that causes severe life-threatening airway obstruction. He has suffered a number of episodes of airway collapse that could not be corrected with typical surgery protocols. A team at CHOA proposed an experimental procedure where they would insert a 3-D printed tracheal splint, which was created in part at Georgia Tech to open his airways. His mother agreed to Georgia’s first ever procedure to place 3-D printed tracheal splints in a pediatric patient.
www.saportareport.com
Hurricane Florence highlights relief aid by Muslims, effect of climate change on storms
By David Pendered
Hurricane Florence marked two notable milestones regarding hurricanes that hit the United States – Muslim organizations continue to provide significant relief aid, and climate change is now part of the conversation over the intensification of hurricanes … Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb is among the experts cited in various reports. Cobb was quoted in a report by the Associated Press and published in several media outlets: “We have solid data across decades of rainfall records to nail the attribution – climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme rainfall events.” Cobb’s outlook is based on her research, much of it based on research on coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Cobb earned her doctorate in 2002, from the University of California, San Diego, with a dissertation that examined coral records of climate change over the last millennium.
www.augustachronicle.com
Voter registration efforts hit Augusta college campuses
By Susan McCord
National Voter Registration Day included local voter registration drives and a statewide campaign launch to encourage voting by mail. The get-out-the-vote forces were strong Tuesday.
Two weeks before Georgia’s Oct. 9 deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 6 general election, a National Voter Registration Day effort by the CSRA League of Women Voters registered new voters on six college campuses, while the New Georgia Project launched a campaign to register voters and encourage them to vote by mail. “Are you registered to vote?” Sudha Ratan asked dozens of students walking through the breezeway outside the Reese Library at Augusta University. “Are you ladies registered to vote?”
www.mdjonline.com
KSU students register to vote at annual drive
Shaddi Abusaid
Kennesaw State University hosted its annual voter registration drive Tuesday morning in an effort to get students on both campuses out to the polls this November. The weeklong, nonpartisan campaign to register students is part of the university’s annual Constitution Week, which includes voter registration booths, a mock senatorial debate and several events aimed at increasing political participation. Michael Sanseviro, KSU’s dean of students and the associate vice president for student affairs, said the week begins with the federally-mandated Constitution Day and ends on National Voter Registration Day, which was Tuesday.
Higher Education News:
www.insidehighered.com
The 2018 Surveys of Admissions Leaders: The Pressure Grows
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/2018-surveys-admissions-leaders-pressure-grows
By Scott Jaschik
Not only are a majority of colleges failing to fill their new classes by May 1, the traditional target date, but they are failing to do so by June 1 as well, according to the 2018 Survey of College and University Admissions Directors, released today by Inside Higher Ed, in collaboration with Gallup. The survey is based on responses from 499 people who are the senior person in admissions or enrollment management at their institutions. Admissions directors were given complete anonymity, but their institutions were tracked to allow for sorting by sector. This year’s survey shows continued pressure on colleges — in an era when missing enrollment targets can be devastating to institutional finances — to enroll a class that meets their goals.
www.insidehighered.com
Google Curriculum, College Credit
Tech giant gets hands-on with its new online IT certificate, as a growing number of community colleges and Northeastern University create credit pathways with the curriculum.
By Paul Fain
Google made its first substantial foray into postsecondary education in January, with the creation of a new online certificate program aimed at people who are interested in working in entry-level IT support roles. Necessity was a key motivator for the technology giant, which like most has struggled to find enough IT hires and also is seeking to diversify its work force. And many observers say the move by such a powerful player in the economy is an intriguing sign of what could happen if big employers in high-demand industries increasingly take a hands-on role in postsecondary education and training. In its first five months, more than 40,000 learners enrolled in the Google certificate program, with 1,200 completing.
www.diverseeducation.com
Report Examines Degree Completion for Parents with Young Children
by Tiffany Pennamon
After paid work, childcare and other responsibilities, a college student with preschool-aged children has, on average, about 10 hours left per day to sleep, eat, relax and complete schoolwork, leaving the student parent less likely to complete their degree, according to a study examining the impact of student parenting status on college degree completion. In “No Time for College? An Investigation of Time Poverty and Parenthood,” the study’s researchers noted that gaps in completion outcomes for student parents largely stemmed from the significant amount of time they spend on childcare, while also working to support their families. “There’s a need for additional childcare, but this is partially a financial issue, too,” said Dr. Claire Wladis, professor of mathematics at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and an education researcher. “Many students would work fewer hours if they could, but they don’t receive enough financial aid to be able to reduce the hours that they’re working in order to pay for the costs of things their family needs like food and housing because financial aid only covers, in theory, the cost of the students themselves and not their families.” …Findings from the semester-long study revealed that college students with young children were twice as likely to drop out of college than childless peers. If these students did persist, they accumulated fewer course credits each semester than non-parent peers, the report found.
www.chronicle.com
Diversity Fatigue Is Real
And it afflicts the very people who are most committed to diversity work
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Diversity-Fatigue-Is-Real/244564?cid=wcontentlist
By Mariam B. Lam
As an administrator and faculty member at one of the nation’s most racially diverse research universities, I have seen commitments to “diversity work” ebb and flow over the decades. The ebbing is not due to a lack of commitment or conviction. Rather, it can be debilitating to meet the demand for free lessons in cultural competency, while at the same time negotiating constant resistance to such work from other quarters on a daily basis, and even during downtime. It is the very people who are the most committed to doing diversity work who are experiencing this diversity fatigue. Of course, we in higher education are also battling another type of diversity fatigue, among those who see diversity efforts as merely politically correct. Yet others are just generally tired of the term “diversity,” which they believe has been so co-opted and diluted that it no longer has any meaning. (That has also been the case with its predecessor, “multiculturalism.”)
www.chronicle.com
Location, Location, Location: The Geographic-Diversity Issue
https://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/Location-Location-Location-/225?cid=wsinglestory_6_1a
In this special report, we look at diversity through a somewhat novel lens — that of geography. Our coverage examines how a college’s location affects its mission, its ability to recruit students and faculty members, and its campus culture. You’ll hear from academics who moved to an unlikely location and loved it — and others who left it. Yet others describe working or studying on the outskirts of Detroit, on the Spirit Lake Dakota Sioux reservation in North Dakota, and in Alaska’s vast interior. Geography can divide people, both physically and politically, but some academics are eager to bridge those divides. One scholar, worried that large rural states like his are being left behind in the digital economy, proposes creating a “cyber-land-grant” university system financed by Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, a college president — a gay, black urbanite — who moved to a rural state not knowing what to expect has been pleasantly surprised. “The most important parts of the human experience,” he writes, “are remarkably similar across time and geography.”
www.hechingerreport.org
OPINION: Educators must prepare for the dismantling of affirmative action
Five things to think about while helping all students move forward, not backward
by Cheryl Holcomb-mccoy
It is clear that schools must continue to offer equitable opportunities to all students, but the Trump administration is threatening to take legal action against universities that continue to practice affirmative action in admissions. In July, the administration announced that it was ending the Obama-era approach to affirmative action in colleges and universities, despite research showing that campuses with diverse populations have more civic-minded student bodies and are more effective in educating students
www.chronicle.com
Social Mobility Comes at a Cost
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-You-Can-Help-Low-Income/244562?cid=wcontentlist
By Dwight Lang
After World War II, American higher education sought to promote upward mobility for new student groups, with varying degrees of success. But in the decades that followed, the nation’s most selective colleges routinely ignored or turned away thousands of talented working-class and poor students from both rural and urban areas. These colleges are finally acknowledging the persistent challenges facing such students. More of them, including the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where I work, have started offering free or sharply reduced tuition to low-income students and have established offices to support them academically and socially. But do selective colleges truly understand the struggles low-income students face when they are surrounded by high percentages of undergraduates from much wealthier families?
www.wsj.com
Colleges, Buffeted by Courts and Washington, Navigate Sexual Assault
Amid rising claims, schools are outsourcing investigations and hearings, experimenting with alternative forms of dispute resolution
By Douglas Belkin
Colleges and universities are wrestling with a rise in sexual-assault claims, lawsuits brought by those accused of assault and conflicting directions from courts and the federal government on how to handle them. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers four Midwestern states, recently ruled that those accused of sexual assault must be allowed to face their accusers—a right they don’t have in other states. State appeals courts in Texas and California are also weighing in with different standards. Meanwhile, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is preparing to release new rules strengthening protections for students accused of sexual assault and lightening the burden placed on schools.