You’re hired!
Several Georgia universities said those words in recent days to people hired in important positions at their schools.
This edition of AJC On Campus looks at some of those new hires, new reports on college enrollment, Black student achievement and research on dunes and where people decided to move since the coronavirus pandemic.
Leadership moves at local universities
Georgia’s Board of Regents on Thursday hired T. Ramon Stuart to lead Clayton State University and picked M. Brian Blake as its finalist to become Georgia State University’s next president. The board also named a search committee to find East Georgia State College’s next president.
Meanwhile, Emory University announced Wednesday that Kimberly Jacob Arriola has been appointed dean of the Laney Graduate School and will assume her duties Sept. 1. Karen J.L. Burg, a noted researcher in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, has been named vice president for research at the University of Georgia.
Chancellor search firm cost
The Regents recently agreed to hire WittKieffer, a global company with Atlanta offices, to conduct the search for the next University System of Georgia chancellor. The prior company, Parker Executive Search, pulled out the process shortly after the board paused the search process. WittKieffer will get paid $60,000 to conduct the legwork on the search, not including expenses, according to an agreement sent to us by the University System under the state’s open records act.
Report: U.S. college enrollment down by 3.5%
About 600,000 fewer students were enrolled in the nation’s colleges and universities during the spring semester, a 3.5% decline from the prior year, according to a report released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In Georgia, the decline was 1.8%, with roughly 10,000 fewer students enrolled, the report found.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The report showed the biggest enrollment declines at community and two-year colleges. We’ve written about enrollment declines in the state’s technical colleges. Enrollment increased last fall in the 26-school University System, but there were 7% fewer students in its nine state colleges.
Some experts have blamed the decline, in part, on the pandemic forcing more young people to find work. Many experts have also said they expect the numbers to continue to decline as projections show fewer students graduating high school nationwide in the coming years.
New report on educating Black students
Speaking of future students, a report released this week explored some of the challenges and opportunities in educating Black students.
The Black Teacher Collaborative’s “State of Black Education Report” found issues, such as the lack of Black students in classes for high-achieving students, which is often a pathway to the nation’s top colleges and large scholarships. In Georgia, Black students are 38% of the student population, but they are only 21% of Advanced Placement exam takers, the report found.
Recommendations included hiring more Black teachers. Research has shown Black students often perform better academically when they have Black teachers.
Georgia Southern dune research
Hurricane season began June 1, which is often a perilous time along Georgia’s coast. A team of Georgia Southern University researchers is looking into ways to combat the destruction of sand dunes, particularly during that time. They’ve collected data on the effects of various planting techniques to see which ones best increases the longevity of the dunes.
Of the plants surveyed, 95% survived the first growing season, university officials said in a news release Wednesday. On average, plants doubled in height and canopy cover when compared to their size when initially planted, the researchers have found.
COVID-19 migration study
Wealthier Americans have moved at higher rates from larger metropolitan areas to outlying areas with less restrictive COVID-19 guidelines during the pandemic, according to a new study co-authored by a Georgia Tech faculty member.
Georgia Tech assistant professor of finance Daniel Weagley and Vanderbilt University assistant professor of finance Peter Haslag looked at migration patterns in their paper “From L.A. to Boise: How Migration Has Changed During the Covid-19 Pandemic.”
The researchers found a larger percentage of people with household incomes greater than $100,000 left urban areas for a slower pace and a more relaxed stance on COVID-19 restrictions. They moved out of areas with an opposing political party in power to areas they agree with more in terms of politics and COVID-19 response.
Lower income workers who moved for new job opportunities and lower costs of living, the report found.
Morehouse College lawsuit dismissal
In May 2020, we wrote about a former Morehouse College professor who filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the all-male Atlanta school, accusing officials of terminating her employment without just cause. We learned this week the case was jointly dismissed a few weeks ago. Both sides agreed to pay their own legal fees. An attorney representing the former professor, Vickie Cox Edmondson, confirmed the dismissal but did not comment further. A Morehouse spokesman declined to comment about the dismissal.
Georgia colleges and universities join vaccine challenge
The federal government, hoping to reach President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least 70% of American adults inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine, recently began a challenge to encourage colleges to get their students to sign up for one of the vaccines.
A few Georgia colleges and universities have joined the challenge. They include Agnes Scott College, Emory University, Georgia Southern, LaGrange College, Mercer University and Morehouse School of Medicine, according to The White House.
Mercer has joined the #COVIDCollegeChallenge in order to assist with the nationwide effort to get as many Americans as possible vaccinated to bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. #VaccineChampion https://t.co/8cfj6P9JJH
— Mercer University (@MercerYou) June 10, 2021
There’s been a big national and local debate concerning whether colleges should require students get vaccinated. Emory and some schools are requiring vaccinations. Mercer and some others are not making vaccinations mandatory, but encouraging it.
New programs and facilities
Several local colleges and universities have opened new facilities or programs in recent days. Gov. Brian Kemp visited Gwinnett Technical College on Monday for the groundbreaking of its Computer Information Systems, Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies Building. Kennesaw State University is launching an Office of Intellectual Property Development. Georgia Piedmont Technical College is planning a $5.8 million regional training center in Stonecrest that will be the state’s largest transportation training center. The University of West Georgia next month will open its new School of Communication, Film, and Media.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. scholarships for Clark Atlanta students
Many of the nation’s top financial companies have committed over the last year to finding ways to help students at Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities amid longstanding complaints corporate America has offered little support to the schools, which educate more lower-income students.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. shared some details with us this week about its partnership with 11 HBCUs, including Clark Atlanta University, to provide merit-based scholarships for the upcoming school year and future internships. The scholarship are $5,000 for the student’s senior year. The application deadline is June 24.
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