Georgia State University was recently awarded a nearly $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to increase the number of science teachers in metro Atlanta schools.
The grant, titled “Impacting Metro-Atlanta Science Teaching,” or I-MAST, will be used to recruit, prepare and support 36 high quality science educators over the next five years.
The program will offer scholarships to undergraduate majors studying content in the STEM fields, which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Scholarships will also be available for graduates who hold a degree in the STEM areas and are interested in going into secondary science teaching careers.
Students will study in Georgia State’s Master of Arts in Teaching program in the College of Education, Department of Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology.
“Especially in Georgia, there is a tremendous need for science teachers,” said Anton Puvirajah, assistant professor of science education at GSU, who is directing the project with several colleagues. “Through this program, we hope to increase the number of highly trained science teachers.”
I-MAST is a collaboration between GSU’s College of Education and College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Georgia Institute of Technology and four public school districts in the Metro Atlanta area.
The first scholarship recipients are expected to enroll at GSU in fall 2010. Applicants will have at least a junior level status at their undergraduate study either at Georgia State’s College of Arts and Sciences or Georgia Tech, or have a minimum bachelor’s degree in a STEM area.
Undergraduate students who commit to pursue a secondary science teacher certification at Georgia State will receive a two-year scholarship totaling $24,000 to be used in their senior year of undergraduate studies and in their year of teacher certification studies. STEM graduates will receive a one-year scholarship of $12,000 to complete their teacher certification studies.
Scholarship recipients will be obligated to teach two years in a Metro Atlanta high need school district for every year of funding received.
A report by the University System of Georgia warns that by 2010 Georgia will need to produce 2,060 middle school and high school teachers of life sciences, chemistry, earth sciences and physics. However in the 2008 academic year, only 90 science teachers were prepared in Georgia, according to the Board of Regents statistics.
“The partnership between GSU and Georgia Tech is a great way to bring bright young scientists into the classroom,” said Jennifer Leavey, director of Undergraduate Academic Services in the Georgia Tech School of Biology. “Tech is a nationally-ranked leader in undergraduate science education, but has no route for certifying K-12 teachers. GSU has an excellent College of Education and is only a few blocks away.”
Scholarship applicants must have an overall GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, appropriate academic backgrounds in science content, three letters of recommendation and a 350 -500 word narrative statement about their desire to become a secondary science teacher in a high-need school.
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Friday, June 19, 2009
GSU receives $900K grant to recruit, train science teachers
Thursday, March 26, 2009
DeVry Decatur Campus Moves to New Location
(BUSINESS WIRE)--DeVry University Decatur has moved its campus from 250 North Arcadia Avenue to One West Square in Downtown Decatur.
The six-story, blue glass building is located in the Decatur Town Square, in the heart of the city's business and financial district, with easy access to Ponce De Leon Avenue and the MARTA train and bus service.
“We are very excited about the move to downtown Decatur,” said Chris Chavez, Atlanta Metro President. “Our new location allows us to be better integrated in the downtown Decatur community and gives our students, faculty and staff more opportunities to be involved in the exciting renaissance of the neighborhood.”
DeVry Decatur serves students who live or work in DeKalb County and Atlanta's central, eastern and southern metropolitan areas with both undergraduate and graduate degree programs in some of today's fastest growing career fields, including Game and Simulation Programming, Business Administration, Computer Information Systems and Technical Management, as well as master’s degree programs through its Keller Graduate School of Management. Keller's MBA program is listed as the fifth largest MBA program in the state, as published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle in January 2009.
A modern facility, the Decatur campus offers spacious classrooms; an expanded library with research and information resources; access to Galileo, an online database retrieval system for Georgia libraries; a computer lab with online access and a comfortable commons area. In addition, this Atlanta area location provides all administrative functions, including student finance, and student and career services.
“We’re pleased to welcome DeVry University to downtown Decatur,” said Mayor Bill Floyd. “With a location literally adjoining the Decatur MARTA station, DeVry University will play a key role in the development of the downtown area.”
DeVry University has been part of the fabric of Atlanta’s higher education community for 40 years. Students enrolled at DeVry University’s Atlanta-area locations have the flexibility to attend any of its seven Georgia locations: Alpharetta, Buckhead, Cobb/Galleria, Decatur, Duluth, Stockbridge, and Perimeter, as well as numerous online class options.
DeVry University maintains a focus on academic outcomes that result in a strong employment rate among its graduates. In Georgia, 87 percent of DeVry University's October ‘07, February ‘08 and June ‘08 graduates in the active job market were employed in their fields within six months of graduation at an average salary of $44,000.
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Friday, January 9, 2009
State of Georgia Approves First IE2 Contract
Yesterday, the State Board of Education (SBOE) approved a five-year contract with Gwinnett County Public Schools that grants the school district greater flexibility in exchange for increased accountability. The contract was made possible by Governor Sonny Perdue’s Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2) legislation, which was passed and signed into law last year. IE2 allows for balanced local control, allowing officials closest to the students to make important decisions concerning their schools. Gwinnett, which educates 10 percent of the state’s students, is the first school system to accept the challenge of linking accountability with increased flexibility.
“I commend Superintendent Wilbanks and the Gwinnett County Board of Education for their willingness and courage to be held to a higher standard,” said Governor Perdue. “This contract fundamentally shifts the state-local relationship from being based on compliance to a true partnership focused on performance. IE2 is about increasing student achievement, and I am confident that Gwinnett will use its flexibility to deliver superior results and be a model district for the state.”
Under IE2 local school districts work with the Georgia Department of Education and the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement to create a strategic plan that clearly identifies the flexibility sought from Georgia education laws, the accountability goals in addition to federal NCLB requirements the district is willing to accept at the school level in exchange for the flexibility, and the consequences that will be imposed upon the district for schools that do not reach their accountability goals.
The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement will monitor Gwinnett County’s progress towards meeting annual goals and will report these findings to the SBOE each fall. In addition, Gwinnett will provide interventions and sanctions throughout the contract period to those schools that do not meet their annual IE2 accountability goals. Those schools that do not meet their IE2 accountability goals by the end of the contract period will be converted to charter schools.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Agnes Scott Announces Lowest Increase in Tuition and Fees in 35 Years
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Acknowledging the economic downturn's potential impact on finances for students and families, the Agnes Scott College Board of Trustees has approved the smallest percentage increase in tuition and fees in 35 years.
The overall increase in tuition, mandatory fees and room and board for the 2009-2010 academic year is 2.69 percent, which is approximately half the rate of inflation.
The board also approved a plan to launch several new financial aid initiatives aimed at attracting talented students to the college, including "The Agnes Solution," a program guaranteeing $64,200 in merit aid over four years to students eligible for a Georgia HOPE scholarship.
"Agnes Scott College's newly announced affordability measures powerfully demonstrate private higher education's commitment to staying financially within reach to students and families from all backgrounds during this historic economic downturn," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and an Agnes Scott trustee. "I applaud Agnes Scott for taking decisive and innovative steps to help consumers hit hard by the economy."
Traditionally, trustees have approved tuition for the following academic year at their January board meeting, but made the decision earlier this year to give students and parents additional time to plan.
"We realize that some of our students and their families will be struggling in this economy, and we are determined to go the extra mile to keep Agnes Scott affordable," said Agnes Scott President Elizabeth Kiss. "At the same time, we are committed to continuing to provide an outstanding educational experience for our students - small classes with excellent professors and opportunities to pursue research, internships and study abroad. We are not eliminating educational opportunities nor cutting services to students."
Instead, the college is finding new ways to be frugal. "We have delayed some replacement hires and are cutting back on discretionary expenditures, replacing holiday cards with an e-card and canceling the big tent rental for graduation," said Kiss. "In times like these, we need to concentrate on our essentials -- our people, our educational quality and our core values."
Agnes Scott will continue to offer generous financial aid to assist students who have demonstrated need, Kiss emphasized. In addition, the financial aid office will run special workshops designed to assist students in preparing financial aid forms and loan applications for next year.
"Some people still have the misperception that private colleges are only for the wealthy," Kiss said. "In fact, with students from all across the socio-economic spectrum, including one third who receive federal Pell grants for low-income families, Agnes Scott is far more socio-economically diverse than many public universities. We work hard to help families pay for college. And in tough economic times, we work even harder."
"Our generous financial aid policies, combined with the high quality of the education we provide, have made Agnes Scott the top-ranked college in the Southeast -- and number 16 nationally -- in the 'Great Schools, Great Prices' category in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this year," she added.
Agnes Scott's stated tuition covers about half the actual cost of educating a student at the college. The difference between tuition and the college's expenses is funded by income from the endowment and gifts to the college.
The college's budgetary strategies are to maintain balanced budgets, focus on strategic initiatives and aggressively pursue efficiencies and opportunities to "work smart." As a charter signatory of the College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, Agnes Scott takes seriously its efforts to "reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink" the college's daily operations, said Kiss, noting that many of these sustainability initiatives -- from energy retrofits to a printer cartridge recycling program -- save the college money and serve its ongoing commitment to affordability.
"Ultimately," she added, "the heart of our strategy is to help our students stay in college and to persuade more applicants to consider Agnes Scott." The college's new financial aid initiatives are key to that strategy. These include a new $3,000 Agnes Advantage Award to subsidize study abroad, internships or mentored research that will be offered to top students in the college's applicant pool. "The Agnes Solution" will guarantee Georgia students who are eligible for a HOPE scholarship $15,300 per year in merit aid along with a one-time $3,000 Agnes Advantage Award. This $64,200 aid package, combined with state HOPE and TEG grants, will provide up to $83,000 during a student's four years at Agnes Scott.
"These are exciting new programs for talented young women who want the choice of attending an independent liberal arts college," said Dean of Admission Lee Ann Afton. "We've always known the lifelong 'value-added' of attending a school like Agnes Scott. Now, the college is making this opportunity more affordable for students and their families."
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
UGA has Largest Student Body in History with Fall Enrollment of 34,180
Spurred by growth at two of its extended campuses, the University of Georgia has its largest student body in history this fall with an enrollment of 34,180—the first time ever that enrollment has topped 34,000.
The fall semester enrollment is 349 students (one percent) above last fall and 221 more than the previous record of 33,959 set in 2006.
The total includes 33,078 students on UGA’s main campus in Athens, up one percent from last year, and 938 students at the university’s extended campuses in Gwinnett County, Tifton, Griffin and Buckhead in Atlanta—a 6.2 percent increase from last fall. An additional 164 students are enrolled in independent study.
On the main campus in Athens, undergraduate enrollment totals 25,201, up by 207 over last year, and graduate enrollment increased by 110 students to a total of 6,324. Enrollment in the professional schools of law, pharmacy and veterinary medicine increased by four students to a total of 1,553.
The biggest increases at the extended campuses are at Buckhead, where 271 students are enrolled, and Griffin, where 106 students are enrolled. The Buckhead campus is mainly for working professionals and enrolls only students studying for master’s degrees in business administration. This is the first enrollment report in which Buckhead students are counted separately; in previous reports, they were counted as enrolled either in Athens or at the Gwinnett campus.
The Griffin campus has 60 undergraduates, compared to 40 last year, and 46 graduate students compared to 17 last year. The Tifton campus has a total of 48 undergraduate and graduate students, exactly the same as last year.
The Gwinnett campus has 513 students of whom 510 are enrolled in graduate courses. UGA offers only graduate courses at Gwinnett after phasing out undergraduate courses when Georgia Gwinnett College opened. Eliminating undergraduate programs was the primary factor in a 34 percent drop in total enrollment at the campus. Three undergraduates still are coded for enrollment purposes as enrolled at Gwinnett but are attending classes in Athens.
Robert Boehmer, associate provost for institutional effectiveness, said the extended campuses are a crucial factor in UGA’s efforts to promote economic growth in Georgia.
“In response to the state’s growing needs for workforce development and access to higher education, UGA has dramatically expanded its degree programs in Buckhead, Griffin, Gwinnett and Tifton,” Boehmer said.
“This effort will continue as UGA seeks to identify and implement additional degree programs uniquely suited to the needs of these key locations. UGA’s strong commitment to serving the needs of the entire state is well demonstrated by these efforts.”
Of the total 34,180 enrollment, 7,928 students had never attended UGA before including 4,376 first-time freshmen who enrolled this fall. Combined with 377 first-time freshmen who enrolled this summer, the total count of first-time freshmen for summer and fall is 4,753, an increase of 149 from last year.
Of the first-time freshmen who enrolled this fall, 295 had earned enough academic credit through joint-enrollment or advanced placement programs to be classified as sophomores, and 16 had enough credit to be classified as juniors.
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Monday, October 13, 2008
Georgia Southern University Featured in Princeton Review’s ‘Best Business Schools’
Georgia Southern University’s College of Business Administration (http://coba.georgiasouthern.edu) has been named one of the most outstanding business schools in the country by the Princeton Review. Georgia Southern, with an enrollment of nearly 18,000 students, is featured in the just-published 2009 edition of the Princeton Review’s “Best 296 Business Schools.”
“This is an outstanding honor and it represents the type of program and faculty we have at Georgia Southern University,” said Ron Shiffler, dean of the College of Business Administration. “We are very pleased to be named among the top business schools in the country.”
According to Robert Franek, Princeton Review vice president of publishing, "We select schools for this book based on our high regard for their academic programs and offerings, institutional data we collect from the schools, and the candid opinions of students attending them who rate and report on their campus experiences at the schools. We are pleased to recommend Georgia Southern University to readers of our book and users of our website as one of the best institutions they could attend to earn an MBA."
The Princeton Review does not rank the schools in the book on a single hierarchical list from 1 to 296, or name one business school best overall. Instead, the book has 11 ranking lists of the top 10 business schools in various categories. Ten lists are based on The Princeton Review's surveys of 19,000 students attending the 296 business schools profiled in the book. The lists are posted at www.PrincetonReview.com.
Georgia Southern University’s MBA program has become the program of choice for both full- and part-time professionals wanting to take the next step in their business career.
“We offer a traditional MBA at our main campus, a program in Savannah, Ga., and also an online MBA,” Shiffler said. “In an increasingly competitive global business environment and in challenging economic markets, an MBA will differentiate you and prepare you to take the next step in your career.”
For more information about Georgia Southern University’s MBA program, visit www.georgiasouthern.edu or e-mail mba@georgiasouthern.edu. Prospective students may also contact the Office of Graduate Admissions at (912) 478-7240.
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Georgia State: Children’s Defense Fund President to Speak at College of Education Lecture
Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President, Children’s Defense Fund
20th Annual Benjamin E. Mays Lecture
6 p.m. on Monday (Oct. 13)
Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, will be the keynote speaker at the College of Education’s 20th annual Benjamin E. Mays Lecture.
Free and open to the public, the lecture will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday (Oct. 13) at Georgia State University’s Rialto Center for the Arts. During her talk, Edelman will discuss trends in urban education.
“It is crucial that we address today’s educational crisis that America’s children face,” Edelman said. “Many of our children can’t read at grade level and our schools are now arresting children for infractions that used to be dealt with in the principal’s office. This isn’t just a problem for students, but a problem that affects all of our communities.”
A book signing will be held after the lecture for Edelman’s latest publication, The Sea is So Wide and My Boat is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, in stores now. Edelman has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, the Children’s Defense Fund has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families.
The annual lecture series, sponsored by Georgia State’s College of Education and Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence, began in 1989 to encourage the discussion of issues facing urban educational leaders. The annual event not only honors the memory of Mays, an Atlanta educator, but also promotes his philosophy of excellence in the education of those typically least served by society.
“Spanning over 30 years, Mrs. Edelman’s work speaks to the need for caring families and communities to give our children the best possible start in life that will insure a successful transition to adulthood,” said Gwendolyn Benson, associate dean of the College of Education.
A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Miss. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People’s Campaign, which Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death. In l973, Edelman began the Children’s Defense Fund. She has received many honorary degrees and awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, which include eight books.
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UWG: New Vice President for University Advancement
Dr. Michael Ruffner, former vice chancellor of communications and university relations at Louisiana State University, has been appointed Vice President for University Advancement at the University of West Georgia. He began his new position Oct. 1.
Dr. Beheruz N. Sethna, UWG president, welcomed Ruffner as he came to UWG at a critical time in its history.
“We need to draw on Dr. Ruffner’s experience and expertise to enhance our regional and national image,” Sethna said. “He will work closely with our excellent colleagues, not only within University Advancement but across campus, on this exciting task.”
While at LSU, Ruffner had oversight of advancement, legislative and public affairs since 2005, and most recently assisted the president of LSU System as a special advisor. Previously, he served as the associate vice president for marketing and communications at Case Western Reserve University responsible for all marketing, branding, communications and public affairs activities.
Earlier in his career as a senior media executive, he was responsible for developing comprehensive communications, marketing and public affairs programs for some of the leading brands in the country.
As the inaugural head of the Office of Communications and University Relations at LSU, his advancement responsibilities involved coordinating the fundraising activities of three private foundations, and he was instrumental in the planning and launch of Forever LSU, the largest capital campaign in LSU history, which raised a record $122 million during the first year of the campaign.
During Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, he led all public affairs operations to establish communications and liaison between LSU and local, state and federal agencies. His office was instrumental in helping transition LSU into the largest temporary acute care facility in history.
In addition, his office wrote, produced and disseminated in six weeks the award-winning volume, LSU in the Eye of the Storm, as a model outlining how institutions can and should assist their state leadership during disasters.
As the head of marketing and public affairs at Case Western Reserve University, Ruffner was responsible for raising the visibility and prestige of the university among national and international audiences, supporting all philanthropic activities, providing marketing and
communications support to eight schools, and representing the university before all public forums and the media.
Ruffner was responsible for much of the planning and execution for the 2004 Vice Presidential Debate activities at Case. By creating a series of events called The Race at Case, they generated millions of dollars of media value for the university and the city of Cleveland.
Prior to his work at Case Western, he worked closely with senior management at CBS and NBC for nearly 20 years on brand management, and was responsible for representing the corporate and public affairs interests of both networks before Congress and numerous regulatory and special interest groups. He served as the chief advocate for CBS and NBC on healthcare advertising.
In addition, Ruffner pioneered the movement to advertise prescription drugs on network television , and was the founding director of a national policy and research consortium of 57 large corporations that lobbied Congress for healthcare advertising reforms.
Sethna expressed his appreciation to Dr. Andrew Leavitt, associate vice president for University Advancement, and Lisa Ledbetter, assistant vice president for University Communications and Marketing, for leading the Division for the past year.
“We have made substantial progress on a number of dimensions, including the work on the football stadium, during this period and we could not have done it without their help,” Sethna stated.
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