News
Georgia Southern among nation’s most popular universities
U.S. News and World Report has ranked Georgia Southern as the fourth most popular university in the country behind only Brigham Young, Harvard and Stanford universities. The rank is based on yield – the number of students who apply and then opt to enroll – and came in ahead of Ivy League schools Princeton and Yale.
Georgia Southern was the only school in the state of Georgia and one of only three in the Southeast to make the list.
“This is the latest example of Georgia Southern’s continued climb in enrollment, academic quality and national reputation and proves what thousands of Georgia Southern University students and alumni have known for decades,” said University President Brooks Keel. “Georgia Southern provides its students with an excellent education on one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States. The fact that nearly 70 percent of the students we accept decide to attend Georgia Southern is a testament to the greatness of this University.”
Fall Semester 2009 sees record enrollment
Georgia Southern set a new record for fall semester enrollment with 19,691 students, a 3.2 percent increase from fall 2009.
Georgia Southern’s student body includes students from 49 U.S. states and from 98 countries. The University once again set a new record for graduate enrollment. Students pursuing a master’s, specialist or doctorate degree totaled 2,647. Georgia Southern’s first Ph.D. program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, and a new Master of Science in Computer Science degree program combined with popular online and campus-based programs in education and health care helped drive increases in graduate enrollment.
University excels at producing minority grads in sciences
Forbes magazine recently ranked Georgia Southern among the top 10 colleges and universities nationwide who excel in teaching undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics for minorities and women. The institutions were chosen based on their ability to excel at teaching in those categories coupled with the percentage of minorities within the school receiving degrees compared to other races.
University acquires additional acreage
A planned expansion of recreation offerings for a growing student enrollment is underway at Georgia Southern following the purchase of 167 acres by the Georgia Southern University Housing Foundation, a non-profit corporation established to acquire and develop real estate.
The land, located adjacent to the Meadow Lakes subdivision in Statesboro, will allow the University to provide additional activities such as a walking/cross country course, golf and one of the areas’ only disc golf courses. Plans also include using the property for a variety of academic purposes including teaching classes at the complex.
College of Health and Human Sciences
Grant to fund healthy pregnancy education
Georgia Southern researchers are looking for ways to prevent and reduce childhood obesity by connecting pregnant women with an online health education course.
The research is geared toward promoting preventive measures in the earliest stages of prenatal development by offering the course and promoting physical activity among pregnant women. Researchers have been awarded $24,844 by the University System of Georgia to study women in their first trimester of pregnancy and are teaming up with East Georgia Regional Medical Center and faculty colleagues from the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia.
College of Business Administration
COBA named a leading business school
The College of Business Administration has been named one of the 300 Best Business Schools in the country by The Princeton Review, the fifth year in a row the College has been included on the list.
“Our faculty and staff work hard to provide a top-tier education to our students that will prepare them to compete in a global economy,” said College of Business Administration Dean Ronald Shiffler. “It is very gratifying to have our efforts recognized by an organization as distinguished as The Princeton Review.”
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health
Research: Health system information can save lives
A Georgia Southern researcher has found that pairing breast cancer patients with a professional to help them navigate their way through the health care process might not only save lives, but also has potential for saving substantial amounts of money in the health care system. Talar Markossian and Elizabeth Calhoun from the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted the research as part of the Chicago Cancer Navigation Project (CCNP) for which professor Calhoun is the principal investigator. CCNP’s goal is to reduce the time between an abnormal result from a screening test like a mammogram, and a definitive diagnosis. Markossian and Calhoun’s research shows that helping patients through the health care system has potential for increasing one year in the life of a breast cancer patient at a cost of $95,000 per patient, per year.
Allen E. Paulson College of Science and Technology
Robotics team wins top honors at international competition
Georgia Southern’s robotics team was awarded first place in the Expert Division at the 17th annual International Firefighting Robotic Contest at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. The University’s team is composed of mechanical and electrical engineering technology students who designed and built an autonomous computer-controlled robot, which also earned an honorable mention for being the most advanced robot in the competition. The robot was equipped with a series of sensors to detect a sound alarm for a fire in a house, garage or car; search for a water source and extinguish the fire; and navigate obstacles.
Georgia Southern competed against 120 other teams from around the globe, including China, Israel, Indonesia, Portugal, Korea, Canada and the United States.
Students also placed fourth in an autonomous lawnmower robot competition held at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. The modified lawnmower was designed and built by University students with such components as an advanced GPS, laser to detect obstacles, and a laptop computer located inside an electronics box to control the robot’s motions.
Dr. Fernando Rios-Gutierrez launched the robotics area as part of the electrical engineering program at Georgia Southern three years ago, with Dr. Rocio Alba-Flores, also serving as a faculty advisor. They have integrated a laboratory of robotics, where undergraduate and graduate students, from the mechanical and electrical engineering programs, collaborate with the faculty in the development of different robotic projects. Most of the robotic projects have been developed with the support of undergraduate research grants (COUR grants) for students, and from a research grant, that Rios-Gutierrez has received to collaborate with Georgia Tech Savannah for the development of robotic vehicles.
College of Education
Youth at Risk draws international experts
The College of Education and the Center for Continuing Education hosted the 22nd annual National Youth-At-Risk Conference in March, a four-day gathering of more than 1,500 educators, counselors, social workers, criminal justice professionals and community leaders. Participants discussed strategies for dealing with troubled youngsters.
College of Information Technology
Professor is ‘highly commended’ by publisher
Technology professor Jordan Shropshire received a 2010 Highly Commended Award from the editorial director of Emerald Group Publishing based upon the number of citations of his paper “A canonical analysis of intentional security breaches by insiders” in the journal Information Management and Computer Security, Volume 17, No. 4, 2009. Shropshire’s research interests include behavioral and technical aspects of information security, IT disaster recovery, technology diffusion, and measurement issues. He is completing his dissertation on information security at Mississippi State University. Jordan completed his undergraduate degree in business at the University of Florida.