Tags: Society

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Top ten season for 2016-17 Georgia Debate Union

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Reforming Georgia's criminal justice system

Georgia legislators passed reforms to Georgia’s criminal justice system in 2017, but the complex web of fines, fees, and surcharges embedded in Georgia’s legal code continues to create significant hardship for the state’s poorest citizens. A team of researchers from nine universities including UGA conducted a comprehensive review of monetary sanctions - fines, court fees, restitution, surcharges, and corrections costs - in the criminal justice…

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Coley Lecture, Geography colloquium April 21

[The speaker is Siobhan B. Somerville, associate professor of English and gender and women's studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign]. Somerville's expertise includes feminist theory, queer studies and American literature. She has written extensively about the intersection of race and sexuality in U.S. literature and history and is currently studying immigration law and U.S. citizenship. Her publications include …

woman with building, outside, photo, day
Two Franklin students named 2017 Goldwater Scholars

Congratulations to UGA juniors and Honors Program students Morgan Gibbs and Mallory Harris, who are among 240 students across the nation to be recognized as Barry Goldwater Scholars, earning the highest undergraduate award of its type for the fields of mathematics, natural sciences and engineering: Gibbs and Harris are each studying in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Gibbs, from Peachtree City, is majoring in chemistry and minoring in…

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TEDxUGA 2017: Ideas Worth Spreading

Franklin's Jessica Luton attended the recent TEDxUGA event and shares the story: This past Friday, the Athens and UGA community had an opportunity to listen to some “ideas worth spreading” via the local TED Talk affiliated program known as TEDxUGA. The event, which began in 2013, drew its biggest crowd ever, with over 1000 people in attendance. The growth of this event can be attributed to dynamic organizers and presenters year after year, as…

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Jaewoo Lee: Preserving data privacy

The statistical science of learning about the group while protecting the information of individuals in the group is called differential privacy. An interesting technical digression not included in the final version of the article: Differential privacy ensures that any conclusion drawn from an analysis remains almost the same no matter whether any particular individual’s data is used in the analysis or not. In other words, the results of the…

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Debugging the Gender Gap

Addressing the low numbers of women choosing to study STEM fields and particularly in areas related to software and information technology is the focus of a documentary screening tomorrow, March 22, at the Special Collections Library: This documentary (rated PG-13) exposes the dearth of American female and minority software engineers and explores the reasons for this gender gap. CODE raises the question: what would society gain from having more…

people seated in a briefing room
Shannon testifies at US Commission on Civil Rights

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights briefing on Friday, March 17, to examine the Department of Justice’s enforcement efforts at the municipal level included testimony from assistant professor of sociology Sarah Shannon. The briefing focused on urgent issues involving civil rights of all Americans: municipal practices of raising money when people come into contact with the justice system. The recent past in Ferguson, Missouri brought to…

professor with artifact, students
Special Collections Libraries Faculty Fellows

Twelve University of Georgia faculty committed to developing new courses using the University’s archival material have been named Special Collections Libraries Faculty Fellows: [The] Program provides instructional support and a $2000 financial stipend to faculty who wish to develop new courses or redesign existing courses to make significant use of the collections and resources of the University of Georgia’s three special collections…

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Author and professor Barbara McCaskill

As part of her research, McCaskill helped create the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative, an archival online database of film, manuscripts, correspondence, speeches, photographs, posters and movement buttons from the civil rights era. She worked with CURO Program undergraduates and graduate students to create Freedom on Film, a teaching and research resource linked to the site that tells the story of civil rights in nine Georgia cities and…

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Zero Waste UGA

Did you know to-go cups from your favorite cafe are not recyclable? How much energy does your building consume? How many of your co-workers carpool? The UGA Office of Sustainability works to educate us on these and many other questions, making the microcosm that is our campus community more in-tune with its environmental and stewardship responsibilities: Zero Waste UGA, an effort to send 65 percent less waste to the landfill in 2020 than the…


Alternative Spring Break

Can someone spell IMPACT? They sure can! Animal Advocacy trip to Charleston, SC cleaning the Francis Marion National Forest! We are so proud that our students can seek out such opportunities and make a difference with their time away from campus. To learn more about the program, including other future service learning opportunities, or to see what other adventures our students are participating in this Spring Break, visit the IMPACT Facebook…

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Focus on the Faculty: Paula Lemons

Associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Paula Lemons conducts research that aims to improve science education across the nation while helping students at UGA develop independence, teamwork and problem solving skills: When did you come to UGA and what brought you here? In 2007, during a transition in my career, I met Peggy Brickman, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Plant Biology, at a conference. She told me…

Man at podium with award
Kudos, February 2017

Russell Teaching Award, Georgia Writers Hall of Fame inductions and Georgia Bio Awards lead the way in recent accolades for Franklin Faculty: Three faculty members, including associate professor of genetics Kelly Dyer, receive Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching – UGA Today B. Phinizy Spalding Professor of History Emeritus James Cobb among three authors named to Georgia Writers Hall of Fame – ABH Yiping Zhao, Distinguished…

Holmes Hunter building, campus
Noted and Quoted, February 2017

From the history of the university to a musical premiere to questions about the president, Franklin faculty expertise is a vital resource across the news media. Some recent articles and broadcast segments: The Whole Story: UGA's Often Overlooked Black History– Flagpole article quotes professor of English Barbara McCaskill and Franklin Professor of English Valerie Babb, director of the Institute for African American Studies Finding the lost Fort…

people in a crowd
Panel discussions on Films and Food

The extraordinary new films Moonlight and I Am Not Your Negro are the focus of special screenings and panel discussions this week. On Wednesday Feb. 22, Moonlight: A screening of Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-nominated film, followed by a panel discussion with Valerie Babb, professor of English and director of the Institute for African American Studies; Ed Pavlić, professor of English and creative writing; and Channette Romero, associate professor…

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Teaching Free Speech

Expression on campus and anywhere in the public sphere has gained renewed urgency - understanding it, championing it, responding to it. A Chronicle of Higher Education writer weighs in with an important point - College Is Too Late to Teach Free Speech: How do young adults arrive on campus with so little appreciation of free expression and the First Amendment? But the better question is: How could they have gained such an…

man in red at visitor's center
Amazing student: Sahl Hakim

The double major in biology and psychology from Lawrenceville cites the Dawg Camp, Freshman Forum and the UGA Visitors Center as the having the biggest impacts on his UGA experience: Dawg Camp helped me open up to all the things UGA had to offer. I came in to college as an awkward, shy first year but I’ve grown so much from then. Special shoutout to my counselor Nikita for forcing me to hang out with her and showing me how fun college could be!…

graphic over razor wire
The Innocents Project

People who have been wrongly processed through the justice system are focus of a three-day residency at the intersection of the arts, civil rights, and social justice begins today on campus: “The Innocents” is an intersection of numerous artistic disciplines and social subjects, so Frigo’s aim was to reflect that in the programming of UGA’s “Innocents” multi-day residency. To that end, she reached out to the Georgia Innocence Project, the…

students on the lawn in front of old college
WRITE@UGA 2017

Beginning Feb. 13, the Writing Intensive Program and Center for Teaching and Learning present a series of workshops, exhibitions and opportunities that put the spotlight on writing - the annual Write @ UGA Celebration and Showcase of Writing: writing is an integral part of a well rounded academic experience, no matter the background, no matter the degree. That principle has led to the creation of numerous initiatives, courses, programs…


Celebrating Black History Month

Today, we welcome Keith Parker, CEO and general manager of MARTA, to campus to deliver the Holmes-Hunter Lecture. This lecture honors Charlayne Hunter-Gault and the late Hamilton Holmes, who in 1961 became the first African-American students to enroll at UGA. Held annually since 1985, the lecture focuses on race relations, civil rights and education with implications for inclusion and diversity. This lecture seeks to bring about important issues…

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Hunter-Holmes Lecture: Keith Parker

Sponsored by the Office of the President. This Signature lecture is one of the great spring events on campus commemorating our history, and a forward-looking discussion from an expert on public infrastructure is a timely reminder of our challenges and capabilities. Welocme to campus, Mr. Parker. See you at the Chapel.

graphic with students
Kudos, January 2017

Our faculty and the university as a whole kick off the New Year with exemplary honors and awards. A few from the past month: Andrea Sweigart, assistant professor of genetics, honored with Presidential Early Career Award UGA marine scientists received a $1.3 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to study how microorganisms in the oceans keep the Earth healthy, professor and P.I. Mary Ann Moran and GRA Eminent Scholar Arthur…

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Noted and Quoted, January 2017

Franklin College faculty engage in public scholarship by offering comments, regular columns and sharing expertise across a variety of media. A sample from just this month: Five big mysteries about CRISPR's origins, Distinguished Research Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Michael Terns quoted in Nature  The top nine weather or climate events of 2016, column by Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor Marshall…

illustration with statue, buildings
Happy 232nd, UGA

Today, public colleges and universities across the United States educate about 15 million students each year. This includes the more than 300,000 students throughout the public colleges and universities that make up the University System of Georgia. A great moment to celebrate, in the history of public higher education int he United States. In some ways, the challenges and struggles have never been greater, but when we look back to the very…
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