News from the University System of Georgia: region 1

NEWS

FROM

The University System of Georgia

Two USG Universities Rank Among Nation's Top 20 Public Institutions
Georgia has two institutions ranked among the top 20 public national universities in the United States in U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2003."
Georgia Tech is No. 9 on the coveted list, while the University of Georgia is No. 18.
The 2003 "Best Colleges" report, released in September 2002, and the magazine's 2003 edition of "Best Graduate Schools," released in April 2002, also contain a variety of other rankings.
The reports rank Georgia Tech: First among the nation's graduate and undergraduate schools
of industrial and systems engineering; Second among undergraduate programs in aerospace/aero-
nautical/ engineering; Third among undergraduate programs in civil engineering; Fourth among undergraduate programs in mechanical engi-
neering; and Fourth among graduate engineering programs overall.
The reports rank UGA: Among the top three public law schools in the South; Third among graduate programs in public
management/administration and public finance; Fourth among graduate programs in vocational/ technical
education; and Fourth in terms of "best value" among national public uni-
versities.
The reports rank Georgia State University: First among the nation's public universities with part-time
MBA programs and fifth overall; and Second among undergraduate business programs in insurance/
risk management.
The reports rank the Medical College of Georgia: Sixth among the nation's graduate programs in nursing anes-
thesia (a ranking held since 1998).
Facts About the USG Institutions Represented at This Luncheon:
I Floyd College's iTech Training Center, located at the college's Cartersville Center and equipped with a state-of-the-art networked computer lab, provides customized training for local businesses.
I Dalton State College is one of 14 University System of Georgia institutions offering the Regents' Engineering Transfer Program (RETP), which allows students to begin work on an engineering degree at a local college and later transfer to Georgia Tech.
I Floyd College's popular nursing program has educated more than 1,200 nurses and has received state commendation for its pass rate -- 94.6 percent in 2001 -- on the national licensing exam.
I Dalton State College's Center for Continuing Education has partnered with the Dalton-based Carpet and Rug Institute to assume administrative responsibility for the institute's carpet-installation seal-of-approval certification program.

Did You Know?
N The Board of Regents is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. The original 11 regents developed a plan in 1932 that for the first time centralized governance of the state's higher education institutions.
N According to a recent economic-impact study coordinated by the Board of Regents' Office of Economic Development, Dalton State College and Floyd College generated a combined total of 1,323 jobs and infused nearly $98 million into the local economy during Fiscal Year 2001.
N Dalton State College recently received a $179,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education for its proposal to internationalize its business curriculum. In addition to infusing business courses with international topics and improving opportunities for international travel and study by students and faculty, the money will be used to help small and medium-sized businesses expand their operations to an international scale. The college's Department of Continuing Education is working with the Dalton/Whitfield Chamber of Commerce and the Dalton branch of the University of Georgia's Small Business Development Center to sponsor a series of quarterly seminars on international topics.
N The average student at Floyd College is between 25 and 26 years old.
Dalton State's IT+ Program Helps Company Add Polish to its Tech Staff
Seven employees of Shaw Industries comprised the first class of graduates from Dalton State College's new Information Technology Plus program, which seeks to create a more wellrounded technical workforce.
Dalton State was the first institution in Georgia to produce graduates of IT+, a semester-long certificate program of the Department of Technical and Adult Education that teaches "soft" or people skills to those employed in technical occupations.
Attending class two mornings a week -- or a total of eight hours -- students focused on team and collaborative skills, business writing, managing customer relationships, critical thinking, stress management, leadership styles, diversity at work, ethics for IT professionals and other topics.

NEWS

FROM

The University System of Georgia

DSC's 4-Year Degrees Tailored to Business Needs

Dalton State College has added six baccalaureatedegree programs to its curriculum over the past three years, but only after carefully consulting with business and community officials about the business needs of Northwest Georgia.
College officials have met with members of the Whitfield Chamber of Commerce, local representatives of the health-care industry and a number of human-resource managers in shaping the degree programs, five of which are business related.
"Those people know where the shortages are in terms of hiring at the bachelor's-degree level," said DSC President James Burran.
The programs include a broad-based bachelor of business administration in management, a marketing systems degree that produces sales professionals and emphasizes commerce, and a bachelor of applied science in technical management geared toward students interested in technology who might end up working with networks, databases, and systems analysis and design. A social-work degree is unique in that it requires three years of Spanish.

USG Resume Database Helping Employers to Recruit
FusionPoint Technology Solutions of Macon is one of the latest Georgia businesses to benefit from the University System of Georgia's online statewide database of college students and alumni seeking consideration as job candidates.
The consulting firm recently hired three Georgia Tech graduates located through GeorgiaHire.com, which provides cost-effective one-stop shopping for businesses in need of qualified job candidates. Students and alumni can post their resumes on the web site free of charge. It costs nothing for potential employers to search the database for job candidates and only a nominal fee to post job openings and company profiles.
More than 150,000 students and alumni have posted their resumes for review since February 2000, and more than 12,600 employers have searched the database during that period.

"You can't be in human services in Northwest Georgia without being bilingual," Burran noted.
Dalton State's first bachelor-degree graduates last year had a 90-percent job placement rate.
Did You Know?
N Since 1992, every single student completing the two-year dental hygiene program at Floyd College has passed the National Board exam required for graduation.
N Nearly 43 percent of the students at Dalton State College are "non-traditional" or over the age of 25, and the largest group of non-traditional students is aged 30-44 years old.
N Floyd College offers North Georgia residents a bachelor's degree in early childhood education through an arrangement with the State University of West Georgia and, within the year, the college plans to begin offering a bachelor's degree in information technology through Southern Polytechnic State University.
N Dalton State College is a certified training center for CISCO, Novell and several Microsoft applications.
N Slated to open in Fall 2004, Floyd College's $19 million Bartow County campus -- on Georgia Highway 20 in Cartersville -- will serve a minimum of 1,500 students, some of whom are expected to take four-year courses offered at Floyd by other USG institutions.

Floyd College Helping to Beef Up Ranks of Health Professionals in NW Georgia
Floyd College is responding to Northwest Georgia's critical shortage of skilled health-care workers with action on several fronts.
With $117,100 received from the University System's Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP) Health Professionals Initiative this summer, the college has partnered with Emory Cartersville, Floyd Medical Center and Redmond Regional Medical Center to create a new associate degree in nursing program. The three facilities have agreed to hire a total of 20 graduates of the program.
Floyd College also has forged an agreement with Darton College and Armstrong Atlantic State University in which its students will be able to obtain an associate degree in medical laboratory technology from Darton and a baccalaureate degree in the same subject from AASU through online courses. This program, funded by a $15,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of PostSecondary Education, will begin in January 2003.
In June, the Georgia Cancer Coalition awarded a $250,000 planning grant to the Rome-Floyd Cancer Initiative that includes funding for the development of an oncology certification and nurse-navigator program at Floyd College. The program will help improve cancer care in Northwest Georgia by training qualified registered nurses to help cancer patients navigate their way through the health-care system.