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UGA entomology curator helps lead effort to digitize butterfly, moth collections RESEARCH NEWS
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‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ features timeless, timetraveling family Vol. 44, No. 10
September 26, 2016
columns.uga.edu
camiew@uga.edu
Graduate student Abha Rai, left, and Dean Anna Scheyett talk in the lounge of the School of Social Work.
Peter Frey
‘Move the needle’ New School of Social Work dean focuses on excellence and impact
laurie@uga.edu
Anna Scheyett is no stranger to change. The new dean of the School of Social Work began her academic journey with degrees in biology and human genetics, fields not usually associated with social work. She spent time in pharmaceutical research and development but wanted to do more. It wasn’t until Scheyett encountered a pregnant, poverty-stricken woman while working as a counselor at a women’s health clinic in Boston that she found her true calling. “She was expecting her fourth child. Her husband forbade birth
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NSF renews grant of $4M to broaden STEM participation By Camie Williams
By Laurie Anderson
UGA GUIDE
control, and for religious reasons she was opposed to abortion but felt that she had no other options,” Scheyett said. “She said that she’d rather go to hell than not be able to feed another baby. I was so outraged that she had to make that kind of choice. That’s when I decided to become a social worker.” Scheyett returned to school, earned master’s and doctoral degrees in social work and became a licensed clinical social worker. She advanced to the position of dean of the University of South Carolina College of Social Work. Under her leadership, the college exceeded a $4 million fundraising goal. The college’s scholarly productivity, interdisciplinary research and
partnerships with other institutions also more than doubled, and it jumped 17 places in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of graduate social work programs. Then tragedy struck. Historic flooding in South Carolina, the shooting of black parishioners at a church in Charleston and a murdersuicide on the USC campus made Scheyett reassess her priorities. “I realized that life is simply too short, and it is important to be doing exactly the most valuable, inspired work that you can,” she said. Imbued with a new sense of urgency, Scheyett was attracted to UGA’s drive to “move the needle” in terms of impact, she said. The See DEAN on page 8
SEC ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Funding for a program that has helped triple minority enrollment in STEM fields at UGA has been renewed for the second time by the National Science Foundation. UGA initially received funding to implement the Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program a decade ago, and the program will continue for another five years thanks to a new $4 million NSF grant. The program, led by UGA’s Office of Institutional Diversity, funds undergraduates in STEM majors at UGA as well as at Fort Valley State University, Georgia State University, Perimeter College, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Kennesaw State University and
Savannah State University. “The renewal of Peach State LSAMP funding is evidence of the University of Georgia’s success over the last decade, as well as our ongoing efforts, in supporting minority students in the STEM disciplines,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “We are excited to extend the reach of this important program as we prepare our students for the next stage of their academic careers.” According to the NSF, AfricanAmericans are 12 percent of the U.S. population but received less than 9 percent of science and engineering bachelor degrees in 2014. Hispanics received 12 percent of the degrees but comprise 14 percent of the population. Since the Peach State LSAMP
See GRANT on page 8
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
UGA to implement mandated changes to staff classifications By Jan Gleason
jgleason@uga.edu
UGA will implement federallymandated changes to staff classifications Nov. 17, moving approximately 3,000 staff members from exempt to non-exempt status. UGA has held two campuswide forums to communicate to staff members the impact of the new U.S. Department of Labor regulations and will hold two more sessions at the Georgia Center today at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Under the new Fair Labor Standards Act provisions, certain UGA staff whose duties and responsibilities do not meet the FLSA exemption tests or who make less
than $913 per week ($47,476 fulltime annually) must be classified as non-exempt and become eligible for overtime pay or compensatory time. With this change, these staff members must report their hours worked on a weekly basis and are eligible for overtime pay or compensatory time if they exceed 40 worked hours in a week. The change is required due to state law in Georgia and the payroll policy of the University of Georgia, as well as the entire University System of Georgia, that requires nonexempt employees (i.e., those eligible for overtime) to be paid biweekly.Standard benefit and other
See FLSA on page 8
Four UGA professors named 2016-17 Fellows in TERRY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Bonbright Center relaunched By Camie Williams with an eye toward regulation camiew@uga.edu Four UGA faculty members— Chris Garvin, Janice Hume, Marisa Anne Pagnattaro and J. Marshall Shepherd—have been selected as the university’s 2016-2017 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows. The fellowship program, which was created by the Southeastern Peter Frey Conference in 2008, includes SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows from UGA are, from training, mentoring and networkleft, Chris Garvin, Marisa Pagnattaro, Marshall Shepherd and Janice Hume. ing to advance academic leaders. Participants will engage with senior “This program allows the SEC Meg Amstutz, associate provost administrators at UGA and attend ALDP Fellows to engage in frank for academic programs and UGA’s two SEC-wide workshops with conversations with senior admin- SEC ALDP liaison. “Through the representatives from throughout istrators about the variety of issues two workshops, participants are the conference. they face as academic leaders,” said See FELLOWS on page 3
By Matt Weeks
mweeks@uga.edu
A research center devoted to the study of economic regulation has been relaunched by UGA’s Terry College of Business. The James C. Bonbright Center for the Study of Regulation, founded in 1990 to study regulation of public utilities, is broadening its scope to address regulation across a range of market sectors. The center’s expansion will include funding support for faculty and graduate student research and travel, graduate assistantships, visiting lectures,
undergraduate internships and other activities. “ S u p ported by an endowment of nearly $2 million, the new Bonbright David Mustard Center will fund research across many topics to advance our understanding of the role that regulatory economics plays in shaping public policy, controlling prices and influencing
See BONBRIGHT on page 8