Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::January 14, 2002

Undergraduate admissions policy is set for fall 2002
Tighten your belt
Peter Shedd named interim vice president for instruction
Congressional action supports university’s top-priority programs
Governance group polls staff about holiday preferences
OASIS system now handles course, school withdrawals online
Dead in the water
Education professor helps students understand the ‘psychology’ of learning
Lessons to be learned
Retirees

Campus News

Newsmakers

Today’s patriotism
“Patriotism need not signify militancy,” said Betty Jean Craige, professor of comparative literature at UGA, in a letter to the editor in Newsweek. Craige is author of the book American Patriotism in a Global Society. Patriotism, she argued, “should signify pride in our country’s goodness, its traditions of democratic governance, its maintenance of our freedoms, its pursuit of justice, and its efforts to strengthen the world community . . . and to contribute to a more peaceful global society.”
The Columbia, S.C., State and the Sun Chronicle interviewed Craige about patriotism. “As we become a global society, the well-being of any single nation depends on the well-being and stability of the whole,” she told the State. She speculated that patriotism everywhere may become more like patriotism in the United States--“less an unquestioning partisanship and more a pride in social justice and the qualities of democracy.” She told the Sun Chronicle that the current surge in American patriotism is not surprising, since patriotism is multi-faceted. “A lot of people waving flags are expressing sympathy for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, some are waving flags because they want to retaliate and some are showing a love of country at a time when it has been attacked.”

Learning on the job-online

In a special U.S. News and World Report report about “e-learning,” PricewaterhouseCoopers’s online M.B.A. program at the Terry College of Business was highlighted. The program starts with on-campus classes, reports U.S. News, which builds camaraderie and fosters teamwork among the consulting firm’s participants. One measure of the success of this approach, according to a PWC spokesperson:
Of the four dozen managers in each class, only one or two drop out and three have gone on to make partner.

Who can pass judgment?

In a recent in-depth special section of CNN.com, religion professor Alan Godlas discussed fatwas, which are religious decrees or judgments issued by a recognized Islamic authority.
“Fatwas are issued all the time,” Godlas said, “but when they come to the attention of the Western press it’s usually because it’s for something that we find threatening or bizarre. When Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa in 1998 saying that any American, whether Muslim or not, should be killed, Mullah Omar (the head of the Taliban in Afghanistan) issued a statement saying that bin Laden isn’t qualified to give fatwas.”

Deciding about a college
Choosing a college is one of the most important decisions a young adult will make. Fran Lane, director of the UGA Visitors Center, offered tips about college visits in a recent Washington Post story about making that choice.
“Decide what’s important,” she emphasized, “and make a plan.” Size, location, cost, and specific academic programs should all be considered. Most important, she said, parents and students should not be afraid to ask questions. “Be proactive in getting answers to those specific concerns that will really matter as a decision is being made.”

Kim Osborne of the UGA News Service monitors coverage of UGA in local, state and national media. Contact her for information about these or other stories in the news. Newsmakers appears in every other issue of Columns.

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