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Columns::May 20, 2002
Digest
UGA professor among 11 Houle Scholars
Eleven Cyril O. Houle Scholars, representing three regions of the world, will receive financial awards of up to $40,000 each over the next two years in support of their research in adult and continuing education, according to administrators at UGA’s College of Education.
The fifth group of scholars selected for the awards, made possible by a $2.6 million Kellogg Foundation grant to the college’s department of adult education, include three Africans, two Latin Americans and six Americans.
Each Houle Scholar will conduct a research and/or demonstration project that addresses a problem relevant to adult education identified by the scholar.
Among this year’s recipients is UGA faculty member Robert Hill, who will pursue a research project titled “Fixin’ to Fuss in the Deep South: Organizing Narratives of Environmental Adult Educator/Activists in Dixie.” His study will answer the primary questions: 1) What have been the experiences of environmental adult educator/activists in their bids to organize community education and 2) Why have grassroots regional environmental identities been slow to engage Dixie?
The Houle Scholars participate in two annual retreats and a global dialogue that uses Internet technology to conduct a continuous exchange.
NSF renews HOPE research grant
The National Science Foundation has renewed and increased funding for additional research by two UGA professors concerning the impact of the state’s HOPE Scholarship program.
Chris Cornwell and David Mustard, economics professors in UGA’s Terry College of Business, were awarded $176,000 from the NSF for their proposal, “Merit Aid and Sorting: The Effects of HOPE-style Scholarships on College Stratification by Ability, Race and Gender.” The two-year grant will be used to study Georgia’s merit-based college scholarship program, focusing on the influence such a program can have in determining which students attend college and where.
Established in September 1993 and funded by Georgia Lottery proceeds, HOPE is one of the largest educational subsidies in the United States with two unique characteristics: the scholarship is awarded entirely on a merit basis and there is
no income cap. Since its inception, more than $1.4 billion has been distributed to approximately 600,000 students attending in-state public, private and technical institutions.
Cornwell and Mustard began studying HOPE and its effects in 1997. Their earlier HOPE research, also funded by an NSF grant, examined the enrollment effects of the program. Their first study indicated that HOPE increased the state’s overall freshman enrollment rate by about 8 percent between 1993 and 1997--mainly attributable to the scholarship’s incentive for students to remain in Georgia. The study also found that the enrollment gains were concentrated in the state’s four-year colleges and universities.
“This second grant is a renewal of the first, extending the initial research, but with different focus areas,” Mustard says.
Radio station wins five awards
The Society of Professional Journalists honored WUGA 91.7/97.9 FM with five Green Eyeshade Excellence in Journalism Awards. The station broadcasts from the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education.
WUGA News Director Mary Kay Mitchell won first place for best radio feature for a story on Garden Springs Mobile Home Park residents who were evicted when the owner of the property decided to build “luxury student apartments.”
Patricia J. Priest, an instructor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Mitchell won first place for best radio editorials. Priest wrote essays on driving safety in general and on safety in motor sports.
Athens commentator Marie Mezzatesta-Hild and Mitchell won first place for best radio criticism for Mezzatesta-Hild’s essay on appreciating opera. Commentator Owen Smith, a student at the Grady College, and Mitchell won second place in radio criticism. Smith’s piece focused on the lack of radio drama on today’s airwaves. The Georgia Sea Grant Program at UGA and David Bryant, public relations coordinator for the program, won first place for best radio documentary for the hour-long broadcast “The Altamaha: Georgia’s Watershed,” which aired locally on WUGA and statewide on the Georgia Public Radio network.
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