Columns:: Digest

since 12/15/98

Columns::September 15, 2003

Digest

Vet med alumni take up ‘Hill’s Challenge’
A friendly competition has been launched among five veterinary colleges at Southeastern Conference universities to see which has the highest percentage of donors among its graduates over the coming year. The Hill’s SEC Veterinary Medicine Alumni Challenge will determine which veterinary school has the most loyal alumni.
The universities--Auburn, UGA, LSU, Mississippi State and Tennessee--will split $25,000 in prize money provided by Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc., which is sponsoring the challenge.
“The Hill’s Challenge is designed to increase our annual giving percentages from the graduates of all these veterinary schools who feel very strongly about their alma maters,” says Kathy Bangle, director of development for veterinary medicine at UGA.
The competition runs from July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2004, with gifts of at least $25 by each veterinary graduate counting in the totals. The percentage of graduates donating will determine the winning school.

Senior wins education scholarship
Rachel Lovern, a senior from Jasper, has been awarded the 48th Paul Tappan Harwell Scholarship by UGA’s department of elementary education. She received an award of $750 and will use the money during her student teaching semester in spring 2004.
The scholarship is funded through a $25,000 donation made in 1983 by Donna Harwell Odum, a UGA alumna who now resides in Franklin, N.C., in honor of her late husband who graduated from UGA with a degree in business administration. The Harwell family stipulated that the fund would provide scholarships for students in the education college majoring in elementary (early childhood) education. With this year’s award, the fund will have provided $26,250 in scholarship support to worthy students.

Poll: Georgians say they’re in good health
Seventy-eight percent of Georgians assess their own health as either excellent (30 percent) or good (48 percent), according to the most recent Peach State Poll. However, wealthier Georgians report a far more optimistic assessment of their health than do the less affluent.
The most recent Peach State Poll--a statewide quarterly survey of public opinion conducted by UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government--finds that 93 percent of Georgians with a household income greater than $100,000 in 2002, the
last tax year, rate their health as either excellent (55 percent) or good (38 percent).
By contrast, only 52 percent of Georgians with an annual household income less than $20,000 in 2002 report their health to be either excellent (7 percent) or good (45 percent). In the same poll, 66 percent of Georgians said that they exercise for 30 minutes or more at least a few times a week--with 29 percent saying that they exercise this much every day.
Other survey results:
• The top reason Georgians give for exercising is to control their weight; 81 percent list weight control as a major reason, and an additional 12 percent list it as a minor reason. Among the other major reasons chosen by a majority of Georgians are reducing stress (75 percent), preventing disease (73 percent) and looking good (60 percent).
• Ninety-three percent of the general public in Georgia say they have had their blood pressure checked in the past year, but only 69 percent have had their cholesterol level checked.
• Fifty-seven percent of the public has a beverage with caffeine every day, but only 4 percent say they have an alcoholic beverage on a daily basis. In fact, 43 percent of Georgia’s adults say they never drink alcoholic beverages.
These data are taken from a Peach State Poll survey conducted between Aug. 8 and Aug. 17.

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