GTIPI receives highway safety grant
UGA’s Traffic Injury Prevention Institute recently earned a $948,400 grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to continue its education and training programs in the use of safety belts, child safety seats and teen driving. This year, GTIPI also will explore a new program for mature drivers called CarFit.

Programs related to young children will include the 32-hour Child Passenger Safety Technician advanced class, continuing education units for technicians and specialized training for Georgia’s child-care providers. Programs offered by GTIPI related to parents and teens include, “Georgia Teens Ride with PRIDE,” which stands for Parents Reducing Incidents of Driver Error. The program includes a certification course for volunteer instructors as well as two-hour courses across the state for parents and teens to learn what is required to earn and keep a driver’s license.

“This program is the primary resource in the state for public information and professional training on the use of safety belts, child safety seats and safer teen driving,” said Don Bower, a UGA Cooperative Extension human development specialist and professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. Bower serves as project director for GTIPI.

Playoff proposal goes to NCAA committee
During its annual convention last week in Nashville, the National Collegiate Athletic Association assigned UGA President Michael F. Adams’ proposal to create a football postseason playoff tournament to one of its committees.

On Jan. 14, the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors sent the proposal to a newly-created task force of college presidents studying commercialism and student-athlete welfare. The board also sent the proposal to the conferences that administer the Bowl Championship Series. James F. Barker, president of Clemson University and chairman of the Division I Board of Directors, said there is no timetable for formally bringing the playoff proposal back before the board.

Adams, who chairs the NCAA executive committee and represents the Southeastern Conference on the board, made his proposal following the conclusion of postseason play. It calls for an NCAA selection committee to place the top eight teams in the four major BCS bowls. The winners of those four games would compete in two playoff games with the national championship between the two winners.

University Housing wins excellence award
The Department of University Housing recently received a Commitment to Excellence–Gold Institution–Award for demonstrated dedication to continuous quality improvement of programs and services through ongoing assessment and evaluation. Since 1998, the international assessment and analysis firm, Educational Benchmarking Inc., has gathered resident satisfaction information from students living on the campuses of higher education institutions around the world. A collaborative effort with the Association of College and University Housing Officers International, more than 267 institutions completed the 2006-2007 assessment, allows these schools to compare their performance both internally and in contrast with peer institutions.

UGA is a Charter University, signifying annual participation in the resident satisfaction surveys since their inception in 1998. Since that first year, quality improvement efforts have been expanded to include assessment of performance and satisfaction among the family and graduate housing apartment residents and the resident assistant student staff.

Most recently, UGA collaborated with EBI to create a new assessment instrument to
accurately reflect the issues facing those student residents living in hybrid facilities like the apartment-style residence halls of East Campus Village.