GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY
www.grubellringer.com
VOLUME 56, ISSUE 9
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2014
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: REESE LIBRARY ARCHIVES, MEGAN STEWART I STAFF, ASHLEY TRAWICK | Staff
Signs arching over the campus’s entrance reflect the changing names of the institution during the past decades, from Augusta College to Augusta State University to Georgia Regents University.
New signs to include city’s name By Rebecca Perbetsky chief reporter A month after new signage was installed, Georgia Regents University is receiving yet another face-lift. David Brond, the senior vice president for the Office of Communications and Marketing, said there were ongoing conversations with President Ricardo Azziz, the university’s senior leadership and leaders in the community, about the already new Georgia Regents University signs becoming even newer signs. “We regularly have these conversations,” he said. “There (were) some concerns expressed, and we discussed them and we wanted to respond to these concerns.” The response to the concerns, Brond said, is the addition of Augusta to the signs all over campus.
“The response to these concerns was in keeping with our brand guidelines, which exist and they dictate the use of the logo for marketing and branding,” he said. “We were marketing and branding the university as Georgia Regents University Augusta.” The confusion, he said, came in because of the lack of substance the guidelines had about permanent signage. When everyone began to come together to discuss the new signs, Brond said some concepts were presented, all of which included Augusta, but when it came time to implement the concept, the decision was made to leave it out. “Part of the thought was the official name of the university should be on those things that are official, like documents, diplomas and transcripts, and permanent signage,” he said. “That is when there was conversa-
tion that permanent signage should probably have the word university and not the word Augusta. We then listened to the concerns of our community and the community leaders and determined that Augusta is appropriate for that signage.” Amy Perkins, a recent Georgia Regents graduate, said she feels like this is something that should have been taken care of in the first place. “It makes it seem like the school sort of went back on their word after the whole ‘Save the A’ thing,” she said. Augusta isn’t a stranger to the unofficial signage, though. Brond said Augusta has always been on the banners around campus. “It was just a question of permanent signage or of marketing and branding,” he said. Director of Media Relations Christen Carter said the addition of Augusta to the
signs should be extremely cost-efficient for the school. Along with the majority of the funds coming from the health system, Brond said there really is no significant increment in cost, as they will simply be adding seven letters to the already installed signage around Georgia Regents’ different campuses. President Azziz said the community is an important component in the university’s focus on student recruitment, progression and success, quality of patient and family-centered care, along with faculty and staff satisfaction and the economic impact on the community the university serves, according to a press release. Brond said the new signs will debut with the word Augusta around the end of February. rperbets@gru.edu
Fall semester Limited-term faculty to transform face position change humanities By Jordan Barry production assistant
The humanities section for all undergrads’ core requirements may be getting a makeover this fall. Cathy Tugmon, an associate professor of biological science and chairwoman of the University Senate Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee, said the proposal to reduce the course hours for Humanities 2001 and 2002 from four credit hours each to three credit hours each came before her committee Jan. 13. “We don’t vote it on whether we think it’s a good idea or a bad idea,” she said. “My committee’s job is to look at it and make sure it went through the right committees, the right departments, that the faculty, since the curriculum belongs to the faculty ... that the faculty had
their say, and that their voices were heard, and that the appropriate people made decisions that were needed to be made.” Tugmon said the decision was approved unanimously and sent to the vice president for academic and faculty affairs, Carol Rychly, who will pass it on to the Board of Regents for final approval. If the proposal is approved by the Board of Regents, Tugmon said it will be implemented in fall 2014. Though Georgia Regents University is still waiting on that result, Robert Bledsoe, the director of the humanities program and assistant chairman of the Department of English and Foreign Languages, said it is pretty much a done deal because the change will realign the core requirements with other colleges in the state. “I think it was driven pri-
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By Ashley Trawick news editor
Job security among lecturers and professors has been a big topic of discussion since the merger began. Many department chairs were replaced and several professors, regardless of faculty type, left Georgia Regents University because of different circumstances. Now after a year of being merged, jobs for limited-term positions have been brought into question. Two weeks ago, limitedterm instructors were told their positions would be eliminated. Limited-term positions are created or budgeted for some defined period of time, which is usually a year, but it’s not expected to continue indefinitely, according to the Human Resources website. Douglas Hall, a limitedterm professor for the Depart-
ment of English and Foreign Languages, said the information he received Jan. 17 was that all temporary full-time positions across the Summerville campus were cut. “I think that was the impression most people had,” he said. “I don’t know where the lack of communication came from, but the temporary fulltime position is supposed to be kind of an emergency position. Somebody has to take sabbatical (or) if a professor gets hurt or something. That’s what a fulltime temp position is supposed to be, but under ASU, the fulltime temp position was being misused.” Georgia Regents, Hall said, is trying to rectify the situation. The full-time temp positions are indeed going away, but the departments are going to run nationwide searches for either assistant professors or lecturers, so instead of having people in
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full-time temp positions, there will now be possibly an equal amount of people in permanent positions. Hall said Wednesday morning various limited-term professors met with their department chairs and the deans of the different colleges in order to receive some clarification about what was happening. From Jan. 17 until Wednesday morning, he said quite a few people were under the impression that these selected professors would no longer be employed with Georgia Regents. More full-time positions will be brought to Georgia Regents and the limited-term professors will be able to apply and be considered for the positions. However, they will face slight competition from others who will apply for those same jobs. “There was kind of a blowsee LIMITED on PAGE 4
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