Griffin Campus

Over the past several years, many industries have been challenged with the task of learning how to engage a younger audience in order to rebuild their aging workforce. The financial services industry is no stranger to this issue and has been worried by the fact that if nothing changes not only will there be insufficient young talent to replace those who will soon retire, but there is also a lack of diversity throughout the profession. However, thanks to an event at UGA Griffin, the industry is working to change its future.

UGA’s Family and Consumer Sciences hosted the second annual Diversity and Inclusion Financial Planning Symposium on February 28 on the UGA Griffin Campus, with more than 84 participants including seven higher education institutions, 19 community and industry partners and four surrounding area high schools. The event was made possible due to a grant awarded from Institutional Diversity at UGA and aimed to educate those in attendance about a profession with an annual median pay of $88,890 through keynote sessions, a career pathway panel and a speed networking session.  

This is a half-day program where college and high school students, faculty, career influencers, and leaders in the financial planning industry come together to exchange ideas, network and discuss ways to promote overall diversity in the financial planning field.

Goals

    1. To raise awareness of the demand for a diverse and capable financial planning workforce
    2. To expose students from diverse backgrounds to the importance of mentors when choosing careers in financial planning 

What's in it for students?
    -Free registration
    -Learn about a profession with a $88,890 annual median pay and a 7% projected growth rate
    -Watch a career pathway panel 
    -Win prizes
    -Speed network with mentors  

University of Georgia food science graduate student Ikechukwu “Ike” Oguadinma, 27, has been awarded the Food Safety Auditing Scholarship from the Food Marketing Institute Foundation in partnership with the Safe Quality Food Institute.

Oguadinma is one of 15 students who received the award at the SQF International Conference held last October in San Antonio, Texas. Each student received a $3,000 scholarship and an all-expense-paid trip to attend the conference with more than 850 food safety professionals.

A native of Nigeria, Oguadinma came to the U.S. to study food science after earning an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. He selected UGA after researching leading food science teaching and research programs in the U.S.

“I discovered that UGA has one of the best programs in food science in the country, boasting of esteemed food-safety researchers such as (Distinguished Research Professor) Dr. (Larry) Beuchat and (Regents Professor) Dr. (Michael) Doyle. These are very remarkable people and I knew to work with them and current outstanding faculty in the UGA food science department would teach me a lot and enable me to grow in my career,” he said.

Bochra Bahri has joined the University of Georgia as an assistant professor of plant pathology. Based on the UGA Griffin campus, Bahri will conduct research on turfgrass and forage diseases that affect growers in Georgia, the nation and around the world.

A native of Tunisia, Bahri earned a degree in engineering from the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia. She traveled to Paris for graduate school, completing a master’s degree in plant protection and environment from AgroParisTech and a doctorate at the University of Paris-Sud XI.

“For my PhD, I worked on wheat yellow rust disease and studied the pathogen structure in the Mediterranean area and tried to understand how the pathogen evolved according to the climate and its host,” she said. 

While many American students would consider studying in Paris a dream opportunity, Bahri was accustomed to Paris because she visited often to see family there. Her dream opportunity came in April 2006 when UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences plant genetics Professor Katrien Devos hired her for a position in her laboratory in Athens, Georgia.

While working on a six-month post-doctoral position at the Aarhus University in Denmark, Bahri applied for a position in Devos’ laboratory on the UGA campus in Athens.

Saturday November 16th 2019 will mark the Inaugural Dawg Dash 5K and 1-mile Fun Run/Walk.  

Open to everyone and all fitness levels are welcome.

Proceeds will benefit the Griffin-Spalding County Way and the University of Georgia Griffin Campus.

Medals awarded for 1st and 2nd Place Overall as well as 1st Place in each age category.

First 200 participants to pre-register will receive a T-shirt

Pre-Registration - $20.00 per run/walker (Open until November 13th)

Same-day registration - $25.00 per run/walker 

Register online: https://dawgdash2019.eventbrite.com

If you would like a paper registration form or would like to volunteer, please contact Beth Horne @ bhorne@uga.edu or call 770-228-7214

Download the 2019 Dawg Dash flyer here

We are pleased to announce that Dr. G. David Buntin, a dedicated member of the UGA faculty, has been named Interim Assistant Provost and Campus Director at the UGA Griffin campus, effective Nov. 1. He succeeds Dr. Lew Hunnicutt, who has been named the president of Nash Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  Dr. Hunnicutt has made several contributions to the UGA Griffin campus, including increasing graduate enrollment, elevating private support, and strengthening partnerships with the local community. I hope that you will join us in thanking him for his leadership at UGA-Griffin and congratulating him on his new leadership role.  Dr. Buntin is a professor of entomology in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and his research and extension activities focus on integrated pest management. He has been an active member of several committees at both the college and university level, and we appreciate his willingness to lead UGA-Griffin during this transition period.

University of Georgia Department of Entomology Professor Dan Suiter has been named the chair of the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture Faculty Advisory Committee.

Suiter’s appointment will enhance the programming aspect of the center, according to Laura Perry Johnson, associate dean for UGA Cooperative Extension in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Suiter will work closely with center Director Sheldon Hammond, who will continue to oversee the business and personnel administration functions of the center.

Based on the UGA Griffin campus, the Center for Urban Agriculture supports UGA Extension’s urban programs by providing county agent training programs, tools and resources; communicating the latest research-based urban agriculture advice through newsletters, articles, alerts, publications, videos and social media; organizing new initiatives; collaborating on interdisciplinary projects and research; advancing and updating current program training materials; and administering multiyear programs and projects.

“Our state continues to have population growth and most of that is in the nine largest counties in Georgia. Issues and problems associated with this urban growth come in many forms and cross many disciplines and departments,” Perry Johnson said. “Dan will work to build diverse teams around urban issues and coordinate programming efforts related to urban programs and projects.”

Consumers have long been warned against the hazards of eating raw cookie dough. As more cases of foodborne illness are linked to contaminated wheat flour, University of Georgia food safety experts are touting the risk in a louder, more forceful voice, while searching for ways to eliminate foodborne pathogens on wheat products.

In wheat-related cases, the common carriers of the pathogens are cookie dough, cake batter and raw wheat flour. The most recent outbreak started in May and was linked to wheat flour contaminated with E. coli 026 bacteria. Three brands of contaminated all-purpose flour were found at grocery stores in eight states, to date. So far, 21 cases of E. coli 026 infections have been reported.

In 2005, 26 cases in the U.S. were linked to cake-batter ice cream and in 2008 a cluster of cases in New Zealand were connected to an uncooked baking mixture. In all of these cases, the pathogen was Salmonella. In 2009, an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak resulted from consumption of raw cookie dough.

“In the past, the reason we warned people not to eat cookie dough was not because of the flour, but because of the raw eggs,” said Francisco Diez, director of the UGA Center for Food Safety located on the university’s campus in Griffin, Georgia. “The two main pathogens linked to wheat products are Salmonella and E. coli.”

Diez says these cases could have been prevented if the flour had not been consumed raw.

Two University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences food scientists have been presented awards of excellence from the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP). Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus Larry Beuchat and Professor Francisco Diez were recognized at the association’s annual meeting held July 21–24 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Beuchat received the Maurice Weber Laboratorian Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the laboratory. The award also honors his commitment to the development of innovative and practical analytical approaches in support of food safety.

He joined the Department of Food Science and Technology on the UGA Griffin campus in 1972 and has since published five books and 530 refereed scientific journal articles.

Beuchat is a world authority on the microbiology of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes; methods for detecting yeasts, molds and pathogenic bacteria in foods; metabolic injury of bacteria and fungi; relationships of water activity to microbial growth; antimicrobial compounds in foods; fermented foods; thermal resistance of mold ascospores; and food preservatives.

Most of Beuchat’s research at the UGA Center for Food Safety in Griffin focuses on how food safety issues relate to foods of plant origin.

This year, 60 students from across the state and two from outside of Georgia joined the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Young Scholars research program and broke new ground in the agricultural sciences.

For more than two decades, the CAES Young Scholars Program has paired the college’s researchers with high school students to foster students’ love of science and introduce them to the breadth of study that forms the foundation of agriculture, Georgia’s largest industry.

During the Young Scholars Program, students are paid to work as research assistants in laboratories across the college to complete real research projects alongside faculty mentors.