Griffin Campus

While the old song “Tiny Bubbles” lauds the happy effervescence of a glass of sparkling wine, new University of Georgia research on nanobubbles seeks to discover whether the tiniest of bubbles can hold beneficial properties for turfgrass.

Led by soil microbiologist Mussie Habteselassie, the Georgia Department of Agriculture-sponsored study will evaluate the potential applications of nanobubble technology to control pathogens and improve plant growth, water use efficiency and soil biological health in turfgrass systems. Other researchers on the project include turfgrass and forage pathologist Bochra Bahri and crop and soil scientist David Jespersen, all with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Using technology that generates oxygenated nanobubbles — which are roughly 2500 times smaller than a grain of salt — researchers will apply nano-charged water to turfgrass root systems through irrigation.

University of Georgia professors Scott NeSmith, Anumantha Kanthasamy and S. Edward Law have been elected Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors. Including these three new Fellows, 12 UGA faculty have received this honor, all of them since 2013.

NAI Fellows must be involved in creating or facilitating inventions that make a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and welfare of society. Becoming an NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to academic inventors. According to the organization, $3 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries. NAI Fellows’ research and entrepreneurship have resulted in more than 42,700 issued U.S. patents, 13,000 licensed technologies and 3,200 new companies — not to mention more than 1 million jobs created, according to NAI.

“As a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) director and Fellow, I am thrilled to welcome our newly elected Fellows to the NAI,” said Karen Burg, UGA vice president of research.

Members of the UGA Griffin Ambassadors and the UGA Griffin Marketing Team created and submitted “life-size” holiday cards for the hometown holiday greeting portion of Spalding County’s “Lite the Nite” 2021 Holiday festival held at Griffin’s City Park. The festival features cards, created by local businesses and organizations, throughout the park along with a drive-through holiday light display.

The groups created two UGA-themed holiday cards on a 4’x8’ plywood backdrop, with the ambassadors’ card highlighting areas of specialty research conducted at the UGA Griffin Campus and the marketing team’s card featuring everyone’s favorite bulldog, Uga. A contest for the best card will be held now through December 20 and the community can vote for their favorite card.  Click this link to vote for your favorite card.

The lights and cards will be on display at the City Park throughout the month of December.

Great success was had at the first COVID-19 and Flu vaccine clinic held at the University of Georgia Griffin Campus with a total of 91 vaccinations administered on Thursday, October 28. The drive-thru clinic was held as a partnership between UGA Griffin, UGA Extension, UGA College of Pharmacy and the local U-Save-It Pharmacy to serve the Griffin-Spalding community.

Those taking part had the opportunity to receive the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine – first, second or booster dose- as well as the flu vaccine, and a chance to win two tickets to the November 20 UGA football game against Charleston Southern. Tim Keohone was the lucky winner of the tickets provided by UGA Extension.

Congratulations are in order for UGA Griffin student, Darian Adams, for being named the recipient of the Marie Fort Garden Club Scholarship for 2021. The local club presents the $1,000 scholarship annually to a UGA Griffin undergraduate student in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Adams was awarded the scholarship in October at a club meeting.

“Thank you so much,” said Adams to the club. “This scholarship will help me reach my career goals by helping fund my tuition and books. Getting a degree is my top priority and this scholarship will help tremendously.”

Getting up early on a Saturday morning to do physical labor is not necessarily every person’s idea of fun, especially when your bed is beckoning you to roll over for just five more minutes. However, that is exactly what a group of UGA Griffin students, along with faculty and staff, did on October 16 as they took part in the annual City of Griffin’s Stream Cleanup.

The Annual Stream Cleanup is a long-standing event that brings together citizens of Griffin-Spalding County to cleanup area streams and waterways. Volunteers remove trash and debris from their assigned stream in efforts to make their county a better and cleaner place.

“I think we were one of the largest groups who signed up to volunteer,” said Melissa Slaughter, a Center for Food Safety employee on the UGA Griffin campus. “I got involved because I used to help out when I was with 4-H and wanted to get the Griffin campus involved. It is a great way to give back to the community.”

Do you want to learn more about the field of Wealth Management and Financial Planning?  We are excited to be a partner institution for the 5th Annual Virtual Diversitas Symposium.  

Whether you're a high school student (teachers, we have full classrooms zooming in!) wanting to learn more about various careers or a college student considering this career pathway---this one hour session will be an amazing opportunity to interact with professionals in the field who are eager to share their experience and answer questions.  

If you're interested in joining (and yes, it's FREE), use this link to sign up

If you'd like to learn more about the national event (also virtual, and FREE), you can click here for more information.

The University of Georgia Griffin Campus has added another Double Dawg opportunity for students: a joint Bachelor of Arts (AB) and non-thesis Master of Arts (MA) program. The AB degree is the Franklin College of Arts & Science’s Interdisciplinary Studies (Griffin Campus) program that allows students to choose a concentration in either Psychology or Sociology, and the MA is the School of Social Work’s program in Nonprofit Management and Leadership (NML).  This Double Dawg program will allow students enrolled in the Griffin Campus’ AB in Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) program to accelerate their progress toward a master’s degree by taking graduate-level coursework as part of their undergraduate studies.

When professional golfer Patrick Cantlay sank the birdie that won him the 2021 PGA TOUR Championship, he did it on turf that had been tested that morning by a student from the University of Georgia’s Griffin campus.

Ethan Barr, a junior and environmental resource science major at UGA-Griffin, scored a job assisting the PGA Tour with its culminating event of the season during the first weekend in September at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Barr's task was simple, but it had a significant impact on the tournament's outcome and reinforced his chosen field of study.

“We would go up early in the mornings to test how firm the greens are with a tool called TruFirm. It has a sensor on the end that you drop on the green and it tests how firm the greens are. You give those results to the person in charge of the golf course, and they make changes in the afternoon to make it firmer or less firm,” Barr said. “The head guy at the golf course said they want to make the greens challenging, but fair and consistent with regard to speed and firmness. We helped with that.”

As a completion campus, the UGA Griffin Campus is always excited to talk about Transfer Students!  Every student completing one of our bachelor's degrees is a Transfer Student, having completed at least 60 transferable hours from another college or university.  Be sure to watch our social media during the week of October 18-22 as we spotlight the stories of several students here on the UGA Griffin campus.  https://www.facebook.com/UGAGriffinCampus/

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