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Some interesting areas that I’ve seen in the press: "Consumer Sentiment was measured at the 7th lowest point (55.1) since its inception in 1952, yet we’re not seeing a huge decrease in spending (CNN). Part of the argument is the spending is an average measure and really wealthy consumers are not feeling the pinch and spending like normal or moreso, while less financially-well-off-individuals are pulling back their spending (Spectrum Local News). Presumably, the shutdown doesn’t help that figure. In terms of consumer groups affected, let’s look at government workers first. An article by the BBC claimed roughly 750,000 “non-essential” federal workers could be furloughed without pay. This means that many to most of those are going to struggle with paying for the necessities and this becomes more and more of a strain the longer the shutdown wears on. Furloughed Workers: Most furloughed workers are required to be paid back pay when the shutdown is over by law. That could in some ways create more purchases in the future if they can’t be bought currently, but could also lead to things like more credit card debt as people can put charges on a credit card to pay back later. While from a consumer psychology standpoint that might make sense, but it’s a very risky practical strategy. Gov’t contractors don’t get the same guarantee. Businesses that rely heavily on such groups (e.g., in a town where many fall into those segments) might suffer or shutter. This means other consumers that frequent those establishments have their routines disrupted , and force them to find other providers. Essential Workers: Then we have the group of “essential” workers that must go to work and still not be paid, Air Traffic Controllers, The military, TSA Agents, certain law enforcement groups, etc. that all might draw back spending with no immediate income. That can cause major issues for retailers and producers, which could lead to more layoffs in the private sector, putting more consumers into financial straits. If you’re someone that likes to visit national parks or zoo’s like the National Zoo, or the Smithsonian Museums (which has claimed they’ll have funding at least through October 6th), you could be disappointed to have reduced accessibility or outright closures due to the shutdown, again according to the BBC. Healthcare: Healthcare could definitely be affected, particularly for those on Medicaid and medicare (i.e., the elderly and poor). So if you view medical services as consumer good, then there will be issues there as well (increased wait times, decreased satisfaction, etc.), which is likely to add apprehension and anxiety to many consumers. Travel: If you’re a traveler, staffing shortages in the TSA and Air Traffic Controllers could lead to significant travel delays, which could disrupt leisure or business plans, or force people to cancel plans altogether. If you’re traveling abroad getting your passport updated could take longer. All these things (and many more) may happen or not depending on the length of the shutdown and the severity of the furloughs. Those in better financial positions will suffer less, while those already in less desirable financial situations might find that delays in some of their normally federally funded services (e.g., SNAP, WIC, etc.) create even bigger issues."
Government Shutdown: LSU Experts Available
As the federal government shutdown continues, LSU finance and economics experts are available to provide insight into its potential consequences—from effects on markets and small businesses to broader economic stability and consumer confidence. Rajesh Narayanan Dr. Narayanan is a leading expert on banking and financial markets whose research and commentary regularly inform policy discussions at central banks and regulatory agencies worldwide. Del Wright Prof. Wright’s research focuses on tax, finance, business, securities, entrepreneurship, and in the last few years, crypto and blockchain regulation.
The History of Government Shutdowns in America
Few events capture Washington gridlock more visibly than a government shutdown. While rare in the nation’s early history, shutdowns have become a recurring feature of modern politics—bringing uncertainty for federal workers, disruptions to public services, and ripple effects across the economy. How It Started The modern shutdown era began in the 1970s after a new law, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, established a formal budget process. Before then, funding disputes didn’t usually halt operations. But a key shift came in 1980, when the Carter administration’s Justice Department concluded that, without approved appropriations, agencies had no legal authority to spend money. That ruling set the stage for shutdowns as we know them today. Since then, the U.S. has endured more than 20 funding gaps, ranging from brief lapses over a weekend to the record-long 35-day shutdown of 2018–2019. Each one has highlighted the partisan battles over federal spending, immigration, healthcare, or other policy priorities. Why They Happen Shutdowns occur when Congress fails to pass, and the president fails to sign, appropriations bills or temporary funding measures known as continuing resolutions. In practice, they reflect deeper political standoffs: one branch of government using the threat of a shutdown to force concessions on controversial issues. They can be triggered by disputes over budget size, specific programs, or broader ideological fights. In many cases, the standoff ends when mounting political and economic costs make compromise unavoidable. What Gets Impacted The effects of a shutdown are immediate and wide-ranging: Federal Workforce: Hundreds of thousands of employees are furloughed without pay, while others deemed “essential” must work without immediate compensation. Public Services: National parks close, permits stall, museums shutter, and routine government operations—from food inspections to scientific research—are delayed. Economic Ripple Effects: Contractors lose revenue, local economies near federal facilities take a hit, and financial markets often react nervously. Extended shutdowns can even slow GDP growth. Citizens’ Daily Lives: From delayed tax refunds to halted small business loans, ordinary Americans feel the squeeze when government services pause. Why This Matters Government shutdowns are more than political theater—they expose the fragility of the budget process and the real consequences of partisan impasse. They highlight the dependence of millions of Americans on public services and raise questions about the cost of dysfunction in the world’s largest economy. Understanding why they happen and what’s impacted helps citizens gauge not just the politics of Washington, but also how governance—or the lack of it—touches everyday life. Connect with our experts about the history, causes, and consequences of government shutdowns in America. Check out our experts here : www.expertfile.com
#Expert Perspective: When AI Follows the Rules but Misses the Point
When a team of researchers asked an artificial intelligence system to design a railway network that minimized the risk of train collisions, the AI delivered a surprising solution: Halt all trains entirely. No motion, no crashes. A perfect safety record, technically speaking, but also a total failure of purpose. The system did exactly what it was told, not what was meant. This anecdote, while amusing on the surface, encapsulates a deeper issue confronting corporations, regulators, and courts: What happens when AI faithfully executes an objective but completely misjudges the broader context? In corporate finance and governance, where intentions, responsibilities, and human judgment underpin virtually every action, AI introduces a new kind of agency problem, one not grounded in selfishness, greed, or negligence, but in misalignment. From Human Intent to Machine Misalignment Traditionally, agency problems arise when an agent (say, a CEO or investment manager) pursues goals that deviate from those of the principal (like shareholders or clients). The law provides remedies: fiduciary duties, compensation incentives, oversight mechanisms, disclosure rules. These tools presume that the agent has motives—whether noble or self-serving—that can be influenced, deterred, or punished. But AI systems, especially those that make decisions autonomously, have no inherent intent, no self-interest in the traditional sense, and no capacity to feel gratification or remorse. They are designed to optimize, and they do, often with breathtaking speed, precision, and, occasionally, unintended consequences. This new configuration, where AI acting on behalf of a principal (still human!), gives rise to a contemporary agency dilemma. Known as the alignment problem, it describes situations in which AI follows its assigned objective to the letter but fails to appreciate the principal’s actual intent or broader values. The AI doesn’t resist instructions; it obeys them too well. It doesn’t “cheat,” but sometimes it wins in ways we wish it wouldn’t. When Obedience Becomes a Liability In corporate settings, such problems are more than philosophical. Imagine a firm deploying AI to execute stock buybacks based on a mix of market data, price signals, and sentiment analysis. The AI might identify ideal moments to repurchase shares, saving the company money and boosting share value. But in the process, it may mimic patterns that look indistinguishable from insider trading. Not because anyone programmed it to cheat, but because it found that those actions maximized returns under the constraints it was given. The firm may find itself facing regulatory scrutiny, public backlash, or unintended market disruption, again not because of any individual’s intent, but because the system exploited gaps in its design. This is particularly troubling in areas of law where intent is foundational. In securities regulation, fraud, market manipulation, and other violations typically require a showing of mental state: scienter, mens rea, or at least recklessness. Take spoofing, where an agent places bids or offers with the intent to cancel them to manipulate market prices or to create an illusion of liquidity. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, this is a crime if done with intent to deceive. But AI, especially those using reinforcement learning (RL), can arrive at similar strategies independently. In simulation studies, RL agents have learned that placing and quickly canceling orders can move prices in a favorable direction. They weren’t instructed to deceive; they simply learned that it worked. The Challenge of AI Accountability What makes this even more vexing is the opacity of modern AI systems. Many of them, especially deep learning models, operate as black boxes. Their decisions are statistically derived from vast quantities of data and millions of parameters, but they lack interpretable logic. When an AI system recommends laying off staff, reallocating capital, or delaying payments to suppliers, it may be impossible to trace precisely how it arrived at that recommendation, or whether it considered all factors. Traditional accountability tools—audits, testimony, discovery—are ill-suited to black box decision-making. In corporate governance, where transparency and justification are central to legitimacy, this raises the stakes. Executives, boards, and regulators are accustomed to probing not just what decision was made, but also why. Did the compensation plan reward long-term growth or short-term accounting games? Did the investment reflect prudent risk management or reckless speculation? These inquiries depend on narrative, evidence, and ultimately the ability to assign or deny responsibility. AI short-circuits that process by operating without human-like deliberation. The challenge isn’t just about finding someone to blame. It’s about whether we can design systems that embed accountability before things go wrong. One emerging approach is to shift from intent-based to outcome-based liability. If an AI system causes harm that could arise with certain probability, even without malicious design, the firm or developer might still be held responsible. This mirrors concepts from product liability law, where strict liability can attach regardless of intent if a product is unreasonably dangerous. In the AI context, such a framework would encourage companies to stress-test their models, simulate edge cases, and incorporate safety buffers, not unlike how banks test their balance sheets under hypothetical economic shocks. There is also a growing consensus that we need mandatory interpretability standards for certain high-stakes AI systems, including those used in corporate finance. Developers should be required to document reward functions, decision constraints, and training environments. These document trails would not only assist regulators and courts in assigning responsibility after the fact, but also enable internal compliance and risk teams to anticipate potential failures. Moreover, behavioral “stress tests” that are analogous to those used in financial regulation could be used to simulate how AI systems behave under varied scenarios, including those involving regulatory ambiguity or data anomalies. Smarter Systems Need Smarter Oversight Still, technical fixes alone will not suffice. Corporate governance must evolve toward hybrid decision-making models that blend AI’s analytical power with human judgment and ethical oversight. AI can flag risks, detect anomalies, and optimize processes, but it cannot weigh tradeoffs involving reputation, fairness, or long-term strategy. In moments of crisis or ambiguity, human intervention remains indispensable. For example, an AI agent might recommend renegotiating thousands of contracts to reduce costs during a recession. But only humans can assess whether such actions would erode long-term supplier relationships, trigger litigation, or harm the company’s brand. There’s also a need for clearer regulatory definitions to reduce ambiguity in how AI-driven behaviors are assessed. For example, what precisely constitutes spoofing when the actor is an algorithm with no subjective intent? How do we distinguish aggressive but legal arbitrage from manipulative behavior? If multiple AI systems, trained on similar data, converge on strategies that resemble collusion without ever “agreeing” or “coordination,” do antitrust laws apply? Policymakers face a delicate balance: Overly rigid rules may stifle innovation, while lax standards may open the door to abuse. One promising direction is to standardize governance practices across jurisdictions and sectors, especially where AI deployment crosses borders. A global AI system could affect markets in dozens of countries simultaneously. Without coordination, firms will gravitate toward jurisdictions with the least oversight, creating a regulatory race to the bottom. Several international efforts are already underway to address this. The 2025 International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI called for harmonized rules around interpretability, accountability, and human oversight in critical applications. While much work remains, such frameworks represent an important step toward embedding legal responsibility into the design and deployment of AI systems. The future of corporate governance will depend not just on aligning incentives, but also on aligning machines with human values. That means redesigning contracts, liability frameworks, and oversight mechanisms to reflect this new reality. And above all, it means accepting that doing exactly what we say is not always the same as doing what we mean Looking to know more or connect with Wei Jiang, Goizueta Business School’s vice dean for faculty and research and Charles Howard Candler Professor of Finance. Simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview or time to talk today.
#Expert Research: Incentives Speed Up Operating Room Turnover Procedures
The operating room (OR) is the economic hub of most healthcare systems in the United States today, generating up to 70% of hospital revenue. Ensuring these financial powerhouses run efficiently is a major priority for healthcare providers. But there’s a challenge. Turnovers—cleaning, preparing, and setting up the OR between surgeries—are necessary and unavoidable processes. OR turnovers can incur significant costs in staff time and resources, but at the same time, do not generate revenue. For surgeons, the lag between wheels out and wheels in is idle time. For incoming patients, who may have spent hours fasting in preparation for a procedure, it is also a potential source of frustration and anxiety. Reducing OR turnover time is a priority for many US healthcare providers, but it’s far from simple. For one thing, cutting corners in pursuit of efficiency risks patient safety. Then there’s the makeup of OR teams themselves. As a rule, well-established or stable teams work fastest and best, their efficiency fueled by familiarity and well-oiled interpersonal dynamics. But in hospital settings, staff work in shifts and according to different schedules, which creates a certain fluidity in the way turnover teams amalgamate. These team members may not know each other or have any prior experience working together. For hospital administrators this represents a quandary. How do you cut OR turnover time without compromising patient care or hiring in more staff to build more stable teams? To put that another way: how do you motivate OR workers to maintain standards and drive efficiency—irrespective of the team they work with at any given time? One novel approach instituted by Georgia’s Phoebe Putney Health System is the focus of new research by Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole PhD. Under the stewardship of perioperative medical director and anesthesiologist, Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA, and with support from Sedatole and co-authors, Ewelina Forker 23PhD of the University of Wisconsin and Harvard Business School’s Susanna Gallini PhD, staff at Phoebe ran a field experiment incentivizing individual OR workers to ramp up their own performance in turnover processes. What they have found is a simple and cost-effective intervention that reduces the lag between procedures by an average of 6.4 percent. Homing in on the Individual Williams and his team at Phoebe kicked off efforts to reduce OR turnover times by first establishing a benchmark to calculate how long it should take to prepare for different types of procedure or surgery. This can vary significantly, says Williams: while a gallbladder removal should take less than 30 minutes, open-heart surgery might take an hour or longer to prepare. “There’s a lot of variation in predicting how long it should take to get things set up for different procedures. We got there by analyzing three years of data to create a baseline, and from there, having really homed in on that data, we were able to create a set of predictions and then compare those with what we were seeing in our operating rooms—and track discrepancies, over-, and underachievement.” Williams, a Goizueta MBA graduate who also completed his anesthesiology residency at Emory University’s School of Medicine, then enlisted the support of Sedatole and her colleagues to put together a data analysis system that would capture the impact of two distinct mechanisms, both designed to incentivize individual staff members to work faster during turnovers. The first was a set of electronic dashboards programmed to record and display the average OR turnover performance for teams on a weekly basis, and segment these into averages unique to individuals working in each of the core roles within any given OR turnover team. The dashboard displayed weekly scores and ranked them from best to worst on large TV monitors with interactive capabilities—users could filter the data for types of surgery and other dimensions. Broadcasting metrics this way afforded Williams and his team a means of identifying and then publicly recognizing top-performing staff, but that’s not all. The dashboards also provided a mechanism with which to filter out team dynamics, and home in on individual efforts. “If you are put in a room with one team, and they are slower than others, then you are going to be penalized. Your efforts will not shine. Now, say you are put in with a bigger or faster team, your day’s numbers are going to be much higher. So, we had to find a way to accommodate and allow for the team effect, to observe individual effort. The dashboards meant we could do this. Over the period of a week or a month, the effect of other people in the team is washed out. You begin to see the key individuals pop up again and again over time, and you can see those who are far above their peers versus those who, for whatever reason, are not so efficient.” Sharing “relative performance” information has been shown to be highly motivating in many settings. The hope was that it would here, too. Three core roles: Who’s who in the Operating Room turnover team? OR turnover teams consist of three roles: circulating nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist. While other surgery staff might be present during a turnover, depending on the needs of consecutive procedures, these are the three core roles in the team, and they are not interchangeable in any way: each individual assumes the same responsibilities in every team they join. Typically, turnover tasks will include removing instruments and equipment from the previous surgery and setting up for the next: restocking supplies and restoring the sterile environment. Turnover tasks and activities will vary according to the type of procedure coming next, but these tasks are always performed by the same three roles: nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist, working within their own area of expertise and specialty. OR turnover teams are assembled based on staff schedules and availability, making them highly fluid. Different nurses will work with different scrub techs and different anesthetists depending on who is free and available at any given time. With dashboards on display across the hospital’s surgery department, Williams decided to trial a second motivational mechanism; this time something more tangible. “We decided to offer a simple $40 Dollar Store gift card to each week’s top performing anesthetist, nurse, or scrub technician to see if it would incentivize people even more. And to keep things interesting, and sustain motivation, we made sure that anyone who’d won the contest two weeks in a row would be ineligible to win the gift card the following week,” says Williams. “It was a bit of a shot in the dark, and we didn’t know if it would work.” Altogether, the dashboards remained in situ over a period of about 33 months while the gift card promotion ran for 73 weeks. It was important to stress the foundational importance of safety and then allow individuals to come up with their own ways to tighten procedures. This was a bottom-up, grassroots experience where the people doing the work came up with their own ways to make their times better, without cutting corners, without cutting quality, and without cutting any safety measures. Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA Incentives: Make it Something Special and Unique Crunching all of this data, Sedatole and her colleagues could isolate the effect of each mechanism on performance and turnover times at Phoebe. While the dashboards had “negligible” effect on productivity, the addition of the store gift cards had immediate, significant, and sustained impact on individuals’ efforts. Differences in the effectiveness of the two incentives—the relative performance dashboard and the gift cards—are attributable to team fluidity, says Sedatole. “It’s all down to familiarity. Dashboards are effective if you care about your reputation and your standing with peers. And in fluid team settings, where people don’t really know each other, reputation seems to matter less because these individuals may never work together again. They simply care less about rankings because they are effectively strangers.” Tangible rewards, on the other hand, have what Sedatole calls a “hedonic” value: they can feel more special and unique to the recipient, even if they carry relatively little monetary value. Something like a $40 gift card to Target can be more motivating to individuals even than the same amount in cash. There’s something hedonic about a prize that differentiates it from cash—after all, you will just end up spending that $40 on the electricity bill. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole “A tangible reward is something special because of its hedonic nature and the way that human beings do mental accounting,” says Sedatole. “It occupies a different place in the brain, so we treat it differently.” In fact, analyzing the results, Sedatole and her colleagues find that the introduction of gift cards at Phoebe equates to an average incremental improvement of 6.4% in OR turnover performance; a finding that does not vary over the 73-week timeframe, she adds. To get the same result by employing more staff to build more stable teams, Sedatole calculates that the hospital would have to increase peer familiarity to the 98th percentile: a very significant financial outlay and a lot of excess capacity if those additional team members are not working 100% of the time. These are key findings for healthcare systems and for administrators and decision-makers in any setting or sector where fluid teams are the norm, says Sedatole: from consultancy to software development to airline ground crews. Wherever diverse professionals come together briefly or sporadically to perform tasks and then disperse, individual motivation can be optimized by simple mechanisms—cost-effective tangible rewards—that give team members a fresh opportunity to earn the incentive in different settings on different occasions—a recurring chance to succeed that keeps the incentive systems engaging and effective over time. For healthcare in particular, this is a win-win-win, says Williams. “In the United States we are faced with lower reimbursements and higher costs, so we have to look for areas where we can gain efficiencies and minimize costs. In the healthcare value model, time and costs are denominators, and quality and service are numerators. Any way we can save on costs and improve efficiencies allows us to take care of more patients, and to be able to do that effectively. “We made some incredible improvements here. We went from just average to best in class, right to the frontier of operative efficiency. And there is so much more opportunity out there to pull more levers and reach new levels, which is truly encouraging.” Looking to know more or connect with Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole? Simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview or time to talk today.
No More Edits for “Face the Nation”
Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of Hofstra’s Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, is featured in an article in Variety: “CBS News Agrees Not to Edit ‘Face The Nation’ Interviews Following Homeland Security Backlash.” The report covers a CBS News decision to discontinue editing taped interviews with newsmakers who appear on “Face the Nation.” The agreement came after the Trump administration complained about an interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. During the course of the segment, Noem made unsubstantiated statements about Kilmar Abergo Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was deported from the U.S., despite having protected legal status. CBS decided to air an edited version of the interview and to make the full exchange available online. “A national news organization is apparently surrendering a major part of its editorial decision-making power to appease the administration and to bend to its implied and explicit threats. Choosing to edit an interview, or not, is a matter for newsrooms and news organizations to decide. The government has no business in that decision,” said Dean Lukasiewicz.
Professor Sangeeta Khorana made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
Professor Sangeeta Khorana, professor of international trade policy at Aston University, has been made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Fellows are elected for their contributions to social science, including in economic development, human rights and welfare reform The 2025 cohort of 63 Fellows will join a 1,700-strong Fellowship with members from academia, the public, private and third sectors. Professor Sangeeta Khorana, professor of international trade policy at Aston University, has been made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences as part of the Autumn 2025 cohort. The 63 new Fellows have been elected from 39 UK organisations, comprising 29 higher education institutions, as well as think tanks, non-profits, business, and from countries beyond the UK including Australia and China. The Academy of Social Science’s Fellowship comprises 1,700 leading social scientists from academia, the public, private and third sectors. Selection is through an independent peer review which recognises their excellence and impact. Professor Khorana has more than 25 years of academic, government and management consulting experience in international trade. She has worked for the Indian government as a civil servant and on secondment to the UK Department for Business and Trade. Her expertise includes free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations and World Trade Organization (WTO) issues. As well as sitting on various expert committees, Professor Khorana is an advisor on gender and trade to the Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network in London and serves on Foreign Investment Committee of the PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry, India. The Autumn 2025 cohort of Fellows have expertise in a range of areas including educational inequalities, place-based economic development, human rights protection, the regulation of new technologies, and welfare reform, highlighting the importance, breadth and relevance of the social sciences to tackling the varied challenges facing society today. As well as excellence in research and professional applications of social science, the new Fellows have also made significant contributions beyond the academy, including to industry, policy and higher education. Professor Khorana said: “I am deeply honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. This recognition underscores not only the importance of international trade policy as a driver of inclusive and sustainable growth, but also the role of social sciences in shaping fairer and more resilient societies. At Aston University, my research seeks to bridge academia, government and industry to inform evidence-based trade policy for global cooperation. I am proud to contribute to the Academy’s mission of demonstrating how social science knowledge and practice can address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.” President of the Academy, Will Hutton FAcSS, said: “It’s a pleasure to welcome these 63 leading social scientists to the Academy’s Fellowship. Their research and practical applications have made substantial contributions to social science and wider society in a range of areas from international trade policy and inclusive planning systems through to innovative entrepreneurship and governing digital technologies. We look forward to working with them to promote further the vital role the social sciences play in all areas of our lives.”
Spitting image: What the blunder by Philadelphia Eagles' Carter can teach us about teams
Social media caught fire when Philadelphia Eagles' defensive tackle Jalen Carter got tossed for spitting on Dallas Cowboys' quarterback Dak Prescott before the first snap of this year's NFL season opener. While the impact on the game was obvious, what unfolded on the field of play has lessons for the workplace and the boardroom. The University of Delaware's Kyle Emich can talk about the parallels between the two worlds when individuals let their teams down. Emich, a professor of management in UD's Lerner College of Business and Economics, said emotional events occur all the time in the workplace, especially in board rooms, where the atmosphere is often competitive. "Emotion regulation is a key part of harnessing motivation appropriately in a competitive context," Emich said. • Early on, the Cowboys were able to regulate their emotions to tap into the incident when they roared out to several seamless offensive drives. • Emich says the Eagles' young, inexperienced and not-yet-gelled defensive unit was unable to regulate their emotions and preserve their confidence (collective efficacy) after the incident. They were unable to stop Dallas in the first half. • Carter's act could also have served as an emotion regulation cue for both teams. The Eagles defense was unable to regulate and maintain stability, leading to a number of costly penalties. But the Cowboys seemed to have had the same issue when they retaliated with personal fouls of their own. • In the end, the Eagles were able to come together under the leadership of their coach, Nick Sirianni, and quarterback, Jalen Hurts, to secure a 24-20 victory. To connect with Emich for an interview, visit his profile page and click on the "contact" button.
Georgia Southern reaches new economic impact record of $1.167 billion
Recent reports from the University System of Georgia (USG) show Georgia Southern University continues its legacy of significant economic impact on its surrounding region. According to the USG’s latest Economic Impact report, the system recorded a $23.1 billion total economic impact from July 1, 2023 until June 30, 2024. In the same period, Georgia Southern continues to reach new heights with a record annual economic impact of $1.167 billion for FY 2024, a 1.9% increase over the previous year. “Georgia Southern’s record economic impact across the region reflects the extraordinary dedication of our faculty and staff on all three campuses to ensuring we continue to meet the needs of our students and our region today and into the future,” said Georgia Southern President Kyle Marrero. “We remain steadfast in our goals of graduating career-ready students, advancing the economic development of the region and elevating our public impact research enterprise.” The report shows there are 3,096 jobs on Georgia Southern’s campuses in Statesboro, Savannah and Hinesville. Because of institution-related spending, an additional 6,627 jobs exist off-campus, totaling 9,723 jobs due to institution-related spending in fiscal year 2024. The report also noted that Georgia Southern students spent $442,818,489 in the region in fiscal year 2024. In addition, the USG’s newest Lifetime Earnings study found that bachelor’s degree graduates from the class of 2024 will earn, on average, more than $1.4 million above what they would without a college degree through their lifetime. The findings confirm how much each level of higher education can add to a USG graduate’s total earnings throughout their lives. Across the entire USG, the analysis showed that the 73,006 degrees conferred by USG institutions can expect combined total lifetime earnings of $230 billion. “A degree from one of USG’s 26 public colleges and universities is a million-dollar deal for graduates and a billion-dollar boost for Georgia,” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. “Students see real returns through higher earnings and better opportunities. Meanwhile, our institutions power Georgia’s economy and help local communities thrive.” Georgia high school graduates who obtain a bachelor’s degree will boost their state work-life earnings by 82%, surpassing the 80% increase estimated for the nation. Georgia Southern University conferred 5,172 degrees in FY 2024. This group of degree recipients can expect their combined work in Georgia to total lifetime earnings of $16.54 billion. The report also broke down total Georgia lifetime earning predictions by degree: The 102 GS graduates with doctoral degrees will earn a total of $429 million. The 1,116 GS graduates with master’s degrees will earn a total of $3.8 billion. The 3,870 GS graduates with bachelor’s degrees will earn a total of $12.5 billion. The 45 GS graduates with associate degrees will earn a total of $97.9 million. The 39 GS graduates with certificates will earn a total of $78.2 million. The Lifetime Earnings report also shows the U.S. work-life earnings for graduates. For example, all Georgia Southern students who graduated in the class of 2024 who graduated with a bachelor’s degree will earn a collective $12.6 billion in their lifetimes. Without the degree, their projected lifetime earnings would only be a collective $7 billion. The Economic Impact as well as the Lifetime Earnings studies were both conducted on behalf of USG by Jeffrey M. Humphreys, Ph.D., director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth in the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. If you're interested in knowing more about Georgia Southern University - simply contact Georgia Southern's Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.
Largest Cohort in LSU History: Six Distinguished Faculty Members Named Boyd Professors
Named in honor of brothers Thomas and David Boyd, early presidents and faculty members of LSU, the Boyd Professorship recognizes faculty who bring honor and prestige to LSU through their national and, as appropriate, international recognition for outstanding achievements. Before today, only 79 faculty members from all of LSU’s campuses have ever achieved this distinguished rank. The newest cohort of Boyd Professors represent a wide variety of disciplines and hail from three of LSU’s eight campuses: LSU A&M, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and LSU Shreveport. This group includes LSU Shreveport’s first-ever Boyd Professor, a landmark achievement for the campus and a testament to its academic distinction. As the largest group of Boyd Professors ever named at one time, this cohort underscores LSU’s rising reputation for research excellence across all of its campuses. “This is a moment of real pride for LSU. Naming six new Boyd Professors is not only historic in scale, it's a clear reflection of the extraordinary strength and momentum of our academic enterprise,” said Interim LSU President Matt Lee. “These scholars are advancing knowledge in ways that reach far beyond our campuses, and their work is helping to define LSU’s place on the national and global stage. I am especially proud to see LSU Shreveport represented for the first time, a milestone that reflects the growing excellence across our campuses. This achievement is a powerful reminder of our commitment to advancing scholarship and shaping the future through research, education, and service.” The newest Boyd Professors are: Mette Gaarde, Les and Dot Broussard Alumni Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, LSU A&M John Maxwell Hamilton, Hopkins P. Breazeale LSU Foundation Professor, Manship School of Mass Communication, LSU A&M Steven Heymsfield, Professor of Metabolism and Body Composition, Pennington Biomedical Research Center Michael Khonsari, Dow Chemical Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, LSU A&M Alexander Mikaberidze, Professor of History, Ruth Herring Noel Endowed Chair, College of Arts & Sciences, LSU Shreveport R. Kelley Pace, Professor, Department of Finance, E. J. Ourso College of Business, LSU A&M Nominations for the Boyd Professorship are initiated in the college, routed for review and support at the campus level, then considered by the LSU Boyd Professorship Review Committee, which seeks confidential evaluations from dozens of distinguished scholars in the candidate’s field of expertise. Once endorsed by the review committee, the nomination is forwarded to the LSU President and Board of Supervisors for consideration. With this distinction, a Boyd Professor’s compensation is elevated to reflect the stature of LSU’s most distinguished faculty, with a salary set at no less than the 95th percentile of full professors in comparable disciplines at peer public institutions across the southeastern United States. They also receive an annual stipend to further support their research and scholarly pursuits. Please join us in congratulating these faculty on this outstanding accomplishment.
