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Donors Transform Vision into Impact with Record $23.6M Fundraising Year

Columbus State University reached extraordinary new heights in Fiscal Year 2026, receiving $23,634,627 in total gifts, commitments and planned giving from its philanthropic partners. This record-breaking total marks a 29% increase (+$5.3 million) over FY25 and a remarkable 280% surge (+$17.5 million) over FY24—along with noteworthy growth in the university’s endowment.  FY26 stands out as only the third time in university history that single-year philanthropic support has surpassed the $20 million mark—the other two being during multi-year comprehensive fundraising campaigns.  “This milestone year demonstrates what happens when our generous donors invest in the transformative power of a college experience,” said Stuart Rayfield, Columbus State’s president. “From state-of-the-art innovation in teaching, experiential learning and emergent technology to expanding opportunities in the arts, humanities and health professions, these gifts directly empower our students to become pers...
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Thomas Fanning Named Chancellor of the University System of Georgia

As reported by Ty Tagami for Capitol Beat , Thomas Fanning will succeed Sonny Perdue as the next Chancellor of the University System of Georgia. Fanning led the Southern Company for 13 years and chaired the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Board of Directors. He was also educated within the USG, holding bachelor's and master's degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Tagami's report on Fanning for Capitol Beat appears below.

Four Members of Columbus Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Class of 2027 have Ties to Turner College

At least four of the members of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Class of 2027 have ties to the Turner College.  One of these is Abigail Littleton , Assistant Director of Client Experience for The Leadership Institute at CSU. Littleton earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the College of Charleston in 2023 and an MSOL degree from the Turner College in 2024. She also holds a graduate certificate in professional writing and technical editing from the University of Kentucky. Joining Littleton is Alexa Johnson Anderson , a fintech customer success leader who currently resides in Atlanta. Anderson holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Georgia, and an MSOL degree from the Turner College. She most recently worked as Customer Success Manager for Broadcom Software. CSU's Assistant Director of Alumni & Student Engagement, Alexis Gray , also joins the 2027 class. Gray earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from CSU in 2016, whi...

New Study by TSYS School's Rahmatullah Roche and Researchers from Virginia Tech Presents Computational Protocol for Predicting Protein-RNA Interactions

Knowledge of protein-RNA interactions is critical to an understanding of cellular biology, with potential impact on drug design and discovery. Numerous computational methods that have been developed to predict the RNA interaction sites on protein or protein interaction sites on RNA have attained promising prediction performance. However, these methods do not capture the three-dimensional (3D) interactions between protein and RNA in Euclidean space, which convey finer-grained complex structural information.  New research by TSYS School computer scientist Rahmatullah Roche  and Virginia Tech's Sumit Tarafder and Debswapna Bhattacharya presents a protocol to predict three-dimensional protein-RNA complex structural models from their sequences using a deep learning-based approach named ProRNA3D-single. Roche and his colleagues first  delineate detailed steps for predicting protein-RNA interaction maps by leveraging pretrained language models. Their study, which appears in a re...

New Headshots Prompt Turner College Grad Andrew Walsh to Reintroduce Himself to the LinkedIn Community

Last week's receipt of new headshots prompted Turner College accounting graduate Andrew Walsh to reintroduce himself to the LinkedIn community. Walsh is a local CPA and CFP who runs Fountain City CPA. In that capacity he helps small business owners and families with tax preparation, tax planning, bookkeeping, and payroll. The short version of what he does: he helps people keep more of what they earn and feel confident about the financial side of their lives.  Turner Business will step aside at this point and let Andrew provide more about himself: " My career has taken me through public accounting and financial planning, and I've carried something useful away from every stop. What I kept coming back to was wanting to put all of it to work closer to home, serving the business owners and families who make this community run.  When I'm not working, you'll find me with my wife and our two girls or occasionally sneaking in a round of golf.  If we've crossed paths b...

Two Names Added to Turner College Dean Search Committee

The search committee for a new dean of the Turner College now has representation from the TSYS School. According to information received by Turner Business , based on positive responses to invitations from CSU Provost Dustin Anderson, that committee now includes Amjad Hossain and Christopher Lovelock . Hossain joined TSYS School faculty (from his position at Emporia State University) in August 2024 as an assistant professor of computer science. He earned a PhD in computer science from Kent State University in 2018. Prior to his work at Emporia State University, he was on the faculty at Shepherd University. Lovelock joined TSYS School faculty at the same time (i.e., August of 2024), coming over from his role as a cybersecurity instructor at Harris County High School. He holds an M.A. in education from CSU.   As indicated in the table above, the search committee now has 12 members. Four come from CSU administration, two from Turner College administration, two from the TSYS School ...

AI-Assisted Cheating on Online Exams is Increasingly Vexing Issue in Higher Education

According to ProctorTrack.com, artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the online assessment landscape, as students and test-takers now have access to AI assistants, chatbots, browser extensions, automated search tools, and other technologies that can provide information almost instantly. As this web service notes, t his creates a new challenge for universities, certification organizations, training providers, and employers conducting remote assessments given that t raditional exam security often focuses on preventing access to websites, applications, or unauthorized materials. Given that modern AI-enabled cheating can involve multiple layers of technology, ProctorTrack.com notes that  effective online exam security now requires more than simply watching the candidate or restricting a browser - i t requires securing the testing environment itself. Because this level of security is likely to be prohibitively costly, TurnItIn.com suggests  conducting efficient digital assessmen...