As of July 1, the institution on Savannah’s south side will be Armstrong State University, not Armstrong Atlantic State University.

The word “Atlantic” was added years ago when Armstrong State College was elevated to the status of University — and that word “Atlantic” never made any sense to me. It’s too general to give any sense of geography beyond suggesting proximity to the East Coast. And it made for a cumbersome title — it took a lot of space just to get Armstrong Atlantic printed in full.

Alumni from the earlier incarnation of Armstrong generally disliked the addition of “Atlantic”, but it’s worth noting that more recent graduates and some current students do not like the idea of the more streamlined new name. They have never known anything other than Armstrong Atlantic, and some are concerned about diplomas, resumes, and other documentation. All those are valid concerns, but they can be addressed pretty simply.

Others are concerned about confusion with other ASUs out there, including Albany State University. Yes, using “AASU” in an internet search is likely to point straight to Armstrong, while “ASU” will be more problematic, but marketing, branding, and public perception of the name generally focuses on just one word: Armstrong.

It’s clear that some people aren’t happy about the change and probably never will be. Check out some of the negative comments in today’s Facebook thread:

But I think the opportunities vastly outweigh the drawbacks.

In closing, for no real reason, here are a few shots of Armstrong’s gorgeous campus I’ve posted to Instagram over the last year:

From the piece:

When Robert Howard first took over as CIO at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga., last year, there was little doubt of his mandate.

“Wireless connectivity and general bandwidth issues were a point of concern among students,” Howard says. And that concern was warranted — the university’s bring-your-own-device policy had sparked a 250% increase in the number of devices attaching to the network in the previous 12 months.

Wireless access points, core switches, network pipes and Internet connections all had become choke points, according to Howard. The network simply had to be unclogged because the university used mobile access to attract students, faculty and staff, and because it had plans to shift key applications — including its email, ERP and learning management systems — to the cloud to save money and foster business continuity.

The Armstrong team couldn’t continue with stopgap measures such as adding new access points whenever the switches and pipes behind them were at capacity. “We had to stop trying to do the math to make the old network work and start at architectural ground zero on a new one. Unless we removed the bottlenecks, [the university’s mission] was going to suffer,” Howard says.

And that’s just the first four paragraphs of an article that spans five webpages — the first two pages return again and again to the upgrades at Armstrong.

It seems like many Savannahians still think of Armstrong as that quiet commuter school way out there on the Southside, but it’s a buzzing hub of activity — social, cultural, artistic, scientific — with over 1,500 students living on campus.

According to Alexa, Computerworld is among the 5,000 most popular sites on the world wide web, and among the 2,000 most popular sites in the U.S.

Here at Savannah Unplugged, we’re satisfied just to be the 3,241,117th most popular site on the web.

Some of you have gotten at least a taste of Assistant Professor of Economics Nicholas Mangee‘s work via his column Our Economic Times in the Savannah Morning News. I was lucky to have an office just a couple of doors down from Nick’s for the last two years, during which time I became accustomed to his incisive thinking and his ability to discuss the behavior of markets in clear terms.

Some Savannah residents took advantage of the chance to see and hear Nick in person last week at the old Savannah Cotton Exchange on Factors Walk — the building is now Solomon’s Lodge, the oldest continuously operating English-constituted Freemasons lodge in the western hemisphere.

The 1886 structure seemed an especially appropriate venue for Nick’s talk kicking off Armstrong’s lecture series “A Moveable Feast.” Nick spoke about the ways in which the various liberal arts can and should be applied to economists’ assessments of markets.

Nick is an expert in Imperfect Knowledge Economics, which recognizes “the importance of non-routine change and imperfect knowledge for understanding market outcomes and the consequences of economic policy.”

As we consider those outcomes and try to understand the limitations of our own knowledge of markets, we would do well to call upon thinkers and theorists from a variety of fields. And obviously we need to avoid letting ideology outweigh the stories that good numbers are telling us. While Nick emphasized the need for economists to look outside their own field, I’d flip that around a little: it’s incumbent upon thinkers across disciplines to have a working knowledge of economics and to force themselves to become comfortable with data and math.

The next installment of “A Moveable Feast” will be Armstrong Assistant Professor Lara Wessell speaking on the limits of presidential power at 6 p.m. on October 24 at The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum.

Now a series of lectures called “A Moveable Feast” will present the broader community with unique opportunities to see and hear Armstrong’s faculty experts from the College of Liberal Arts.

And each lecture will be held in a fitting historic venue. Those sites might be worth attendees’ time just on their own.

Consider the lecture that kicks off the series on Thursday, Sept. 12: Assistant Professor of Economics Nicholas Mangee speaking at the Savannah Cotton Exchange on Factors Walk. The title of Nick’s lecture: “On the Relevance of a Liberal Arts-based Economics Education for Society”.

Aside from the inherent interest of the topic, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis, consider how rarely the Cotton Exchange is used for public events. I’m definitely planning to attend that lecture.

From Armstrong’s recent release about the series and its name:

As Ernest Hemingwayâ€s friend and biographer A.E. Hotchner remembered him saying, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” For many, the lingering impact of college continues throughout oneâ€s life and becomes a moveable feast itself. Armstrongâ€s Moveable Feast lecture series offers to the Savannah community the opportunity to experience the generosity of mind and spirit that a higher education rooted in the liberal arts extends to its students.

I’ll list the various dates and speakers below, but click here for more on the lectures. Please note the special appearance by author Andrew Delbanco in February.

All events begin at 6 p.m. except the final presentation/performance in April, which begins at 7 p.m.

On the relevance of a Liberal Arts-based Economics Education for Society
September 12, 2013
The Old Cotton Exchange, East Bay Street
Nicholas Mangee, Assistant Professor of Economics

Presidential Authority and national threats: thinking critically about Power
October 24, 2013
The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, 460 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Lara Wessell, Assistant Professor of Political Science

To Be Beautiful in Light: The Role of Photography in Shaping the Modern Black Identity
November 14, 2013
The Beach Institute, 502 E. Harris Street
Lauren Mason, Assistant Professor of Literature and African-American Studies

“A ghost in His Supposedly Safe Old House”: Uncanny Homes in American Fiction
January 30, 2014
The Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, 207 East Charlton Street
Laura Barrett, Professor of English and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts

What is College For? The Future of American Education
February 25, 2014
Temple Mickve Israel, 20 East Gordon Street
Keynote Address
Andrew Delbanco, Mendelson family Chair of American Studies
and Julian Clarence Levi, Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University

Homeless: Poverty and Place in Urban America
March 27, 2014
Georgia Historical Society, 501 Whitaker Street
Ella Howard, Assistant Professor of History

Letters from Composers: Musicians Speak
April 24, 2014
Fine Arts Auditorium, Science Drive on the Armstrong campus
Emily Grundstad-Hall, Assistant Professor of Music

The men’s team narrowly lost to #1 ranked and undefeated Barry, 5-4. The men lost all three doubles matches, so they went into singles needing to win five out of six. Congrats to all!

ORIGINAL POST:

The Armstrong Atlantic State University men’s tennis team begins play at noon eastern time against #1-ranked Barry. Armstrong is attempting to repeat as national champs in NCAA DII.

Click here to watch the action live at ncaa.com.

The Armstrong women are also defending national champs. They play later this afternoon against BYU Hawaii.

Here’s a snippet from a great interview with Armstrong coach Simon Earnshaw, The man behind the dynasty:

In his 14th season as Armstrongâ€s head coach, Earnshaw, an English native, owns astonishing career statistics — a 316-75 overall record with the men and a 382-33 record with the women. The Lady Pirates have won five Division II national titles (2005, 2008-10 and 2012) under Earnshaw. The men have three (2008, â€09 and 2012).

For the sake of space, accept that he has won multiple Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division II Womenâ€s National Coach of the Year awards, ITA Mid-Atlantic Region Menâ€s Coach of the Year awards, Peach Belt Conference Coach of the Year awards, and so on.

One of his former players, All-American Manuela Emmrich from Magdeburg, Germany, was present during Thursdayâ€s quarterfinal victory against No. 1 Barry.

“One of the big reasons why weâ€ve managed to put together this run,” Earnshaw said of Emmrichâ€s legacy. “Was very responsible for my first national championship in 2005. Won both the singles and doubles in the final.”

Here’s a shot of Matus Mydla playing #1 for the men’s team a few weeks ago in regional action:

Click here for more recent pics of both teams.

As has become routine, both teams advance pretty easily — see here and here.

Both teams won national championships last year.

The women’s team also won the NCAA crown in 1995, 1996, 2005, 2008, 2009, and 2010. The men’s team also won in 2008 and 2009.

Given the back-to-back championships in 2008 and 2009, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for both teams to defend their national titles successfully this year. But, wow, talk about a challenge.

I made it to the regional semifinals on Sunday and took some photos. I’m only posting a couple of dozen of the best photos here, but I’ve posted a whole lot more to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page. Click here for the men’s gallery and click here for the women’s gallery.

Congratulations and best of luck to Coach Simon Earnshaw, Assistant Coach Iuliia Sherrod, and all the players, as well as all the Armstrong employees who support the team.

I’m always surprised by how many Savannahians don’t seem to know that Armstrong has an excellent athletic program. As they head into serious tournament play, the softball team is ranked #2 in the country in NFCA Division II, behind #1 Indianapolis. On Tuesday, the team won the Peach Belt Conference championship.

I had not seen a fast pitch softball game in a while, and I was struck by the sheer athleticism required for pitching. Megan Barnwell pitched an impressive complete game, stranding 14 Flagler runners in the 3-1 win. The Pirates ended up losing the second game of the doubleheader.

Click here to read more about the game in the photos below. I don’t really do a lot of sports photography, but I did get a shot of Alexis Mercer hitting her 1st inning opposite field home run. You can also see a couple of shots of my student Haley, the catcher.

I’m going to post these same photos to my Savannah Unplugged Facebook page.

Knowing so many of today’s graduates, I was struck by the diversity of their life stories, especially the serpentine educational paths taken by the students who are also parents — a young woman from Puerto Rico, another from Haiti, a grandmother who works fulltime and first enrolled at Armstrong more than a quarter-century ago, a young married man who logs long hours in his job near Hilton Head.

I could go on and on.

The address by Willis J. Potts, Jr. — a member of the Board of Regents — hit a lot of different notes, but I was most struck by his emphasis on the growing importance of the prefix “multi”: multitasking, multicultural, multimedia.

Academia will continue — as it should — to push students to dig deep into specific fields of study, but tomorrow’s workers are more likely to thrive if they embrace breadth too. I teach a couple of the upper level journalism courses at Armstrong, and I keep hammering home the need for journalists of the future to have a plethora of skills that previous generations did not require for success.

There’s better news out there for this year’s graduates than for those in recent years, especially since the job market is unquestionably improving.

And consider this graph from Calculated Risk for unemployment by educational attainment, through October:

I’m not suggesting that things are easy for today’s graduates, but more than 96 percent of Americans over 25 who have at least a bachelor’s degree and want to work are employed. They may not have their dream jobs — they may not have anything close. But it’s pretty clear where the opportunities lie.

One could argue that it’s the motivated people who get college degrees — and that same motivation would lead them to find work even without the degree. And one could obviously point out endless examples of individuals who are thriving without degrees.

But, again, the general trends are pretty obvious.

Consider also that Americans over 25 with a bachelor’s degree or higher have a workforce participation rate of 75.5 percent. Those with some college or an associate degree have a participation rate of 68.5 percent. The number tumbles to 59.5 percent for high school graduates and to 45.2 percent for those who didn’t finish high school and didn’t a GED.

It’s worth adding that college offers far more than these numbers indicate. Armstrong and other institutions give students endless opportunities for growth. Lives are made richer by campus experiences.

Congratulations to all.