College Update 4/1/26

April 2, 2026

Contact: Anisa Zvonkovic | 706-542-4879 | More about Anisa

Message from Dean Zvonkovic

I once knew an administrator who prepared a joke newsletter for April 1st, in line with April Fool’s Day. I always thought that was a bold move and not my style because I am way too earnest. We are in the home stretch of the academic year, colleagues, and I’m so pleased at how the year has unfolded. We are making hires who will have an important impact on the college and I appreciate your engagement with the search process. Please know that we take seriously these efforts and are devoted to effective onboarding of our new FACS family members!

The work is always continuing and I certainly hope that you can see and feel these efforts as you walk the halls of our building and as you anticipate the fall semester. I’m grateful to each of you for your involvement in the announcements below.

Some things you might not have seen include the recent visit of Dean Emerita Sharon Nickols who was here with her family to celebrate the named conference room in House A and to see the restoration of House C. We had a highly successful (and jam-packed) Alumni Awards event. And I have been traveling quite a bit in March to work with the Board on Health and Human Sciences (BHHS).

This revitalized and expanded Board of the APLU (Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities) has become an important connector and influencer across colleges like ours and with the federal government. The annual meeting of BHHS was in Denver, Colorado last week. Today I am speaking (along with Connie Rogers) at the 50th anniversary meeting of the ARD Biennial Research Symposium, whose membership encompasses the 1890 institutions, on the role of BHHS and on the ways we can align with health promotion (specifically nutrition and the prevention of and management of chronic disease).

Spring 2026 FACS College Awards – Register by Monday, April 6!

Celebrate faculty and staff accomplishments at a luncheon on April 13 in Dogwood Hall at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. Provost Benjamin C. Ayers will open the event.

Register Here for the Spring College Awards Luncheon

Accessibility guidelines

We have a new requirement to make our digital content accessible to individuals with disabilities by April 24. We are grateful to each of you for your efforts to comply with making courses accessible. UGA and FACS have offered training and working meetings toward accomplishing the goal of accessibility.

Complying with the new requirement includes all programs, services, and instructional materials delivered digitally. Compliance must align with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

Faculty and staff, please take note of the following items related to accessibility issues:

Communications. This is typically done via listserv or by posting news/events to the website. The most important thing to keep in mind is DO NOT post an image with text in it, unless you provide alt text. That is, right click the image, select “Add alternate text,” and include the text from the image. This text is easier than ever to extract, as you can upload the file to AI and ask it to give you the alt text. The best practice comes down to one of two things: 1) Include regular text in your message, or 2) Include the image, but provide alt text.

Website PDFs. By default, PDFs are not accessible. They can be made accessible, however, with Acrobat via the "Make Accessible" tool (more info). If you are the content manager of a section of the website, you'll need to make your PDFs accessible by doing one of two things: 1. Make the PDF instead into a web page, or 2. Make the PDF accessible.

For more information or to learn about trainings, visit our Digital Accessibility page.

Love and Money Week: The Love and Money Center will host Love and Money Week from April 6-10, with several events designed to raise awareness and share resources with the campus community. For more information, visit https://www.fcs.uga.edu/loveandmoneycenter/love-and-money-week

April Research Mixer

FACS faculty have been included in several of the research mixers organized by the Franklin College. The Franklin College Dean’s office is excited to announce the final Faculty Research Mixer for this academic year, bringing together faculty working on “Material Logics: Signals, Technology, and Cultural Memory.” This series is part of an ongoing effort to bring together faculty across the university who share research affinities to build multidisciplinary research and teaching teams. We are working on “starting” conversations and building collaborative relationships in teaching and research.

Thursday, April 9, 5-6:30 p.m.

Flickr Bar, 263 W. Washington S.t, Athens

Please RSVP at this link.

The speakers currently confirmed are:

Sha'Mira Covington, Assistant Professor in Fashion from FACS
Trinity Velez-Justo, Assistant Professor of Music, Media & Film Scoring
Jian Liu, Associate Professor in the School of Computing
A representative from Kenan Song’s lab within the New Materials Institute
And more.

Virtual Townhall for Unified ERP Program

The University System of Georgia (USG) is pleased to invite all faculty and staff to the official launch of the Unified ERP Program, our systemwide initiative to modernize, streamline, and connect the administrative systems that support all 25 USG institutions.

Event Details

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026
Time: 10 – 11 a.m. ET
Location: Virtual Town Hall (open to all USG faculty and staff)

What to Expect – During this virtual launch, attendees will be introduced to the vision, purpose, and goals of the Unified ERP transformation. The session will cover:

The overarching vision for the Unified ERP Program
Why USG is launching this modernization effort and what it means for our system
How the program will unfold, including a high-level timeline and what to expect
What this means for you, whether you use administrative systems every day or primarily for self-service tasks like timesheets, leave requests, expense reporting, and more
Long-term benefits, including a more connected, data-driven, and future-ready USG

This transformation represents a major step forward in simplifying and improving the tools we all use to support our students, institutions, and one another.

We encourage you to share this information and the link to the town hall with your teams and stakeholders. Click the Virtual Town Hall link to view the event.

Accessing UGA Provided AI-Tools

Here are some valuable resources for faculty/staff subscribed to the AI tools via the UGA EITS contract. To access the paid versions of these tools, participation in the UGA AI Licensing Purchasing Program for the tool you need is required.

Access instructions are included in the welcome email you receive from EITS when your license is applied, however below are some guides they created for reference as well.

Purchasing Information: Each unit’s business office can submit an estimated number of licenses in TeamDynamix by following deadlines each year:

May 1, to support summer onboarding
July 1, to support fall onboarding
December 1, to support spring onboarding

Please submit the following to EITS for purchasing:

First and last name
MyID
Office or Academic Department
Chart string for billing
A consolidated estimate of licenses per product at the school, college, or unit level.

Windows for purchasing new licenses will be open in April/May, June/July and Nov/December of each year. David Floyd dfloyd@uga.edu is a good resource if you have questions

Additional information on prices and purchasing windows can be found here.

GCDS inaugural conference April 22-23

Our Center for Developmental Science is hosting its inaugural conference on risk and resilience on April 22-23.

Press release here.

Wednesday, April 29 | 1 – 2:30 PM | Zoom

Looking to connect with others working on GLP-1 receptor agonists? Join this dynamic Georgia CTSA Speed Networking session where researchers present their work in four minutes or less and engage in collaborative discussion to spark new ideas and partnerships.

Emceed by our Emily Noble, this session is designed for clinicians and researchers interested in these therapies and exploring new collaborations. Whether you’re presenting or attending, this is a great opportunity to learn, connect, and collaborate. Why attend?