NEWS

All members of the UNC community are invited to attend a discussion of the drought's effects on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area and the Piedmont on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in 133 Rosenau Hall.

Experts from from different disciplines will answer questions concerning the drought and raise awareness for possible solutions and perspectives.

Ed Kerwin, executive director of Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) will join professors Larry Band, geography; Brian Billman, anthropology; and David Moreau, city and regional planning; along with Ray Dubose, facility maintenance director; and Cynthia Shea, sustainability coordinator.

For more information, e-mail Dan Waxman at dewaxman@email.unc.edu.

For more information about UNC’s water conservation efforts, please visit the Water Emergency Web page at http://www.unc.edu/depts/pubserv/savewater/

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Psychology professor honored for pediatric pain research

Dr. Karen Gil, senior associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of psychology and psychiatry at UNCl, has been selected for a top award by the American Psychology Association’s Society of Pediatric Psychology.

She will receive the 2003 Logan Wright Distinguished Research Award for outstanding long-term contributions to the field, for her research on coping strategies used by children with chronic illnesses, such as sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, rheumatoid arthritis or cancer. The award will be presented at the association’s meeting in Toronto next summer.

Gil has spent more than 15 years studying how children, adolescents and their families cope with stressful and painful diseases. Her research shows that encouraging positive coping strategies for parents and their ill children can have a positive effect on the children’s health.

In 1996, she received the Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology Award from association’s Division of Health Psychology. She is also a Fellow of the association’s Society of Behavioral Medicine, Society of Pediatric Psychology and Division of Health Psychology.

Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/gil_karen.jpg

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Teach for America founder, Wendy Kopp, to speak Oct. 2

The founder and president of Teach for America, an organization that places thousands of college graduates in under-funded public schools as teachers, will speak Wednesday (Oct. 2) at UNC.

Wendy Kopp's free public address, at 6:30 p.m. in the film auditorium of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union, will be hosted by the Campus Y, UNC's largest student organization. Earlier Wednesday, Kopp will meet with student groups.

"She will advocate the potential for change and good that one person can bring about," said Andy Weeks of the Y. For more information, call the Y at 962-2333.

As a senior at Princeton University in 1989, Kopp was troubled by the educational inequities facing children in low-income communities; she also was convinced that many in her generation were looking for ways to make a positive difference in the world. These thoughts came together in her idea of a national teacher corps that would recruit talented, driven graduating seniors to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools.

Kopp developed the idea in her senior thesis and obtained a grant from Mobile Corp. to put it into action. The first year, 2,500 graduates of 100 colleges applied; 500 were selected and trained by volunteer teachers and teacher educators. Businesses and foundations donated $2.5 million to start the program.

Since then, Teach For America has placed 8,000 corps members in 16 urban and rural areas from South Central Los Angeles to the Mississippi Delta to the Bronx, according to the organization. Some educators have said that the five weeks of training that corps members receive before going into some of the toughest classrooms in America are not sufficient, and that allowing under-prepared teachers into the classroom diminishes standards for teaching.

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Danny Anderson, visiting writer, to read from his work Oct. 8

Danny Anderson, whose poems have been published in "The Southern Review," "The New Republic," "Poetry" and other publications, will give a free public reading of his work Oct. 8 at UNC.

Anderson, a Kenan Visiting Writer this year in the UNC English department's creative writing program, will speak at 3:30 p.m. in Donovan Lounge, on the second floor of Greenlaw Hall. A reception will follow.

Story Line Press of Oregon published Anderson's first collection of poems, "January Rain," and awarded the book its 1997 Nicholas Roerich Prize for a first book of poetry. The prize honors the life and work of a Russian philosopher, painter, poet and advocate for international peace in the 1930s.

Since 1994, Anderson has taught each summer at the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference for high school students, held at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. Recently, he was a Tennessee Williams Fellow and visiting assistant professor at Sewanee.

Anderson also was on the staff of the Sewanee Writers' Conference, a similar annual summer program for adults, and taught English at Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J. He earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and, from The Johns Hopkins University, a master's from the writing seminars program.

For more information, contact Lisa Foley-Pellicani and 962-4000 or lfoley@email.unc.edu.

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David Theo Goldberg to discuss race-related violence

David Theo Goldberg, director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, will give a historical account of death and violence associated with racism at 7 p.m. Oct. 10 in UNC's Frank Porter Graham Student Union, Room 208-209.

All are invited to attend the free public talk, sponsored by UNC's Sonja Hayes Stone Black Cultural Center.  Dr. William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr., an economics and sociology professor and director of the Institute of African American Research at UNC, will provide a response to Goldberg's remarks.

Formerly director and professor of the School of Justice Studies, a law and social science program at Arizona State University, Goldberg is the author of "Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning" (1993), "Racial Subjects: Writing on Race in America" (1997) and "Ethical Theory and Social Issues" (1990/1995).

He edited "Anatomy of Racism" (1990) and "Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader" (1995). He is the founding co-editor of "Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture." Goldberg’s next title, "The Racial State," will be released early next year.

For more information on the talk, call the center at 962-9001.

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UNC School of Education to study effects of national teaching certification

UNC-Chapel Hill is among 22 recipients nationwide of grants from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to study effects of its teacher certifications on teaching and student learning in American schools.

Chosen from among 109 applicants, UNC was one of four North Carolina grant recipients. Others were Appalachian State University, UNC-Greensboro and American Renaissance Charter School in Statesville. UNC received $246,409.

Set for completion at the end of 2003, the study will seek to measure the effectiveness of board-certified and non-certified teachers. The study will evaluate North Carolina teachers who work with students aged 7 to 12. Dr. Rita O'Sullivan, an associate professor in the UNC School of Education, will be principal investigator on the study, titled "Investigating the Classroom Assessment Literacy of Board-Certified Teachers."

Based in Arlington, Va., the board is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization governed by a 63-member board of directors, most of them classroom teachers. Other members include school administrators, school board leaders, governors, state legislators, higher education officials, teacher union leaders and business and community leaders.
The board established a voluntary process through which teachers can achieve its certification, considered a mark of teaching excellence. The performance-based assessment takes nearly a year to complete. Teachers document their subject matter knowledge, provide evidence that they can effectively teach their subjects to students and demonstrate ability to manage and measure student learning.
In North Carolina, teachers achieving certification receive raises. For more information about the studies nationwide, call the national board at 703-465-2700 or visit its Web site, www.nbpts.org.

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'Texas' producers to host outdoor drama conference

The Texas Panhandle Heritage Foundation, the producer of Paul Green’s outdoor historical drama "Texas," will host the 40^th annual Conference on Outdoor Drama Oct. 23-26 in Amarillo, Texas. The conference, sponsored by the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Outdoor Drama, is the only national conference devoted solely to outdoor drama.

"We’re very fortunate to be going to Amarillo with the national conference," said Scott Parker, director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama. " ‘Texas’ has long been one of the premiere outdoor historical dramas in the country, and we will learn a tremendous amount."

The institute, a public service organization established in 1963, is the nation's only organization working to foster artistic and managerial excellence among the nation's outdoor dramas and expansion of the outdoor drama movement. The institute assists more than 120 constituent theatre companies in 37 states.

This year’s conference will have workshops and panels on educational programs for public schools, innovative stage lighting equipment, amphitheater design and more. Representatives from nearly 40 outdoor theatres and communities planning the development of new outdoor dramas will attend.

The Mark R. Sumner Award, the only national award recognizing significant contribution by an individual to a specific drama or to the overall drama movement, will be presented.

For more information, call the institute at 962-1328 or visit its Web site, www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor.

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News Services Contact: Mike McFarland, (919)962-8593; L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu