August 1, 2005

Carolina in the News

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina
people and programs cited recently in the media:

National Coverage

Sidestepping The GMAT
Business Week
You're buying a circular rug for a square room, and you want to calculate how much floor space will be left bare once the rug is in place. Do you know how? ..."The test doesn't measure their determination, their drive, their leadership, those things that are critical in the application process," says Penny Oslund, director of UNC's EMBA program. "It's a piece of a much bigger puzzle."

RSS feeds college students' diet for research
USA Today
Lilangi Ediriwickrema, 21, peruses summaries of the latest articles about stem cell research. ..."It's like a subscription or clipping service," says Paul Jones, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the director of ibiblio.org, an online public library of Web information (www.ibiblio.org).

Roberts Debate Focuses on Respect for U.S. High Court Precedent
Bloomberg News Service
As a U.S. appeals court nominee in 2003, John G. Roberts Jr. had a ready answer every time senators asked him about a controversial Supreme Court ruling. ... ``It's especially important for a nominee that's replacing a swing justice,'' says Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who advised President Bill Clinton's administration on the 1994 nomination of Stephen Breyer.

North Carolina theater consultant tackles Ground Zero project
The Associated Press (National)
A man who helped consult on several performing arts projects at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and across the country is preparing for one of the most difficult projects of his career. Robert Long is consulting on the development of two performing arts centers at the former site of the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York.

Regional Coverage

Historian says Smith's personal story may overshadow others
The Salt Lake Tribune
Not much has changed in the debate over the bona fides of Mormon founder Joseph Smith since he claimed to have communed with God in a New York maple grove in the spring of 1820. ..."The story of early Mormonism doesn't have to be told by placing Smith's own guilelessness and honesty front and center," University of North Carolina historian Laurie Maffly-Kipp, a non-Mormon, told a gathering of mostly LDS intellectuals at the annual Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City.

State & Local Coverage

UNC stare-down (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Wealthy boosters of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who want to ease that campus away from the state's well-functioning public university system now know what they're up against.

UNC’s survival is at stake (Editorial)
The Wilmington Morning Star
The proposed destruction of the University of North Carolina system by political campaign contributors who favor UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State over other institutions has drawn the opposition of four former governors: Republicans Jim Martin and Jim Holshouser and Democrats Jim Hunt and Bob Scott.

Don't threaten UNC board (Statement)
The Charlotte Observer
This statement was signed by every living former governor and lieutenant governor: former Govs. Bob Scott, Jim Holshouser, Jim Hunt and Jim Martin, and former Lt. Govs. Pat Taylor, Bob Jordan, Jim Gardner and Dennis Wicker: Much has been written in recent weeks about two "special provisions" in the state Senate budget that would change tuition policy for our university.
Related cartoon: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/editorial/cartoons/12271872.htm
Note: This statement appeared on The Observer's opinion-editorial page.

Listen to N.C. leaders (Editorial)
The Charlotte Observer
It's not easy to come up with a list of policy issues that every living former N.C. governor and lieutenant governor would agree on, but they found common cause on one misguided proposal in the state Senate's proposed budget and issued a bipartisan statement opposing it. The Senate proposal would bypass the UNC Board of Governors and allow trustees at UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University to set their own tuition and grant in-state tuition rates to out-of-state students who win athletic and academic scholarships.

UNC system has served North Carolina well (Opinion-editorial column)
The Chapel Hill News
A political action committee calling itself Citizens for Higher Education seeks to redefine and reduce the established authority of the Board of Governors of the UNC system. ...William C. Friday is a former president of the UNC system.
Note: This column also ran in The Herald-Sun (Durham).

Campus freedom gets a test (Commentary)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The Battle of Gettysburg occurred when an aggressive army of secessionists, intruding deep into Union territory, happened across a huge enemy force. Partisans of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who are pushing for a measure of independence from the UNC system claim that secession is the farthest thing from their minds.

Politics, higher ed don't mix (Commentary)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
There are at least two reasons why North Carolina has, over the past century, emerged as the leader of the South: a forward-looking business community and a great university system.

New trustees chair could show the way (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
As Nelson Schwab takes over the chairmanship of the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, here's a bit of advice for him: beware of your friends. They may turn out to be your worst enemies.

Many caught in scientist's wake
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
It took repeated clues to convince Beth Ruggiero that her mentor, a UNC-Chapel Hill scientist, was a cheat. ...After Ruggiero turned her professor in to the university, UNC scientists concluded that Leadon had rigged his lab results, possibly for seven years.

Theater consultant helping Big Apple
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
He consulted on the design and reconstruction of UNC's Memorial Hall. He also guided the renovation of the Old Playmakers Theatre. For that matter, he has provided consultation on a number of other performing arts spaces on UNC's campus and throughout North America.

Stop the presses! Broadway legend makes 'The Front Page'
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
PlayMakers Repertory Company, UNC-Chapel Hill's professional theater ensemble, opens its 30th anniversary season with a big Broadway name and a popular Broadway title: Gene Saks and "The Front Page."

Miss Black N.C. hoping for USA crown
The Charlotte Observer
Rhonda Patterson leaves for the nation's capital today in hopes of becoming the Charlotte area's second reigning U.S. pageant winner. ...Patterson, 23, of Roanoke Rapids, is in her final year at the UNC Chapel Hill Law School.
Note: Patterson is a Spring 2003 graduate of UNC Chapel Hill.

Teacher writes of 'Blessed Returns'
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
When Stuart Albright gets asked why he decided to go into teaching, the Jordan High School instructor usually discusses his desire to make an impact on students hungry for knowledge. ..."It was a place in desperate need of help, and the experience became the catalyst for me deciding to go on the path into urban education," said Albright, a Gastonia native who attended college at UNC and received his masters' degree from Harvard with a focus on urban studies.

Study: Three high-school football players died of heatstroke in 2004
The Associated Press (N.C.)
Three high-school football players died of heatstroke in 2004 after none had died of the ailment in the previous two seasons, according to a study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jul05/muell19072905.htm

NAACP group joins complaint
The Charlotte Observer
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP branch is joining a legal action to overturn Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' student assignment plan, the Observer learned Saturday. ...It took a new twist in February, when renowned civil rights lawyer Julius Chambers and other lawyers from the UNC Center for Civil Rights asked Manning to declare CMS's student assignment plan unconstitutional.

Dealing with being put on a college's waiting list can be a frustrating process
The Winston Salem-Journal
This is the second in a two-part series about the college-application process. ...She looked at schools with good pre-med programs, and focused on her father's alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Triangle cities swell, sprawl
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In the first years of the 21st century, Raleigh added more residents than any city east of the Mississippi River except one: New York. ...North Carolina's annexation laws give cities and towns a free hand in gaining territory, said David M. Lawrence, a local government law specialist at UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of Government.

Rivals buy Winn-Dixie prescriptions
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Winn-Dixie sold thousands of local customers' prescription information this week to competing pharmacies as it continued the liquidation its North Carolina stores. ..."The intention behind all of the incentives and the coupons for starting a new prescription is that they not only want to get your subscription, but the business of whatever you're going to buy while you're waiting for it to be filled," said Fred Eckel, a professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy and executive director of the N.C. Association of Pharmacists.

Are foreign workers good for America?
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Ishmael Herrera was working hard for a pittance in Guatemala, and when he peered into his future, he saw only more of the same. So last year, he called it quits and came to North Carolina. ...The first wave was made up primarily of English Protestants followed by Germans and Irish Catholics, said Hiroshi Motomura, a law professor and immigration expert at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Health care for all (Letter to the editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Studies show that poor people with health care insurance have less disease and live longer than those without insurance. Can it be considered moral for a society to deny some of its poor this benefit? ...William J. Cromartie. (The writer is alumni distinguished professor of microbiology and immunology and medicine, emeritus, at UNC-Chapel Hill.)

Hemocellular, Ablatrics collectively raise $8M for promising technologies
Triangle Business Journal
Two early-stage medical technology companies have raised a total of $8 million in first rounds of funding - a sign that investors have returned to backing novel technologies. ...The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spinoff's lead drug is a human platelet that, when bioengineered, promises to stem internal bleeding.

Business panel plays name game
The Chapel Hill News
In “Romeo and Juliet,” William Shakespeare famously posed the question, “What’s in a name?” ...But Nancy Suttenfield, UNC vice-chancellor of finance and administration, thought the group may want to hold off. “Until we start doing some substantive things, I think it could appear silly to the community that one of the first things we do after hiring a new director is to deliberate on a name change,” she said.

Issues & Trends

Tucking the Kids In -- in the Dorm:
The Wall Street Journal
As colleges and universities gear up to receive a new class of freshmen this fall, they're bracing for a potentially more daunting onslaught: Helicopter parents are going to college.
Note: Subscription required.

Easley trumps legislature, again, with executive order (Opinion column)
The Charlotte Observer
It was just another executive order, one of 80 that Gov. Mike Easley has signed since taking office in January 2001, but it rattled coffee cups all over the General Assembly. ...He instructed the superintendent of public instruction to hire enough people to operate his Learn and Earn high school program, ordered the presidents of the University of North Carolina system and the community college system to implement a teacher education initiative and told the State Board of Education to get cracking on at-risk student services.

Produced by News Services, Carolina in the News is an e-mail sampling of current news media coverage about Carolina people and programs, as well as issues and trends that affect the university. Stories usually will be online and available free for a limited time - often one to two weeks. Expiration dates before stories move to archives vary by media outlet. Some outlets require free user registration or a subscription.

Carolina in the News is also posted daily to the News Services Web page, http://www.unc.edu/news/clips/index.shtml.

Please share any questions, comments or suggestions at news@unc.edu.