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August 15, 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
Millions pledged for Dole Food jobs, some paying $7 an hour
The Associated Press (National)
Some of the jobs will pay a little over $7 an hour. Most won't pay much more than $12. ... Murdock has approached officials at four North Carolina universities to help create a biotechnology research center at the site, according to a memo sent Friday to University of North Carolina's Board of Governors from system President Molly Broad.
Students to live in `smart' experiment
New York Times News Services
...The computer science department at UNC-Chapel Hill has conducted research on an "office of the future" in which the ceiling lights are replaced by computer-controlled cameras.
Regional Coverage
Parkinson's drugs linked to extreme sleepiness
The Indianapolis Star
Popular Parkinson's drugs called dopamine agonists are associated with a threefold increased risk of causing uncontrollable sleepiness compared with other drugs for the disease, Harvard University researchers report. ...The finding may be important because "identifying the genes you inherit that relate to your tolerance to alcohol helps us understand how genes set you up for a vulnerability to alcoholism," said Dr. James Garbutt, a psychiatry professor at the University of North Carolina who was not involved in the study that appeared in Nature.
Elbert: Boomers, land-use plan could revitalize downtown
The Des Moines Register (Iowa)
The proposed land-use plan that the Des Moines City Council will be asked to approve this fall for the area around Des Moines' Gateway Park sets a goal for new construction in the area. ...In some ways, that trend is the reverse of what happened 50 years ago, said William Rohe, professor and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina.
State & Local Coverage
After five years, Moeser has much to brag about
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
When she first met him, Jane Stine sensed in James Moeser an unabashed earnestness and genuine excitement about the top job at UNC -- an eagerness beyond the usual platitudes offered up by so many job applicants.
UNC elated by N.C. spending plan
The Chapel Hill Herald
The state's long anticipated spending plan, approved late this week, brought smiles to the faces of many UNC system officials thrilled with the level of funding the university ultimately received. UNC hit all its key marks for the 2005-07 budget cycle, including its top priority -- $72.9 million in each of the next two years to fund the 16-campus system's growing enrollment.
Airport gets one-year reprieve
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
The Horace Williams Airport will remain open for one more year as UNC continues working on a plan to move the university's medical air program. A provision in the recently approved state budget allows the airport to remain open until the end of the General Assembly's next session, in the summer of 2006.
The lights are on: Government keeps going without signed budget
The Associated Press (N.C.)
Midnight came and went but North Carolina state government kept the lights on. ...Joe Ferrell, a constitutional expert with the Institute of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill questioned the decision. He said state government can go on as before "as long as the state doesn't have to write any checks."
Black slips a line in budget
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
House Speaker Jim Black says he dislikes using the state budget to make public policy, so much so that he agreed several years ago to limit it to what a budget should be -- a spending plan for public schools, roads, prisons and other state services. ...Academic scholarship foundations and athletic booster clubs at UNC campuses will be charged the much cheaper in-state tuition rates for athletic and academic scholarships for out-of-state students.
Related Link: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/12379998.htmHall's unveiling long time coming
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Robert Long paced back and forth on the proscenium as workers put the finishing coats of paint on the lobby walls, polished elevator thresholds and checked the sound system. Its $18 million facelift nearly complete, UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall reopens Sept. 9 after three years of renovations. With the opening fast approaching, Long, the theater designer guiding the 74-year-old hall's transformation, examined the stage rigging, which was hanging down like streamers.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/may05/memorial050205.htmlN.C. women's health
The Charlotte Observer
North Carolina gets failing or near failing marks in too many categories in a new report on women's health. State policymakers must do more to tackle the issues that put women's health and welfare at risk. But women must do more to keep themselves safe and healthy. The 2005 North Carolina Women's Health Report Card, from UNC Center for Women's Health Research, was released Monday.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/aug05/reportcardrelease080805.htmThat Carolina blue brings in a lot of green (Editorial column)
The Charlotte Observer
The University of North Carolina Tar Heels have won their fifth national championship in a row -- not in athletics, but at the cash register. ...What else? Dr. Paul Bloom, a professor of marketing at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, attributes the Heels' success to a "confluence of image-building forces."
'Super precincts' raise I.D. issue
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Now that state lawmakers have said Chapel Hill Township residents may vote in "super precincts" this fall, it's up to the local elections board to give the program the go-ahead. ...The program would also let UNC-Chapel Hill students use a voting center convenient to campus. Students are divided into several precincts, and student leaders have complained that some have had trouble traveling to polls off campus.
Conversion will improve hospital (Opinion-editorial column)
The Fayetteville Observer
On Aug. 3, the Cape Fear Valley Health System board of trustees approved a change in its governance structure to a community not-for-profit health system. ...However, we mutually agreed that enhanced clinical affiliations should be actively pursued. Such clinical affiliations will benefit both health systems by enhancing the teaching mission of UNC and by providing additional specialty and sub-specialty care needed in Cumberland County.
Alternative therapies big business for medical schools
The Winston-Salem Journal
Once thought of as just a fad, alternative therapies have become anything but - and for local and national medical schools, they have become big business. ...Nationally, more academic institutions are beginning to explore alternative therapy programs, said Sally Norton, the education project manager for the program for integrative medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Can prayer heal?
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Midway through the service each Sunday, Jim and Eleanor Strothman head to a corner of the Prince of Peace sanctuary where two prayer team members await. ...In addition, doctors, such as Timothy Daaleman, a family physician at UNC Hospitals, said there is a widespread dissatisfaction with an impersonal health-care system. Faith -- and prayer, in particular -- gives patients a way to regain some measure of control over their health.
Inside Scoop: Berkeley group says Greensboro kinda liberal
The Greensboro News & Record
Greensboro ranks 72nd on a list of politically liberal cities in the United States, according to the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, a Berkeley, Calif.-based think tank. ..."As long as you don't have a payday come along before the governor signs it, I don't think it's a problem," said Joseph Ferrell, a professor of public law at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Government.
Projects succeed despite region buzz
The Greensboro News & Record
The Triad's politicians, business leaders and job recruiters have bemoaned for years the lack of "regionalism." ...We live in a world of regions," said Michael Luger, the director for the Center for Competitive Economies at UNC-Chapel Hill. "Any individual community like Greensboro cannot compete with Phoenix or the state of Arizona."
Issues & Trends
No shoo-ins for UNC president
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
To anyone interested in becoming the next UNC system president: The job is wide open, insists Brad Wilson, chairman of the UNC Board of Governors. Wilson made that statement loud and clear Friday in an attempt to dispel the notion that the search for UNC President Molly Broad's successor is a done deal. As momentum grows for the candidacy of two-time U.S. Senate contender Erskine Bowles of Charlotte, Wilson said the search committee will soon begin to evaluate applicants -- and that means all applicants, he stressed.
UNC board flustered by Basnight comment
The Chapel Hill Herald
A recent pronouncement from state Senate leader Marc Basnight that Erskine Bowles ought to be the next president of the UNC system has some members of the university's governing board grumbling privately about the politician's role in the process.
Basnight should have kept quiet (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
The UNC Board of Governors has created a search committee to find the next president of the UNC system. That search committee has a number of subcommittees, including the subcommittee on compensation, the subcommittee on a leadership statement, and so on. The search committee has hired a consultant to aid it in its task of finding a successor to Molly Broad.
The In-State Game (Editorial)
The Winston-Salem Journal
The General Assembly, in its rush to satisfy fat-cat supporters of University of North Carolina campuses, has dashed the dreams of many in-state, college-bound youngsters. In a budget provision, the legislature expanded opportunities for out-of-state students to attend UNC system campuses. In the process, it shifted a big financial burden for educating these outsiders away from university athletic departments and private foundations and to the shoulders of state taxpayers.
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.
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