Aug. 28, 2006

Carolina in the News

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

International

Obama Visits Notorious Nairobi Slum
The Associated Press
On Sunday, he visited a program to start small businesses, and also stopped by an AIDS prevention program in Kibera. The program is affiliated with the University of North Carolina and he met with students who are part of local abstinence campaigns. The group, called Carolina for Kibera, estimates one in five of the slum's population is HIV positive.

The fat, the starving and global warming
The Japan Times
"Obesity is the norm globally, and under-nutrition, while still important in a few countries and in (certain groups) in many others, is no longer the dominant disease," said Dr. Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina last week at a conference in Queensland, Australia.

National

Families of N.C. troops test initiative service
McClatchy Newspapers
Congress is poised to pledge $5 million in its defense appropriations bill to the Citizen-Soldier Support Program, a year-old project run out of UNC Chapel Hill and aided by other universities in the UNC system.

Playing safe: Minimizing the chance of injury in school sports programs
Associated Press
University of North Carolina scientists tracked 22 years of high school sports to conclude that about one student athlete out of every 100,000 players suffers a severe, occasionally fatal, injury or illness.

Carnal Knowledge: Hazardous for kids?
Philadelphia Inquirer
Journalism professor Jane Brown of the University of North Carolina led an earlier study that found children exposed to the most sex in the media were more likely to have sex before they turned 16. She looked at music, movies, magazines and television.

New book argues that female brain is wired to nurture
Gannett News Service
Using studies on hormones, development and psychology by scientists in multiple fields as well as her own clinical experience, Brizendine sets out to show the ways in which the female brain is different from the male brain...But while sex-based differences are clearly present, David Rubinow, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says those differences don't exclude the effect of nonsex-related factors involving biology, culture or the environment.

Regional

Transplant operation could be life saver
Cystic fibrosis patients could benefit
The Indianapolis Star
"It's a lifesaver," said Lynn Figg, a nurse practitioner at a cystic fibrosis clinic in South Bend, who has two patients on the waiting list for the double transplant. "This completely gives them a new lease on life."  But others cautioned that the widespread availability of this operation would rest on already-scarce organ resources. Many cystic fibrosis patients die before donor lungs become available, said Dr. James Yankaskas, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Vet school dean takes UNC job
Columbia Daily Herald (Mo.)
Joe Kornegay, dean of the University of Missouri-Columbia's College of Veterinary Medicine, is resigning effective Oct. 16 to accept a research position at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

State and Local

Campus abuzz with new beginnings, great expectations (opinion column)
The Chapel Hill Herald
I never fail to be amazed by the way it all comes together. The construction wraps, the books are stocked, the residence halls outfitted, welcome and directional signs posted, and sidewalks and parking lots filled. The passage from the second week of August to the third is the epitome of a team effort, made by students, faculty, staff and volunteers. The Daily Tar Heel got it right with a front page headline this week: “Campus comes to life.” And this community has just welcomed more than 26,000 new or returning residents.
Note: Chancellor James Moeser’s Sunday column has not yet been posted to the Chapel Hill Herald’s Web site. For a copy, contact Kym Register at kym@dev.unc.edu.

Bryton could be a model
The Charlotte Observer
One public funding tool being discussed is tax-increment financing, or self-financing bonds, a fairly new option in North Carolina. Governments issue the bonds for infrastructure projects that will increase the tax value of property, and they pledge the projected additional tax revenue to repay the bonds, said David Lawrence, a professor at the School of Government at UNC Chapel Hill.

Getting public records delayed
Associated Press (NC)
David Lawrence, a professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said some counties and municipalities establish public records policies as a way of laying out how such requests will be fulfilled. The question is, did Graham County, south of Fontana Lake in the state's far western tip, overstep North Carolina law with its new rules?

Our view: In elder care, too many are still trying to square the circle (Editorial)
The Fayetteville Observer
"They are a frail, elderly population, and you expect some deaths," Bill Lamb of the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute on Aging told The News & Observer. "You don't expect deaths where the staff of the facility is culpable." Not expected, maybe, but dozens of residents have nonetheless died due to incompetence, improper maintenance of the facilities and medication errors.

N.C. likely to tighten the rules on how body parts are regulated
Associated Press (NC)
Noelle Granger, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the state should consider forming an alliance among groups that use cadavers for medical research. That group could issue guidelines for cadaver use, said Granger, chairwoman of the North Carolina Commission on Anatomy. The group oversees body donations to medical schools.

Council sparks zoning progress
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
The council ordered a third-party review of the three sites by UNC Chapel Hill professor David Owens. He gave his review Tuesday, noting serious questions about the zoning for the sites and for parts of the zoning code itself.

Registration Made Easy
WCHL 1360
Carolina's course registration has evolved since the days of the 'Caroline.'  Registrar Alice Pohls just executed a major overhaul of the system, and says that so far so good.

New DTH Editor Familiar with Chapel Hill
WCHL 1360
In his new job as editor of the Daily Tar Heel, Joe Schwartz says he wants to keep the paper focused on not just UNC, but all of Orange County.

Church history: 250 and counting
The Chapel Hill News
Murphy said one of the defining features of New Hope in its first 100 years was its involvement with the University of North Carolina… "One of our early ministers petitioned the state legislature to start a classical school (which would include Latin, Greek and philosophy), and obtained enough money to hire teachers. The legislature went full steam ahead to establish Carolina."

Issues and Trends

New Analysis of Academic Freedom
Inside Higher Ed
As we discuss in the book, state legislatures have castigated university officials for defending academic freedom. In North Carolina, for example, the lower house of the state legislature passed a appropriations bill designed punish the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for assigning a book to all first-year students on the Koran.

University puts on its game face (Opinion Column)
The Chapel Hill News
Yes, Moeser is under pressure from an impatient UNC Board of Trustees. "Let's fish or cut bait here," as trustee Tim Burnett said in May just prior to the BOT setting an arbitrary October 2007 deadline for completing this critical phase of the process. Burnett claims he doesn't "see how we can have the luxury of talking anymore. We've got to come up with a plan."

Defining a domestic partner
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jaci Field and Kate Cushman of Raleigh are experiencing the reverse scenario: Neither of their employers offer domestic-partner benefits. Field gave birth two months ago to a son, and she will have to return to work full time to her administrator's job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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.