December 13, 2004

Carolina in the News

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

National Coverage

'Acting White' Myth, The
The New York Times Magazine
When Bill Cosby spoke out publicly in May against dysfunction and irresponsibility in black families, he identified one pervasive symptom: ''boys attacking other boys because the boys are studying and they say, 'You're acting white.''' ... Karolyn Tyson, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and William Darity Jr., an economist at Duke and U.N.C., coordinated an 18-month ethnographic study at 11 schools in North Carolina.
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`Windys' caught up in swirl of mania
The Chicago Tribune
Robert Warren knew he had gone too far when he tussled with a friend in a store over possession of a hanger with the letters "mm" on it, representing a garment's size. ... "The Civil War is etched in the memory of every American--black or white, Northern or Southern--as a pivotal time in American history," said William Ferris, a history professor and associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Medicare Ills Make Social Security Look Fit
The Wall Street Journal
Reforming Social Security occupies countless scholars, commissions and legislators. Reforming Medicare, the program that could really wreck the budget, gets almost no attention at all. ... "I wouldn't want to go back to voters on a record of creating more uninsured people," says Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of a history of the politics of Medicare.
Subscription required.

Office Buildings, Hotels Spur New Growth
The Washington Post
Westinghouse Electric Corp., maker of military airplane components, set up operations in the early 1950s in Linthicum, where it paved a taxiway from its newly built hangar to a runway at adjacent Friendship International Airport. ... John D. Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in airport-driven urban development, said the busier and more prestigious BWI becomes, the more businesses it attracts.

Dulles, Clearly On Tech's Radar
The Washington Post
One of the nice things about locating a business around Washington Dulles International Airport in the 1960s and 1970s was the ambiance: Plenty of green space, fresh air and not a traffic jam in sight. ... International gateway airports "will shape urban development in the 21st century as highways did in the 20th century, railroads did in the 19th century and seaports did in the 18th century," predicted John D. Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Buildings to go up like never before
USA Today
Residential and commercial development in the next quarter-century will eclipse anything seen in previous generations as the nation moves to accommodate rapid population growth, according to a Brookings Institution report Monday. ... Communities must decide if they "want to develop policies consistent with those preferences or constrain them," says John Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

As Colleges Profit, Sweatshops Worsen
The Hartford Courant (Conn.)
At factories across the globe, young women hunch over sewing machines in choreographed monotony, racing the clock for poverty wages as they stitch shirts that will be shipped to the States and emblazoned with five letters: U-C-O-N-N. ... Over the years, officials of Georgetown, Duke, the University of North Carolina and other universities have taken strong steps to pressure licensees to correct factory violations, at one point terminating a contract with a New York cap maker accused of retaliating against its union.
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State & Local Coverage

Students go global to learn
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In the West African nation of Benin, Meghan Eberle's eyes opened wide to the unimaginable: voodoo traditions and babies dying of malaria because their families couldn't afford mosquito nets. ... At Wake Forest, 58 percent of undergraduates study outside the United States, giving it the highest participation rate among all major, research-oriented universities, according to a report last month by the institute. Duke was No. 9, with 47 percent participation, and UNC-Chapel Hill was No. 18 with a 35 percent rate.

Have you spotted Discovery riding along our streets?
The Charlotte Observer
That 40-foot bus with the name "Discovery" on the side that you might have seen on Mecklenburg County's streets in the past week is a mobile classroom that could help launch science careers for local students. The bus is among two operated by UNC Chapel Hill as part of its Traveling Science Laboratory program.

State tries new approach to juvenile justice
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
North Carolina's Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention was created in 1998 after an audit found the state's juvenile offender system was inadequate. Since then, the agency has been reshaping juvenile justice. ... Developed by experts from the UNC schools of social work and education and the juvenile justice department, a therapeutic pilot program has been in practice in the juvenile facility for girls at Samarcand since 2001.

Liberal arts at UNC (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jon Sanders' critique of UNC-Chapel Hill (Dec. 10 Point of View article "Open a present, and the past") was based on false assumptions.
(Note: Bernadette Gray-Little is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.)

Program worries faculty
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Some UNC-Chapel Hill faculty want the university to make stronger pronouncements about academic freedom as the debate continues about a controversial proposal for a Western Cultures program. ... Chancellor James Moeser said the university must remain vigilant in protecting academic freedom.

Doctor: Salisbury suicides may be tied to emissions
The Charlotte Observer
Toxic emissions from nearby asphalt plants might have contributed to an increased suicide rate in two Salisbury neighborhoods, a Raleigh physician said Friday. ... [Dr. Richard] Weisler, an adjunct faculty member of the UNC School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center, collaborated on the suicide research with a Duke psychiatry professor, Dr. Jonathan Davidson, and three advocacy groups: the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League; Clean Water for North Carolina; and the N.C. Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.
(Note: Other coverage includes News 14 Carolina (Time-Warner, Charlotte).)

Rise in C-sections alarms some
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Kristy Hansen of Raleigh is certain that her doctor could have avoided slicing into her abdomen to deliver her daughter, Zoe, three years ago. ... Generally, patients must be informed whenever a procedure carries a complication risk of greater than 1 percent, said Dr. Juan L. Granados, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UNC-Chapel Hill and the director of the WakeMed Faculty Physicians, a medical practice.

Managed health care for mental illnesses costly, less effective
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study appears to confirm what some social service experts and others had warned - that changing to managed health care for mental illnesses has unintended negative effects. ... Authors are Drs. Marisa Elena Domino and Edward C. Norton, assistant professor and associate professor of health policy and administration, respectively, at the UNC School of Public Health; Dr. Joseph P. Morrissey, deputy director of research at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research ...
This story is pickup of a UNC news release

Area lawyers not sure evidence is admissible
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The evidence revealed Friday about the death of Eric Miller may have helped ensure a bail high enough to keep Ann Miller Kontz in jail. ... Willard's statement is not admissible at trial, releasing it now could backfire for the prosecution, said Arnold Loewy, Graham Kenan professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill law school.

Piedmont leads the pack in car-deer collisions
The Herald-Sun
Many a driver has a story to tell about a close call -- or direct hit -- with a deer. ... The UNC-based N.C. Highway Safety Research Center recently released a report showing that the number of accidents involving deer is increasing steadily.

Burdening the poor (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A misconception nearly universal among American liberals is that increasing taxes on wealthy individuals is beneficial to the poor. A case in point is Gene Nichol's Dec. 5 Point of View article "For Democrats, the time is now -- not '08," wherein he contends that Bush administration tax policy is "for the wealthy" and laments that "Progressivity is attacked on all fronts."
(Note: A related letter was also published on Sunday.)

Issues & Trends

More schools offer cheap music downloads for students
USA Today
More college campuses are adopting deeply discounted - and legal - digital music as the latest amenity for students. ... UNC has music services at four of its 16 campuses and in January will add two more, in Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

State Spending on Higher Education Up Slightly, a Reversal From Previous Year
The Chronicle of Higher Education
State support for postsecondary education crept higher nationwide this fiscal year, marking a reversal from the year before, in which overall appropriations for higher education had fallen for the first time in more than a decade.
Subscription required.

Carolina North stalled on airport
The Chapel Hill News
UNC officials say they have yet to identify a new home for the Horace Williams Airport, five months after the state legislature decided the facility cannot be shut down to make way for the Carolina North satellite campus until a suitable replacement was found.

Town, UNC club clash over taxes
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A tax dispute is holding up the Town Council's approval of a permit UNC's faculty-staff club needs to start building a new clubhouse off Barbee Chapel Road.

Designer hired for OWASA-UNC effort
The Chapel Hill Herald
The massive initiative that will allow UNC to re-use water took another step forward this week.
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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/newsserv/clipsindex.htm.

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