December 7, 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

UI to offer low-income solution
The News-Gazette (Champaign, Ill.)
Low-income students could graduate from this campus of the University of Illinois with zero debt under the new Illinois Promise program. … Herman said he was inspired by the Carolina Covenant at University of North Carolina …
Chicago Tribune story (Registration required).
More on Carolina Covenant

Fewer Companies Sponsor Executive Degrees
The Wall Street Journal
More executives are discovering that if they want an executive MBA, they have to pay for most or all of it themselves. ... Penny Oslund, executive director of executive MBA programs at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School and past chairwoman of the Executive MBA Council, says she has noticed more companies who do sponsor employees make students put their postgraduate work commitment in writing.
(Note: Kenan-Flagler Business School arranged the interviews. Subscription required.)

String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (or Not)
The New York Times
They all laughed 20 years ago. It was then that a physicist named John Schwarz jumped up on the stage during a cabaret at the physics center here and began babbling about having discovered a theory that could explain everything. ... The quartet consisted of Dr. Gross; Dr. Jeffrey Harvey and Dr. Emil Martinec, both at the University of Chicago; and Dr. Ryan M. Rohm, now at the University of North Carolina.
Registration required.

Congress Approves Aid for Supercomputer Research
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Congress has given final approval to a bill ordering the Energy Department to bolster its research in supercomputing and to expand academic researchers' access to supercomputers. President Bush is expected to sign the legislation. ... Daniel A. Reed, vice chancellor for information technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the law would increase the political visibility of supercomputing in the United States.
Subscription required.

Updates on Billion-Dollar Campaigns at 23 Universities
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The 23 American universities that are seeking to raise at least $1-billion collected a total of $246.5-million in gifts and pledges during the last month for which they had data available. ... The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $1.334-billion as of October 31 (increase of $13.6-million in the last month); the goal is $1.8-billion by 2007.
Subscription required.

Bowl participants' graduation rates mostly below average
USA Today
They might be above average on the field. But almost two-thirds of college football's 56 bowl-bound programs have player graduation rates lower than the 54% average in NCAA Division I-A, a USA TODAY analysis finds. ... This season's brainiest bowl: the Continental Tire, matching BC and North Carolina (53%).

State & Local Coverage

New Yadkin board rescinds loan for schools
The Winston-Salem Journal
An hour after they were sworn in yesterday, members of the new Yadkin County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to rescind a $6 million loan for the county's schools that took six months to hammer out. ... "In my opinion, the most the school board would be able to recover is any economic losses the school board has sustained up to this point," said Fleming Bell, a local government contract specialist at the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Universities offer contrast on donations (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
It'll be interesting over the next few weeks to compare the reactions at UNC and Duke University to a pair of large curriculum-related donations.

Study: Pigeons have magnetic sense
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Homing pigeons have intrigued humans for many centuries through their seemingly uncanny ability to find their way home from thousands of miles away. But how they do that has remained a mystery. … "This is a fascinating study in which Cordula managed to train homing pigeons to respond to magnetic fields," said Dr. Kenneth J. Lohmann, Hoggard Distinguished professor of biology at UNC.
This story is pickup of a UNC news release:

Generic drugs can deliver results and save you money
Asheville Citizen-Times
Reaching for the most familiar brand of over-the-counter medication is natural when confronted with a confusing array of products cramming store shelves. ... Fred Eckel, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Pharmacy, says consumers can typically save at least 20 percent to 25 percent by buying a store brand of over-the-counter drug. He has saved as much as 50 percent.

Europe rising (Book Review)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In his brilliant new book "Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828," historian Walter McDougall argues that America, above all else, is a land of hustlers, a place that has afforded its inhabitants "greater opportunity to pursue their ambition, by foul means or fair, than any other people in history."
(Note: Peter A. Coclanis is associate provost for International Affairs and Albert R. Newsome Professor of History at UNC.)

Voices from the Triangle's Sports World (Q Section)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Contact is part of playing athletics; you've got to keep the contact in the spirit of the game. Everybody takes everything so personal now. It's just our culture now. Your mind and your body are like a computer.
(Note: Sylvia Hatchell is the UNC women's basketball coach.)

Jones wants reporters to stay out of military units
The New Bern Sun Journal
The shot was heard - and, more importantly, seen - around the world. ... "He's right about two things," said Phil Meyer, a Knight Foundation chair in journalism who teaches media analysis at the University of North Carolina.

Rising censorship (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
So CBS and NBC refuse to air a commercial because they don't want to be seen as taking sides with "hot-button issues" ... Just last month WUNC-FM dropped "reproductive rights" from a sponsor's ad.

Cabarrus calls halt to rapid growth
The Charlotte Observer
Cabarrus County, known for its loose development rules, agreed Monday to a plan for a growth moratorium to bring county regulations more in line with other areas. ... Based on court rulings, local governments may use a ban on development for a specific timeframe as they revise regulations, said David Owens, a planning expert at UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government.

Career moves
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
... Robyn East will join the University of North Carolina as deputy chief information officer and associate vice chancellor for information technology services. James W. "Mike" Page was named director of planned giving in the office of university development at UNC at Chapel Hill.

For Democrats, the time is now -- not '08 (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News and Observer (Raleigh)
In Democratic Party circles, debate over an altered national agenda for 2008 is all the rage. Should Democrats turn to the Scriptures? ...
(Note: Gene R. Nichol is dean and the Burton Craige professor of law at the UNC School of Law.)

Issues & Trends

Guaranteed admissions trouble (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A legislative committee recently received a consultant's recommendation to guarantee UNC system admissions to community college graduates. Many officials were quick to support implementing the recommendation. The legislature, however, should be very cautious.

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.