Feb. 5, 2007

Carolina in the News

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

International Coverage

Ped Med: Seeing faces, autism in new light
United Press International
Neuroscientists looking at faces from the brain's point of view are starting to see autism in a new light. ..."There is a tremendous amount of research effort currently being directed towards understanding the causes and correlates of autism spectrum disorders," said Aysenil Belger, director of neuroimaging research in psychiatry and associate professor in the departments of psychiatry and psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Right-thinking faculties get to grips with moral issues
Financial Times (United Kingdom)
Business school used to be just about how to make money. These days, it is much more complex. ...Prof Hartman worked with Lisa Jones Christensen and Ellen Peirce of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina and Michael Hoffman and Jamie Carrier of the Centre for Business Ethics at Bentley College, near Boston, to produce the report.

National Coverage

Why tall people make more money
CNN
A 2004 study by psychologist Timothy A. Judge, Ph.D., of the University of Florida, and researcher Daniel M. Cable, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina, found that every inch of height amounts to a salary increase of about $789 per year (the study controlled for gender, weight and age).

Familiar Face, but a New Tone
The New York Times
John Edwards has no intention of getting lost in the shuffle. ...He said he had grown and matured and learned from his mistakes, and has told friends that he really was not ready to run for president in 2004. He has spent the past two years directing a poverty center at the University of North Carolina and traveling the country and world to learn about the problems that will confront the next president.

Digging Deep for the Real 'John Henry'
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The songs sung about John Henry say he knew, when he was a little baby sitting on his mother's knee, that a hammer would be the death of him. ...In 1929, Guy B. Johnsonsic, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, turned the results of his inquiries into John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. Louis W. Chappellsic, a professor of English at West Virginia University, collected testimony from 1925 on, with a special emphasis on the area around Big Bend, W.Va., and published the results in 1933 as John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study.

On The Record, All the Time
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The first day I came home with a digital audio recorder hanging around my neck, along with a sign that said "Warning: This conversation may be recorded," my wife shook her head in a way that conveyed deep embarrassment. ...Jane Greenberg, an associate professor of information and library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is studying the ways that undergraduates use lifelogging tools to enhance their learning in a biology course.

Minor brain hemorrhages seen in 25% of newborns
McClatchy Newspapers
Minor brain hemorrhages occur in about one in four otherwise healthy newborns -- a finding that surprised researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill and could help physicians avoid wrongly accusing parents and caregivers of the child. ...Dr. J. Keith Smith, a UNC radiologist who specializes in brain imaging, said physicians in his field are trained to suspect child abuse when they see intracranial bleeding.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jan07/neonates013007.html

Senior classes
McClatchy Newspapers
The hippie era reminders are coming hot and heavy these days. ..."Our conception of what is old has changed dramatically," says Victor Marshall, director of the Institute on Aging at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Regional Coverage

Morality play
The Boston Globe
Last week, Harvard professor Marc Hauser dropped in to his daughter Sofia's kindergarten class and presented the children with a moral dilemma. ...Jesse Prinz , a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, said in a telephone interview that it seems more likely to him that "morality is a human invention that developed to deal with the complexities of living in large-scale societies" and more of an "add-on" to biology.

Seattle soda maker ends the sweet talk, opts for sugar
The Seattle Times
Peter van Stolk has an abiding enthusiasm for all things Jones Soda. ...But Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, praises Jones for doing it.

Graduated licensing considered
The Hutchinson News (Kansas)
Jessica Suarez turns 14 in May. May 13, in fact. ...Robert Foss, director at the Center for the Study of Young Drivers at the University of North Carolina, said the graduated licensing program was introduced to North Carolina legislators late in the 1995 legislative session.
Related link: http://columbiamissourian.com/news/story.php?ID=24046

Store brands switch niche from generic to upscale
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colo.)
Twenty years ago, store brand meant no-frills generic, the cheapest choice on the shelf. ...With private label, retailers reap higher profits and profit margins; gain greater leverage in negotiating with brand manufacturers; build loyalty; and also win more of the shopper's dollar, say Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, authors of "Private Label Strategy, How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge," to be released this month.

Research shows many local day cares need better staff, facilities
The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk)
Pillows and miniature sofas create a cozy corner for the young pupils at Kids Kollege Learning and Child Care Center in Chesapeake. Pictures of them and their families are posted on the walls. Mirrors hang at their level. ...Over the past few months, Whitener has worked here and at 27 other day care programs in South Hampton Roads to evaluate and improve their quality, based on nationally respected standards developed by researchers at the University of North Carolina.

Regulation and Journalism
The New York Sun
Bill Gates recently observed that within five years the Internet will have revolutionized video distribution so much that current broadcast television will no longer be interesting. ...A professor at the University of North Carolina, Hodding Carter III, is another speaker.

State and Local Coverage

Kinks in the education pipeline (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Here's one person's take on a big North Carolina problem: "The sad truth is that for every 100 eighth-graders in North Carolina today, 58 will graduate from high school, 38 will go to college, 28 will come back for the second year, and only 18 will graduate from college." ...The Carolina Covenant program at UNC-Chapel Hill, guaranteeing that students whose family income is at the lower end of the range will be able to attend without borrowing money to pay tuition and fees, is a prominent sign of that commitment.

University officials urge for aid programs
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
The chancellors of UNC and N.C. State University on Friday called for more colleges to start programs like the Carolina Covenant and the Pack Promise, through which low-income students can graduate debt-free. "There is no more important issue for each of us to address," UNC Chancellor James Moeser said about making college more accessible.
Note: No link available.

UNC-Notre Dame project uses 3,000 U.S. teen surveys
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Moralistic therapeutic deism. It's a mouthful, but it's a sociological way to describe how teens observe religion. ... The National Study of Youth and Religion is a joint project of UNC and Notre Dame. Lisa Pearce, a current member of UNC's sociology department faculty, is working on a book about the second wave of research. The third wave begins this year with interviews with the same young people in the initial survey who have now reached adulthood.
Note: No link available.

Speaker to discuss how teenagers perceive religion
The Durham News
If you think American teen- agers are not interested in religion, you are wrong, according to findings from a National Study of Youth and Religion, an ongoing project that's following 3,290 teens from age 13 to 18. ...In the book, Smith, a sociologist who was at The University of North Carolina for 12 years, describes the beliefs of teenagers as "moralistic therapeutic deism."

Dentists give kids something to smile about
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
They may not know the difference between a bicuspid and an incisor, but the young patients who opened wide to expose their chompers quickly became aware of the need for proper dental care on Friday. Dentists participating in Give Kids a Smile served children in 26 area day care centers across Durham and at the Durham County Health Department.
Related links: http://rdu.news14.com/content/your_news/triad/default.asp?ArID=99524
http://www.wnct.com/content/midatlantic/nct/news.apx.-content-articles-NCT-2007-02-01-0036.html
UNC Media Advisory: http://www.unc.edu/news/media/2007/giveakidasmile013107.html

Tri-County Partners With UNC To Open New Dental Facility
The Dunn Daily Record
Tri-County Community Health Council Inc. celebrated the grand opening of its new 10,000-square-foot dental facility Friday. The center's partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry marks the nation's first partnership between a community/migrant health center and a school of dentistry.

Yale hopes to help limit global warming
The Winston-Salem Journal
Yale is seeing green, but it's not the university's multibillion-dollar endowment. ...At least 70 institutions have adopted commitments to deal with global warming, including Cornell University, Tufts University, Bowdoin College, Middlebury College, the University of California and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to Julie Newman, the director of Yale's Office of Sustainability, who runs a consortium of colleges and universities dealing with the issue.

Students shop for specialized challenges
The Fayetteville Observer
Cumberland County’s school choice programs helps teens focus their academic interests. ...So many new learning academies and magnet schools have opened in recent years that colleges sometimes have a hard time evaluating students who graduate from them, said Steve Farmer, the admissions director for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

3 programs teach teens driver safety
The Charlotte Observer
In 2005, close to 7,500 teenagers (15- to 20-year-olds) were involved in fatal car accidents, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. ...These programs were implemented in Gaston County in 2003 after an examination of three years of traffic data by the UNC Chapel Hill Highway Safety Center found that Gaston County ranked 14th in the state in wrecks among 15- to 20-year-olds.

Tread carefully in social Web sites
The Charlotte Observer
As the parent of a high school senior and a college junior, I have watched with interest, and more than a little concern, as my young adults have participated in online communities such Facebook and MySpace. ...Studies by Fred Stutzman, a UNC Chapel Hill doctoral student, indicate that almost all UNC freshman students join Facebook. Although Facebook provides privacy settings, I was dismayed to learn that 90 percent of freshmen don't use them.

The East runs N.C.? Not in the House (Opinion column)
The Charlotte Observer
Conventional wisdom has it that the state's Eastern region traditionally controls N.C. politics -- and has since the days when cotton was king and tobacco just another crop. ...I am reminded of this by professor Ferrel Guillory, a longtime newsman who now teaches and runs the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill. Guillory likes to keep track of all things Southern, and enjoys nothing so much as a good bowl of gumbo and the opportunity to puncture a widely held Southern myth -- such as the notion that the House belongs to the East.

Luxuries are things you wouldn't buy if no one saw you use them (Question-answer)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Q: What's happening in the market for luxury goods? A: One of the main things in the market for luxury goods is thinking about how do you get customers to buy more of these goods for across-usage occasions or, for example, usage in different contexts. ...Sridhar Balasubramanian is an associate professor of marketing at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.

At college, students are still political (Opinion column)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The front page of The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper, was dominated Monday by a story reporting on the anti-war rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Screening flags illegal workers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For more than a decade, it has been an open secret that many of the 5,000 workers at Smithfield Packing Co.'s gigantic Bladen County slaughterhouse were illegal immigrants. ..."If there are some sensational things, like big raids or a wall built, or even talk of building a wall, that gives politicians some cover to say, 'Look, I'm getting tough. Now I'm going to vote for immigration reform,' " said Altha Cravey, a UNC-Chapel Hill geography professor who is writing a book on Mexican migration.

Board to explore documentation rule
The Lexington Dispatch
During campaign season, several local politicians talked about their concern for the growing number of illegal immigrants in Davidson County. ...A study completed by the University of North Carolina's Kenan School of Private Enterprise estimated that 76 percent of those who migrated to the state from outside the country between 1995 and 2004 did so without proper documentation.

EDC plans to hold talks on megasite
The Lexington Dispatch
Googe urges privacy in recruitment efforts. ...Neither the Davidson County Board of Commissioners nor the county's Economic Development Commission is required to release the names of companies seeking incentives at public hearings, Googe said, citing the opinion of N.C. Government scholars John Morgan and David Lawrence from the University of North Carolina's School of Government.

Issues and Trends

Bowles calls for 'refocus' of UNC
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Universities have to become more relevant and responsive to North Carolina's changing economy, much like the state's community colleges, UNC President Erskine Bowles said Friday at N.C. State University. "We are much more supply driven," Bowles said of the UNC system. "We do what we durn well want to."
Related link: http://dwb.newsobserver.com/news/ncwire_news/story/3021188p-9440691c.html

Banking on Design
The Winston-Salem Journal
Thom Proctor, an Oklahoma resident, is interested in composing music for motion pictures. ...The University of North Carolina board of governors contributed $2 million to help build the center's research-park offices. The center will primarily receive money from government grants, charitable donations and corporate sponsorships.

Big Money (Editorial)
The Winston-Salem Journal
If the public needs proof that it costs big money to have a voice in Raleigh, Democracy North Carolina has it. ...The Citizens for Higher Education PAC, a group of wealthy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill boosters who want a greater say in the running of the state's flagship campus, is the second-leading contributor to legislators.

Dropout rate likely to increase with tougher standards
The Kinston Free Press
I read in the Thursday, Feb. 1 edition of The Free Press that the dropout rate for Lenoir County Schools increased from 5.66 percent to 7.43 percent in a single year. In raw figures, the number of dropouts increased from 179 during the 2004-2005 school year to 246 for the 2005-2006 school year. ... But this state does not have the right or responsibility to ensure that every student meets requirements to enter a member institution of the University of North Carolina in order for that student to earn a high school diploma.

AlphaVax lands $12.7 million
The Triangle Business Journal
AlphaVax said Friday it has raised $12.7 million in its fifth funding round. ...AlphaVax, which owns a vaccine technology based on research done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that existing investors supplied the majority of the $12.7 million.

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.