January 8, 2004

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

National Coverage

Bush, pope sued over slavery
Chicago Tribune
A former Black Panther filed a class-action slavery reparation lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court, seeking restitution from 71 defendants ranging from President Bush and the pope to European monarchs and major corporations...."In a very short period of time, it's something that has just catapulted into the nation's consciousness," said Adrienne Davis, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, who served on the Litigation Committee for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America.

State and Local Coverage

UNC considers shift in tuition policies
The Herald-Sun
UNC trustees may soon make significant changes to the university's tuition policies, making a Carolina education quite a bit more expensive for out-of-state students....Jerry Lucido, UNC's director of undergraduate admissions, said he would be "comfortable" with a university decision to take on a more aggressive pricing strategy, because while tuition has risen fairly significantly over the last several years anyway, interest and the quality level of applicants remains high.

Out-of-state tuition could leap
The News & Observer
Out-of-state students at UNC-Chapel Hill are likely to get hit hard with tuition increases -- as much as $1,500 more next year and perhaps up to $6,000 more over several years.

Nonresidents may see tuition hike
The Daily Tar Heel
Nonresident students could face a potential $6,000 three-year tuition hike if members of the University's governing board follow through on Wednesday's discussions to place rates on the higher end of market prices. Such a move would place UNC- Chapel Hill's nonresident tuition at a level comparable to that of its most expensive peer institutions.

Reed leads computing Renaissance
The Daily Tar Heel
An expert on high-speed computing and a member of President Bush's Information Technology Advisory Committee, Daniel Reed is a big fish swimming at the forefront of a technological typhoon. Now, he's also a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill's Department of Computer Science and the recipient of the first of 10 planned $3 million Kenan Eminent Professorships.

'Zipcars' to cut UNC traffic
The Herald-Sun
Need to zip out to an appointment, mail a letter, run some other errand?...If you work on the UNC campus, doing so isn't always so easy. You can walk, take a bus, bum a ride, or, if you're lucky enough to pay for campus parking, you can take your own car.

UNC Self-Service Taxis Have Bit Of Zip
WRAL-TV (CBS, Raleigh)
Beetlemania is sweeping through Chapel Hill. The Fab Four arrived at University of North Carolina campus Wednesday. This time they are not driving fans crazy, but driving them wherever they want to go.

Immunity policy a balancing act
The News & Observer
Under state law, the city of Durham doesn't have to pay people injured by city employees doing essential city business....In North Carolina, municipalities are immune from liability claims if the incident, injury or damage occurred in the
course of duties such as fire and police protection that have been traditionally
performed only by governments, said Anita Brown-Graham, an associate
professor of public law and government at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Federal regulations could overturn N.C. lending law
N.C. Associated Press
Federal regulators finalized rules Wednesday potentially overturning a landmark
North Carolina law designed to protect consumers from abusive home lending
practices....A study released in June by the Center for Community Capitalism
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that loans to borrowers
with poor credit histories increased by 31 percent since the law was fully
implemented in 2000.

Plastics concern leaving Raleigh for Zebulon, will add jobs
Triangle Business Journal
A plastics molding company will leave Raleigh and move to a manufacturing facility
to be built in an industrial park taking shape near Five County Stadium....In
November, the Office of Economic Development at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill released a report identifying competitive industry clusters
that could be developed in the Triangle region. Among industries identified to have a
competitive advantage was chemicals and plastics.

Study explores reactions to dust (Footnote)
The News & Observer
If ever there were a good reason to hand over dusting duties to someone else,
asthmatics can now turn to a study released recently by the UNC-Chapel Hill
School of Medicine. The study, published in the online December issue of the
Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, says exposure to endotoxin, a bacterial
substance found in outdoor and indoor air, makes mite-allergic asthmatics more
sensitive to house dust and may place them at increased risk of an asthma attack.
The study involved 14 participants with mild asthma for whom skin testing showed
allergies to house dust mites. Study participants inhaled relatively low levels of
endotoxin over four hours that approximated levels found in some homes and office
buildings. Participants then underwent an "allergen challenge test" to identify the
dose that causes their airways to constrict. That dose is called a person's provocation dose, said study co-author Dr. Neil Alexis, assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of allergy, immunology and environmental medicine. "We found that when allergic individuals breathe endotoxin prior to their allergen challenge, they in fact became more sensitive to the allergen challenge," he said.
Note: This article was not available online.

Issues and Trends

State Spending on Colleges Drops Over All for First Time in 11 Years
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The economy as a whole may be improving, but don't tell that to public colleges, which had one of their worst years ever this year in terms of getting money from their states.
(Subscription required.)

Universities may get to set tuition
The Seattle Times
The lingering recession and a growing clamor by business to better fund higher education have lawmakers contemplating letting universities set tuition for in-state undergraduate students.
(Subscription required.)

Magazine Ranks ACC Commissioner and U. of Miami President Among Most Powerful People in Sports
The Chronicle of Higher Education
John D. Swofford, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, was the fifth-most-powerful person in American sports in 2003, according to The Sporting News. The magazine, which on Wednesday published its annual list of the 100 most powerful people in sports, also ranked James E. Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, at No. 30 and Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, at No. 38.

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, please call Russell Campbell at News Services, (919) 962-2091, russell_campbell@unc.edu, or Mike McFarland in University Communications, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu

Note: Web links on this page are time-sensitive, so stories might not be available after the day they first appeared.