January 10, 2005

Carolina in the News

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

National Coverage

Bringing Life to Physics Class
"All Thing Considered" National Public Radio
A University of North Carolina professor is doing his best to shatter the myth that physics classes are difficult and boring.

Goal-setting takes a timely effort
Chicago Tribune
At its Chicago headquarters, Radio Flyer Inc. has designated a special room for the future...."It's one of the extraordinarily powerful ways to build a business," said leadership expert Gerald Bell, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Weekend Weight Warriors
Better Homes & Gardens
It turns out there are three reasons for many people's weight gain: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday...."People don't work, they party, they watch football games, they tailgate, and they go out to dinner," says Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health.....

Affirmative Action, Relatively Speaking
The Chronicle of Higher Education
If you are employed full time by a selective college, there is a good chance that your institution is willing to bend its admissions standards to enroll your child...."Part of the issue for us is that we are public," says Stephen M. Farmer, assistant provost and director of undergraduate admissions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Subscription required.

The City Shall Rise Again: Urban Resilience in the Wake of Disaster (Essay)
The Chronicle of Higher Education
On December 26...an earthquake-powered tsunami flattened the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh on Sumatra, and spread death and devastation across more than a dozen countries from Thailand to Somalia....Lawrence J. Vale is a professor of urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thomas J. Campanella is an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Subscription required..

Tardy to Class
Houston Chronicle
With the creation of a new office of inspector general to probe suspected cheating on TAKS performance tests, Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abe Saavedra proclaimed a new commitment to integrity at the district....The University of North Carolina's Gregory Cizek told the Chronicle's Jason Spencer that school districts who police themselves rather than hiring outside security consultants are setting up potential conflicts of interest.

Bankruptcy linked to medical bills
The Salt Lake Tribune
Tammi Northam bought gas at the Flying J, buckled her seat belt, and, four miles north of Snowville, blacked out behind the wheel of her car...."The policy debate on health care used to be: Are people insured or are they uninsured? And, is it making them sicker or die earlier?" says [Melissa] Jacoby, now a University of North Carolina law professor.

Regional Coverage

Extra pounds cause trouble later in life
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
If you think yinz is fat, check out the Steelers' locker room....Today, [Kevin] Guskiewicz directs the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina. A 2001 report from his center found that three of five NFL vets exercised about four days a week, activity that helps lower body weight, body fat and blood pressure.

State & Local Coverage

UNC business team will head to Beijing
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
A team from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School will head to China next month to help officials in Beijing prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Set up plan for dealing with prolonged grief (Question and Answer)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Margaret Miles is a UNC-CH professor of nursing with expertise in grief. She helped survivors of a 1981 hotel walkway collapse in Kansas City and of Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina in 1999.

Visitor sees progress in Ukrainian revote (Question and Answer)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jonathan Weiler, an adjunct assistant professor of Russian and East European studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, has been fascinated by the politics of Russia and the former Soviet bloc for much of his academic career.

Joan Siefert Rose
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
One of the first things Joan Siefert Rose learned when she took the job as general manager of WUNC (91.5 FM) four years ago was that listeners wanted news.

Ray Dooley
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Ray Dooley's acting career spans a quarter of a century, from Broadway to regional theaters and abroad. In the last 15 years, his theatrical home has been at PlayMakers Repertory Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he is a professor and chairman of the university's Department of Dramatic Art.

UNC likely to keep name on building
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
It doesn't appear likely that UNC will agree to take Cornelia Phillips Spencer's name off a residence hall, as her descendants have requested.

Moeser regrets family's anger
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Chancellor James Moeser wants descendants of Cornelia Phillips Spencer to know that he has high esteem for their relative, despite scrapping an award set up nearly 11 years ago to commemorate a moment in her life.

A prominent family in UNC history wants its name removed from a dormitory
WUNC-FM
The Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award honored top women at UNC-Chapel Hill. Spencer is best known for tolling the South Building bell to mark the reopening of the university in 1875.

Spencer name should stay -- on the hall (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
Who is Alderman? And Everett, who is he -- or she? Winston? Whitehead? Teague? Do you know their first names or what they did? They are, for those of you not familiar with student housing at UNC, the names of residence halls on campus. They are named, of course, for prominent figures associated with the university. And so, too, is Spencer Residence Hall.

North Carolina Newspapers
"The State of Things" WUNC-FM
When Durham's Herald-Sun newspaper was bought by Paxton Media Group last week, it left just one independently owned major metro in the state: the Fayetteville Observer....She also talks with Jock Lauterer, professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School about the state of community journalism in North Carolina; and with Phil Meyer, UNC-Chapel Hill professor of journalism.
Note: This program will rebroadcast tonight at 9 p.m.

Ready for take off
News & Record (Greensboro)
It's 8 a.m. on a Monday somewhere in the Triad on Interstate 40 in 2010...."There is no better site on the East Coast for overall cost of operations, availability of labor and access to other cities," said John Kasarda, director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

The future is fuzzy for several airlines
News 14 (Time Warner, Raleigh)
The airline industry faces an uncertain future...."Some airlines might not make it," said John Kasarda, an expert from the University of North Carolina.

Red tide could aid cystic fibrosis
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Could anything good come from the scourge of red tide?....Richard Boucher, director of a prominent cystic fibrosis research and treatment center at UNC-Chapel Hill, said questions remain about the potential of the Wilmington discovery.

Foster helps set up telescopes in Chile
The Charlotte Observer
Drew Foster spent a few weeks in Chile last month to help set up telescopes with a group from UNC Chapel Hill. Foster, a freshman, and three others from UNC went to Chile in December to work on PROMPT, or Panachromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescope.

Shirley Chisholm blazed her own trail (Commentary)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Boy, it must've been fun being a reporter in New York during the early to mid-1970s....Chuck Stone, a journalism professor at UNC-Chapel Hill who was special assistant to New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell when Chisholm was elected, remembers her as "fiercely independent. She was a way-paver, paving the way for others. Adam was always proud of her."

New chapter for librarian: Alford, 45, to lead Temple University's system
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
Larry Alford drew his first paycheck from the UNC library system in 1970, as a 20-year-old student manning the circulation desk.

Issues & Trends

Our Hidden Savings (Commentary)
Business Week
Americans don't set aside much. But include R&D and education spending, and the picture changes.

A Savings Crisis? Maybe Not (Editorial)
Business Week
You hear it all the time: Americans don't save enough. Foreigners warn that the government doesn't save enough to finance its budget deficits. Economists worry that consumers don't save enough to finance growth....When the U.S. government calculates savings, the official statistics count spending on education and research and development as "consumption," which is then subtracted from the country's savings rate.

State University of New York Plan Limits Increases in Tuition
The New York Times
The chancellor of the State University of New York proposed sweeping changes yesterday in the way the university sets its tuition, guaranteeing that each class of entering students would not face tuition increases for four years, beginning this fall.
Registration required.

Tuition inflation spurs calls for congressional action
Investor's Business Daily
With college costs running as high as $40,000 a year, House and Senate education committees have tuition control on their to-do lists.

NCAA President Paints a Rosy Portrait of College Sports, as Critics Call for Reforms
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, told people attending its convention here on Saturday that the following are myths: that college sports are more about sports than college, that college sports are only about the money and that athletes are pawns, that amateur sports are no more, and that Mr. Brand himself is the czar of college sports.
Subscription required.

ACC pulls back on proposal
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The Atlantic Coast Conference has withdrawn a proposal that would have given Division I football players a fifth year of eligibility over a five-year period, ACC commissioner John Swofford said at the 2005 NCAA Convention on Friday.

Friday fights for balance in athletics
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
University of North Carolina president emeritus William Friday will receive the NCAA President's Gerald R. Ford Award at the 2005 NCAA Convention in Grapevine, Texas....

Business lobbyist eyes UNC system job
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Phil Kirk, the state's chief business lobbyist and former chairman of the state Board of Education, is being considered for a top post in the University of North Carolina system.

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.