June 7, 2002

Carolina in the News

Current International Coverage

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

Fossils show tropical plants grew in Arctic 420 million years ago
The National Post (Canada)
Some of the oldest tropical plants in the world have been discovered locked in the permafrost 
on a windswept island in the Canadian Arctic...
...No other site in the world boasts such a rich collection of long extinct plants, the scientists 
say. "They are the earliest ever found of this size, complexity and degree of diversification," 
says Professor Patricia Gensel, a paleobotanist at the University of North Carolina. He 
helped chip the fossils out of the permafrost.
http://www.nationalpost.com/tech/story.html?f=/stories/20020607/481280.html

(Note: This story originated from a UNC News Services release 
(http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jun02/gensel2274051502.htm). Other pick-up known to 
date includes coverage in two German science publications: Innovations Report 
(http://www.innovations-report.com/berichte/ansicht_ctyp1.php3?id=10459) and Wissenschaft-
online (the U.S. equivalent of Scientific American.)

State and Local Coverage

The right approach at UNC (Commentary)
Just what kind of subversive pinkos are we supporting with our tax dollars at UNC-Chapel 
Hill, anyway? How dare they attempt to expose the impressionable minds of incoming 
freshmen to a book about -- EGAD! -- the Quran?
http://newsobserver.com/news/triangle/story/1442864p-1474695c.html

Would college assign reading from Bible? (Letter to the Editor)
Greensboro News and Record
Once again I was very disappointed with the comments in your editorial May 30 ("Reading 
requirement doesn't proselytize"). This editorial concerned the assignment of a reading from 
the Quran for freshmen at UNC-Chapel Hill. If this had been a free choice for the student, 
I would have no problem...
http://www.news-record.com/news/opinions/letters/frilets07.htm
(Note: To view letter, please scroll down halfway down the web page.)

Peeling the Orange
The future UNC Arts Common that will eventually connect to East Franklin Street via Porthole 
Alley will be a déjà vu. The campus end of this drive was in an earlier era a row of fraternity 
houses. Remnants of those remain as Evergreen House and the former County Health 
Department office...
An architectural nod to the old (north) campus is evident in the newest buildings on UNC’s 
South Campus. Atop each of the four (as yet unnamed) residence halls on Manning Drive is 
a square ornamental cupola, formally known as a clerestory....
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-234791.html

POLICE PACT: Limited town power for campus police OK (Editorial)
One wonders how the UNC Department of Public Safety personnel felt about being referred 
to as a “foreign police force” during discussion about giving campus officers some powers in 
town...
...UNC Police Chief Derek Poarch promised the good conduct of his personnel. Chapel 
Hill’s police commanders are to be told when his officers work off campus. It will be stressed 
that university officers have no traffic enforcement powers. 
http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/chhedits/57-234825.html

Disabled but undeterred 
...Three years ago, a bullet put Tina M. Harris of Raleigh in a wheelchair. The attack at a 
friend's home, which has police still searching for a suspect, paralyzed her legs...
...Jennifer M. Rellick of Chapel Hill was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a motor neuron 
condition that makes her muscles too weak for her to stand or to dress herself...
...Rellick has struggled to land work despite graduating with a double major in political 
science and philosophy from St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg a decade ago 
and earning a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996...
...Frustrated, Rellick went back to school, and in May, she earned a master's degree in public 
health.
http://newsobserver.com/business/rtp_nc/story/1430242p-1463091c.html

UNC Medical Students Working To Bridge Language Gap
Spanish Language Classes Growing In Popularity
WRAL-TV (CBS - Raleigh)
At UNC Hospitals, Ruben Gonzalez is in demand all day long. He is not a doctor or a nurse; 
Gonzalez is a Spanish translator. 
http://www.wral.com/Health/1497086/detail.html

Issues and Trends Affecting Carolina

Harvard to Open Its Early-Action Admissions Plan to Applicants for Early Decision Elsewhere
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Harvard University will change its admissions policies to allow students applying under the 
university's early-action program -- in which applicants find out early if they were accepted, 
but do not make any commitments to attend -- to also apply to other colleges' early-decision 
programs, in which students find out early if they are accepted and commit to enroll if they are. 
However, Harvard officials did not say whether a student who was accepted under another 
college's binding early-decision program could enroll at Harvard if admitted at both institutions. 
http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/06/2002060701n.htm
(Note: The Chronicle of Higher Education requires a subscription to access articles.)

Suspect Said Went to School in U.S.
The New York Times
The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror attacks was well-traveled: Born in 
Kuwait, he went to college in North Carolina, fought Soviets in Afghanistan, plotted attacks 
against Americans from the Philippines...
...Officials at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina A&T State 
University in Greensboro and UNC-Charlotte said they had no records of a student by that 
name -- or any of the aliases listed for Mohammed on the FBI's Web site -- attending in the 
1980s.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Terror-Chief.html
(Note: The New York Times requires free registration to access articles.)

Council to consider panhandling permit
The Town Council will consider a proposal Monday to give the town more authority over 
panhandling and other forms of soliciting contributions in the downtown area and elsewhere 
around Chapel Hill. Requiring people to get an official permit from the town before doing certain 
types of soliciting is a key element of the proposal. The permit requirement would apply to all 
people begging for money or others seeking contributions in a public place, as well as door-to-
door solicitors and salespeople. 
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-234816.html

Diversity enhances education (Opinion-Editorial Column)
Charlotte Observer
Few parents are willing to sacrifice their children's education on the alter of some abstract value 
even if, in principle, they adhere to it. Thus, even as most parents say they want their children to 
attend a diverse school, many parents continue to fight for and send their children to neighborhood 
schools, which in most cases virtually guarantees that there will be little to no diversity among 
those children's classmates.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/3394881.htm

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, 
please call Cathleen Keyser or Mike McFarland at News Services, 
(919) 962-2091 or news@unc.edu or mike_mcfarland@unc.edu