March 16, 2005

Carolina in the News

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

National Note

UNC-Chapel Hill is one of 81 colleges and universities selected by The Princeton Review and Campus Compact for inclusion in a new college guide due out in June, "Colleges with a Conscience: An Engaged Student's Guide to College." The book highlights socially responsible colleges and universities and showcases campuses that have made an institutional commitment to engagement in their communities. Campus Compact is a coalition of more than 900 college and university presidents committed to the civic purposes of higher education. Carolina is one of four N.C.campuses included on the list. The others are Elon, North Carolina State and Duke.

National Coverage

Charges of money ties in AIDS drug probe
The Associated Press (National)
Two-thirds of the members serving on an expert medical panel investigating a U.S.-funded AIDS study are receiving grant money from the federal agency at the center of the probe, according to documents and interviews.....Dr. Charles van der Horst of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who helped oversee a multimillion-dollar NIH study on the side effects of AIDS medicines.

What brings teens to God, to church?
Knight Ridder News Services
I've always thought that a lot of teenagers hang out at a house of worship for the same reason a lot of other teenagers hang out at the mall.....The National Study of Youth and Religion based at UNC-Chapel Hill found that teens generally say they feel close to God.

From Rivals to Running Mates to Rivals
The New York Times
John Kerry and John Edwards, rivals turned running mates in the last presidential campaign, have become rivals once again, assembling competing political networks, jostling for attention and staking out ideological turf in preparation for a potential rematch in 2008....Over the last month, Mr. Edwards, who did not run for a second term in the Senate in order to seek the presidency, founded a center at the University of North Carolina to study poverty.
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State & Local Coverage

Plan rattles UNC doctors
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
UNC Health Care in Chapel Hill is considering tying its physicians' pay to performance -- a change that has some doctors worried about a pay cut....Dr. William L. Roper, the UNC system's chief executive, has said that the changes are needed to improve the system's financial health.

Goldsboro High Student gets top scholarship offers
News-Argus (Goldsboro)
Goldsboro High School senior Ashelyn Nicole James has been named the recipient of two prestigious college scholarships, the Morehead Scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Park Scholarship to N.C. State University.

Exhibit shows patients' creativity, educates public about mental illness
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
Everyone feels alone at times....She connects to others through her pen-and-ink drawings, on display now in the gallery "Brushes with Life: Art, Artists and Mental Illness," located on the third floor of the UNC Neurosciences Hospital.

UNC confirms 3rd case of meningitis
The Chapel Hill Herald
Another UNC-Chapel Hill student has been diagnosed with meningitis, the third case of the disease contracted by students at the university in recent months.

Commissioners say county schools need more money
The Chapel Hill Herald
The county likely will have to plow more money into the Orange County Schools so the district can hire social workers and other support personnel to improve student achievement, Orange County Commissioners said Tuesday night....The UNC study, spearheaded by former School of Education dean Madeline Grumet, said the county schools have to beef up teacher- and student-support efforts to address a tailoff in student achievement that begins when children hit middle school.

Antiques store watches global shifts
The Chapel Hill Herald
For the first few years they were in business, Jacques and Wendy Dufour went to France three or four times a year, each time filling a massive shipping container with antiques to sell in their Chatham County shop....That approach not only makes sense, it's absolutely necessary for many small businesses, said James Johnson, a management professor at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

State program aims to prevent preterm births
The Associated Press (N.C.)
While the state has seen improvements in the past decade in births to teenagers and the number of mothers smoking during pregnancy, the number of preterm births and low birth-weight babies remains high, according to an annual report that tracks the health of South Carolina's children....The University of North Carolina did a study in the late 1990s that showed pregnant women with gum disease were about eight times more likely than usual to deliver dangerously small premature babies.

Activists win victory over town on records
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For almost two years, Whispering Pines businessman Joe Stout and four other Moore County residents have battled a local government they believe makes bad decisions in secret....At the meeting, the council heard from David Lawrence, a professor at the Institute of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Issues & Trends

Moody's Predicts Stable Outlook for Public and Private Colleges in 2005
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Colleges and universities, both public and private, can look forward to stable credit ratings this year, according to a report released on Tuesday by Moody's Investors Service.
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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.