March 24, 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

Fewer start-ups spawned on university campuses
USA Today
Amid scarce start-up money, the number of young companies spun off by universities is tumbling - pinching revenue needed to dampen tuition increases....Scarce venture capital for very young firms has caused the start-up decline, says AUTM President Mark Crowell. "It's a tougher world," says Crowell, associate vice chancellor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Cheering for what? (Opinion-Editorial Column)
Orlando Sentinel
Like millions around the country, I have spent many hours watching the games of March Madness....But there is good news. Three schools graduated more than 70 percent of their African-American student-athletes: the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (83 percent), University of Wisconsin (75 percent) and Villanova (71 percent).

State & Local Coverage

Surgeons successfully rebuild girl's head
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A month after surgery to rebuild her head, an 8-year-old Mexican girl joined her parents, doctors and marketing people from UNC Hospitals on Friday in a news conference to display the results.

Dwindling options (Editorial)
The Daily Tar Heel
With the long-awaited opening of the luxurious Rams Head Center, more than just South Campus life will change. Lenoir Dining Hall's hours of operation will be reduced now that the new center is here.

Stemming the leaf
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
John Blackfeather learned from his elders in the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation that tobacco is sacred....In 2001, the N.C. Commission on Indian Affairs joined forces with UNC-Chapel Hill and West Virginia University to lay the groundwork for the American Indian Not On Tobacco project and the Many Voices, One Message: Stop Tobacco Addiction initiative.

Case called ripe for review
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Backers of a proposed commission that would review North Carolina inmates' claims of innocence said Wednesday that the case of Howard Dudley shows the value of such a group...."If you ever saw a reason for the new commission, this case is one," said Rich Rosen, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor.

Jazz artist to sing at benefit concert
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jazz artist and five-time Grammy nominee Nnenna Freelon will perform a benefit concert at 8 p.m. today for the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the UNC-Chapel Hill.

Judge, district attorney sworn in
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The line of succession that began in 1978 when Wade Barber met a young bartender named Carl Fox took another step forward Wednesday afternoon as Barber swore in Fox as a Superior Court judge and Fox, in turn, swore in his assistant, Jim Woodall, as district attorney....The judge joked that Fox was so highly respected at UNC he was a professor even while he was still a student. "

Board: Alcohol should be option at concerts
The Chapel Hill Herald
Although the downtown development board has yet to decide what to do with the annual summer concert series, it believes the sale of alcohol at such events should at least be an option....Its creation was necessary because the development board wasn't prepared Wednesday to make an informed decision on summer entertainment, said Nancy Suttenfield, a UNC vice chancellor and member of the board.

Issues & Trends

Getting Benched
Time Magazine
Jim Calhoun, head men's basketball coach at the University of Connecticut, had just won his 700th career game as a college coach last Wednesday, and the 10,000 fans at the sold-out Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Conn., were going wild, waving placards that read "700." Boosted by Calhoun and his two national titles, including last year's championship, UConn is no longer a "cow college" between Hartford and nowhere. It's a high-powered name, on TV every week during the season, with applications and donations booming. But of all the young men who have helped bring Calhoun glory over the past several years, just 27% graduated from the school.
Note: A graphic, not available online, shows in NCAA tournament bracket style that UNC-Chapel Hill has the best athletic graduation rate.

Life on Tobacco Road
ESPN
I wake to find that someone has sutured my eyelids together and poured cement into my nostrils....I'm on Tobacco Road, where North Carolina, Duke and N.C. State are so close to one another that the only thing separating them is mutual disdain.

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.