March 26, 2007

Carolina in the News

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

International Coverage

NFL forms plan to help ailing ex-players
The Associated Press (International)
As John Mackey’s dementia got worse, the costs were piling up for Sylvia Mackey. ...A 2003 University of North Carolina study found that 263 of 2,500 retired NFL players studied – more than 10 percent – said concussions may have had a permanent effect on their ability to think and remember as they got older.

Preschool teacher education alone unlikely to improve classroom quality or learning
FirstScience (United Kingdom)
Policymakers are increasingly requiring that public preschool teachers have at least a bachelor’s degree, preferably in early childhood education. ...A group of researchers led by scholars at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at seven major studies of preschool classrooms.

Water filters reduce diarrhea in Dominican Republic
Dominican Today (Santo Domingo)
According to a press release from Science Daily, a simple, affordable household filtration device can reduce the incidence of diarrhea, one of the leading causes of disease and death in developing countries, by up to 40 percent, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/filter031907.html

National Coverage

10 Colleges Get $1-Million Grants
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation announced last week that it will award $1-million grants to 10 colleges to help high-achieving, low-income students pursue higher education. ...The University of North Carolina and the National College Access Network, an association of scholarship and college-counseling programs, will establish the National College Advising Corps Office, in Chapel Hill, to coordinate the 11 institutional programs and to encourage other colleges to start similar projects.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/jackkentcooke032107.html

Student who played UNC mascot dies
The Associated Press (National)
Jason Ray, the North Carolina student who performed as a mascot for the school's basketball team, died three days after he was struck by a car hours before an NCAA tournament game. He was 21. Ray died Monday morning, said Steve Kirschner, the university's associate athletic director for communications.
Related link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=aAQAa5ZEXVhM&refer=home
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/jasonray032607.html

Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care
The New York Times
A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade. ...Every year spent in such centers for at least 10 hours per week was associated with a 1 percent higher score on a standardized assessment of problem behaviors completed by teachers, said Dr. Margaret Burchinal, a co-author of the study and a psychologist at the University of North Carolina.

Quality is key to brand battle
The Los Angeles Times
You know that awful feeling when you walk out onstage in front of thousands of ecstatic fans, and it turns out that half the women in the front row are wearing the same outfit as you? ...Professors Nirmalya Kumar of London Business School and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp of the University of North Carolina knew of no other concise summary of the private-label-versus-premium-brand phenomenon — or none that looked at the implications of this clash for retailers and manufacturers alike.

Soda drinkers consume more calories
USA Today
People who drink sugary soft drinks do not appear to compensate by reducing calories somewhere else in their diets, so they tend to pack on extra pounds, Yale University researchers report today. ...Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina says this new study should help schools decide what to offer students. "What we need in school vending machines are water, skim milk and 1%-fat milk."

Measuring Wealth of the '08 Candidates
The Washington Post
Perhaps only one word can be used to describe all of the leading presidential contenders: multimillionaire. ...Edwards had a long career as a successful trial lawyer before running for office. He recently sold his Georgetown home for $5.2 million and is building a 100 acre-plus estate near Chapel Hill worth at least $6 million. After leaving office, he led a poverty center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

A Tiny Knock Out
ScienceNOW Daily News
Geneticists often say that the way to figure out how a gene works is to delete it and see what happens. ...Scott Hammond, a molecular biologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says he was struck by the microRNA's precise effects: "It's only in adults; it's only under certain stress conditions" that the abnormalities appear, he notes. Hammond and others expect many more stories about microRNAs and disease to come.

Regional Coverage

Manure happens -- managing it as compost is key
The San Francisco Chronicle
The turbulent regulatory aftermath of the recent outbreaks of E. coli in spinach and lettuce risks making manure a dirty word and use of manure suspect. ...Incorporating manure into the soil speeds the degradation of manure pathogens. "The soil microbes are going to outcompete microbial pathogens for nutrients," said Otto "Chip" Simmons of the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health.

Saf-T-Net news article still dialing up business
Redding Record-Searchlight (Calif.)
Saf-T-Net's 15 minutes of fame are still reverberating. The Raleigh, N.C., company, which makes parent-notification software for schools, has seen customer inquiries double since it was mentioned last week in The Wall Street Journal. ...A mention in a reputable publication, particularly one that contrasts a business positively against its competition, can be more valuable to a company than paid advertisements, said Sridhar Balasubramanian, a marketing professor at University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler School of Business in Chapel Hill.

State and Local Coverage

Carolina North holds vast promise (Opinion-editorial column)
The Chapel Hill Herald
On Tuesday the university will host the first in a series of community meetings to share preliminary conceptual ideas about how we might develop Carolina North so residents, students, faculty and staff can share their reactions and feedback. ...James Moeser is chancellor of UNC Chapel Hill.
UNC Media Advisory: http://www.unc.edu/news/media/2007/cnorthadvisory032607.html

New program will help open doors (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
A new program announced last week will send recent UNC graduates into high schools in the state to help low-income students navigate the process of searching and applying for college and financial aid. It's a great idea. The application forms, deadlines, fees and other aspects of applying for college can be daunting, especially for families in difficult circumstances or who don't have much experience in untangling the red tape that goes with the territory.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/jackkentcooke032107.html

High-school advising program finds base at UNC
The Daily Tar Heel
UNC has entered a $1 million partnership with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to create a national college advising program. The partnership, which was announced Wednesday and includes nine other colleges and universities, will be called the National College Advising Corps and will be headquartered at UNC's Jackson Hall.

UNC astronomer coaxes Mercury's hidden half
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A UNC-Chapel Hill astronomer captured rare photographs of Mercury on Friday. He did it by aiming a telescope 4,599 miles away in Chile at a planet 91 million miles from Earth. "There are only a few objects left unseen in the solar system. One is that hemisphere of Mercury," astrophysicist Gerald Cecil said.

Meet Jim Johnson
"The State of Things," WUNC-FM
Meet Jim Johnson: Director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center and distinguished professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill. He believes in applying business principles to social change, and it's working.

UNC students turn out to support injured classmate
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
On a sun-soaked day, while classmates chatted and laughed at tables nearby, more than 30 UNC-Chapel Hill students quietly joined hands and prayed for Jason Ray. Ray, a 21-year-old student from Concord who portrayed the university's mascot, remained in critical condition Monday morning in the surgical intensive care unit at a Hackensack, N.J., hospital.
Related link: http://charlotte.com/109/story/63423.html

Foreign studies come home
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Robin McMahon called on her students Friday morning from across the Atlantic. ...For 45 minutes the students who didn't go on the 10-day trip to France and Belgium sat in a high-tech UNC-Chapel Hill conference room attached to the middle school and asked the students abroad what they were eating, whom they were staying with, and what they were learning about the European Union.
UNC Media Advisory: http://www.unc.edu/news/media/2007/teleconferenceadvisory032107.html

UNC Tests New Breast Cancer Treatment
WNCN-TV (NBC, Raleigh)
John and Elizabeth Edwards are attending a fund-raiser in California a day after announcing that her cancer has returned. ...Deep inside UNC's Lineberger Cancer Center, a researcher tests a vaccine that could help keep women and men alive by boosting the body's ability to fight breast cancer.

UNC professor writes about competition by Southern writers
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Reporters and editors use the phrase "inside baseball" to dismiss arcane or esoteric items as not being newsworthy -- of interest to a small group of the faithful, but not to the wide reading public we try to reach. ...The only reason this "inside literature" spat gets mention here is that local author Marianne Gingher, who teaches at UNC, very briefly mentions the incident in her essay "True Confessions from a Southern Writers' Love Fest," in the Winter 2007 edition of The Southern Review quarterly.

UNC panel skeptical of index proposal
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC Faculty Council members expressed some skepticism on Friday about a proposal to put a new performance measure alongside grade-point averages on students' transcripts.
Note: No link available.

Making the best of big-box hopscotch
The Charlotte Observer
Call it the big-box shuffle: One big retailer heads for richer pastures up the street and, if a city is lucky, another takes its place. ...At stake are local character and quality of life. Particularly because of their size, big boxes are "a public asset as well as a private asset, not just a store that somebody owns," noted Emil Malizia, a professor of city and regional planning at UNC Chapel Hill.

Company helps newspapers boost advertising revenue
The Fayetteville Observer
A company in Fayetteville is helping newspapers make more money with television listings. ...Average profit margins have dipped below 20 percent, down from a high of about 40 percent, said Philip Meyer, a Knight professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina. Meyer wrote the book “The Vanishing Newspaper.”

Successful discipline (Letter to the editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The statement by the writer of the March 17 letter "Not so fast" that there is no evidence that spanking in the public schools is harmful needs more than his assertion. ...Gary L. Shaffer, Associate professor, School of Social Work UNC-CH, Chapel Hill

New Prosecution Approaches Lacrosse Case Differently
WRAL-TV (CBS, Raleigh)
Special prosecutors with the North Carolina Attorney General's Office have taken many steps in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault investigation that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong never did in his nine-month handling of the case. ...University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor Joseph Kennedy says yes. "In a high-profile investigation like this, they assume the very first action on the case will be seriously scrutinized," he said.

Lawmakers Consider Increasing Cigarette Tax
WECT-TV (NBC, Wilmington)
It soon could cost smokers more to light up.The state senate is considering a bill that would raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by 5 cents. That extra revenue would help pay for a new cancer center at UNC Chapel Hill.

Issues and Trends

Is cancer a condition one can live with?
NBC Nightly News
Presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday that his wife Elizabeth's cancer has returned. Elizabeth Edwards, whose breast cancer was first diagnosed in 2004, was given a clean bill of health last year, but now says that the disease has spread to her bone. ...NBC's Nancy Snyderman tells Brian Williams that treatments available today mean that cancer can often be a condition that can be lived with, much like diabetes. And, in her own words, Dr. Lisa Carey talks about Elizabeth Edwards' diagnosis and prognosis.
Related link: http://www.chapelhillnews.com/159/story/6270.html

Purdue to House $100-Million Biomedical Institute Paid For by Mann Foundation
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Treading where several other universities have declined to go, Purdue University formally announced this month that it would become home to a new $100-million institute financed by a foundation created by the California billionaire Alfred E. Mann. ...That issue was one of the key sticking points last year when North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decided to forgo an arrangement proposed by the Mann foundation.

A different kind of admissions process
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Along with SAT scores and extra-curricular activities, college-bound students increasingly are being asked to divulge information that may not be so flattering: their arrest and discipline records. ...In addition to being asked about their pasts, applicants to the University of North Carolina's 16 campuses are checked against a national database of suspended or expelled college students.

Book smart (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For that middle-class parent who has to watch every dollar that comes out of the college account, textbook expenses are an unwelcome surprise. In looking at the issue, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors saw figures putting the typical annual cost of books at $800 to $1,200.
Related link: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i30/30a02502.htm

UNC's surging growth (Editorial)
The Greensboro News & Record
University of North Carolina system officials expect total enrollment on the 16 campuses to reach 300,000 by the year 2017, an increase of nearly 100,000 students. But is a bigger public university system necessarily a better 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/news/clips/index.shtml.

Please share any questions, comments or suggestions at news@unc.edu.