May 10, 2004

Carolina in the News

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

National Coverage

North Carolina hopes high-speed grid computing and supercomputers will create new jobs for residents
Information Week
North Carolina, a state of just 8 million people, has one of the nation's largest high-tech concentrations...."The place North Carolina is trying to go is transforming its traditional economic base--textiles, furniture making, and tobacco--to an economic base for the 21st century," says Dan Reed, former director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. In January, he left that post to accept a $3 million endowed professorship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and start the Renaissance Computing Institute, a university-supported high-performance-computing facility that aims to help the state's ailing manufacturing and booming biotechnology industries innovate faster.

'Globesity' gains ground as leading killer
National Associated Press
It's a bitter truth to swallow: About every fourth person on Earth is too fat...."In the developing world, it happened overnight," said WHO adviser [Barry] Popkin, who heads nutrition epidemiology at the University of North Carolina.

Regional Coverage

Nursing homes struggle with high employee turnover rate
Clarksburg Exponet Telegram
If the trend of high employee turnover in nursing homes continues, it could prove disastrous once the Baby Boomer generation requires long-term care, said a senior
researcher at the University of North Carolina.

Youth finding peace in prayer
Poughkeepsie Journal, N.Y.
''Good morning, Lord.'' Those are the first words 19-year-old Chris Strickland says when he wakes up every morning.....About 80 percent of American teenagers pray, according to a 2002 report by the National Study of Youth and Religion, a multiyear research project being conducted by the Sociology Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

State & Local Coverage

Carolina blue sky salutes UNC grads
The Herald Sun
The students may change each year, but graduation day at Carolina still has a few timeless customs and traditions....Keynote speaker Julius Chambers told the assembled crowd of students, faculty and families that much progress had been made in the area of race relations, but much more was still needed.
(Note: Carolina's commencement was also the subject of reporting by the N.C. Associated Press, WRAL-TV, WNCN-TV and WTVD-TV, among other outlets on Sunday.)

Area graduates become alumni
The News & Observer
Sunday morning looked promising for the nearly 10,000 students graduating from colleges across the Triangle....The sky might have been Carolina blue, as UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser observed, but it was equally brutal in Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh.

Two degrees of togetherness on Mom's Day
The News & Observer
Mona Daniels' Mother's Day celebration was a double delight. Her twin sons graduated Sunday within minutes of each other -- Damon at UNC-Chapel Hill and Derek a few miles down the road at Duke.

The future beckons the Class of '04 (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
What an interesting trip it's been for the Class of 2004, for the UNC seniors who graduate from Carolina this morning. Most of the more than 5,000 soon-to-be graduates arrived here in the late summer of 2000, when the world -- and yes, this community -- were far different places.

Memorable moments
The Chapel Hill News
When civil rights pioneer Julius Chambers addresses UNC's graduates today, he will continue a commencement tradition that is more than 200 years old. Beginning with the first seven students who received degrees way back in 1798, Carolina graduates have had ceremonious sendoffs by educators and activists, poets and judges, U.S. presidents and television stars.

Law student, 66, sets a new bar
The News & Observer
Jim Wilde skipped the "bar reviews" that his fellow UNC-Chapel Hill law school classmates took part in many a Thursday night.

Quest for learning fuels woman
The Herald-Sun
Sweetly Togba's undergraduate degrees were an ode to her father, who succeeded in drumming the importance of education into her head before his untimely death in 1990.

Flip side of global trade
The Charlotte Observer
As Americans debate the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign countries, Thomas Davis represents what some economists call the unsung face of global trade: American workers who benefit....Economists concede there is no way to know the overall impact of trade on employment. But to blame the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs entirely on trade is foolish, said Robert Connolly, an economist at UNC Chapel Hill.

State bets on biotech jobs
The News & Record, Greenboro
If North Carolina were a contestant on "Extreme Makeover," and Gov. Mike Easley the surgeon, he would slice out tobacco, tighten textiles and inject lots of biotechnology in every region of the state....Today, there are 180 to 200 firms employing about 18,500 people, with sales exceeding $3 billion, in large part because of tax incentives to firms and education research grants to UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Duke University and Wake Forest University, he said.

Prospect for jobs, or just pork
The News & Observer
UNC-Asheville is one of four state universities looking to win millions from legislators for new research centers that supporters say will generate jobs....But senators might have to accept the arena if that's the only chance to collect enough votes for three other research centers they want -- at East Carolina University, UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Charlotte. Their combined cost exceeds $300 million.

More than $79 million in tax credits recorded
Triangle Business Journal
North Carolina companies and individuals wrote off $79 million in taxes in 2003 - a record amount under the 8-year-old William S. Lee incentives law....Michael Luger, director of the Office of Economic Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School who has studied the state's incentives program, says the carry-over figure is alarming - and unusual among the states.

New-school issues covered in private
The Charlotte Observer
School leaders and officials from the county's five largest towns met in private this week to discuss how each town's zoning rules might complicate school construction....The Institute of Government is a UNC Chapel Hill government consulting and research organization.

Let's fight the epidemic of inactivity
The Charlotte Observer
The obesity epidemic comes down to two things -- too many calories consumed and too few calories spent....UNC Chapel Hill researcher Dr. Dianne Ward added: "We used to get paid to exercise."

Getting close in annual forums
The News & Observer
It's spring. For investors, that means annual meeting season is in full swing...."It's a chance to see who runs this company," said Robert M. Bushman, an accounting professor at the Kenan-Flagler business school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carolina North could chart new course
The Chapel Hill News
Carolina North is a unique hybrid of the most successful and most cutting-edge research parks and satellite campuses across the nation, university officials say.

UNC reveals 'Plan B' if airport stays
The Chapel Hill News
Councilman Jim Ward pointed to the conceptual drawing of Carolina North and, by way of noting the elephant in the room, asked this question: "Don't the buildings there violate FAA setback requirements?"

Teaching career holds Daye
The Herald-Sun
Durham native Charles Daye arrived at UNC's law school in 1972, a bit unsure of whether he was really supposed to be there....At Carolina, Daye has served on a campus affirmative action committee, was a trustee of the national Law School Admissions Council and, most recently, helped pen a brief in support of affirmative action that was submitted last year to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, please call Russell Campbell at News Services, (919) 962-2091, russell_campbell@unc.edu, or Mike McFarland in University Communications, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu

Note: Web links on this page are time-sensitive, so stories might not be available after the day they first appeared.