May 24, 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

The BCS isn't going anywhere
Sporting News Radio
UNC chancellor Dr. James Moeser gives Scott Wetzel his thoughts on new academic rules in the NCAA, gambling in college sports, and the dismal prospects of
changing the BCS.

Elite Universities Eye Economic Affirmative Action
NPR, "All Things Considered"
Research suggests less than 5 percent of students at America's top colleges and universities come from low-income families.....UVA followed the University of North Carolina, which announced a similar plan last year, while Harvard, Princeton, the University of Maryland, among other schools, will also increase grant aid to attract low-income students.

White House Backs a Bill to Overhaul Supercomputing Programs
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Bush administration has endorsed a bill to revamp the federal government's supercomputing programs....Daniel A. Reed, director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that new supercomputers could be valuable in disciplines as diverse as cosmology and genetics.
Subscription required.

How 8 Universities Plan to Use Entrepreneurship Grants
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo.-based organization that supports entrepreneurship education, recently gave eight universities a total of nearly $25-million in grants....The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($3.5-million) expects social entrepreneurship to be a major focus. Through internships with local companies and courses on the subject, students will learn how to help nonprofit companies become financially sustainable. "We have lots of students who may not be interested in starting a company and getting rich right away, but they want to make change in society, and we want to help them do that in an entrepreneurial way," says Jeff Reid, executive director of the university's Center for Entrepreneurship.
Subscription required.

In a Reverse Migration, Blacks Head to New South
Los Angeles Times
In what demographers are calling a "full scale reversal" of the Great Migration in the early part of the 20th century, blacks are leaving California, New York, Illinois
and New Jersey and retracing steps to a place their families once fled - the South...."I think it's a new day. The population shift and trends are far too great for Los
Angeles to remain the western Mecca of black political power and culture," said James Johnson, a business demographics professor at the University of North
Carolina who wrote one of the first studies of blacks leaving Los Angeles in the 1990s.

Painful sports lessons
Los Angeles Times
Play through the pain. Get back in the game. Be a winner. These are the anthems of many professional athletes, but all too often they are being repeated by young
athletes as well...."Parents watch the professional ranks and they think their 6- or 7-year-old ought to be playing at the same level," said Bill Prentice, a professor in
the exercise and sports science department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Executive Privileges (Book Review)
The Washington Post
Sally Bedell Smith has written the nonfiction beach book of the season. Last year Robert Dallek published a thoughtful, well-crafted 815-page biography of John F.
Kennedy that created a media sensation because of one brief passage revealing JFK's liaison with a White House intern....William E. Leuchtenburg, a professor of
history emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has written "In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush."

Children's brain injuries rose after '99 hurricane
The Dallas Morning News
In the six months after Hurricane Floyd, babies in the hardest-hit parts of North Carolina suffered greater rates of traumatic brain injury than those elsewhere in the
state, a new study says....Scientists, led by Heather Keenan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had suspected that the stress of the 1999 disaster
would fuel child abuse, such as shaken baby syndrome, that causes brain injury.

A sticky mess for agribiz
Crain's Chicago Business
The anti-obesity movement that pressured McDonald's Corp. to downsize the fat in its menus and forced Kraft Inc. to make a leaner Oreo sees a tasty target in the
high-fructose corn syrup industry, a mainstay of Illinois agribusiness...."It doesn't fill you as much," says co-author Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the
University of North Carolina.

Regional Coverage

Monitoring system proposed to watch over U.S. waters
Naples Daily News, Fl.
With a name reminiscent of a Greek god, it will have powers to rival a lesser one. But IOOS is a name for a technological age....Harvey Seim, professor of marine
science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chief operating officer for SEACOOS, said some of the technology needed to monitor the oceans
thoroughly is a ways off.

State and Local Coverage

Hospital Funding (Editorial)
The Winston Salem Journal
North Carolina needs new hospitals to fight cancer and cardiovascular diseases....Under the proposal, the state would borrow another $240 million, adding it to the
state's already record level of debt, to build facilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University, homes to the state's two public
teaching hospitals.

Divided by color
The News & Observer
The Community Church of Chapel Hill was an oddity when it opened in 1953. ...Even so, the continued separatism is no surprise to Howard Aldrich, chairman of the sociology department at UNC-Chapel Hill....Such entrenched separatism strikes Jack Boger, deputy director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, as unfortunate.

Group hopes its data will help community
The Charlotte Observer
What if we knew that kids in Mecklenburg County who attend preschool are half as likely to end up in jail?...In the end, the UNCC institute will generate results like
those that have come from the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC Chapel Hill.

Legislative intervention on cap not needed, yet (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
If it ever came down to it, the General Assembly and the courts of North Carolina would have no choice but to defend the citizenry's place at UNC.

Be sure to mind your magnesium (Commentary)
The Charlotte Observer
A health-conscious woman asked me the other day whether she should be taking magnesium with her calcium. I thought not, but that was before I had examined the
many studies defining the role of this too-often-ignored mineral nutrient....[Mildred] Seelig is 83 and has spent 35 years studying the role of magnesium in health. She
is still an adjunct professor at UNC Chapel Hill and is an author of "The Magnesium Factor" (Avery Penguin Putnam, 2003), which she wrote with Dr. Andrea
Rosanoff, a nutritionist in Hawaii who has spent 17 years studying magnesium.

NASCAR Blues (Editorial)
Winston Salem Journal
NASCAR's decision last week to allow Rockingham's spring race to be moved to a track in the Southwest is one more sign that the state that has done so much for
stock-car racing now has to fight to keep its share of this lucrative sport....Critics who point out the other pressing, high-dollar needs in next year's state budget stand on firmer ground. Chief among those needs are new hospitals at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University to fight cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Parker to take plea deal
The Charlotte Observer
James Bernard Parker, sentenced to three life terms in one of the state's largest child sexual assault cases, said for 14 years he didn't do it.....Richard Rosen, a UNC Chapel Hill law professor who's familiar with the case, described the plea bargain as "a compromise no one feels great about."

A tale of 2 donations
The Charlotte Observer
When Kannapolis City Manager Mike Mahaney donated $2,500 in city money for a Rotary International golf tournament, he didn't ask the City Council for
permission....If the council hears about possible spending that members don't like, it could vote to amend the budget ordinance to prohibit specific uses of the money in a budget area, said Jack Vogt, professor of public finance and government at UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government.

Town, UNC at standstill on Carolina North
The Chapel Hill News
Town leaders have said, repeatedly, the 17,000 parking spaces now planned for Carolina North will have to decrease significantly before they devote major time,
money and staff resources to reviewing the project.

Commissioners overlook basics in transit discussion (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
Just in case there aren't enough people complaining about UNC's plans for Carolina North, the Orange County Commissioners have decided to join the chorus.
Commissioners recently hectored Tony Waldrop, the university's point man on Carolina North, about the plan's excessive, 17,000-space parking allotment.

Airport issues offer opportunity
The Chapel Hill News
UNC ran into a roadblock last week in its drive to develop the Carolina North project. Closing Horace Williams Airport is a key component of UNC's plan to
develop the 975-acre property, but the state legislature on Tuesday told the university it can't close the airport until it finds another site for UNC's medical air
program, called AHEC.

Transit biggest Carolina North conflict
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC's plans for Carolina North are too centered on the automobile, several Orange County Commissioners say...."Look beyond the 17,000 parking spaces
because I bet you don't have 17,000 parking spaces on your [main] campus," Commissioner Steve Halkiotis told Tony Waldrop, the UNC vice chancellor who's
spearheading work on Carolina North.

UNC fires candid worker
The News & Observer
Bill Shuler, a UNC-Chapel Hill housekeeper who has been outspoken about low wages and other problems plaguing workers at the bottom of the pay scale, was
fired this week -- for being a whistle-blower, he says.


Honorable Mentions
The Chapel Hill Herald
Royce Murray, Kenan professor of chemistry at UNC, will receive the 2004 Luigi Galvani Medal from the Italian Chemical Society's Electrochemistry Division for his outstanding contributions to the field.... Ron Hyatt, a professor of exercise and sport science at UNC, has received the state's highest award for his service in advancing public fitness programs in North Carolina. ...Bruce W. Carney, chairman of Carolina's Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been named senior associate dean for the sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1....Chapel Hill physician Douglas Drossman is the recipient of the American Gastroenterological Association's 2004 Distinguished Educator Award for accomplishments during his career....Drossman is professor of medicine and psychiatry at UNC...The university's General Alumni Association has awarded a 2004 Distinguished Service Medal to Willis Whichard of Chapel Hill....William Prentice, a longtime athletics trainer at UNC, has been selected for induction into the National Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame.

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.