Nov. 21, 2006

Carolina in the News

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

International Coverage

With model's death, eating disorders are again in spotlight
The International Herald Tribune
The death of a 21-year-old Brazilian model from complications of anorexia has reignited debate about the fashion industry and eating disorders at a time when various cities around the world are considering banning the ultrathin from the catwalk. ...Many researchers in the field use the metaphor of a gun to explain what leads to the onset of an eating disorder. According to this description, first coined by Dr. Cynthia Bulik of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, genes load the gun and the environment pulls the trigger.

National Coverage

Flagship Flunked on Access
Inside Higher Ed
Nothing subtle about the title: “Engines of Inequality.” Public flagship universities do a generally poor job of enrolling and educating underrepresented minority students and those from low-income families, and actually regressed rather than made progress on those fronts from 1995 to 2004, the Education Trust argues in a report released Monday. ...“The inference of this report and the basis for the grading of flagships is that their responsibility is to reflect the demographics of the state,” said Shirley A. Ort, associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...
Related link: http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/11/2006112102n.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-20-financial-aid_x.htm

At Risk: Arthritis May Be Tied to Different Leg Lengths
The New York Times
Even a slight difference in the lengths of a person’s legs may play a role in whether arthritis develops, researchers have found. But the nature of the link is unclear. “We can’t say for sure whether a leg length difference of about two centimeters is actually going to cause you to get arthritis,” said the lead author of the study, Dr. Joanne M. Jordan of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

A New Way to Float Your Boat (Commentary)
The New York Times
Product demonstrations have long been a mainstay of advertising, none perhaps better known than the series of torture tests for Timex watches, which carried the triumphant theme “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” ...There also may be a promotion inspired by the mania for college basketball in the region in which Triumph and the Republik are based, Mr. Smith says: The winner of a game between the University of North Carolina and Duke “can put a boat on the loser’s campus, decorated with the winning team’s logos.”

Daddy talk boosts tots' vocabulary, research suggests
Cox News Service
Researchers have long known how important it is for mothers to talk to their babies. Now, a new study is showing the importance of dads talking to their toddlers, too. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that the number of words a father uses when a child is 2 might influence the child's vocabulary a year later.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/oct06/fpgfatherslanguage103006.htm

Liquids go down easy, add up fast
Cox News Service
The first line of defense in the battle of the bulge has primarily focused on what we eat -- and on exercise, of course. ...Researchers who watch what and how much we drink have found that compared with 3 ½ decades ago, American adults are guzzling 225 more calories a day in liquid form. Barry Popkin, a nutrition expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says, "One-third of those calories are from alcohol, and the rest comes from sugared beverages.''
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar06/healthybeverage030806.htm

Regional Coverage

Talented Nashvillian becomes a Rhodes scholar
The Tennessean (Nashville)
According to his permanent record, Ben Lundin could "argue a toad from a pond." ...The announcement that he'd been awarded a Rhodes scholarship came Saturday, after the 21-year-old senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sat through an intense final grilling with six past Rhodes scholarship winners.
Related links: http://www.wbir.com/life/programming/local/liveatfive/story.aspx?storyid=39812
http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061120/NEWS04/61120006
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov06/rhodes2006.htm

An Awful Good Plan for UF
The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.)
Awful good. It's an oxymoron popular in some parts of the South, used to designate something that is exceptional: "That sweet potato pie is awful good." ...The rates for classes with 19 or fewer students at comparable universities are 59 percent at the University of California-Berkeley; 50 percent at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and 43 percent at the University of Michigan.

Trent’s slow road back
The Kansas City Star
It has been said in some circles that the front office at Arrowhead Stadium is quite fond of Trent Green. ...The University of North Carolina recently surveyed 2,488 former NFL players and found that 61 percent had suffered at least one concussion in their careers and 16 percent believed they suffered long-term damage.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/oct05/guskie101005.htm

Sites witnessing fatigue in users
The Columbus Dispatch
Aarica Caro is tired of sharing — online, that is. ...Teenagers as well as adults in their 20s and 30s were among the early adopters of the sites — not just because they’re Websavvy but because they’re at a time in their lives of looking for new ties, as at the start of college, said Fred Stutzman, an Internet entrepreneur and a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Word up, parents: Teens' slang translated here
The Tucson Citizen
Word up, parents. If your teen is suddenly speaking what seems like an entirely new language, don't worry. Slang is just a part of growing up, says Connie Eble, an English professor at University of North Carolina and the author of "Slang & Sociability."

State and Local Coverage

Moeser proposes attractive tuition plan (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
Despite the tuition increases of recent years, UNC -- as university officials frequently remind us -- remains a comparative bargain in the field of higher education. That is, particularly, if you're from North Carolina.

ACC leads pack in Rhodes Scholars (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Those who are despondent or even just disappointed with the football performance of the Triangle area's Division I universities may, or at least should, take solace from the recognition extended to two local universities this weekend. The Rhodes Scholarship trust Sunday announced that two of this year's 32 recipients of the most prestigious fellowship for study abroad are from Duke and the University of North Carolina at chapel Hill.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov06/rhodes2006.htm

UNC- gets D in helping the poor
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Public flagship universities are becoming whiter and richer than the states they serve, according to a report card that gives UNC-Chapel Hill a D on minority and low-income student participation. ...Shirley Ort, UNC's director of scholarships and student aid, called the analysis a gross oversimplification.
Related link: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/16066493.htm

Love the book, John. Now, about 2008 . . .
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Monday night was 2004 all over again. Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards charmed a crowd that wanted to stand and applaud and take his picture. ...In the past two years, Edwards has talked a lot about poverty as director of the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. He has campaigned across the country for raising state minimum wages.

Hog Lagoons
"The State of Things," WUNC-FM
Students in Patrick Conway's Econ 51 class at UNC-Chapel Hill are getting an up-close and personal look at the economics of daily life in rural North Carolina by digging deep into hog waste. The economics of hog waste disposal methods, that is.

Edited Albom works
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For every devoted fan of "Tuesdays with Morrie," Mitch Albom's best-selling memoir and TV movie, there's a detractor who disdains Albom's self-aggrandizing tone and the book's time-worn aphorisms. ...But Emmy-winner Joan Darling, an adjunct professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, keeps the pace brisk and the mood upbeat and often outright funny.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov06/morrie110606.htm

Inside the Ackland, it's a world apart
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
It even smells quiet. The only sounds are hushed voices and the creak of floors under passing footsteps. ..."You find inspiration in some of these things," said Tian Li, a UNC-Chapel Hill chemistry major strolling through the museum Thursday afternoon. "You never know when you see something and it triggers an idea."

Make lung cancer screening routine
The Fayetteville Observer
The American Lung Association has designated November as Lung Cancer Awareness month to focus attention on this deadly disease. ...Researchers at the University of North Carolina have also published an article in The Journal of Clinical Oncology that proposes genetic testing for propensities to develop lung tumors and potential treatment for the disease.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/oct06/hayeslung103006.htm

Oh deer, they're here
The Durham News
Tis the season. Deer season. ...Car bodies aren't the only casualties. Five people died as a result of deer-car collisions in 2005, said Katy Jones of UNC's Highway Safety Research Center in Chapel Hill.

Retailers push Christmas ever earlier
The Rocky Mount Telegram
If you've been to practically any retail store recently, there's little doubt that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. ...The rush to Christmas is simply the game of trying to one-up the competition, said James Smith, a business professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Son's rebellion began N&O's evolution
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As the 19th century ended in North Carolina, The News & Observer published front-page articles, editorials and cartoons stoking fear and hatred of black citizens, all part of a statewide white supremacist political campaign that fueled the 1898 violence and coup in Wilmington. ..."That's one of the first things my students ask," said professor Jim Leloudis, who teaches the state's history at UNC-Chapel Hill. "They say: 'The liberal Nuisance and Disturber? How can it be that they did this then?' "

Dandy Yankee tunes
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
It started off as a wisecrack. A professor of Southern culture asked a banjo-playing friend from the health club to do some songs for a guest talk at UNC-Chapel Hill. ...Bill Ferris was the professor whose conversation with Whyte got the whole idea rolling. As senior associate director of the UNC Center for the Study of the American South, he instantly grasped the tension in "Southern Songs by Yankees."

Born too late: Killer foiled by science (Book review)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Books are made of various kinds of sentences, and each one is a mechanism, a command to our attention and trust, "Follow me on this path." If we trust the writer, we go without question. When we don't trust, we question the value of every step. ...David Carr teaches librarianship at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Builder pledges to go to schools
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In the four months since Durham County's controversial school impact fee was struck down, developers pushing eight residential projects have promised more than $1 million in donations to Durham's schools. ...As long as the donations remain truly voluntary, city and county officials are doing nothing wrong by accepting them, said David Owens, a public law and government professor with UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government.

Will it take a lawsuit to fill Cary seat?
The Cary News
An authority on North Carolina local government and the two finalists for Cary’s open Town Council seat agree that the council has to make a choice and should do so promptly. ...David Lawrence, a professor at the Institute of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill and an expert on municipal law, said his opinion that the council has to choose boils down to a single word.

Issues and Trends

Plans look risky to some, promising to others
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
When it comes to redeveloping a downtown parking lot, those who "do" say do it, and those who teach say don't. ...David Godshalk, a former Town Council member and professor emeritus in the UNC city and regional department, said the current council had "reshuffled the cards" and "jury-rigged" the project to salvage it after the price jumped by $20 million over the summer.

Development Could Change Chapel Hill's Franklin Street
WRAL-TV (CBS, Raleigh)
An $80 million development plan could turn Chapel Hill's Franklin Street into a 24/7 downtown. ...Neal, who runs a comic book shop on West Franklin Street, is confident the project would mean a busy Franklin Street year-round instead of empty parking lots in the summer when classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are out of session.

Overflow crowd rallies for UNC-RM
Rocky Mount Telegram
An overflow crowd packed the Dunn Center on N.C. Wesleyan College's campus for a rally Monday to show support for UNC-Rocky Mount.

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.

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