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Oct. 9, 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
CDC Finances Study Into Causes Of Autism
The Associated Press (International)
The CDC awarded the other participating institutions $5.9 million for the study. They are the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in California, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Pennsylvania.
Related Link: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4462709National Coverage
Issues of Access and Affordability: Highlighted at Higher Education Conference
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
For all the dour reports about the lack of access to U.S. higher education, there are just as many potential solutions tossed about. Some argue that need-based financial aid must be increased; others are convinced the K-12 system must be the engine for change...Those ideas and more were all under discussion during “The Politics of Inclusion: Higher Education at a Crossroads,” a conference held last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
POI web site: http://www.unc.edu/inclusion/Racially Mixed Juries Deliberate More
Diverse Issues in HIgher Education
Tillman and co-authors Drs. Guang Guo and Kathleen M. Harris, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chose to study English verbal ability (because of its usage during and after school) and evaluated 2,136 immigrant and non-immigrant children from four ethnic groups: White, Black, Mexican and Puerto Rican from 80 Chicago neighborhoods.
Report Reveals Best and Worst Schools for Graduating Minorities
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
…Other institutions with a strong track record of graduating Blacks included the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Hood College and Hiram College.UNC's Dean Smith featured in ad for 'Devout Democrats'
The Associated Press (National)
Legendary North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith says in a planned newspaper ad campaign that being a person of faith and voting Democratic can go together. "I'm a lifelong Baptist and vote for Democrats," Smith says in the ad. "One reason? Democrats are serious about alleviating poverty."…The campaign is the product of Devout Democrats, a new Chapel Hill-based political action committee headed by University of North Carolina law student Chip Muller.
Thai Bonds Post Biggest Gains in Two Years After Coup (Update3)
Bloomberg
"A lot of people were disappointed with Thaksin's leadership,'' said William Itoh, the U.S. ambassador to Thailand from 1996 to 1999 who's a senior adviser for policy programs in Washington at the University of North Carolina. "There's been no flight of capital out of the country. The business community is modestly confident things are going to get better.''
Study Renews Call for Lab Cleanup
The Los Angeles Times
Concerned about the findings in a new environmental study, lawmakers and activists renewed their call Friday for stricter cleanup standards at a former nuclear and rocket engine testing site near Simi Valley... Among the key researchers... was Steven Wing, co-chairman of the advisory panel and an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Regional Coverage
Conference focuses on bridging racial achievement gaps
McClatchy Newspapers
What makes some black students accuse higher-achieving black classmates of "acting white"? What educational practices reinforce underachievement among black students? Scholars posed those questions Friday to a room of students, researchers and professors at the opening of the third annual Youth and Race Conference. It's a joint effort between UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of African-American Research, Duke's African and African-American Studies Program and the Robertson Scholars Fund, a collaborative scholarship program between the two universities.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep06/racialachieve.html
State and Local Coverage
Conference looks at racial achievement gap
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Scholars posed those questions Friday to a room of students, researchers and professors at the opening of the third annual Youth and Race Conference. The conference moves to Duke University today. It's a joint effort between UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of African American Research, Duke's African and African American Studies Program and the Robertson Scholars Fund, a collaborative scholarship program between the two universities.
Related Link: http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-776402.html
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep06/racialachieve.htmlKayla series creates questions on immigration status, visas
The Charlotte Observer
A 2006 study by researchers at UNC Chapel Hill estimated that North Carolina's Hispanic population contributed about $756 million annually in taxes (direct and indirect) while costing the state budget about $817 million annually for education, health care and corrections.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jan06/economicimpact010306.htmRe-injury a risk for high school athletes
The Chapel Hill News
Researchers who combed through data on boys and girls participating in 12 varsity sports, in 100 high schools of all sizes, found 2.08 injuries per 1,000 "athlete exposures" -- games or practices... "It's shocking to me that high school kids have this rate of re-injury," said Dr. Stephen Marshall, an associate professor of epidemiology in the UNC School of Public Health and a biostatistician in the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/oct06/hsinjuries100606.htm$1.5M sought for village in Africa
The Chapel Hill Herald
It's not so common for college students to raise more than one million dollars. That's what some students at UNC, Duke and Bennett College are trying to do. They're seeking $1.5 million to provide relief for an impoverished village in Africa. The campaign is part of the Millennium Villages Project, an effort to lift villages in 10 African countries out of poverty.
N.C. universities help fill need for workers fluent in Arabic
The Associated Press (N.C.)
In 2000, there were 17 students taking Arabic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now there are about 130. The number of students enrolled in Arabic language classes at Duke has tripled in the past five years to 80.
Related Link: http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/496652.htmlFew pediatricians have first cancer vaccine
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Gardasil, the vaccine, protects against infection from the human papilloma virus, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States...UNC provided information about HPV and Gardasil during freshman orientations this summer, said Dr. Mary Schlegel, assistant professor for obstetrics and gynecology.To nap or not -- subject is no snoozer among docs
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…But specialists differ over how long naps should be, whether they interfere with nighttime sleep and when they conceal some deeper health problem. "They really are hotly debated," said Dr. Bradley Vaughn, chief of the division of sleep and epilepsy in the department of neurology at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. "The argument in the sleep world is whether we should be proponents of napping or opponents."
UNC dental school cuts 19 technician jobs
The Chapel Hill Herald
The UNC School of Dentistry is firing 19 dental technicians, and will outsource those jobs to area labs. About six of the fired workers came to a recent UNC Employee Forum meeting to ask for help. "A lot of people are hurt right now," said dental technician supervisor Collins Clarkson, who has worked at UNC for 27 years.
Rep. Price primed for committee leadership
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
"David Price just sort of fits this district," said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC Chapel Hill's Program on Public Life. The 4th District -- which covers all of Durham and Orange counties, part of Wake County and a small section of Chatham County -- is "one of the South's most politically progressive districts," according to Congressional Quarterly (CQ), a politics publication in Washington. The district is the seat of the Research Triangle Park and 11 colleges and universities.
Midway town council elects mayor pro-tem
The Dispatch (Lexington)
Midway's town council has chosen Betty Nifong to serve as mayor pro-tem. She will perform the duties of mayor whenever Mayor Norman Wilkes is unavailable...Wilkes announced that he and the five council members will attend a special training session Oct. 11 at the Institute of Government on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "They set it up specifically for us," he noted.
Who was Judas? (Question-answer)
The Charlotte Observer
The National Geographic Society caused an international stir in April by publishing an English version of the Gospel of Judas, a mid-3rd- to early 4th-century Coptic translation of a Greek manuscript dating from about A.D. 150. The controversy centered on the text's perspective of the apostle Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus. Dr. Bart Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, was one of a handful of scholars National Geographic asked to authenticate the manuscript.
Issues and Trends
N.C.'s public benefit (Editorial)
The Charlotte Observer
When UNC system President Erskine Bowles talks tuition, he talks in the same breath about funding for state universities from the N.C. General Assembly. His message is consistent: The state legislature is generous to higher education.
Tuition cap will keep North Carolina’s public universities affordable (Editorial)
The Fayetteville Observer
Tuition in the University of North Carolina system jumped 71 percent from 1999 to 2004, compared to a 22 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index during that same period. The Center for Public Policy Research warned that UNC leaders may be defying the state’s constitutional mandate: “The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.”
Related Link: http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=1924State News In Brief
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Erskine B. Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina system, has proposed a plan that would limit increases in resident undergraduate tuition and fees to 6.5 percent per year if the General Assembly provided the system a budget increase of at least 6 percent. Under his proposal, campuses within the university system also would have to drop their tuition increases by one percentage point for every percentage-point increase in appropriations the university system received above 6 percent.
States' Web sites make applying for college easy as a click
The Los Angeles Daily News
North Carolina's cfnc.org, which launched in 2000, has been credited with helping increase the state's college-enrollment rate from 57 percent to 68 percent of high school graduates. "What we were trying to do is level the playing field," said Bobby Kanoy, senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs with the University of North Carolina system.
Optimism expressed for dental school
The Daily Reflector (Greenville)
Backers of an East Carolina University dental school have cause for optimism, the chairman of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors said Friday...Phillips and Board of Governors Vice Chairman J. Craig Souza, an ECU alumnus, sat in on the trustees meeting at Mendenhall Student Center. In April, both men supported $7 million in planning funds for a proposed dental school and an expansion of the UNC-Chapel Hill dental program.
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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