 |
Sept. 20, 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
U.S. scientific group backs access to clean needles in AIDS fight
The Associated Press (International)
Dr. Tilson acknowledged that any discussion on this topic is layered with morals and political imperatives that can override the scientific evidence. “Our job isn't to second guess or even influence that. It's to inform it with the evidence – so that one may not hide behind rhetoric that the evidence suggests something when it doesn't,” said Dr. Tilson, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina.
National Coverage
An Ivy League Without Early Admissions?
Time Magazine
In 2002, one year after UNC banned early admissions, the number of fee waivers — which represent the number of students with limited means (a family of four needs to make less than $35,798 to qualify) — actually decreased by 1.2%. So UNC went even further, introducing the Carolina Covenant in Oct. 2003 — a provision allowing students from low-income families to graduate from the university without any debt — many of the Ivy League schools also have similar programs..."I believe strongly that early admissions doesn't have an effect on low income students here," Stephen Farmer, the Assistant Provost and Director of Undergraduate Admissions at UNC, told TIME. "In the end you still have to have need based financial aid."
Using the Web to Prevent Suicide
Inside Higher Ed
Officials at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention believe that colleges can do much more via the Web to help students contemplating suicide. For the past five years, the group has been fine-tuning a “College Screening Program” that uses the Internet to identify students at risk for suicide and to refer them for treatment...Pilot testing of the project began in the spring 2002 semester at Emory University, and, in spring 2004, a second pilot test site was created at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both campuses are still using the program today. Officials chose to focus on different groups of students — at Emory, all freshmen have received the e-mail invitations; UNC Chapel Hill, meanwhile, focused on seniors.
Gonzales: ISPs must keep records on users
The New York Times
The concept of more federal laws was popular at Tuesday's pair of hearings. Sharon Cooper, an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, urged politicians to require that all public-school health classes, from elementary to high school, teach "child sexual abuse prevention strategies as well as online and communication technology safety strategies."
Note: This article is available through subscription only.It's a fat, fat, fat, fat world (Opinion column)
The Washington Post
Technologically, this is a triumph. In the early days of our species, even the rich starved. Barry Popkin, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, divides history into several epochs. In the hunter-gatherer era, if we didn't find food, we died. In the agricultural era, if our crops perished, we died. In the industrial era, famine receded, but infectious diseases killed us.
Polls, Pundits Tout GOP Gloom, But Smart Money Bets Different
Investors Business Daily
Have futures traders spotted a shift in the electoral winds more quickly than polls or pundits? It wouldn't be the first time. In a 2005 paper, University of North Carolina professors Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf wrote that the TradeSports market "appears to quickly incorporate new information." They noted that Bush's market shares fell five points during a 2004 Bush-Kerry debate that pundits later said Kerry won.
George Lucas to Give USC Film School $175 Million
The Los Angeles Times
Since 1991, the university has moved up in the closely watched U.S. News & World Report magazine rankings for major universities. It has gone from 48th to tied for 27th with Tufts University and the University of North Carolina in the 2007 rankings released last month. UCLA, once well ahead of USC, was ranked just one notch higher in the latest poll, at 26th.
Regional Coverage
Get happy!
The Gannett News Service
Studies have shown that people who adopt an optimistic viewpoint might be better equipped to deal with traumatic situations. In a study begun months before the attacks of Sept.11, 2001, Barbara L. Fredrickson, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that people identified as being resilient and optimistic before the tragedy were half as likely to suffer depression afterward as those more pessimistic by nature.
18 wheels and countless dangers
The Dallas Morning News
Drivers for J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. had fewer accidents after the Arkansas- based company increased driver pay in 1997, University of Michigan researchers found. A 1 percent increase in pay rate resulted in a 1.33 percent decrease in crash risk, said Daniel Rodriguez, one of the study's authors who is now a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Catawbas angered over museum letter
The Rock Hill Herald (S.C.)
"The incidence of graves is practically certain," said Brett Riggs, staff archaeologist with UNC-Chapel Hill's research labs and a specialist in 18th century Catawba history. Riggs and a colleague, Professor R.P. Stephen Davis Jr., believe a thorough survey of the property would uncover burial grounds and settlements, based on maps they have studied, relics they've examined and time spent on the site.
State and Local Coverage
Easley orders audits of public high schools
The Triangle Business Journal
North Carolina's public high schools will undergo performance audits as part of a $300,000 program launched Tuesday by Gov. Mike Easley. The State Board of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction will partner with the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to analyze student achievement data and spending patterns at high schools in each of the state's 115 school districts.
School funding to get scrutiny (Opinion)
The Associated Press (North Carolina)
Educators will conduct financial reviews of all North Carolina high schools to see how low-performing schools are using public money and then determine the best ways spending can improve student performance, Gov. Mike Easley said Tuesday...Researchers at the education school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will examine financial and student testing information from school districts to compare how high-performing schools spend their money compared to low-performing schools.
Schools' successes to be studied
The Charlotte Observer
Have they crafted ways to hire and keep strong teachers? Are they training new teachers in creative ways? Are extra guidance counselors or after-school tutoring making a difference? Researchers from UNC Chapel Hill hope to answer those questions and others by looking at statewide data on high school test scores and spending. The goal: Find practical strategies to improve low-scoring high schools, preferably with the money they've already got.
'Conservative,' 'liberal': truth in labeling? (Opinion column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
From time to time, I get complaints from readers about political labeling. Why is it necessary, they ask, for the newspaper to label people or groups as conservative or liberal? ... James Stimson, for one, isn't surprised. A political science professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, Stimson has made a career of studying how people place themselves along the political spectrum.
The matter of money (Opinion)
The Charlotte Observer
Gov. Mike Easley made a smart move in calling for financial audits to ensure public money is being used in the best ways to boost student performance at struggling high schools...Education researchers nationwide already know that targeted use of resources does have an impact. Data have shown that money used to improve teacher quality at high-poverty, high-minority schools boosts performance. UNC has an existing database of high school information and researchers already have tagged examples of dollars well spent to boost performance.
Related Links: http://www.gotriad.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060920/
NEWSREC0101/609200302/-1/GTCOM0200
http://www.wral.com/family/9884269/detail.htmlUNC again takes leadership role (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
Harvard announced plans to drop its "early action" admissions policy, and urged other elite schools to do the same. This week, Princeton followed suit, saying it, too, was abandoning early admissions... In 2002, Carolina became the first major, selective university in the nation to eliminate its binding early admission plan. At the time, UNC Chancellor James Moeser noted, "We hope to contribute to a national climate that encourages thoughtful choice." Like it's Carolina Covenant program - which gurantees that students from low-income families can graduate from Carolina debt-fre - the university's decision to drop binding early admissions has not just eased the burden on students and their families.
Note: This article is available through subscription only.Professor head of new judicial college
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
UNC School of Government professor James Drennan has been named director of a new judicial college for North Carolina courts officials. The judicial college, based at the UNC School of Government, received $1 million from the N.C. General Assembly during the last legislative session. Drennan, a Durham resident who has overseen the concept and planning of the college over the last several years, said the college would have a unique curriculum to provide judges, clerks and magistrates with more intensive coverage of topics than currently available.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep06/drennan091506.htmSchool of Governent leaves politics at the door
WCHL-AM (Chapel Hill)
A judge is more able to be impartial when the court system is run well, and that’s what UNC’s School of Government is out to do with an enhanced judicial college. Senior Associate Dean Tom Thornburg says politics are left at the door. The college will do that with more online materials and by tailoring the materials to the court employees. Thornburg says it used to be more one-size fits all.
UNC lands $2.6M grant for nursing program
The Triangle Business Journal
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Nursing has won an Institutional National Research Award worth $2.6 million to train its next generation of nursing researchers. Funded through the National Institute of Nursing Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, the grant supports the preparation and training of pre- and post-doctoral nursing scientists.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep06/mishel091506.htmUNC dental students get experience, patients get care for less
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Jane Koontz, 56, wasn't hugging "her" student, but she clearly was happy to see him, in spite of the fact he soon would be sticking a plastic form in her mouth filled with goop like wet plaster to get a mold of her teeth. And considering she was more than twice his age, the student was just "Tyler" to her, as in Tyler Collins, a third-year student at the UNC School of Dentistry who grew up in Pembroke as the son of a dentist.
Patchwork of a people
Chapel Hill News
These aren't your grandmother's quilts. You won't find many symmetrical abstract patterns of squares, stars or pinwheels here..."I want people to realize that African-Americans are not one-dimensional," said Williams, an assistant professor of history at UNC and the creator of the 21 quilts on display at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. "The multiple textures and colors used in my work symbolize the intricacies of the African-American."
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep06/stonequilts091206.htmUNC Develops New Treatment For Hunter Syndrome
NBC-17 (Raleigh)
There's new hope for those affected by Hunter Syndrome. UNC doctors helped to develop a new treatment for this hereditary disease, which affects about 500 people in the United States. Kyle Plunkett is a 13-year-old Hunter Syndrome patient. He said his condition is improving thanks to a new treatment called Elaprase.
Former Lottery Commissioner Heads To Court On Fraud Charges
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Were omissions on former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings' state ethics form merely paperwork errors, or a deliberate fraud worthy of a federal felony conviction?..."Fraud depends on some false statement," said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "If the connections were all fully disclosed (orally) then it will be harder to prove that he committed fraud."
Paintings headed to hit show
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
"Grey's Anatomy," ABC's hit show chronicling the medical and romantic exploits of surgical interns, has commissioned seven children's paintings from Chapel Hill artists Lisa Wojnovich and Patsy Smith to decorate the show's set...Most companies would love the kind of free exposure that Litsy Designs could get on the popular TV show, said Gary Armstong, a marketing professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Banks fishing for campus customers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Banks and other lenders are busier than ever trying to capture college customers. Whether by mail or at the student center, incoming freshmen are bombarded with offers and giveaways for credit cards, checking accounts and even more student debt. ... Wachovia markets a range of products at on-campus branches, including one at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Lawyer: UNC grad charged in campus assault may plead not guilty
The Associated Press (North Carolina)
A University of North Carolina graduate who told investigators he intentionally plowed a SUV through campus to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world will probably plead not guilty, his attorney said Tuesday. Mohammed Taheri-Azar accepted public defender James Williams as his lawyer during a pretrial hearing Tuesday before Orange County Superior Court Judge Carl Fox.
Related Links: http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=1786
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-771303.htmlOld Wal-Marts linger empty
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The massive building sits abandoned behind hundreds of empty parking spaces at the Hillsborough Commons shopping center. ... They also make Wal-Mart more money, said James F. Smith, professor of finance at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Applauded when they deserved it
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Movie star David Strathairn didn't get applauded when he stepped forward for his first monologue in "Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Death, Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith," Derek Goldman's adaptation of a Studs Terkel book at UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall last weekend.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/aug06/circle081106.htmIssues and Trends
State's low math goal gives up easy scores (Opinion)
The News and Record (Greensboro)
The numbers are higher at some institutions. For example, 30 of the 45 Guilford County high school graduates who enrolled at N.C. Central University as freshmen last fall were placed in remedial math classes, according to a UNC system report. Those students might have thought they were doing well in math throughout elementary and secondary school, but N.C. Central thought otherwise
The road from application to acceptance begins early
The Free Press (Kinston)
To be admitted to any of the 16 public schools in the University of North Carolina system, students must complete 16 minimum course requirements in English, math, science, history and foreign languages. The challenge for students becomes not only to complete those courses, but to excel in advanced courses and be well-rounded in terms of extracurricular activities.
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.