Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
Oilman and NC philanthropist Walter Davis dies at age 88
The Associated Press
The family of Walter R. Davis says the North Carolina oil tycoon and philanthropist has died at age 88. …Davis was a major donor to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also had strong influence in education and politics in the state.
Elite Colleges Reach Deeper Into Wait Lists
The Wall Street Journal
Here's a bright spot in an otherwise brutal college-admissions season: More students are being accepted from wait lists at elite schools this year because colleges found it harder to predict how many graduating seniors would join the freshman class. …The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is admitting 300 students from the wait list, up from 226 last year.
The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire
U.S. News & World Report
Just because you hit your 60s, it doesn't mean your brain starts to power down. …Across the map in Chapel Hill, N.C., residents might spend their evenings paddling out in kayaks to watch the stars with an astronomy educator from the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Regional Coverage
Gibbes announces winner of the Factor Prize
The Charleston City Paper (South Carolina)
Jeff Whetstone, a photographer from Durham, N.C., has been awarded the Factor Prize. The award, in the amount of $10,000, is the first time the Gibbes Museum of Art has awarded the prize. The prize acknowledges an artist whose work demonstrates a high level of achievement in any media while contributing to a new understanding of art in the South. …Whetstone currently teaches art as the UNC-Chapel Hill.
Siege of the Ivory Tower (Book Review)
The New York Sun
In Philip Roth's "The Human Stain," Coleman Silk, a professor of classics at Athena College, asks his class about two absent students. "Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spooks?" The students are black and complain to the dean. Silk protests that he was using the word spook "in its customary and primary meaning … as a specter or a ghost," but it goes for naught. His career is over, his life soon to follow. (Brendan Boyle teaches classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
State and Local Coverage
Philanthropist Walter Davis dies
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Walter Royal Davis, a Pasquotank County farmer's son who became a Texas oil tycoon before returning to North Carolina as a force in politics and higher education, died Monday night at his Chapel Hill home. …His gifts to UNC-CH included $1 million to help build the sports arena named for basketball coach Dean Smith. He gave $1.4 million for students who would teach in poor areas of northeastern North Carolina.
Related Links:
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-952584.cfm
http://wunc.org/programs/news/archive/SDD052008Davis_Obit.mp3/view
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/may/21/oil-tycoon-who-helped-unc-dies/
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2008/05/19/daily15.html
http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=6848
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/chancellor-moeser
-issues-statement-about-walter-r.-davis.html
Money for medical school expansion added to budget plan
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
Lawmakers drawing up a state budget plan are likely to include money to begin expanding the University of North Carolina's medical schools. UNC-Chapel Hill wants satellite medical campuses in Charlotte and Asheville, while East Carolina University's medical school is also looking to expand. The university system has asked for $5 million this year to plan the expansion.
UNC School of Pharmacy to be renamed
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The UNC-Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy will be renamed tomorrow for Fred Eshelman, a 1972 pharmacy school graduate and chief executive officer of Wilmington-based PPD, Inc.
UNC Media Advisory:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/media-invited-to-school-
of-pharmacy-renaming.html
Roses & raspberries (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
ROSES to Myron S. Cohen, a professor in UNC's medical school who earlier this month received the university system's highest faculty award. The Board of Governors presented Cohen with the Max Gardner Award. The award, the only one for which all faculty members at all the university campuses are eligible, recognizes faculty who have made the greatest contributions to the welfare of the human race.
UNC System Release:
http://www.northcarolina.edu/content.php/pres/news/releases/pr2008/
20080509_2008_Gardner_Award_Announcement.htm
UNC and Weldon alumnus, Kardon Foundation give $1 million to establish Kittner Eye Center
The Daily Herald (Roanoke Rapids)
David Kittner, a Philadelphia lawyer and alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Weldon High School, and the Samuel and Rebecca Kardon Foundation have given $1 million to establish an endowed innovation fund for the future of the UNC School of Medicine's department of ophthalmology. The gift is the largest ever received by the department, which will now operate and expand its patient care, educational programs and services, and clinical research projects and activities under a new name – the Kittner Eye Center.
Suicide and the Civil War
"The State of Things" WUNC-FM
Following the Civil War, alarming headlines began popping up in newspapers across North Carolina. Like much of the South, there was a disturbing rise in the rate of suicides in the Tar Heel state. In particular, this "suicide epidemic" affected wounded war veterans. University of North Carolina historian David Silkenat joins host Frank Stasio to explain what these self-inflicted fatalities say about cultural shifts in post-war ethics and morals in North Carolina's white and African-American communities.
Note: "The State of Things" is the statewide public affairs program airing live at noon weekdays and rebroadcast at 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays.
Southern Cultures
"The State of Things" WUNC-FM
The journal “Southern Cultures” was founded in 1993 to examine questions about the South and southern identity. For its fifteen anniversary, editors compiled 27 of the journal’s most memorable essays into a book. Co-editor Harry Watson, who is also director of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for the Study of the American South, talks about how everything from sorority sisters to the blues contribute to Southern distinctiveness and Southern stereotypes.
Note: "The State of Things" is the statewide public affairs program airing live at noon weekdays and rebroadcast at 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays.
Band scholarships preserve memory of Mooresville student
The Mooresville Tribune
Mooresville’s Danielle Liotta baked muffins and brownies for her dormitory hallmates at UNC-Chapel Hill and even for the homeless. …When Michael and Elizabeth Liotta needed to raise $20,000 for an endowed scholarship in their daughter’s memory, her mother remembered their time together in the kitchen.
Email retention draws attention of agencies
The Outer Banks Sentinel (Nags Head)
A lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Press Association and several news organizations against Governor Mike Easley and the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has prompted local government employees to review their own records retention policies. …David Lawrence, a law professor with the Institute of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, provided the panel with a letter outlining his opinion about the current email retention policies.
Legacy of the past
The Chapel Hill News
A low stone wall still divides the black and white sections in an 18th-century cemetery that sits on the UNC campus, surrounded by the New South bustle of 21st-century Chapel Hill. …Tim McMillan, a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill's African and Afro-American studies department, will lead the hour-long tour, set to begin at 6 p.m.
Salsa comes to Saxapahaw
The Chapel Hill News
The lovely riverside town of Saxapahaw bustles with music and activity on Saturday evenings during the summer with the Saxapahaw Rivermill Farmer's Market and Music Series. …This Saturday, Orquesta GarDel will perform. David Garcia, a professor at UNC who specializes in Afro-Cuban music studies, and Nelson Delgado, a veteran Triangle musician, founded the 11-member salsa group in 2006.
A $100,800 choice (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In reference to the May 13 letter "Chancellor choice," I, too, am thrilled at UNC's choice of Holden Thorp. He would seem to be a perfect match for UNC-Chapel Hill, and I think we are very fortunate to hire him. (Amy Law Womble, UNC-CH Class of 1983, Cary)
Shelter relocation won't solve problem (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill News
I read the report about the new shelter relocation to the homestead road location ("Big move for IFC," May 11). I'm a former resident of Chapel Hill for 22 years, having grown up in town, completed high school and graduated from UNC. I think the relocation is a great idea, yet potentially short-sighted. In recent years the panhandlers have become quite emboldened and blatantly open about asking for money. (Ross Cidlowski, New York, N.Y.)
Look homeward for global health (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill News
Psst … I'd like to let you in on a little secret. OK, a big one. Medical care has little to do with the health of populations. …As UNC-SPH prepares to rename itself the Gillings School of Global Public Health, let's remember that global health starts at home. (Paul Brodish, Carrboro)
Issues and Trends
Class actions (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
North Carolina is envied nationwide for the vigor and vision of its community college system, whose 58 campuses are spread strategically across the state. Yet there's room for wide improvements, and a timely study by a credible policy nonprofit puts its finger on several areas where the state must fix its community colleges to meet needs in North Carolina's not-so-distant future.
Prison bills would free space, fill it
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
State lawmakers spent Tuesday morning finding ways to release some inmates from an overcrowded state prison system. …The issue was again thrust under the spotlight this year when two college students in the Triangle were found shot dead. Arrests have been made in the killings of Eve Carson, UNC-Chapel Hill's student body president, and Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student, but authorities have not said whether the deaths were gang-related.
Related Links:
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/may/21/proposal-would-toughen-anti-gang-law/
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1079338.html
http://www.fayobserver.com/article_archive?id=1206083&q=unc
Report examines suspect in two deaths
News 14 Carolina
Durham's city manager has released a new report about one of the suspects in the murders of two local college students. …He already faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of UNC-Chapel Hill senior Eve Carson, and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato.
Exchange student faulted in own death
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
The 20-year-old jogger who was struck and killed by a transit bus Thursday morning failed to yield to oncoming traffic, according to the Chapel Hill Police Department. …Moran came to the U.S. in January 2008 and studied at the UNC School of Law. She was a participant in a program UNC hosts in partnership with Glasgow University, where she studied law and economics for three years before coming to the Chapel Hill.
Related Link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/print/wednesday/city_state/story/1079931.html