Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
An Unsexy Way for Colleges to Save Money: Shop Smarter
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A year into his job as leader of one of the country's top public universities, Holden Thorp—hotshot scientist, teacher, and biotechnology entrepreneur—recently announced one of his first signature efforts as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: improve purchasing. …"The glamour and excitement of academic life is getting grants, publishing, and winning teaching awards," says Mr. Thorp. "It's not about getting purchasing straight or fixing IT." But as he told me shortly after sharing Bain's findings with his trustees, "Every dollar I save there is a dollar that I can invest in academic programs."
Housing figures point to recovery
The Associated Press
It was — note the past tense — the worst housing recession anyone but survivors of the Great Depression can remember. …"As long as jobs are being lost, regardless of all the federal programs out there to help the borrowers, you're still going to have problems in the housing market," said Steve Cumbie, executive director of the Center for Real Estate Development at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
More trying medical options
The Associated Press
Americans spend more than a 10th of their out-of-pocket health-care dollars on alternative medicine, according to the first national estimate of such spending in more than 10 years. …Dianne Shaw, a media relations worker at UNC Chapel Hill, sees value in alternative medicine. She says that acupuncture helped her recover from a strokelike facial-nerve paralysis that standard drugs didn't remedy.
Keep your young athlete safe
MSNBC.com
An estimated 30 million American youth participate in organized sports each year. Playing a sport can bring many benefits to their physical and emotional health. But sports injuries in school kids are common, accounting for about one in five visits to the emergency room for injuries among those ages 5 to 17, according to new federal statistics. Thousands more each year suffer “overuse” injuries such as tendonitis and stress fractures, experts say. “You’re going to have injuries in all sports,” says Frederick Mueller, a professor of exercise and sports science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and director of the university’s National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. “They’re gonna happen. But the important thing is the preventive steps to reduce these injuries.”
Real: Debt forgiveness in few modified mortgages
Scripps News Network
Less than one in 50 mortgage modifications includes debt forgiveness, which is considered the surest way to prevent foreclosure. …"More simply put, loan to value has always been the most powerful predictor of default. Borrowers whose homes are worth less than what they owe are more likely to default, either in a 'ruthless' manner or because they cannot afford to sell the house if they need to," write a trio of researchers from the University of North Carolina. Their study scrutinized more than 1 million nonprime mortgages originated in 2005 and 2006, the peak years of risky lending. The researchers — Lei Ding, Roberto Quercia and Janneke Ratcliffe — concluded that modifications were more effective when monthly payments were lowered, and that principal reduction worked best.
An Intellectual Movement for the Masses
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Many scholars labor in obscurity, but the researchers presenting their work this summer at a meeting of the International Positive Psychology Association had no such problem: More than 1,500 people from 52 countries came to listen. …One of the most widely respected scholars in the field is Barbara Fredrickson, who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. …Fredrickson says happiness works something like this: It's not the frequency of good feelings in and of themselves that make for a good life, but the resources that those feelings allow people to build.
Regional Coverage
Exercise games catching on
The Baltimore Sun (Maryland)
Spurred by the success of Nintendo's " Wii Fit," video games are suddenly more and more about fitness. The "Wii Fit," a video game that acts as a virtual exercise coach, guides players through yoga moves, basic strength training and aerobics. …Pilot studies suggest there are things that can be done to help people stick with the routines, such as using multiplayer games, says Elizabeth Lyons, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lyons was one of the speakers at the fifth annual Games for Health conference, which took place in June in Boston.
Victorville seeks foreign investors to fund airport projects
The Contra Costa Times (California)
…"SCLA, given its location, is having a little more difficult time attracting investors than a more centrally-located airport," said John Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Kasarda visited the Inland Empire many times between 1995-2005, consulting developers and giving lectures on airport-related economic development. "They're moving in a direction that many commercial airports will have to move in the future," he said. "Airports are going to have to move beyond the traditional ground lease and concession fees that are the basis of many revenues that airports receive."
State and Local Coverage
UNC review: All universities should seek efficiency (Editorial)
The Greenville Reflector
A release of a report outlining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's top-heavy administration could be a watershed moment for that institution. Assuming some heavy lifting can eliminate redundancies to improve efficiency, North Carolina's flagship school will strengthen the quality of its research and education.
Note: The University is seeking a correction to a factual error in this editorial misstating a conclusion from the Bain report about spending on administrative costs.
UNC professor's device targets hard-to-treat pancreatic tumors
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Joe DeSimone has a new device to play with. DeSimone, the Chancellor's Eminent Professor of Chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill and the founder/co-founder of various companies in the Triangle, has created with his team of researchers at UNC a prototype of a new device that uses electric currents to transmit drugs targeting pancreatic cancer.
UNC researchers land $3.5M NIH grant to study HIV prevention
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A team of researchers from the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases has received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study HIV prevention methods among people with acute HIV infection (AHI).
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2739/71/
UNC's Hatchell opens up blueberry patch to help cancer center
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
…Sylvia Hatchell is at her cabin deep in the woods halfway between Black Mountain and Lake Lure on a rainy morning, sitting on her deck that overlooks about 200 blueberry bushes. As a way of giving back to her communities in WNC and in Chapel Hill after a cancer scare nine years ago, the head coach of the North Carolina women's basketball team allows anyone to come out and pick her blueberries. The charge is $5 a gallon, and in true country fashion, payment is on the honor system. Hatchell trusts that pickers will follow the directions on a sign that requests payments be sent to Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill.
Rams Village 4 to become Taylor Hall
The Chapel Hill Herald
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will honor the memory of its fifth chancellor, N. Ferebee Taylor, when it names a south campus residence hall on Monday. At 3 p.m., the apartment-style structure now known as Rams Village Building 4 will be dedicated as the Nelson Ferebee Taylor Hall. The building is on Williamson Drive, which is off Skipper Bowles Drive across from the Koury Natatorium.
Related Link:
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-1189689.cfm
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2735/75/
School officials fear H1N1 virus
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As schools and colleges prepare to welcome students back into session this month, they face an unpredictable yet unavoidable disruption — pandemic flu. …No one knows, however, how much pandemic flu vaccine will be shipped and when. "The details are just not clear at this point," said Dr. Mary Covington, assistant vice chancellor for Campus Health Services at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Literary Festival features standout authors
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
John Grisham, Elizabeth Strout, Douglas Blackmon, R.L. Stine, Rick Bragg and Elizabeth Edwards will be among the literati gathering to read and discuss the world of books, particularly Southern, at the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC Chapel Hill Sept. 10-13. It is free and open to the public. The festival released its complete lineup of 102 writers on Friday.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2741/73/
UNC student president wants to change Franklin Street parties
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Student Body President Jasmin Jones wants to make some changes to the way Tar Heels party after a big win on Franklin Street. “It can become destructive in a way – whether they are starting fire or getting really excited and pulling down a tree,” Jones said.
Green Plus program gets big boost
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The Green Plus program developed at UNC, championed in its early stages by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce and now headquartered in Chapel Hill got a national boost Friday in its mission to help small- and midsize businesses become better environmental stewards. The American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) announced that it will partner with the Institute for Sustainable Development to offer the Green Plus program to chamber members.
Protecting Players From The Heat
The North Carolina News Network
In recent years heat- related illnesses in football have become a primary issue for team coaches and trainers. The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at UNC Chapel Hill reports last year six student athletes died of heat stroke, four at the high school level. before and after practice as well.
Related Link:
http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=11269
Date in indictment doesn't jibe
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Conflicting dates may cast doubt on the federal indictment that paints Daniel Boyd as a terrorist combatant, waging a war against the Soviets in the rugged Afghan countryside 20 years ago. …"Inaccuracies in the indictment are not fatal to the case, but it's potentially mildly embarrassing," said Jeff Welty, a criminal law expert at the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Court filings detail firm's executive pay
The Charlotte Observer
Charlotte developer Crescent Resources paid its top executives $9.2 million in the year before filing for bankruptcy protection in June, according to court papers filed this week. …Elizabeth Gibson, who teaches bankruptcy law at UNC Chapel Hill, said creditors may try to recover executive payments if they were made when the company was insolvent. “I would think there's something there that would catch the eye of creditors,” she said.
Decisions from General Assembly could benefit all (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Winston-Salem Journal
It's refreshing to see our state government, without being in crisis mode, do something right. Last summer, the General Assembly created a legislative study committee to investigate changes to the Beach Plan — the mechanism that provides property insurance, especially against wind damage caused by storms, to homes and businesses on the North Carolina coast. (Donald T. Hornstein is the Aubrey Brooks Professor of Law at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law and a member of the legislative study committee on the Beach Plan. Daniel E. Peterson is a third-year law student at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.)
Collegiate altruists to converge on UNC
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Building sustainable gardens in Argentina, constructing chicken coops in Tanzania and building an irrigation system in Bolivia are examples of projects performed by Nourish International, an organization that is hosting its second annual Summer Institute that will take place on the UNC campus from Thursday to Aug. 10. …Nourish International, also simply referred to as Nourish, is a nonprofit organization based in Chapel Hill. Founded in 2003 by a UNC student, Nourish started as a UNC student group called "Hunger Lunch."
What we lose with no laureate
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…While the sweet notes of the cardinal gladden Tar Heel hearts, there are other songsters who have had the official state mantle placed on them. Since 1935, North Carolina has recognized poet laureates from the ranks of the state's bards. It is a way for the state to recognize that we have many good writers here who capture some of what it's like to be a North Carolinian and what it's like to live here. Unfortunately, the hard economic times are forcing the temporary suspension of that honorable position. (Michael Chitwood teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill in the department of English and Comparative Literature.)
‘Idol' stars graduate with style
The Charlotte Observer
If “American Idol” the TV show is one five-month-long education, then consider its concert tour the graduation ceremony: Freed from the pressure of being graded – er, judged – it's one last chance for a disparate group to celebrate before heading their separate ways. …The proceedings picked up with fifth- and sixth-place finishers Matt Giraud and Anoop Desai, a Chapel Hill native and UNC Chapel Hill graduate. Greeted by chants of “Anoop!”, he was briefly moved to tears by the response. “It's good to be home,” he said.
Related Link:
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-1189693.cfm
Anoop to play State Fair; fans all a-Twitter
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
With the help of the magic power of Twitter, Facebook and blogs, the N.C. State Fair announced Friday that it had booked Anoop Desai to sing at the fair on Oct. 22. …"We're happy to add American Idol alum and Cary native/UNC-Chapel Hill student Anoop Desai to that list. He'll bring his unique blend of hip-hop, R&B and pop to the stage on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day," the statement says.
A sweet book that satisfies
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Recently at a conference, one speaker remarked that "books will only be dead when women stop reading them." As long as books such as "The Wet Nurse's Tale" are being published, women will be reading, and books will always be alive. …Erica Eisdorfer, longtime manager of the Bull's Head Bookshop at UNC-Chapel Hill, will read from her novel 7 p.m. Thursday at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham.
Issues and Trends
Lawmakers will release state budget today
The Associated Press
North Carolina legislators are releasing copies of the two-year state budget hashed out after weeks of negotiations. The public and rank-and-file members of the General Assembly will get a good look today at the details of the month-late budget bill. One of the key details is how many hundreds of state positions would be eliminated if lawmakers pass the budget this week as expected and Gov. Beverly Perdue signs it into law. Perdue had said for weeks she wouldn't accept a budget that damaged public schools.
Reform comes to probation (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
What happened to North Carolina's probation system last year was similar to what happened to the nation's financial system. A meltdown occurred, a failure so massive and public that it exposed fundamental flaws and made the need for reform obvious. …In North Carolina's probation system, the meltdown was the Eve Carson murder, when it was found that both men charged in the slaying of UNC's student body president had fallen through the cracks of a probation system that was supposed to be keeping tabs on them.
Liquidia boosted by venture capital
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Liquidia Technologies scored $7 million in venture capital to continue developing chemotherapy and other treatments that won't attack healthy tissue. …Liquidia was created by Joseph DeSimone, a superstar chemist at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University who is seen by some as a future Nobel Prize candidate for his work in nanoparticles. DeSimone is still associated with Liquidia on a consulting basis.