Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
Universities Are Preparing for Back-to-the-Classroom Outbreaks of Swine Flu
The New York Times
…All across the country, universities are making plans in the expectation that dozens or hundreds of their students will fall ill with the new H1N1 flu as classes start over the next few weeks. …“We have to-go packs with soup, Tylenol and Gatorade,” said Dr. Mary Covington, director of student health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “and we could do boxes with meals-ready-to-eat that could be put in a microwave.”
Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players
The New York Times
As President Obama tries to turn around a summer of setbacks, he finds himself still without most of his own team. Seven months into his presidency, fewer than half of his top appointees are in place advancing his agenda. …“If you’re running G.M. without half your senior executives in place, are you worried? I’d say your stockholders would be going nuts,” said Terry Sullivan, a professor at the University of North Carolina and executive director of the White House Transition Project, a scholarly program that tracks appointments. “The notion of the American will — it’s not being thwarted, but it’s slow to come to fruition.”
The Pros and Cons of Buying E-Books
The Washington Post
When Amazon recently removed copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' devices and digital lockers, I suddenly remembered why I prefer physical media over virtual versions: If I buy a book or a disc, it's mine forever and I can access it whenever I want. …Project Gutenberg is hosted by Ibiblio, a collaborative project of the University of North Carolina that conserves freely available information about subjects including software, music, literature, art, history, and science.
Regional Coverage
Taking the extra step at Ramadan
The Chicago Tribune
…During Ramadan, Muslims are commanded to fast from dawn to dusk as a show of empathy for those less fortunate. The fast prohibits eating and drinking during daylight hours and forbids vices such as smoking, profanity and ill temper. …"Ramadan is clearly a high-water mark for spiritual practices for Muslims, especially for Sufis," said Carl Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "It's commonly believed that because of the importance of Ramadan, there will be more efficacy of late night vigils. Special times, special effects."
Gimme an "ow": Cheerleaders trying to reduce injury risk
The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill.)
…Cheerleading and cheerleading safety have been getting a lot of media attention recently because of the release of the 26th annual study “Catastrophic Sports Injury Research: Fall 1982-Spring 2008” from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study found that a major factor in the increase of catastrophic injuries to female athletes was due to cheerleading, which now involves gymnastic-type stunts. The number of emergency-room visits made each year due to cheerleading injuries more than quintupled from 1980 to 1997.
Dangers Of Heatstroke Change Ways Of Football Coaches
The Hartford Courant (Conn.)
…According to Frederick Mueller of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury at the University of North Carolina, there have been 26 deaths directly related to heatstroke while playing football at all levels in the last decade, including six in 2008 — the highest total since 1972.
HIV/AIDS Timeline
The Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.)
…2009: Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announce they have decoded the structure of an entire HIV genome.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2757/1/
State and Local Coverage
DKE president shot to death
The Daily Tar Heel
Courtland Smith, a junior biology major from Texas and president of the UNC chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, was shot to death by police early Sunday morning.
Related Links:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1660146.html
http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/08/24/article/update_sbi_ids_
man_officer_involved_in_police_shooting
UNC Students Roll Back Into Town
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
Suddenly, the town of Chapel Hill has had a major population boost. The students are back in town, which is good news for local businesses, according to Aaron Nelson of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce. This semester, a grand total of 28,567 students will enroll at UNC from 97 North Carolina counties, 43 states and 23 other countries. Of the over 23-thousand who applied to Carolina, 43% of them finished in the top ten of their high school graduating class.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Students-+return+flags+new+
season%20&id=3243357-Students-+return+flags+new+season&instance=main_article
I Know What Carolina Did This Summer (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Chapel Hill Herald
I suppose you've noticed by now that Carolina's students are back in town. On campus, move-in started Friday, and classes for all students will begin Tuesday. …But of everything Carolina did this summer, as individuals and as an institution, I think I'm most proud of a new program launched by our Office of Economic and Business Development. With a grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation, it created the Carolina Economic Recovery Corps. (Holden Thorp is chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
UNC adds 516 Carolina Covenant Scholars
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC added 516 more Carolina Covenant Scholars this fall. Officials reported last week that 427 freshman and 89 transfer students joined the program that enables low-income students to graduate from the university debt-free. …"We think it's more than that," said Shirley Ort, director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid. "If it was only the economy we would have seen it in the upper classes."
UNC Tip Sheet:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2787/68/
UNC-CH students moving in is big for Franklin Street
News 14 Carolina
The move-in madness continues at college campuses around the state this weekend. At UNC-Chapel Hill, all the new students mean more business for shops and restaurants on Franklin Street. …UNC-CH welcomed nearly 4,000 freshmen this year. Upperclassmen begin moving on campus Sunday.
211 Incoming Freshmen On Merit Scholarships
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
Freshman from across the country descended onto the UNC-Chapel Hill campus over the weekend. Several hundred of them arrived with a leg up, having earned merit-based scholarships, according to Dan Thornton, UNC’s Associate Director for Scholarships. UNC has awarded almost $1.2 million dollars in academic merit-based scholarships to 211 freshmen in the incoming class. 177 of them are from North Carolina, including 15 from Chapel Hill.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2796/75/
UNC tuition break favors out-of-staters
The Charlotte Observer
A tuition break for out-of-state athletes at University of North Carolina schools gives booster clubs a $10 million annual subsidy, but it also has a less-publicized impact: The lion's share of student body growth at UNC-Chapel Hill is going to students from outside the state. …Chapel Hill's incoming freshman class has grown by 200 compared to 2005 – 20 North Carolinians and 180 out-of-state students, according to Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions.
Study: Pamlico Sound best area in state for wind energy
The Associated Press
A new study says the best spot for utility-scale wind energy is in the Pamlico Sound off Buxton along North Carolina's Outer banks. The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk reported that feasibility study found most other state waters aren't suitable for wind-energy development. UNC Chapel Hill researchers conducted the study, which was requested last year by Dare Sen. Marc Basnight.
Ahalt to direct RENCI center
The Chapel Hill Herald
Stanley C. Ahalt will become the new director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), the multi-campus research center based in Chapel Hill. Ahalt's appointment is effective Sept. 28. He also will hold a tenured faculty position in the university's department of computer science.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2776/68/
Before entering family business, get expectations in writing
The Triangle Business Journal
As a general rule, I don’t do career counseling. But I had known Emma and her family for several years, so I agreed to meet her at the Carolina Moon Café for an hour of coffee drinking and soul searching. The issue on the table was her father’s invitation to Emma to come to work with him in the business he had founded 20 years earlier. …James Lea is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a family business speaker, author and adviser.
Getting government and nature in line (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jordan Lake is much in the news lately due to controversy surrounding a proposed development. At issue is whether land for the so-called "751 development" being planned by Southern Durham Development, Inc. falls within the "critical area" around Jordan Lake, in which such high-density development is prohibited. (Philip Berke is a professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning and Institute for the Environment at UNC-Chapel Hill. Dean Urban is a professor in Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. The writers represent a group of collaborators on this issue at N.C. State University, UNC and Duke.)
Locals share points of view on health care reform
The Star News (Wilmington)
…When lawmakers left Washington, D.C., for their summer recess, they were met with a wave of letters, phone calls and personal appeals addressing what they should do about health care reform. …A report from the N.C. Institute of Medicine and UNC’s The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research estimated about 1.8 million uninsured people are in North Carolina – more than 21 percent of all nonelderly residents in the state.
Put it to a vote (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A calm, clear and logical summary of the history of the health-care insurance industry was provided by John Hammond of the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine in his Aug. 16 Point of View article. It summarized how we got into the current mess and why the single-payer system is the only system that can provide effective and efficient health care for all Americans. (J. Richard Burke, Ph.D., Cary)
Costly model (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For Paul Krugman, an economist of all people, to suggest in his Aug. 18 column that extension of a Medicare-type system to all Americans would probably be cheaper than the current Swiss medical system shows a complete lack of knowledge of the current Medicare fiscal crisis. Extending a Medicare-type program to the uninsured actually makes sense, since the system is already established, but most people, evidently including Krugman, do not appreciate Medicare's dire financial situation. (James E. Kurz, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill)
Fire safety message will be put on film
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A musical puppet show produced by the Chapel Hill Museum and the Chapel Hill Fire Department has struck up such a cult following with its fire safety message that it's being turned into a film. …The North Carolina Jaycees Burn Center, as lead sponsor, funded the first season of the annual program, which teaches fire safety through music and puppetry.
Ibiblio part of Open Source
The Chapel Hill Herald
Ibiblio, a conservancy of freely available information on the Internet that is based at UNC, is a founding member of the new group Open Source for America. …Ibiblio, accessed at www.ibiblio.org, was one of the world's first Web sites and is the largest collection of collections on the Internet. It is supported by UNC's School of Information and Library Science and School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2718/107/
Issues and Trends
Family-friendly recognition
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Carolina Parent magazine today releases its annual list of the top 50 family-friendly companies in North Carolina. This year's Triangle companies are listed below. For the past 10 years, the magazine had included 40 companies, but it increased the number as more employers add benefits to attract and retain workers. …UNC Health Care, Chapel Hill
Soldier's death shakes alma mater
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Teachers and staff members at a small Fayetteville private school are still in shock over the death of a former UNC-Chapel Hill student killed in Afghanistan this week. U.S. Army Pfc. Morris L. Walker, 23, of Fayetteville died Tuesday from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Walker was one of two soldiers killed in the incident. …Walker attended UNC-CH from 2004 to 2008. He joined the Army in September.
UNC system mandates health insurance
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…Starting in fall 2010, public university students in North Carolina will no longer face that decision. A new health insurance policy kicks in then, mandating that all students at UNC system campuses, about 215,000 people, have health insurance. Students must either prove they have their own, or buy insurance through a new plan designed to leverage the system's buying power to offer reasonable premiums and better coverage than most campuses do now on their own.
UNC's weight problem (Editorial)
The News & Record (Greensboro)
Good thing some very smart people work for the University of North Carolina. It may take all of their collective brainpower to explain how the 17 UNC campuses nearly doubled the ranks of their top administrators over the last five years, even as budgets tightened and the economy soured. Growth in administrators has, in fact, outpaced both the growth in faculty numbers and student enrollment on UNC campuses, reports The News & Observer of Raleigh.
Demands on universities explain growth in administration (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Charlotte Observer
In lean budgetary times, growth in the administration of UNC system institutions is certainly something to be concerned about. Thus, for at least the past three years, President Erskine Bowles has provided strong leadership for campuses to monitor administrative costs, reduce those costs where possible and to be administratively efficient. (Philip L. Dubois is the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.)
Hard work at the top (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As the daughter of a now-retired college president, I feel the need to respond to the coverage and letters regarding the former UNC schools administrators' current positions and paychecks. In the 20 years my father was president of a private Midwestern liberal arts college, he worked 70+ hour workweeks regularly. (Michelle Hile, Raleigh)