Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
"The Agenda with Steve Paikin"
TV Ontario (Canada)
Is seeing believing? Sociologist Andrew Perrin on why we believe what we believe and the social psychology of false beliefs. Andrew Perrin is a cultural and political sociology professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Note: This interview was recorded in the Carolina News Studio.
National Coverage
Phys Ed: Can Vitamin D Improve Your Athletic Performance? (Blog)
The New York Times
When scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport recently decided to check the Vitamin D status of some of that country’s elite female gymnasts, their findings were fairly alarming. …Vitamin D is an often overlooked element in athletic achievement, a “sleeper nutrient,” says John Anderson, a professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of North Carolina and one of the authors of a review article published online in May about Vitamin D and athletic performance.
Student Group's Adviser at Chapel Hill Is Ousted for Boast of Quick Trigger Finger (Blog)
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has replaced the adviser of the campus chapter of a conservative student group, Youth for Western Civilization, for responding to an attack in an anonymous flier by boasting of his gunslinging skills.
Retired N.C. Professors: We'll Teach Free (Blog)
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The members of an association of retired University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professors have offered to teach free of charge, among other academic tasks, to help out the institution, whose operating budget took a 10-percent cut this year. But college administrators say they don't want to risk putting the retired professors into jobs where they're not a good fit, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.
Regional Coverage
Re-thinking BMI (Blog)
The Baltimore Sun (Maryland)
The shorthand these days for categorizing your healthy weight is BMI, or body mass index. This inexpensive and relatively simple calculation, which uses height and weight, hands everyone a number and puts us into broad categories of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese. …Meanwhile, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's medical school have also been thinking about BMI. In a small study published in the September/October issue of the journal American Pediatrics, researchers found that parents are more likely to understand a BMI chart if it is color-coded like a traffic light.
UNC Release:
http://www.unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2009/September/bmi
State and Local Coverage
UNC siren test a success
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
The test of an emergency warning system at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was a success Tuesday, according to a school statement. Sirens sounded an alert tone on campus at 12:10 p.m. and more than 38,000 text messages were delivered to registered phones of students, faculty and staff within about three minutes. “The siren test accomplished exactly what we hoped it would,” said Jeff McCracken, the university’s public safety director.
Related Link:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7026220
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2893/1/
UNC-CH gets Clinton-era papers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
On Jan. 4, a new window into Bill Clinton's presidency will open at UNC-Chapel Hill. That's when a trove of source material Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch used for his new book on the Clinton presidency will become publicly available at the Southern Historical Collection at UNC-CH. Branch, a 1968 UNC-CH graduate, has a long relationship with the historical collection. The source materials — interviews, transcriptions, correspondence — that led to his prize-winning writings on Martin Luther King Jr., are already in the university's possession. Now, too, are the Clinton records.
Related Link:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/bill-clinton-research-
materials-to-be-available-at-unc-ch
UNC to get funds for traineeships
The Chapel Hill Herald
Nearly a half-million dollars was allocated to UNC for public health traineeships as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The money was part of an overall $1.3 million coming to North Carolina through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That money is being distributed among six state universities to provide financial assistance to students, as well as programs designed to address workforce shortages in the medical profession.
Related Link:
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/sep/22/wssu-gets-12-
million-training-health-care-workers/
Hands-on science comes to Githens
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
White aprons with outlines of internal organs? Check. Blue safety gloves? Check. Curious minds? Check. With that manifest in hand, Githens Middle School seventh-graders boarded the Destiny bus for a special science lesson Tuesday. The 16.5-ton blue-and-white vehicle, one of two operated by UNC Chapel Hill's Morehead Planetarium, stopped in Durham for the first of many visits to North Carolina schools over the 2009-10 academic year.
UNC Media Advisory:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2886/109/
100 years at the 'J-School' (Column)
The Chapel Hill News
…"Making News: One Hundred Years of Journalism and Mass Communication at Carolina" by retired professor and former interim dean Tom Bowers, begins with one small journalism class taught by Professor Edward Kidder Graham in 1909. Bowers follows the school as it changes and grows to a 2005 faculty of 45 and student body of 876.
UNC-CH meets with future budget, staffing woes in mind
News 14 Carolina
The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees meets on Wednesday for the first time since the UNC-system board decided more administrative cuts were needed. UNC-CH’s audit and financial committee is likely to discuss where the school can make more cuts when they come together. Each campus is having to reduce their budget by an average of nearly 11 percent, while Erskine Bowles, system president, said more cuts to administrative staff are pending.
Doctor sees the system's strengths
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As a surgeon and academic leader at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Dr. George Sheldon often sees the U.S. medical system at its best. Patients have ready access to specialists. They are treated with sophisticated technologies. As a result, they are living longer than ever before. "The best parts of our system are by far the best in the world," says Sheldon, chairman emeritus of the surgery department at UNC-CH. "Saying it's broken is overstating it."
2 UNC radiologists honored
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Two UNC-Chapel Hill doctors received recognition as part of the top 25 most influential in radiology, courtesy of RT Image magazine. RT Image, a national radiology magazine, compiled a list of the top 25 most influential people, institutions and organizations in radiology in 2009 by looking at various studies and interviewing experts in the field. Matthew Mauro and Joseph Lee, both doctors at UNC, were two of only nine individuals to make the list.
Health centers want to see health reform
The Daily Reflector (Greenville)
The heads of North Carolina's major academic health centers want to see health care reform. The leaders of medical programs at East Carolina University, Duke University, Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sent a letter this month to Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., asking them to push for health care reform in Washington.
State to residents: recycle, pretty please
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Public service announcements, fliers, and in Raleigh's case, corporate-sponsored gift cards, are all aimed at getting North Carolina households to do their part in complying with a state law kicking in Oct. 1 that bans plastic bottles from landfills. …Katie Burdett, who wrote about plastics recycling as a requirement for her master's in public administration from UNC-Chapel Hill this year, said the state would need to require recycling and develop an enforcement strategy to maximize the ban's impact.
Eat for your heart (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
When your heart health is at risk and you know you have to eat well, putting dietary advice into practice can still be a challenge. You may be well aware of the recommendations: eat less salt, less saturated fat, more fiber. Translating these into what to make for dinner — or what to order when you go out — is where it all breaks down. (Suzanne Havala Hobbs is a registered dietitian and a clinical assistant professor in the department of health policy and administration in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.)
Mother grateful for festival book donations (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill News
I would like to thank our community for the wonderful support we have received. This time it was through the N.C. Literary Festival hosted by the UNC Chapel Hill Libraries, which collected over 600 books. People who attended the festival were asked to bring a book to donate to the Book Fairy. (Kathy Humphries, Book Fairy, Chapel Hill)
YWC Keeps University Organization Status
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
It turns out that Youth for Western Civilization will get to keep their UNC student organization thanks to Chancellor Holden Thorp asking faculty members to serve as the group’s advisory panel. One of those faculty members is Professor of Physics & Astronomy Chris Clemens who stepped down as YWC’s initial advisor last spring.
DKEs should clean up their act (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
Members of UNC's Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity did themselves no favors in dispelling the unflattering and stereotypical frat boy image by engaging in a series of unfortunate events since the beginning of the school year. The university has now leveled sanctions against the Greek organization.
4 UNC athletes face alcohol charges
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Police broke up an underage drinking party Saturday night and charged four Tar Heel athletes.
Issues and Trends
Toward degrees (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Leaders of the University of North Carolina system started pushing some years ago for campuses to enroll more students. The motivation made sense: forecasts showed that the number of college-age students was increasing, and there was pressure from all corners to make a place for those students in the system. Pushing more young people toward a college degree obviously would broaden their horizons and would benefit the state.
E. Rosemary residents tackle lights
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Residents in the 400 to 600 blocks of East Rosemary Street aren't opposed to efforts to make neighborhoods safer. But some of them do have a problem with plans by the Town of Chapel Hill to install as many as nine pedestrian-level street lamps on the north side of their street. The street lamps are part of a neighborhood safety effort launched by UNC students in the aftermath of the 2008 kidnapping and murder of former UNC student body president Eve Carson.
UNC Hospitals paying $9M in bonuses
The Triangle Business Journal
UNC Hospitals is paying out about $9 million in incentive bonuses to employees for meeting the hospital’s strategic goals. …UNC Hospitals CEO Bill Roper and the hospital’s other seven top officials are not eligible for the payments. Roper says the payments are not bonuses but are part of the pay structure the hospital uses.
Police locate doctor's bar pal
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Police have found the woman who was in the company of a plastic surgeon charged this month with second-degree murder after investigators accused him of driving drunk and causing an accident that killed an aspiring professional ballerina. Witnesses told police that Raymond Dwight Cook, 42, a physician with Wake Med facial plastic surgery and a UNC-Chapel Hill medical school faculty member, was sitting with an unknown woman at The Piper's Tavern on Falls of Neuse Road before his black 2005 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG crashed into a silver 2008 Hyundai driven by Elena Bright Shapiro, 20.