Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
When violence explodes in the workplace
The Globe and Mail
The attack by a deranged gunman on U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson crowd occurred in a public setting, but it was also a workplace disaster. …One study, by Eric Elbogen and Sally Johnson at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, followed 35,000 people for five years and found that people with a history of mental illness were no more prone to violence than the average person – unless they also had a problem with alcohol or drugs.
Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century (Column)
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was assassinated 50 years ago today, on 17 January, 1961. (Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja is professor of African and Afro-American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History.)
National Coverage
With Concert-Style Posters, 'Rock Star' Professors Get Their Due
The Chronicle of Higher Education
They don't do encores, and they take the stage at the decidedly un-rock 'n' roll hour of 4 p.m. But some science speakers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been getting the rock-star treatment in one area. To promote its distinguished seminar series, the university's biology department creates custom posters resembling those used to advertise rock concerts.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take medical leave
USA Today
Apple, the technology innovator and standard-setter for stylish cellphones, personal computers and transformative gadgets from iPods to iPads, is losing its iconic leader once again. It's unclear when — or even whether —Apple CEO Steve Jobs will return. …His latest announcement could be a sign that his pancreatic cancer has returned, says Richard Goldberg, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Goldberg has no knowledge of Jobs' case but says the most likely reason for a setback is that the tumor has spread into the transplanted liver. It's also possible Jobs' body is rejecting the transplant, although that is more likely soon after a transplant, he says.
Is Toning Down The Rhetoric All Talk?
National Public Radio
…"I always cringe at the idea that we need to 'tone down the rhetoric' in politics," says Christian Lundberg, a professor of rhetoric and cultural studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "The definition of rhetoric that this formulation implies is that rhetoric is empty or bombastic speech. We rhetoricians like to define the idea of rhetoric as any speech that aims at convincing someone of something." Even the call to ratchet down the rhetoric in politics, Lundberg says, is a rhetorical act.
The Big Idea: Brain Trauma
National Geographic
Football draws as much attention lately for the knocks that players take as it does for their drives down the field. …At the University of North Carolina, where football players receive an average of 950 hits to the head each season, neuroscientist Kevin Guskiewicz and colleagues have spent six years analyzing impact data from video recordings and helmets equipped with accelerometers.
Online education company 2tor partnering with Georgetown
The Washington Post
Some prestigious universities turn away hundreds of qualified applicants every school year, limited by the number of students their bricks-and-mortar buildings can hold. …The technology seems to have swayed other top universities as well. The University of Southern California offers online master's programs in social work and education through 2tor. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created an online version of its MBA program.
Dixie and D.C. region drift farther and farther apart
The Washington Post
…With all due respect to 18th-century surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, drawing hard lines around a cultural region is always an imprecise exercise, said Harry Watson, director of the Center of the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, which last month published several papers on the subject. Pockets of Southernness pop up far from the 11 states that made up the Confederacy, Watson said, from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to Bakersfield, Calif.
Horoscope fans want to keep their signs
The Associated Press
…Countless people reacted on social networks Friday to the "news" that the stars have shifted alignment, astrologically speaking. No matter that the astronomy instructor who started it all in a weekend newspaper interview said it was an old story – very old; 2,000 years old, actually – and that astrologists were insisting it wouldn't change a thing. …According to myth, Ophiuchus became a healer when he killed a snake and another appeared with an herb in his mouth that revived the dead one, said Amy Sayle, an astronomy educator at the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Regional Coverage
Apple's Steve Jobs likely stricken with one of two conditions, experts say
The San Jose Mercury News
Medical experts say there are two likely reasons why patients such as Apple CEO Steve Jobs, with pancreatic cancer and a new liver, need time off: complications from the transplant or recurrence of the tumor. …According to a report by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill abdominal transplant surgeon David Gerber, liver metastases are the main cause of death for patients with this type of cancer — so a transplant can significantly prolong survival.
State and Local Coverage
UNC team continues breast cancer research
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
In 200
6, a team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill schools of Public Health and Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center found that breast cancer in younger African American women is more likely to be the more aggressive basal-like (or triple-negative) subtype — one factor thought to be behind known racial disparity differences in breast cancer patient outcomes.
Healthy turnabout for tobacco
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…Although manufacturing flu vaccine with tobacco plants could have many benefits, completed vaccine should be introduced to the public on a small scale, said David Weber, a professor in the infectious diseases division at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. "It may well turn out that using tobacco plants allows us to generate large amounts of flu vaccine and that purifying the vaccines is easier this way," he said.
Bit of Carolina blue nails it for Habitat homes
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
When Latesha Foushee moves into her new house this spring, there will be blue nails in the beams and signatures on the studs. Her 1,100-square-foot, three-bedroom house is one of the latest built in Chapel Hill by Habitat for Humanity of Orange County and its partner student group at UNC-Chapel Hill. More than 280 UNC-CH students, faculty and staff are spending this weekend nailing up walls, lifting trusses and putting together the pieces for two houses for lower-income UNC-CH employees and their families.
Related Links:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/noteworthy/story/8948502/
http://wchl1360.com/detailswide.html?id=17167
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/video?id=7899282
UNC, Duke scientists named AAAS Fellows
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Eight Duke University Medical Center scientists and six scientists from UNC Chapel Hill have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow this year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. …The UNC-CH researchers include: Biologist Kerry Bloom, anthropologist Paul Leslie, chemist Wenbin Lin, computer scientist Dinesh Manocha, geneticist and psychiatrist Patrick Sullivan and physicist John Wilkerson.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4204/74/
Dorrance earns Honor Award
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
North Carolina women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance received the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's Honor Award for 2010 in a ceremony Friday night during the NSCAA convention in Baltimore. In guiding the Tar Heels to 20 NCAA national championships and one AIAW national title, Dorrance has coached some of the greatest names in women's soccer, including Mia Hamm, April Heinrichs, Kristine Lilly, Cindy Parlow, Carla Overbeck and Heather O'Reilly.
Incoming speaker Tillis lines up his staff (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
House-Speaker designate Thom Tillis has been hiring his new staff. He said the budget for his staff would be 15 percent to 18 percent less than that of his predecessor, Democrat House Speaker Joe Hackney. …Jason Kay will join the staff as general counsel. Kay, a senior staff attorney at the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, teaches two courses at UNC-CH School of Law. He received a law degree and a master's degree in public administration from UNC-CH.
Joining the two shades of blue
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Ten student-led scholarly projects designed to enhance collaboration between Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill have each been awarded $5,000 as part of the inaugural Kenan-Biddle Partnership class. “We received more than 90 proposals, which made the selection process highly competitive,” said Ronald Strauss, executive associate provost at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-chairman of the grant selection committee. “We are confident that the 10 projects chosen are well designed to achieve the benefits intended by the partnership.”
Related Link:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/a-new-grant-fund-for-dukeunc-projects
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4226/1/
Prof sees Duke-Progress board shrinking (Blog)
The Triangle Business Journal
By corporate standards, the 18-member board that will be created by the merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy will be quite a whopper. But not everyone thinks it will stay that way for long. “Over time I think it will reduce itself,” says Lissa Broome, a UNC law professor who heads the law school’s Director Diversity Initiative.
UNC Health, BCBS plan facility
The Chapel Hill Herald
Two of the state's largest health care companies are joining forces to open a new type of medical practice in the Triangle, the latest evidence that the federal overhaul law is spurring major shifts in the industry. Blue Cross and Blue Shield will collaborate with the UNC Health Care System to build a primary care facility that will coordinate care exclusively for about 5,000 Blue Cross members. The company is the state's largest health insurer.
Medicaid's year (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
It's no accident that competing hospital and health care systems in the Triangle are cutting each other up over Medicaid reimbursements. …Two state-run health systems, those of UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University, want officials in Raleigh and Washington, D.C., to approve a plan under which they – and physician groups affiliated with them – would benefit from higher federal reimbursements for Medicaid-related expenses.
Breastfeeding's role (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Thank you for the wonderful series on how to address the obesity epidemic. Concerning "Doomed from the womb?" certainly obesity during pregnancy is associated with many risks for a
mother's health. However, it is important for moms who are fighting the battle of the bulge to know that they are not dooming their children from birth. (Miriam Labbok, M.D., professor and director, Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute, Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill.)
Cutting Chapel Hill loose (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
With an anticipated revenue shortfall of $3.7 billion dominating the North Carolina legislative horizon this spring, the air will soon be filled with previously unthinkable ideas on how to cut the state budget. One such idea is that there is no reason why the 17-campus UNC system must retain its current structure.
Related Link:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/should-unc-ch-be-free-of-system-constraints
Agree or disagree? (Opinion)
The Chapel Hill News
Last week we said the periodic calls for the removal of Silent Sam from the UNC campus were misguided, because symbols like Sam serve to remind us of our past and thereby help us measure our progress. Here are some responses: …Silent Sam doesn't commemorate the Confederacy or the ideas for which it stood. It commemorates the soldiers who died in the conflict.
Holden Thorp updates UNC investigation on blog
WTVD-TV (ABC/Raleigh)
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp has taken to his blog to update the community on the ongoing UNC football investigation. In his first post on the subject Friday, Thorp thanks faculty and colleagues for their support, and recaps some of the steps he says the university has taken to avoid future investigations of the program.
Issues and Trends
Going up – Whatever happened to that 'free' UNC education? (Editorial)
The Fayetteville Observer
The University of North Carolina governing board heard pleas Thursday for further tuition increases next fall because of impending state budget cuts. …We know cuts are inevitable. Deficit spending isn't an option in this state, and over the long haul, that's a good thing. The budget has to balance, every year. And this year, revenue is expected to fall about $3.7 billion short of expenses. Every state institution has got to lose employees and programs.
Give UNC power to hire retirees quicker (Editorial)
The Charlotte Observer
Though former UNC President Erskine Bowles has been warning that hefty budget cuts will slice into the academic muscle of the 17-campus system, members of the UNC Board of Governors got an eyeful of what it really means during a policy discussion Thursday. It was a chilling reminder of the $3.7 billion budget shortfall that legislators must deal with when they convene Jan. 26.
UNC system seeks funding increase
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The UNC Board of Governors agreed Friday to ask state lawmakers for $222 million more than the $2.7 billion the state's higher education system received during the current fiscal year. The request includes $105 million approved by the board in November and an additional $117 million proposal approved Friday to cover enrollment growth, financial aid and other items.
Ross searches out duplication at UNC
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
UNC President Tom Ross has ordered a sweeping review of academics across the public university system – an attempt to become more efficient by rooting out duplication. The exercise will be neither quick nor popular. It will challenge faculty, staff and administrators to prioritize, surrender some ground and think more broadly than has long been the custom. But this must be done, Ross said Friday, for the university to survive what is expected to be another round of severe budget cuts next year and to create future economic stability.
Related Link:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/uncs-new-task-streamline-the-academy
Training the Education Legislators
Inside Higher Ed
…"It couldn't be us doing it," said Thomas W. Ross, who was a full six days into his presidency of the University of North Carolina System when he participated in the retreat last week. "If [North Carolina's colleges and universities] tried to put something like this on, the legislators wouldn't come, or if they came, they would view it very differently," and more skeptically, he said.