unc.edu/news

International Coverage

Jockeys still battling weight issues, but progress being made
The Canadian Press (Wire Service)
..."We should definitely care as the health and lives of the human and equine athletes are at stake," says University of North Carolina professor of eating disorders Cynthia M. Bulik. "The fear is that there will always be someone out there who is willing to do damage to their body for the competitive advantage, and only a culture change can alter that background acceptance of unhealthy behaviour."

National Coverage

The Most Deadly Forms Of Melanoma
"The Early Show" CBS News
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that people with scalp or neck melanoma die at almost twice the rate of those with melanoma on the extremities, and people with melanomas on the arms, legs, face or ears have the best prognosis. ...The study's senior author, Dr. Nancy Thomas, associate professor of dermatology in the UNC School of Medicine, urges physicians to pay special attention to the scalp when examining patients for signs of skin cancer.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/most-lethal-melanomas-
are-on-scalp-and-neck.html

Obama Leads Clinton in N.C. Ahead of Primary
"Morning Edition" National Public Radio
Last week's Pennsylvania primary was good news for Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, is hoping to pick up a win in North Carolina's primary May 6. It's a state where Obama holds a sizable lead, but Clinton is making headway. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Ferrel Guillory was included in this broadcast.)

Democratic presidential contest to end in Republican-leaning states
Cox News Service
As Democratic leaders try to end the continuing fight for their party's 2008 presidential nomination, the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton heads into an ironic phase: of the final seven states to vote, only one, Oregon, has supported a Democratic nominee in the last two White House contests. ...Some 165,000 new Democrats have registered in North Carolina, but most of them are first-time voters, according to the State Board of Elections. And even if the new voter registrations don't transform North Carolina into a battleground state in the fall, "they could force the GOP to defend their turf," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Democrats focus on Republican strongholds
The Associated Press
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will spend the next six weeks campaigning in states that are irrelevant to their November strategies, a break for Republican John McCain as he focuses on battlegrounds for the fall. ...In North Carolina, for example, both parties are holding contested gubernatorial primaries on May 6, but the Republican contest "is practically invisible," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

You Can't Look Like a Pin-Up and Eat Like a Linebacker (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Huffington Post (Online Newspaper)
...Perhaps the only females, save a very small percentage who are sick or genetically blessed (estimated at 2-5% of the population), that don't have to work hard to stay slim are the prepubescent girls. And sadly we're already seeing the sexualization of that crowd. A new survey from Shape magazine and The University of North Carolina backs this up.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/survey-finds-disordered-
eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-women.html

Regional Coverage

Washington-If
McClatchy Tribune (News service)
If the Democratic primaries are a guide, Barack Obama has a problem with white voters. ...“Obama comes across differently from Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. He comes across as a black guy with mainstream attitudes and credentials,” said Ferrel Guillory, the director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Scalp, neck need sunblock, too
The Orange County Register (California)
When applying sunblock, don't ignore your scalp or neck. In fact, treat those areas first. Or wear a hat with a brim in the back. A new study by the University of North Carolina says that "people with scalp or neck melanomas die at nearly twice the rate of people with melanoma elsewhere on the body, including the face and ears."
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/most-lethal-melanomas-
are-on-scalp-and-neck.html

Soon-to-be college grads find economic climate makes job hunting tougher
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pa.)
...The economic news is not encouraging to those seniors who are donning their caps and gowns this weekend at Pitt and in the coming weeks at other local colleges and universities. "It doesn't help that you see all this gloom and doom in the headlines. That certainly adds to the anxiety," said Shawn Graham, the author of "Courting Your Career." He said that in his day job, as an associate director at the MBA Career Management Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he saw students in the business program that were caught up in JP Morgan's purchase of Bear Stearns and wound up losing job offers that had been extended to them.

The Dow is down! Prepare the verbs!
The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.)
Dip. Drop. Fall. Slide. Slip. Stumble. Plunge. Plummet. Gain. Jump. Bounce. Limp. Surge. Rocket. Soar. The stock market has done it all in the past six months. If you didn't know any better, you might think the Dow Jones industrial average was an 8-year-old boy at summer camp. ...Chris Roush is trying to stop the madness. Roush teaches journalism at the University of North Carolina and is director of the Carolina Business News Initiative. He spends an entire day in his classes talking to students about covering the markets and advising them which verbs are and are not okay to use in describing market machinations.

Water? They'll get their water (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Wis.)
...Meanwhile, we've got lots of people saying Atlanta's drought will be what sends 'em all scurrying back to Milwaukee. ...Not going to happen, says John Kasarda, who knows more about the flow of economies than I ever will. Kasarda, who researches entrepreneurship and demographics at the University of North Carolina, says there's simply no evidence that constrictions in water supply alone can torpedo a burgeoning region.

An "ocean" of difference
The Asbury Park Press (N.J.)
...In the 19 years since (Fred) Grassle helped organize the Rutgers University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, the organization has earned its own place in the annals of ocean science — and helped the public better understand how the ocean affects them. ...Now Grassle is handing off his job as institute director to Francisco Werner, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who heads the ocean processes computer modeling laboratory there. Werner's work lately has examined the flows and currents of the undersea continental shelf and how they are linked to life in the ocean.

State and Local Coverage

Inexperience might pay
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The U.S. economy shed almost a quarter of a million jobs in the first three months of the year. ...Half of graduating seniors at UNC-Chapel Hill have jobs or have been accepted to graduate school. Within a month, the head of the university's career center expects that number to be closer to 65 percent, higher than average. "Things are a lot better than most people would expect with the conditions of our economy," said Marcia Harris, the director.

N.C. election process lengthy (Column)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
North Carolina has three groupings of citizens who turn out to vote in statewide elections: a Democratic primary electorate, a Republican primary electorate, and a substantially larger general-election electorate. Candidates who run for U.S. Senate, governor and Council of State offices have to negotiate through two of the three sets of the statewide electorate for a successful campaign. (Ferrel Guillory is director of the program for public life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

The Last Time N.C.'s Primary Mattered
The Charlotte Observer
Candidates begin their last full week of campaigning today in the most important N.C. primary since 1988, the last year a nomination race wasn't all but decided before it reached our border. ..."The big counties are more important to candidates than they were in 1988," says UNC Chapel Hill political scientist Ferrel Guillory.

N.C. stakes are high for Obama
The Chapel Hill News
Despite a 25-point lead in the polls, Barack Obama cannot take North Carolina's May 6 primary for granted, supporters and a local political scholar agreed Friday. ...But Bill Leuchtenburg, the William Rand Kenan professor of history emeritus at UNC, said at this point an Edwards endorsement wouldn't mean as much in this state as it might elsewhere.

UNC grant to train African doctors
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
UNC has been awarded a training fellowship from the Gilead Foundation to provide doctors from the African nation of Malawi with postdoctoral training in internal medicine. Among the poorest nations in the world, Malawi is the site of the UNC Project, a research, care and training facility in the country's capital, Lilongwe. The facility is a collaborative venture between UNC and Kamuzu Central Hospital.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-wins-grant-to-train-
hiv-doctors-in-africa.html

UNC program will aid business growth
The Chapel Hill News
UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School has launched a business accelerator to speed the growth of firms with environmental and social objectives. The UNC Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (BASE) will connect entrepreneurs to a range of sustainability resources -- from expertise to capital -- with the aim of accelerating their growth and impact.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/business/unc-kenan-flagler-launches-first-
sustainable-business-accelerator.html

UNC cancer professor wins award
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
H. Shelton Earp, professor of pharmacology and medicine, Lineberger Professor of Cancer Research and director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC, has received the 2008 Thomas Jefferson Award. The award recognizes a UNC faculty member who, through personal influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing and scholarship, has best exemplified the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/cancer-researcher-
pharmacologist-receives-uncs-thomas-jefferson-award.html

Boshamere Stadium getting face-lift
The Chapel Hill Herald
Before every home game, North Carolina's baseball players meet at Kenan Stadium some four hours before the first pitch to get dressed in the visiting locker room. ...With Boshamer Stadium undergoing a $25.5 million face-lift, the Tar Heels' baseball team is playing all its home games in the far western reaches of Cary.

Innovations pay off for people (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
'Technology transfer" is a term of art to those of us in the field but a magical mystery tour for so many who benefit from university innovations reaching the marketplace, or who evaluate, study, fund and invest in this process. (Mark Crowell is associate vice chancellor for Economic Development and Technology Transfer at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a past president of the Association of University Technology Managers.)

Who's in charge here? (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Although many of us don't like it or would like to deny it, elites pretty much run the show today -- just as they have since, oh, maybe, 12,000 years ago when humans began to practice agriculture, and, as a result, began to accumulate surplus resources at differential rates. (Peter A. Coclanis is Associate Provost for International Affairs and Albert R. Newsome Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill.)

Combat vets face hurdles as students
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...Compared to that flood, today's student veterans are a trickle, coming quietly onto campus a few at a time, often without mentioning their military service. No one tracks how many enrolled at NCSU, Duke or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are veterans. If they don't ask for help, the schools may never know they're there.

War reporter draws the line after five tours of duty
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
N&O reporter Jay Price has been to Iraq and Afghanistan five times to cover the wars there. He's not going back. "If you have a family, you have to ask yourself, where is the line?" Price said last week to an audience at UNC-Chapel Hill's journalism school.
UNC Event Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/government-and-law/local-journalists-to-discuss-
reporting-on-military-conflicts.html

UNC to host IAAR research meeting
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The Institute of African American Research at UNC will host the 2008 African American Faculty Research Consortium from 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Campus Y on Cameron Avenue. The consortium is a continuing networking initiative that seeks to connect UNC faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who are conducting research on African Americans in the United States and blacks elsewhere in the diaspora.
UNC Event Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/humanities-and-social-sciences/researchers-on-
african-diaspora-invited-to-consortium.html

Pottery exhibit highlights Cherokee past, present
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
...The current exhibit of Cherokee pottery at the N.C. Museum of History is an example of how tradition can be preserved while being an integral part of the present. ...Some are from the collection of the Cherokee Heritage Center in Oklahoma and others are from the Research Laboratory of Archeology at UNC.

Deep Dish talk on Alvarez book
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The Deep Dish Theater Company will host an informal discussion of Julia Alvarez's "How the Garcia Sisters Lost Their Accents" May 22 at 6:30 p.m. Presented in conjunction with the theater's production of "The Clean House," which will be performed that evening at 7:30 p.m., the talk will take place in Tyndall Galleries in University Mall. The discussion will be led by Evelyn Daniel and David Carr and is free and open to the public. ...Daniel and Carr both teach and do research in the School of Information and Library Science at UNC.

Volunteers drive fundraising success (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill News
On April 12, a wonderful group of volunteers hosted UNC Lineberger's fifth annual Beach Ball, supporting leading-edge cancer research and treatment right here in our community. The original Beach Ball began more than 10 years ago with a small celebration hosted by the family and friends of Missy Julian-Fox after she successfully battled breast cancer at UNC Lineberger. (H. Shelton Earp III, Director, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center)

Schools step up to serve autistic students
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
...Last school year, there were more than 630 students with some form of autism spectrum disorder in Western North Carolina schools and 7,263 across the state, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Five WNC school districts are among the top 20 in the state for their percentages of students with autism, and 12 are in the top 50. ...A division of the University of North Carolina, TEACCH is state-funded, and because of its almost 40 years working with children and adults with autism, it’s considered to be a valuable asset by many in the community.

Don't lose sight of need for services (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Chapel Hill News
Times have changed. I can remember when doctors were apprehensive about giving a diagnosis and support groups were new. Now different disabilities are lining up under the autism umbrella and the support groups have members in the hundreds. (Steve Cory is a Web application developer at UNC, a former Autism Society of North Carolina board member and has a 23-year-old son who lives in a group home for people with autism.)
Related Link:
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/features/story/14139.html

Gender and violence (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As a UNC-Chapel Hill student, I want to thank Duke President Richard Brodhead and UNC Chancellor James Moeser for their April 16 Point of View piece in which they addressed the importance of stricter gun laws.
Related Link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/690/story/1051628.html

Issues and Trends

UNC mascot dies of blow from son, Rameses XVIII
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Rameses XVII, the blue-horned ram who led the UNC-Chapel Hill football team onto the field for the past five years, died Thursday of complications from a wound he suffered at the horns of his own son. Rameses XVII was 8. The son Pablo, 3, will take the name Rameses XVIII and succeed his slain father as Carolina mascot, keeper Rob Hogan said.
Related Link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1050136.html

Universities woo community college students
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...Across the state, universities are enrolling more community college graduates toting two-year degrees. In this pool of prospects, campus officials see eager, mature and motivated students who may be a better bet to reach the academic finish line than an 18-year-old freshman who has never set foot on a college campus or lived away from home.

Fayetteville State gets new emergency system
WTVD-TV (ABC/Raleigh)
Fayetteville State University will put its new emergency siren system to the test this week. ...Universities across the country, including NC State in Raleigh and UNC Chapel Hill have tested new siren systems to notify students in case of an emergency.

Committee suggests $8 billion investment in transit
The Associated Press
A blue-ribbon committee has signed off on a report that calls on local, state and federal officials to invest $8.2 billion in a regional transit system over the next 27 years. ...The Herald-Sun of Durham reported Saturday that the report also supports the development of a rail system for commuters that would eventually link Chapel Hill, Durham, Cary and Raleigh.

Judge's common sense proposals (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
In an op-ed article in The Herald-Sun April 19, Durham District Court Judge Marcia Morey made an argument so full of common sense that it's worth repeating. Her proposal was twofold: First, raise the age at which young people are treated as adults in court from 16 to 18; and second, open up some juvenile records.