uncnews.unc.edu

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

National Coverage

As College Basketball Grows, Concussions Are a Side Effect
The Associated Press
Diving for a loose ball during a summer pickup game, North Carolina center Tyler Zeller knocked heads with another player. It left him with a headache, nothing he was too worried about. ...“Anecdotally, I would say we’ve seen an increase in that time in the number of concussions in basketball, especially in women’s basketball,” said Kevin Guskiewicz, an athletic trainer who is chairman of the sports science department at the University of North Carolina.

Your Thoughts on Health Care
"On Point with Tom Ashbrook" National Public Radio
Health care reform is about as big as it gets when it comes to systemic change in this country. Now the White House is throwing everything it’s got at passage. ... We have two deeply knowledgeable guests this hour to help answer your questions and add their perspective. Joining us from New York is Laura Meckler, staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, where she’s covered health and health policy for many years. And from Chapel Hill, N.C., we’re joined by Jonathan Oberlander, associate professor of social medicine and health policy and management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

JFK condolence letters published for 1st time
The Associated Press
...Given the overwhelming volume of mail — 800,000 letters in the first seven weeks alone — most of condolence letters were destroyed. ...Barbara Rimer was 15 when she wrote "I promise you that I will give body and soul to perpetuate the very ideals President Kennedy lived for." Rimer, now dean of the University of North Carolina's Gillings School of Global Public Health, didn't even remember writing to Mrs. Kennedy until contacted by Fitzpatrick. ...But Rimer also realized that she has kept her promise to Mrs. Kennedy through her career in public health and by encouraging students to give back at the local, national and global level.

Sugar Gains Favor on Labels
Wall Street Journal
High fructose corn syrup, the sugar alternative used to sweeten sodas, cookies, condiments and cereals, is beginning to lose some ground in the packaged-food industry. ...Years ago, high fructose corn syrup got some bad press. One piece of research in 2004 from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University and University of North Carolina raised questions about whether the syrup was playing a role in the national obesity epidemic. One of the authors of that study, University of North Carolina professor Barry Popkin, said that since then he and other researchers have concluded that regular sugar and high fructose corn syrup "have the same exact effect on obesity and diabetes and on heart disease. It's not that one is better."

Obesity risks start before birth
The Los Angeles Times
...Today, one of every three U.S. children is overweight — but it's much easier to prevent obesity than to treat it. That's why pediatric obesity experts now say intervention should begin early — very early. The risk of becoming overweight or obese, it increasingly seems, begins before a child is born, establishes roots in infancy and may be entrenched by the time a tot starts kindergarten. ..."What we find is that these things set up children for a lifelong risk of obesity," says Asheley Cockrell Skinner, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "These factors don't just make them overweight; they become barriers to helping them change when they get older. It becomes the story that never ends."

Job Market Stabilizes for Business Students
The New York Times
...With banks climbing out of the recession, more business students across the country are finding banking jobs and internships, enrolling in finance clubs and going on class trips to Wall Street, universities say. ...“Ironically, this can be a superb time to enter banking,” said Jeff Fischer, the director of career management at the business school at the University of North Carolina, where the number of investment bankers visiting campus has risen 67 percent since last year. “The M.B.A. population is like the end of a whip. When cycles swing up and down, students are the ones who swing up and down the most in terms of employment.”

New Uptick Rule Can't Prevent Big Stock Declines
Barrons.com
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission reinstated -- in modified form -- the uptick rule that had been in place from the 1930s until its removal in July 2007. Should you celebrate its return? ...Adam Reed, a professor of finance at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said in an interview that, "There were several academic studies on the effect of uptick rule during this pilot program, which were rigorous and carefully conducted; their consensus was that it didn't have much of an effect."

Regional Coverage

Kids are getting more calories from snacks
The Boston Globe (Mass.)
American children are snacking almost three times a day, consuming more than a quarter of their daily calories between meals, according to a new study of snacking trends since 1977. ...Barry Popkin and Carmen Piernas of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed four nationally representative surveys that asked in person or by telephone what more than 31,000 children had eaten in the past day.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3396/71/

State and Local Coverage

Week's End (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
It's right that a memorial for Eve Carson, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student body president who was murdered in 2008, is surrounded by life and abundant growth. ...The Eve Marie Carson Garden, which includes a blue stone seat and an inscription wall made of marble from Carson's native Georgia, was named for Carson but constructed as a place of honor for past and future UNC students who die before graduation.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3379/1/

Back on his foot
The Chapel Hill Herald
Stampley Walden is a junior at UNC Chapel Hill, a biomedical engineering major, a Morehead-Cain Scholar and a member of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. He's also the fastest-healing below-knee amputee on the East Coast. ...In March 2007, Walden was named a Morehead-Cain Scholar. The scholarship pays all expenses for four years of undergraduate study at UNC, including four summer enrichment experiences. The summer before his freshman year, Walden went kayaking in Alaska.

UNC ascends in Peace Corp ranks
The Chapel Hill News
UNC has risen to No. 6 on the Peace Corps' Top 25 list of large schools producing Peace Corps Volunteers. The university has 78 alumni currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers, and has had 1,092 alumni since the Peace Corps' inception.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3348/107/

Event to mark computing era
The Chapel Hill News
On March 30, 1960, President William C. Friday helped dedicate the new computation center at UNC. On March 18, 2010, President Emeritus Friday, Chancellor Holden Thorp and other special guests will celebrate 50 years of computing at Carolina.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3397/1/

Power struggle (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
It's likely that few of the students, faculty and staff at UNC give much thought to where the power that turns on the lights, computers and lab equipment comes from. ...Chancellor Holden Thorp responded recently by establishing a task force to study the complicated issue of how UNC can best reduce it carbon emissions. UNC's cogeneration plant on Cameron Avenue produces up to one third of the electricity used on campus, and all of the steam, which powers heating systems, water heaters and other equipment.

Derickson, new registrar, starts next week
The Chapel Hill News
Christopher Derickson, now the university's associate registrar, will begin work as assistant provost and university registrar March 15. Derickson has served as the team leader for student records for ConnectCarolina, the integrated administrative computer system that ultimately will replace aging systems managing student services, human resources, payroll and finance. "We are fortunate to have someone with Chris' exceptional capabilities, and who knows Carolina so well, lead the registrar's office," said Bruce Carney, interim executive vice chancellor and provost. "What attracted us to Chris was his vision for the overall responsibilities of his office and his dedication to the staff and the many students, faculty and alumni the office serves."
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3327/68/

See the play, stay and talk about it
The Chapel Hill News
PlayMakers Repertory Company has several special events in connection with Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," running through March 21. PlayMakers' production includes a casting treat: company member Ray Dooley as the terrifying, imperious and wonderful Lady Bracknell, a role played by such legendary British actresses Edith Evans and Judi Dench.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3333/66/

APPLES director wins civic award
The Chapel Hill News
Jenny Huq received the Civic Engagement Professional of the Year Award at Elon University on Feb. 10. Huq is the associate director of the Carolina Center for Public Service and director of the APPLES service learning program at UNC. ...Huq's work includes fostering the engagement of faculty, students and community organizations across the curriculum by offering more than 100 service-learning courses annually, nurturing and empowering student leadership that fulfills the organization's mission and managing program participation that is five times what it was in 2002.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3354/68/

Bingham group seeks expertise
The Chapel Hill News
Neighbors of UNC's Bingham Facility are feeling a little overwhelmed. In recent months, there have been four discharges of treated wastewater at the animal holding and research facility off Orange Chapel Clover Garden Church Road west of Carrboro. ...Chancellor Holden Thorp has apologized for the problems. He's put Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Bob Lowman in charge of the facility. And UNC has begun sharing information in a timely way with neighbors through e-mails.

UNC-Chapel Hill Student Speaks Backwards
WNCN-TV (NBC/Raleigh)
UNC-Chapel Hill student Meghan Shea speaks three languages: English, Spanish and backwards. "It's pretty, just, pretty much just a weird thing I can do," said Shea. The college freshman says she discovered her "talent" her sophomore year in high school. "I was just riding the bus to school one day and my friend was talking to me and I realized that I could visualize each word she was saying backwards," said Shea.

Issues and Trends

Perdue Working on Next Budget Proposal
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
Governor Bev Perdue is already working on her budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. She says the shortfall is expected to be about $1 billion, or a little more than five percent. It's a sizable gap, but Perdue says it's workable--especially compared to last year's $4 billion dollar shortfall. She says the gap is already half-covered by money she held back from state agencies this year. And she wants to cut more than $350 million in programs she says are redundant or outmoded.

A $50,000 lesson from Duke (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Duke University's tuition just crossed the $50,000 mark. The UNC Board of Governors and the General Assembly had better do something. ...The UNC governors are rightly concerned that the legislature might help itself to new funds that the UNC system is raising through modest tuition increases next year. We encourage them to keep fighting. That money ought to be reinvested in higher education. Duke is far from the only university that sees the recession as an opportunity to gain ground in academia's constant competition for the brightest students, the best academic reputation, the most grant funding.

Step it up (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The state is moving with all deliberate speed to fill empty positions in the probation system. Emphasis on the deliberate. The delay in filling jobs is ridiculous, and the state Department of Correction has no obvious excuse. ...A News & Observer series in December of 2008 showed that 580 probationers had been convicted of intentional killings from 2000 to 2008 while they were on probation. Two men charged with the 2008 murder of UNC-Chapel Hill student body President Eve Carson (whose campus memorial garden just opened) were on probation but hadn't gotten much monitoring.
Related Link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/08/376588/those-federal-funds-buy-jobs-and.html