uncnews.unc.edu

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

International Coverage

What if you can't sell your home?
Reuters (Wire Service)
...Think like a buyer when making home improvements, suggests (Norman) Block, an adjunct professor of real estate at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School. Add a fresh coat of paint or new hardware to the front door, trim bushes and de-clutter the front yard so you make a good first impression. Once inside the home, "buyers tend to look up more than they look down," Block says.

National Coverage

Meet the New Bloggers: The Team from Modeled Behavior
The Atlantic
Thanks to the outgoing crew of guest-bloggers, and welcome to the new guest hosts, the bloggers from Modeled Behavior. ...Karl Smith is Assistant Professor of Public Economics and Government at the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The media’s Southern stereotypes
Salon.com
...Of course, it is clear to people who live here that our economies no longer operate by way of large-scale plantation systems, if they ever did in the first place. Ferrel Guillory, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor in the school of Journalism and Mass Communication, tells AlterNet, “There is this common wisdom out there that the South remains a rural place dominated by working-class people with no education past high school.”

Regional Coverage

The State Worker: Public 'customers' focus of some state departments
The Sacramento Bee (California)
...Government co-opted the "customer" term in the 1980s, said University of North Carolina political scientist Frank Baumgartner, as privatizing government became a topic of debate. A government makeover plan during the Clinton presidency gave "customers" more cachet.

Aerotropolis conference to be held April 10 in Memphis
The Memphis Business Journal (Tenn.)
Memphis will host the Mid-South Aerotropolis Conference April 10 on the University of Memphis campus....Speakers include Shaun Donovan, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Amy Liu, co-director and senior fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings in Washington, D.C.; and John Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the man recognized as creating the aerotropolis concept.

Special-ed students in Orleans schools use ‘alternate pencils’ to acquire writing skills
"The Lens" WWNO-FM (New Orleans, La.)
...It’s hard to gauge how many schools are using the alternate pencils program across the state because training in the techniques now practiced at Craig and Reed are gained primarily through online webinars, program consultant Vicky Poston Roy said. Roy contracts with the state Department of Education to provide on-site and distance consulting in five districts a year, using material from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – a leader in research for alternate pencil programs.

State and Local Coverage

UNC-Chapel Hill receives a record number of applicants
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has offered admission to 7,571 first-year applicants for the fall of 2012. The University expects to enroll 3,960 students this fall, 3,247 from North Carolina and 713 from the around the country and the world.
Related Links:
http://www2.nbc17.com/news/2012/apr/04/unc-sees-record-applications
-freshman-class-ar-2125812/
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2012/04/unc-offers-admission-to-7571-new.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8608766
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5221/75/

Tuition should follow demand at Carolina (Blog)
The News & Record (Greensboro)
There's no wonder UNC-Chapel Hill is trumpeting these numbers -- a 24 percent increase over last year in applications for admission, 47 percent increase over three years ago. That's remarkable. The numbers show an incredible demand for the quality and value of higher education offered by our flagship state university. The word goes far and wide. Out-of-state applications increased 35 percent over last year!

Just the Facts on Amendment One, Please
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
...But Holning Lau, associate professor of law at UNC-Chapel Hill, found in his research that Massachusetts's data on annual divorce and marriage rates showed no difference in the four years before and four years after same-sex marriage became legal. He also presents data from Europe concluding that "there is no association between legal recognition of same-sex unions and fluctuations in rates of marriage, divorce, and non-marital births."

Marriage amendment campaign's final month
The Charlotte Post
...A report based on the analysis of four professors at the University of North Carolina School of Law on legal implications said that the passage of this amendment would likely affect many areas from domestic violence protection, to child custody, to health insurance for employees, homosexual or not, because years of settled law regarding domestic partnerships without marriage would be threatened.

Issues and Trends

Lawmaker says legislation will include protections for UNC workers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The sponsor of state legislation that would transfer thousands of UNC system workers to a new UNC-led personnel system says the bill would include guidelines protecting workers’ rights and benefits. Sen. Richard Stevens, a Wake County Republican who introduced Senate Bill 575 last April, said Wednesday that if the personnel change is voted on this year, he would add eight “guiding principles” to the legislation.