uncnews.unc.edu

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

International Coverage

Breaking the first rule
Investors Chronicle (United Kingdom)
But for a long time now, safer assets have done better than risky ones. Over the last 20 years, total returns on gilts have averaged 0.5 percentage points a year more than total returns (including dividends) on equities. ... This means that it's perfectly possible that the true return on equities is higher than that on gilts and the last 20 years have just been an unlucky sample. Christian Lundblad of the University of North Carolina has pointed out that if we take a sample long enough to permit robust inference, then there is indeed a normal relationship between risk and return.

National Coverage

College’s True Cost (Editorial)
The New York Times
The Obama administration is rightly pressing colleges to bring clarity to the often misleading and unintelligible financial aid letters that many send out to newly admitted students. ...The colleges and universities that have committed to transparency — including the State University System of New York, the university system of Maryland, the University of Texas System and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — have a combined enrollment of 1.4 million students.

Public Universities Reach Tipping Point After Years of Decreased Education Funding
Governing
Holden Thorp is perfectly positioned. As the surprisingly young chancellor of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, Thorp’s office is adjacent to the Old Well, the symbolic heart of this highly respected state research university, which many regard as the birthplace of public higher education more than two centuries ago.
Related Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2012/06/05/press-briefing

New Programs: Criminology, Marine Science, Cybersecurity, International Studies, Medicine and Business, Facility Management
Inside Higher Ed
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has started a five-year dual M.D.-M.B.A. program.
UNC Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5346/107/

Career Services for the Executive Set
Wall Street Journal
...University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School offers executive M.B.A. students six workshops on topics such as networking and interview preparation, along with one-on-one career-advising initiatives.

Fetal genome deduced from parental DNA
Nature
...James Evans, a professor of genetics and medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, agrees that the idea is not yet ready for the clinic. “We don’t know how to interpret the vast majority of variations we find in the genome,” he says. He also warns that parents have very little time to make life-or-death decisions. “The stakes are high,” he says. “Many are testing to decide about termination.”

State and Local Coverage

UNC Adds 107 Acres To Bio Reserve
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
The North Carolina Botanical Garden expanded in a big way this week, as UNC placed more than 100 acres of environmentally sensitive land under its administration. The land comes from the Parker Property, a tract of 126.5 acres donated to the University in 1976 by William and Athena Parker. More than 107 acres of the property will become part of the Mason Farm Biological Reserve, which it adjoins; the remaining 19 acres will be kept undeveloped for the next 25 years.
UNC Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5361/68/

New High Schools Pose Challenge For College Admission Officers
WUNC-FM
... Steve Farmer is the vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill. When a student from one of the state’s nearly 500 high schools applies to UNC-Chapel Hill, it goes through his office. And students are applying in record numbers – nearly 30,000 last year alone.

Asheville's Nancy Williams on attending College Son's graduation from UNC Chapel Hill
The Asheville Citizen-Times
The only graduation ceremonies I’ve been part of have been structured and formal. Reading individual names and presenting diplomas. Solemn and special. At the recent UNC Chapel Hill graduation, I discovered there’s another way. Initially, I was skeptical when I heard they honor grads by having large groups stand up. No individual recognition.

UNC prof accused of smuggling drugs admits to being extremely naive
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The UNC-Chapel Hill physicist being held in an Argentine prison after two kilos of cocaine were found in his luggage has been diagnosed with a personality disorder that – despite three Oxford University degrees – allowed him to be easily duped into carrying the drugs, say supporters and the scientist himself.

Issues and Trends

Are certificates the future of higher education?
The Washington Post
Certificates, not degrees, are the future of higher education, a Georgetown researcher contends in a new study. Certificates are a relatively new and increasingly popular postsecondary credential, awarded typically by a community college or for-profit college for training in a particular occupation. Most certificates take less than a year to complete, although some “long-term” certificate programs can take as long as four years.

U. of Kentucky to Cut 300 Jobs
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The University of Kentucky is cutting more than 300 jobs across the campus, laying off about 140 people in full- or part-time staff positions, in an effort to close a $43-million budget gap, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. An additional 120 vacant staff positions and 44 faculty positions will be eliminated, but no faculty will lose their jobs.

Here's new text of GOP legislation to restrict NC sea-level science & policy
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Bloggers and TV comics have ridiculed it, and now state legislators will get their first chance Thursday to debate unusual legislation that would put tight restrictions on how state and local agencies plan for rising sea levels. ... Any agency or institution that develops a sea-level rise policy "shall use only the definitions and rates of sea-level rise" approved by the Coastal Resources Commission. Other state and local agencies and institutions including UNC campuses are free to study sea-level rise and disseminate research "for non-regulatory purposes.

Orange County calls transit-tax referendum
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Orange County Commissioners on a divided, 5-2 vote agreed this week to call a November referendum on whether their community should have a half-percent sales-tax surcharge to support public transit. ... Critics of the rail plan said it’s geared toward Chapel Hill and even more specifically to the needs of people who need to travel between UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University.