uncnews.unc.edu

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

National Coverage

R Grammar Gaffes Ruining The Language? Maybe Not
National Public Radio
Good grammar may have came and went. ...Reading and listening to contemporary English, you just might think that the language is going to hell, and there is plenty of evidence to help make your argument. "Every year fewer and fewer students enter college knowing the difference between 'lie' and 'lay,' " says Connie C. Eble, an English professor at the University of North Carolina.

Exploring Thailand’s Taste for Nostalgia
The Wall Street Journal
...Kevin Hewison, an Asian Studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, notes that any longing for what seems now like a more peaceful time may be a “reaction to the turmoil” of the current political climate, which included anti-government protests in 2010 that left more than 90 people dead after weeks of raucous demonstrations in central Bangkok. “Things were more predictable” in years past, he says.

Regional Coverage

Some teens delay rite of passage
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
It used to be teens couldn't wait to get their driver's license. The rite of passage marked a new level of independence. ...Rob Foss, director for the Center for the Study of Young Drivers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, disagrees with the Federal Highway Administration's findings but said teens are getting licensed to drive unsupervised at a slightly older age. "There's no question about that," he said.

Conference focuses on safe playing in high school football season
The Courier News (Somerville, N.J.)
...Dr. Frederick O. Mueller, a 1954 Woodbridge High School graduate and director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, where he was previously an assistant football coach, said spearing remains a problem. “Everybody talks about keeping the head out of football,” he said in a separate phone interview, “but I think it may still be being taught, and I think kids are still doing it. I think it’s some of the cause of all the stuff that’s going on with all of these concussions and other types of injuries.”

School athletes learn to handle the heat
The Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.)
As the calendar turns to August, high school and college football players intensify their training for coming seasons, usually in scorching heat. ...According to the Annual Survey of Football Injury Research by the University of North Carolina, there were five heat-stroke deaths last year, all at the high school level, as record hot temperatures were seen across the nation.

State and Local Coverage

Chapel Hill boot camp gives surgeons 'invaluable' practice
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
An annual surgery simulation boot camp in Chapel Hill gives physicians a lot of practice on the operating table so that they don't make their first surgical mistakes on a real patient. Last week at the University of North Carolina's Friday Center for Continuing Education, 39 resident physicians and 30 faculty members from all over the country went through the intensive training in cardiothoracic surgery.

Neighbors appeal Robeson County decision to allow sand mine near Red Springs
The Fayetteville Observer
...They said it is contract zoning - a land-use regulation where a local authority accommodates a private interest by rezoning a parcel of land with limitations or restrictions, which are not necessarily applied to other similarly zoned parcels. This is illegal in North Carolina, according to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government, because "it represents an abandonment on the part of the zoning authority of its duty to exercise independent judgment in making zoning decisions."

UNC faculty report on academic fraud also praises admissions director (Blog)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Our story last week on a special faculty report that drew more attention to the connection between UNC-Chapel Hill athletics and what appears to be the worst case of academic fraud in recent memory cited an issue regarding the process of admitting athletes with subpar academic records.