uncnews.unc.edu

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

International Coverage

The dangers of early-onset menstruation
The Sun Star (Philippines)
...A team of six researchers, led by Ban Al-Sahab of the School of Kinesiology and Health Science of Bethune College at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, conducted an analysis of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey that three research outfits here and abroad conducted. These outfits are the Carolina Population Center of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), the Nutrition Center of the Philippines, and the Office of Population Studies of the University of San Carlos (Talamban, Cebu City).

National Coverage

What's wrong with these college rankings?
CBS News
As a Californian, I had to shake my head this week when I saw The Washington Monthly's ranking this week of the country's top 30 colleges and universities. Unlike the usual list of top schools, Ivy League institutions didn't crack the top 10 spots. (I was definitely OK with that!) While the top 20 universities in the US News college rankings are private, 13 of Washington Monthly's best 20 universities are public. ...4. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5512/1/

Happiest Students Rankings
Unigo.com
UNC provides the best public education in the South, which makes four years on this flowering, temperate, lively Chapel Hill campus a bliss-out for its huge, diverse population. (UNC-Chapel Hill is listed at number 9 on this list.)

Best Law Schools for Bargain Hunters
The Wall Street Journal
We’re all familiar with the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings and their clout with prospective law school students who value prestige. But what if you’re a bargain hunter? Turns out there’s a list for you too. The National Jurist has published “Best Value Law Schools” rankings in its September 2012 issue, and placing first is the University of Alabama, which has tuition of $18,030, a bar passage rate of 95.95% and a weighted employment rate of 90%, according to JD Journal. ...The remaining law schools in the top ten were Louisiana State University, University of Nebraska, University of Georgia, University of Kentucky, University of Montana, University of New Mexico, University of North Carolina and University of Wisconsin.

How New Orleans’s New Defenses May Be Tested (Graphic)
The New York Times
Sources: Coastal Emergency Risk Assessment Group; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; National Weather Service; Rick Luettich, Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina

Hurricane Isaac Moves Into Louisiana
The Wall Street Journal
...Still, some engineers and local politicians have argued the defenses may not be stout enough for the most severe hurricanes the city can face. "It really ought to be something higher,'' said David Moreau, a city and regional planning professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Still, he said he doubted that Isaac had "fury enough" to test the defenses like Katrina did.

Column: Computers could steal this election
USA Today
Sometimes, the news media and our political leaders make us worry about the wrong things. A recent Washington Post poll found that 74% of Americans favor requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID. A plurality cares more about voter fraud than the risk that some eligible persons will be denied the right to vote. (Philip Meyer is professor emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

At a black middle-class picnic in D.C., racism in election campaign hardly goes unnoticed (Blog)
The Washington Post
...Black men 40 and younger were “more depressed, experienced more discrimination and had a stronger allegiance to norms encouraging them to restrict their emotions than men more than 40-years old,” according to researcher Wizdom Powell Hammond, assistant professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “[W]hen black men felt strongly about the need to shut down their emotions, then the negative effect of discrimination on their mental health was amplified.”

52 Reasons to Vote for Obama: #13, Transforming Our Schools and Making College More Affordable
The Huffington Post
...We will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. -- President Barack Obama, speaking at the University of North Carolina, February 24, 2009

Regional Coverage

Cheating in baseball still matters because of our love of numbers (Column)
The Denver Post
...A few years ago, the University of North Carolina conducted a study surveying 2,552 ex-NFL players. More than 20 percent of the players from the 1980s admitted steroid use. And the fallout was, um, crickets.

State and Local Coverage

UNC rises to 9th in federal R&D expenditures
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC rose to ninth from 16th among leading private and public research universities for the level of federal funding ($545.99 million) devoted to research and development in all fields during fiscal 2010. The new ranking, based on data compiled by the National Science Foundation, was published by The Chronicle of Higher Education, a trade newspaper.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5508/74/

Extinct Carolina Parakeet still fascinates
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The Carolina parakeet, a small, gregarious parrot with a vibrant green, yellow and blood-orange plumage, once flitted and chattered widely through the state’s forests and lowland swamps. Then about a century ago, it vanished, leaving an old-fashioned mystery for modern ornithologists. But the Carolina Parakeet has appeared again this summer — in prints, photographs and paintings — on display in the North Carolina Collection Gallery at Wilson Library on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus through Sept. 30.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5426/66/

Recall election not an option for Hildebran
The News Herald (Morganton)
...There is no general state law regarding recalling elected officials, University of North Carolina School of Government Professor Bob Joyce said. Town charters, which are essentially acts of the General Assembly, can establish a recall procedure. “If the General Assembly hasn’t done that for a particular town, then recall is simply not an option,” Joyce said.

Libertarian candidate makes stop (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
During a two-day campaign swing through North Carolina, Libertarian vice presidential hopeful Jim Gray stopped Tuesday at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to rail against U.S. drug policy. About a dozen people – mostly students – listened to Gray lay out his case that drug prohibition is an issue “second only to slavery.”

How to house students (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Chapel Hill News
...Recently the university decided to get involved, perhaps because it was UNC’s devolution from residential college to commuter school that created the rental pressures on the neighborhood in the first place. It is paying an outside consultant $210,000 to recommend new regulations and programs to “stabilize” and “sustain” Northside.

A nudge toward eating right (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A coworker thinks I’m writing about her. She told me, “Even if you don’t say it, you know what I’m eating and it makes me feel so sheepish!” OK, maybe I’m writing about her now, but most of the time I write about issues many of us have in common. (Suzanne Havala Hobbs is a registered dietitian and a clinical associate professor in the department of health policy and administration in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.)

Panel investigating UNC academics to meet Wednesday
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
A panel investigating possible academic fraud at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will meet Wednesday – the group's second meeting in two months. The panel plans to meet again on Thursday. UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp announced earlier this month that former North Carolina Gov. Jim Martin will work with a consulting firm to see if academic irregularities within the university's African and Afro-American studies department began prior to 2007, and if so, how widespread the problem was.

Issues and Trends

UNC BOG Likely To Change Financial Aid Policy
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
Last spring, the UNC system voted to allow campuses to once again raise tuition. As part of the last several rate hikes, schools were mandated to set aside at least 25 percent of new tuition revenue for need-based financial aid for low-income students. But the UNC Board of Governors will soon decide whether to change that rule. Some Republican members of the Board say the set aside is a “hidden tax” on students who pay full tuition.

Orange County residents wealthier, but many in need
The Chapel Hill News
...Economically, the county is “resilient,” (Aaron) Nelson said. Its business were among the last hit by the recession, and many have bounced back or are recovering. UNC-Chapel Hill spawned five companies in 2010 and seven more in 2011. But roughly 73,000 people commute into or out of Orange County to work, increasing pollution and decreasing time available for family and community, he said.

Penn State Faculty Leaders Attack NCAA's Use of Freeh Report
The Chronicle of Higher Education
As Pennsylvania State University faculty members and students expressed widespread displeasure with the institution's acceptance of harsh penalties imposed by the NCAA in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal, Rodney A. Erickson, the president, defended his decision to allow the punishments and said he'd agree to them again if he had the chance.