uncnews.unc.edu

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

International Coverage

Online learning brings US universities together
The Financial Times (United Kingdom)
...Chip Paucek, co-founder and chief executive of 2U (formerly 2tor), which has developed the online platform, says the consortium will continue to grow, and will be open to students from outside the US. However, the initial 10 universities involved are Brandeis, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, Rochester, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest and Washington University in St. Louis. The Kenan-Flagler school at UNC already uses 2U to support its successful MBA@UNC programme.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5723/67/

National Coverage

University Consortium to Offer Small Online Courses for Credit
The New York Times
Starting next fall, 10 prominent universities, including Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Northwestern, will form a consortium called Semester Online, offering about 30 online courses to both their students — for whom the classes will be covered by their regular tuition — and to students elsewhere who would have to apply and be accepted and pay tuition of more than $4,000 a course.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5723/67/

Elite Online Courses for Cash and Credit
Inside Higher Ed
A consortium of 10 top-tier universities will soon offer fully online, credit-bearing undergraduate courses through a partnership with 2U, a company that facilitates online learning. ...In addition to Duke, Emory and Washington University, the institutions currently on board as of today’s announcement are Brandeis University, Northwestern University, the Universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, and Rochester, Vanderbilt University, and Wake Forest University.

Leading colleges announce for-credit, online courses (Blog)
CNN
A consortium of ten major universities announced on Thursday that it will offer online courses for credit in the fall of 2013. ...There are 10 university partners in this effort. They are Brandeis University, Duke University, Emory University, Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, University of Rochester, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Universities combine for 'Semester Online'
The Chicago Tribune
...Other universities participating in the consortium include Brandeis University, Duke University, Emory University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Rochester, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University and Washington University in St. Louis.
A consortium of U.S. universities — including Northwestern University and the University of Notre Dame — is launching a new online course program next fall in which undergraduate students can tap into live classes from participating schools across the country.

10 top universities unveil Semester Online, promising college credit in small classes
NBC News
...The earliest online courses were provided “for credit by schools you [had] never heard of,” such as the now-ubiquitous University of Phoenix, says Jim Dean, dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. “Then the MOOCs were about courses from schools you’ve heard of, but not for credit. Now you’re seeing courses for credit by schools you’ve heard of.”

Online initiative to offer college courses for credit
USA Today
An initiative announced Thursday by 10 U.S. colleges and universities, including Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Brandeis, promises to bring top-quality online courses to students from all over the country and even the world. But don't call it a MOOC. ...Other participating schools include Emory, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, University of Rochester and Washington University in St. Louis.

Private Company Solves US Education Problem
Forbes Magazine
...The company — one of the highest-funded tech startups in the U.S. — has already partnered with the University of Southern California, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Washington University in St. Louis, Georgetown University, and other prestigious colleges and research universities for fully-accredited master’s degrees in Nursing, Social Work, Business, and other disciplines.

The Best Business Schools 2012
Bloomberg Businessweek
...Jim Dean, dean of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, likens the MBA market to the automobile industry. “In the 1920s, there was the black Model T, and if you wanted a car, that was it,” he says. “Eventually competitive pressures and demand from customers drove differentiation. I think that’s what’s happening here.”
Related Link:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-15/the-complete-2012-business-schools-ranking#r=lr-sr

Let’s Create a Concreteness Standard for Abstract Software Patents (Opinion-Editorial Column)
Wired Magazine
Much criticism of software patents is rightly aimed at the use of abstract claim language to cover a wider range of technology than the patentee invented and disclosed. Mark Lemley, for example, highlights “functional” language in claims as particularly problematic, and proposes in this opinion series that a claimed function be limited to the disclosed “program and ones like it.” (Andrew Chin is an associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

Regional Coverage

Secession petitions boosting spirits on right wing
The Washington Times (Washington DC)
...University of North Carolina sociology professor Neal Caren turned the petitions into a class project by having his graduate students chart where most of the signers lived. As of 7 a.m. Thursday, there were 789,453 signatures, but since many people had signed more than one petition, the class concluded that fewer than half, or 281,780, were unique.

State and Local Coverage

Duke, UNC, Wake Forest join forces with others in online education
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Three North Carolina universities are joining forces with a national consortium to offer online courses for credit to students at other campuses. The “Semester Online” venture, announced Thursday, offers students from 10 universities a virtual course catalog of all the campuses. Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and Wake Forest University have joined Semester Online, which is delivered through 2U, a company that already has experience offering online courses and degree programs at highly ranked universities.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5723/67/

Online Options Growing For College Students
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
Some of the country’s premier universities are partnering to form an innovative online classroom program. Dave DeWitt reports. Dave DeWitt: A student at Duke or Wake Forest or UNC-Chapel Hill has a dizzying array of classes to choose from on campus.

Duke, UNC offering new online program
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill are plunging even deeper into the exploding world of online education. The two local universities are among the 10 founding members of a new initiative announced Thursday that will allow students from any of the schools to take online courses for credit at any of the institutions.

A new way to take online college courses in N.C.
The Triangle Business Journal
A consortium of universities that includes Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University have combined to offer courses online and will award credit for those courses. Online learning is nothing new, of course, but allowing students from one university to take online courses from a different university while earning credit for that curriculum is a new direction in higher education.
Related Link:
http://wraltechwire.com/unc-duke-wake-forest-to-offer-undergraduate-courses-online/11778666/

UNC-CH trustees unanimously back 'gender-neutral' housing option
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Starting next fall, students at UNC-Chapel Hill will be able to live in dorm suites and campus apartments with suitemates of the opposite sex. The UNC-CH Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed “gender-neutral” housing Thursday after a yearlong push by students who said the move was necessary to give gay, lesbian and transgender students a place free of harassment.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5721/1/

UNC-CH students face higher tuition and fees next year
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Tuition and fees would climb an estimated 8.4 percent for North Carolina undergraduates next year at UNC-Chapel Hill under a proposal approved by the Board of Trustees on Thursday.

UNC field hockey player takes detour to Duke (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As the daughter of a North Carolina graduate, Loren Shealy was raised a Tar Heel, which as much as anything else meant being raised with a certain natural antipathy for Duke – a feeling only reinforced when she decided to play field hockey for the Tar Heels. ...Most Robertson Scholars are chosen as incoming freshmen, typically between 24 and 36 each year, but a few are chosen during their freshman year at Duke or North Carolina. Shealy was one of four selected last spring after a representative from the Robertson Scholars program addressed a meeting of North Carolina coaches last year, attempting to attract the first athlete to the program.

How safe is Fluoride in our water?
WTVD-TV (ABC/Raleigh)
..."[It] has been shown to be a very safe and very effective preventive measure for treating a disease that is rampant in our population," said Dr. Tim Wright with the UNC School of Dentistry. "There is no public health measure that is as cost effective as water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay ... Fluoride is like so many things that in the right amount it's very beneficial, and if you have too much, too much is not a good thing. So are we getting too much?"

Compared to nation, Triangle universities lag in diversity
The Triangle Business Journal
...In a brief filed in that case, UNC-CH argues that being allowed to consider race is crucial to providing a good education. “As a flagship state university, UNC believes that the freedom to recruit and enroll a diverse student body is necessary to fulfill its educational mission and its core commitments to the State and its future,” reads the brief.

Butterball CEO: ‘rogue’ workers caused abuses
The Triangle Business Journal
...Marketing professor Jan-Benedict Steenkamp at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, notes that a brand name to a company can be very important if it is trying to build a relationship with a customer. “Brands are a lot about emotion,” Steenkamp says. “It says something about the product, and many of our associations – positively and negatively – about a product are often centered around that brand name.”

Federal illegal immigration strategy shifting
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...But the fingerprint system, called Secure Communities, has critics as well, who say that both programs don’t serve their primary purpose. The program, started in 2008 and being expanded nationwide next year, was meant to deport serious criminals, but has instead cast a much wider net, said Sejal Zota, a former immigration specialist with the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government and now an attorney with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

Issues and Trends

UNC cost per degree higher than nation’s
The Triangle Business Journal
Despite trending downward for the past few years, schools within the University of North Carolina System spent $70,380 per degree awarded in 2010-11, nearly $10,000 more per degree than the national average.