ONTHEWEBS
Dean Smith and a civil rights legacy
Last week marked the 57th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka decision that led to the desegregation of schools in
the United States. A column written for ESPN’s website praises Dean Smith’s
role in desegregating his Topeka, Kan., high school’s basketball team, several
years before the Supreme Court’s ruling.
http://es.pn/jc9ay6
Share a ride
Share a ride
Zimride is an easy way to go green by sharing the seats in your car or by finding
a ride. The private Carolina Zimride community allows you to find friends and coworkers who are going the same way you are. All you need to get started is your
Onyen
and password.
http://bit.ly/cc1mWu
Surgeon takes on a new challenge
John Steege, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Division
of Advanced Laparoscopy and Pelvic Pain, is learning to use his skilled
surgeon’s hands in a different way: traditional woodworking. He’s been studying
at Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro – where wood is
painstakingly shaped without power tools.
http://bit.ly/lrTFGe
Social work Students surprise
professor with handmade quilt
On the last day of professor Iris Carlton-LaNey’s “Foundations of Social Work
and Social Welfare” class, her students, who also had taken her “Confronting
Oppression” class in the fall, presented her with a vibrant quilt that included
images of the social work pioneers they had researched in the first class.
http://bit.ly/m4bxh2
photojournalism exhibit on India
Incoming social work master’s student Katharine Perry has created an online
photojournalism exhibit documenting her
experience in India with the School of Social Work’s study abroad program. She
hopes “my photos will celebrate the competence, substance and beauty of all
women in India and will serve as a reminder that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world.’”
http://bit.ly/lTWSTI
Involving science students in
Real-world applications
In a story on the School of Education’s website, Rebeccah Haines writes about
citizen science projects that enlist everyday citizens to collect or analyze data for
real-world research studies. Bringing citizen science projects into the classroom
can help students understand the relevance of curriculum objectives.
http://bit.ly/mivRTJ
FILE1
Coral growth bands
reveal survival clues
T
aking to a living organism with a large pneumatic drill might not sound like the
best way to protect it.
But that’s just what UNC marine scientists did to a distinctive species of coral off
the coast of Belize, in an effort to determine how to help conserve coral reef
systems.
Coral reefs are an important natural resource for certain states in the United
States and developing countries such as Belize, a small nation just below Mexico
in the western Caribbean. There, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef – the second
largest in the world – acts as an environmental and economic attraction for
humans and marine creatures.
The Carolina researchers, Karl Castillo, Justin Ries and Jack Weiss, tapped the
natural internal archive of massive starlet corals, which can grow to almost 4-feet
across over a period of about 100 years.
“Massive starlet corals are like old-growth trees in a forest,” said Castillo, a
postdoctoral research associate in the College of Arts and Sciences. “In much
the same way that land-based biologists analyze tree rings to determine the age
of trees and the impact of past environmental events, the cores of these corals
reveal the same kind of information.”
By measuring annual growth bands in the cores, Castillo and Ries could tell that
in the early 1900s, corals on the outer reef grew faster than those closer to shore.
But over the past century, the pattern has flip-flopped; open ocean corals’ growth
rates slowed, while the others have remained relatively stable.
This suggests that massive starlet corals closest to the open ocean are having
the most trouble weathering the effects of environmental changes, such as
warmer-than-average water temperatures due to climate change and higher
pollution levels.
Ries, assistant professor of marine science, said that could be because seaward
corals have not had time to adapt to these recent human activity-related
stressors. In contrast, for millennia, landward corals have probably been exposed
to greater baseline stressors and possibly built up more immunity to them.
“When coral growth slows down, reefs may erode more quickly than they’re
being built, which could ultimately cause the reefs to decrease in size or even
disappear,” said Ries. “Local economies rely on these reefs and the organisms
that inhabit them for their fishing and tourism industries. These corals must be
actively producing new reef material to support a
thriving ecosystem.”
The research holds special significance for Castillo, a native of Belize. “As a kid,
my stepfather took me out to the reefs,” he said. “I’ve actually seen the changes
that have occurred over time. I wanted to try to find out and answer these
questions so that we can eventually, if possible, make conservation or
management decisions to try to conserve coral reefs in the face of climate
change.”
For more information about this research, including a video showing the
researchers at work, refer to www.unc.edu/spotlight/old_growth_coral. The work
was partially funded by a National Science Foundation grant.
Cutline
UNC marine scientist Karl Castillo uses a pneumatic drill to take a core sample
from a massive starlet coral (Siderastrea siderea) on the Mesoamerican Barrier
Reef off the coast of Belize in the western Caribbean.
FILE2
UNC-led study shows promise in fight against HIV/AIDS
A University-led research study has made a major discovery in efforts to halt the
spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The large international clinical trial, led by Myron S. Cohen, J. Herbert Bate
Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Public
Health, has found that treating HIV-infected individuals with antiretroviral therapy
while their immune systems are still strong significantly reduces the risk of their
sexual partners contracting the virus.
The findings are the first from a major randomized clinical trial to indicate that
treating an HIV-infected person can make the person less contagious, not just
keep him or her healthy.
The study was due to run until 2015. However, data gathered so far clearly
revealed the benefits of early treatment, prompting health officials to release the
results now.
“We think that these results will be important to help improve both HIV treatment
and prevention and we are grateful to the study participants for their important
contribution in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” said Cohen, director of the UNC
Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases and associate vice chancellor
for
global health.
The study, which spans nine countries, involved more than 1,700 couples in
which one partner was HIV-positive and the other was not. Each couple was
randomly assigned to one of two study groups.
In the first group, partners with HIV began receiving antiretroviral drugs as soon
as they enrolled in the study; in the second group, the infected partners started
antiretroviral treatment once their CD4+ count – a key measure of immune
system health – fell to between 200 and 250 cells/mm3, or when they developed
an AIDS-related illness. Participants in both groups received HIV primary care,
counseling and condoms.
According to the available data, which health officials reviewed in late April, 27
previously uninfected partners in the second group contracted HIV from their
partner. But in the first group, only one such case of new HIV infection occurred.
This means that the earlier initiation of antiretroviral treatment led to a 96 percent
reduction in HIV transmission between partners.
The study was conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network, which is largely
funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the
National Institutes of Health.
“This new finding convincingly demonstrates that treating the infected individual –
and doing so sooner rather than later – can have a major impact on reducing HIV
transmission,” said the institute’s director, Anthony S. Fauci.
As well as leading the research, the University had a study site in Malawi, where
University researchers have conducted HIV research and provided treatment and
training since 1989.
Cohen, pictured at left, is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on
the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted
diseases.
His team of researchers developed sensitive assays to measure the
concentration of the HIV virus in bodily fluids and was among the first to
demonstrate that the presence of other sexually transmitted diseases can
increase the likelihood of HIV transmission.
In 2010 he was appointed to the first Scientific Advisory Board of the President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
FILE3
Barbara Day’s exuberance
for teaching and learning
has touched the world
For longer than anyone in Peabody Hall can remember, Barbara Day has
commanded the spacious, corner office on the third floor.
From her desk, she can look across South Columbia Street to the Carolina Inn,
or swivel around for a sweeping view of campus from Cameron Avenue to
Franklin Street.
It is the kind of office, Day said, that more than a few of her colleagues in the
School of Education might wish to have.
One will get that wish in the near future. Day will officially retire in July, although
work has been such an all-consuming passion that retirement is a word Day can
barely bring herself to speak. She has worked at the School of Education so long,
she has literally lost track of time.
“I thought it was 43 years and then the official word came the other day that I
came here in 1966,” Day said. “I thought, ‘My gosh, it’s
45 years.’ And then I thought, ‘Why in the heck am I leaving? Why don’t I just
stay five more years and make it 50?”
For Day, retirement will not be closing the book, but turning to a new chapter still
to be written. It will begin with Day finishing her dissertation for a doctor of
ministry degree from Virginia Theological Episcopal Seminary.
Auspicious beginnings
She grew up in Creswell, a village 50 miles from Nag’s Head with barely enough
people to fill a lecture hall.
Day started her first year of teaching in the Raleigh city schools in 1959 with no
inkling it would be her last. At the end of that year, she got married and moved to
Chapel Hill with her husband. The plan was for him to go to graduate school full
time and for her to find a job teaching in Chapel Hill while taking graduate
classes at night.
That plan went awry when Day sat across from Orange County Schools
Superintendent Paul Carr and learned that no teaching positions were available.
“The only thing I have is a principal’s job,” he said.
Day was only 22 at the time, having graduated from college in three years, but
she launched into a sales pitch so audacious that even now Day cannot explain
how she worked up the nerve to attempt it, except that she desperately needed a
job.
Education was in her blood, she told him. Back home, her mother was a teacher
and her aunts and uncles had served as principals and superintendents. Without
any hesitation, she told Carr, “I know how to be a principal and I’d love that job.”
He laughed at her pluck, as if to remind her she couldn’t be serious, but that only
made Day more determined.
“You call my principal in Raleigh, and tell her I am applying for a job as a
principal and see if she thinks I can do that,” Day told him. “I am going to
guarantee you she is going to say yes because I was a superb first-year teacher.”
Later that night, the phone rang. It was Carr. “Mrs. Day, I have talked with your
principal,” he said. “She said not only are you ready, but you will be the best
principal ever. And so I am going to give you that chance.”
A pioneer in early
childhood Education
It was the only time in her career that Day would have to ask for a job.
Her stint as a principal lasted twice as long as her teaching career. After two
years, she received another job offer over the phone, this time from the
superintendent of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Howard Thompson, who
asked her to be assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
She took the job and loved it so much she might have stayed forever, but Carl
Brown, her graduate adviser, would not allow it. When the School of Education
received a major grant to launch a program to train leaders in early childhood
education throughout the Southeast, Brown came to her and said, “I want you to
run that program.”
She said no, but Brown told her to think about it. And when she gave the same
answer several days later, Brown urged her to think about it some more.
Think about the impact she could have on education throughout the South, he
said, and think about the tenure-track position that would likely be waiting for her
in the School of Education after she completed her doctorate.
In the end Day agreed, and all of Brown’s predictions came true.
The program worked with 25 leaders who returned to their states and
implemented the first kindergarten programs in the Southeast. Day took on that
job in North Carolina.
“We did it right,” Day said. “We started kindergartens for a full day, with a
teacher’s assistant assigned to each classroom. The following year, we lobbied
for teaching assistants in grades one through three and it happened. North
Carolina became nationally known as a state that valued early childhood
education.”
An international
influence
Day eventually earned her corner office by serving as chair of curriculum and
instruction, a position she held for more than 20 years. She also served as chair
of early childhood education, elementary education, and teaching
and learning.
Day’s long history of service to North Carolina and the public schools includes 10
years as director of the Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, which provides
scholarships for some of the state’s best and brightest students in exchange for
their four-year commitment to teach here. “I see these students doing great work
as I travel throughout North Carolina,” she said.
Her textbooks on early education – one, a fourth edition and another, a fifth
edition – continue to be used at major universities and have been translated into
several foreign languages. She remains a prolific writer and lectures throughout
the country and the world.
Day was a member of the Early Childhood Education Task Force of the National
Association of State Boards of Education that produced the 1988 influential
blueprint, “Right From the Start,” and she chaired a nationwide consortium of 13
school districts for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
(ASCD).
Nearly 30 years ago, she founded Carolina’s chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi
International Honor Society in Education. She served as the society’s
international president and continues to serve as its counselor. In 2005, the
society honored her by creating the Dr. Barbara Day Laureate Scholarship for
Doctoral Students in Curriculum and Instruction.
She also has served as international president of two other professional
organizations, ASCD and the Delta Kappa Gamma International Honor Society
for Key Women Educators. Under her leadership, both organizations grew
internationally.
In her third and final year of phased retirement, Day published four refereed
articles and by the end of the year will have traveled to Canada, El Salvador,
Switzerland and Germany to lecture.
When people suggest how wonderful retirement will be because she will have
time to travel, Day says she cannot imagine traveling more than she already
does. She plans to continue to travel professionally and may spend more time in
her home in Wilmington’s downtown historic district.
Unfinished business
Last month, Bill Palmer, a retired colleague and friend from the School of
Education, wrote to congratulate her on her upcoming retirement. Of all her
accomplishments, he told her, what he cherished most was “your sense of joy in
everyday living.”
That capacity for joy, Palmer said, was Day’s gift that she shared generously with
colleagues and students alike.
And then he described Day by offering this passage from Kay Jamison, a noted
psychiatrist from John Hopkins University: “Exuberant people take in the world
and act upon it differently than those who are less lively and less energetically
engaged. They hold their ideas with passion and delight, and they act upon them
with dispatch. Their love of life and adventure is palpable. Exuberance is a
peculiarly pleasurable state, and in that pleasure is power.”
As for when she will finally relinquish her office, no firm date has yet been set,
but Day knows she will still need it this summer even after the University stops
sending her
a paycheck.
Since the early 1990s, Day has taught doctoral courses in supervision,
curriculum and instruction, and research. In that time, she has chaired 63
doctoral student committees – and all
63 students graduated. In the last five years, five leaders in the state’s education
department have received their doctorate with Day.
When she officially retires this summer, six of her current doctoral students will
not have finished their dissertations.
“Until they all graduate,” Day said, “I’ll be here for them.”
UNCHEALTHCARE
UNC Health Care board passes resolution
to caution against the sale of Rex to WakeMed
T
he board of directors for the UNC Health Care System approved a resolution on
May 16 stating that it would not be “in the best interests of the citizens of the
state or Wake County” to sell its interest in Rex Healthcare Inc. to WakeMed
Health and Hospitals.
The action came four days after WakeMed officials presented to UNC President
Tom Ross an unsolicited bid to buy Rex for $750 million. Ross received the offer
because the UNC Health Care System is part of the state-owned UNC system.
“The letter offers few specifics and leaves many unanswered questions,” Ross
said in a statement issued May 12.
The resolution states that the sale of Rex to WakeMed, its longtime rival in Wake
County, would “substantially disrupt” a business model that relies on an
integrated and growing health-care system to fulfill its multiple, interrelated
missions.
Even so, the resolution also stated that the board had a fiduciary responsibility to
consider the details of any offer that WakeMed makes to buy Rex and that a
special committee would be appointed for that purpose.
WakeMed CEO Bill Atkinson has said he discussed the possible deal with state
legislators. In a prepared statement, Atkinson said, “We feel strongly that this
proposal is in the best interest of the communities we serve and the state.”
Competition between WakeMed and UNC Health Care has intensified in recent
years, but the turf battles in Wake County date back to 2000 when UNC bought
Rex – WakeMed’s longtime, cross-town rival – for $290 million, including its debt.
Bill Roper, CEO of the UNC Health Care System and dean of Carolina’s School
of Medicine, said the purchase of Rex allowed the system to extend and better
support its multiple missions.
The first mission is to provide quality health care to citizens from across North
Carolina, regardless of their ability to pay.
The second mission is to conduct cutting-edge research to provide treatment and
care for patients facing the most serious and complex health issues.
The third mission is to educate the next generation of physicians – a process that
depends on providing medical students with high-quality, intensive training in a
variety of settings.
These missions are intricately connected – and dependent – on each other,
Roper said. And to sustain them, scale matters, now more than ever.
Because of its substantial size, UNC Health Care has the negotiating strength to
be paid fairly by managed care providers, and at the same time, pay less for
equipment and supplies, Roper said.
It also can spread the costs of administration and information technology across
multiple entities.
And because of the large population it serves, the system is better positioned to
coordinate care more efficiently and to expand clinical research.
Scale within the UNC Health Care System is what enables what Roper called the
“cross-subsidization of unprofitable missions,” such as absorbing the growing
expense of uncompensated care, even as it transfers revenue to help support
teaching and research within the School of Medicine.
That successful model will be tested in the months ahead, Roper said. Over the
short term, patients enrolled in government programs will increase even as
government reduces the amount it pays for the care provided.
“In this uncertain health-care environment, it is critically important that we
maintain a long-term vision for the UNC Health Care System that extends
beyond the current budget crisis,” Ross said.
“I do not believe that divesting UNC Health Care of Rex in order to generate onetime revenue for the state is in the long-term best interests of the people of North
Carolina, and it would damage our ability to fully carry out our mission.”
PUBLICSERVICE
For Tom May, a battle with cancer renews importance of making blood donations
Tom May used to donate blood, but not often. If he had it to do over, he’d give as
much as possible. But he can’t.
Diagnosed in 2005 with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, May has received numerous blood
transfusions. Because of the disease, he’s no longer eligible to give blood. But he
has words of encouragement and thanks for anyone who does. “It saves people’s
lives, and you just never know when you may need it,” said
May, who works at the General Alumni Association. “It’s just so good and useful,
and a lot of people need it.”
A lot of people will be able to give on June 7 at the 23rd annual Carolina Blood
Drive, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Dean Smith Center. Information and
registration are available at www.unc.edu/blood. (See the box below for more
information.)
The hardest part of what May calls his six-year cancer “adventure” was at the
start, when he and his wife, Susie, learned he had Stage 4B (worst possible
case) cancer, with at best a
50 percent chance of survival. The reaction of his UNC oncologist, assistant
professor of medicine Peter Voorhees, gave May something to cling to
throughout his experience: “We’ll go for the cure.”
May underwent six months of one type of chemotherapy, then six months of
another, then a week of massive doses in preparation for a bone marrow
transplant. May continued to work until spring of 2006, when he went on medical
disability and into semi-isolation because his immune system was so weakened
by the chemo.
“They take you as close to death as they can without killing you,” he said. “I
looked at the treatments as a way to win, thinking positively that they would work,
and refused to let them get me down.”
In September 2006, May had bluegrass music played while the transplant was
done. His own stem cells, harvested earlier, were infused back into his body.
Tom Shea, one of May’s physicians, is a professor of medicine at UNC and
directs the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program at UNC Hospitals
and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“Blood transfusions are critical to the successful treatments of patients with
diseases like cancer when they are undergoing chemotherapy, as well as
patients in surgery where loss of blood during the operation can be a major
problem,” Shea said. “While we try to reduce transfusions, we can never avoid
them altogether and would be unable to undertake life-saving treatments like
organ or bone marrow transplants unless we had blood products such as red
blood cells or platelets available for our patients.”
In UNC Hospitals for about two weeks after the operation, May needed one blood
transfusion and two units of platelets – cell fragments in blood that aid in clotting.
For four years, the lymphoma stayed in remission. “I was getting good check-ups,
with no sign of the cancer coming back,” May said.
But last Dec. 24, Susie suffered abdominal pains. May took her to a health-care
facility, where he picked up a virus that attacked his immune system and spleen
and began destroying his platelets.
Susie recovered after having her gall bladder removed, while May was put on a
cocktail of drugs. He was in and out of UNC Hospitals for months. “I would do
well on the drugs, but when I got off of them I would crash again,” he said.
Finally doctors decided the best solution would be to take out May’s spleen,
which they did via a laparoscopy April 19. But while he was in recovery, a blood
vessel that had been connected to the spleen, then sealed off in the laparoscopy,
broke open.
“They rushed me back into the operating room, and the second operation was an
open incision,” May said. He needed four units of blood to replace what he had
lost.
But by the end of April, May, 62, was back on the job as the alumni association’s
printing and mailing coordinator, a post he will have held for 25 years come June.
If he maintains good health for another six months to a year, he’ll be considered
cured. He’s back to what he loves: family, music, photography, plus sunshine
and flowers.
“Everything is beautiful,” he said. “The little problems that pop up in everyone’s
lives do not take on the same priority anymore. It makes you appreciate every
day, every hour, every minute.”
His sunny disposition still intact, May added: “I try to laugh about everything. It’s
good for your health.”
Box
What you need to know about the blood drive
n
The Carolina Blood Drive, sponsored by UNC and the American Red
Cross, is one of the largest drives on the East Coast. It will be held June 7, from
7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Smith Center.
n
To make an appointment, see www.unc.edu/blood. Walk-ins are welcome,
but appointments are strongly encouraged.
n
Parking is free in lots around the center.
n
Snacks after donating will include Krispy Kreme doughnuts, pizza,
barbecue, veggie wraps, breakfast pastries, sausage biscuits and a choice of
beverages.
n
Prizes include T-shirts and door prizes of tickets to a UNC football game,
and to a men’s non-conference and women’s conference basketball game and a
drawing for a pair of round-trip Delta
Airline tickets.
n Look for celebrity visitors such as Chancellor Holden Thorp and Patti Thorp;
head football coach Butch Davis and Tammy Davis; basketball legend
Eric Montross; and Bill Roper, dean of the medical school and CEO of UNC
Health Care.
Carolina’s varsity athletes host a spring field day to celebrate the “Adopt-aClassroom” time they shared in two third-grade classrooms at Glenwood
Elementary School in Chapel Hill. One of the activities, a golf ball and spoon
relay race, is pictured here. Student-athletes from the swimming and diving, golf,
football, wrestling, rowing, softball, field hockey and lacrosse teams were among
those taking part in “Adopt-a-Classroom,” which was organized by Jordan Allyne
(golf), Meredith Newton (lacrosse), Kelsey Grich (rowing) and Meghan Lyons
(field hockey). They developed lesson plans that Carolina team members used
for two visits each week to the classrooms. To learn more about the initiative,
including a video showing some of the activities, refer to
www.unc.edu/spotlight/adopt_a_classroom.
ADMINISTRATION
University to
appeal public
records
lawsuit order
The University plans to appeal the order issued by Superior Court Judge Howard
Manning earlier this month regarding the lawsuit filed by a group of N.C. media
organizations against the University.
Chancellor Holden Thorp said that the University also will seek a stay in the
lawsuit about public records and the NCAA investigation of the football team.
“Our responsibility is to protect the privacy rights of all of our students, whether
they’re on the football team, in the marching band or in a Chemistry 101 class,”
Thorp said. “So this is really not about the football investigation. If this ruling
were to stand, it would put the privacy rights of all of our students at risk.”
The University has provided more than 23,000 pages of documents in response
to the plaintiffs’ requests, including hundreds of pages of phone records in
redacted form, Thorp said.
“We have even offered to provide the parking tickets with personally identifying
information removed. We have done our best to comply with N.C. public records
law and our federal obligation to protect student information at the same time.”
Manning found no protection under FERPA, the federal Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act, for redacted cell phone bills, parking tickets issued by the
University to 11 football players or employment information for non-student tutors
and mentors.
He had already upheld the University’s position that the names, employment
dates and salaries of student tutors and mentors were protected under FERPA.
RESEARCH
Music as therapy
for chronic pain
T
he pain was particularly intense when she swam the breaststroke. “My legs
would bend back and my kneecaps would bang against the cartilage,” Alicia
Mullis said. “That’s not supposed to happen. The cap should fit in a nice little
groove, but my kneecaps are a little off center.”
For years Mullis endured chronic pain, some days even struggling to walk. But it
was never bad enough to make her stop swimming. As her high school athletic
career went on, Mullis did specific exercises to strengthen the knee tendons so
that the caps would be more centered.
At Carolina, the pain had become more manageable – nothing an ice pack
couldn’t handle.
A recipient of the Dunlevie Honors Undergraduate Research Award, Mullis
conducted her own research and wrote an undergraduate thesis on chronic pain.
Looking back, Mullis, who graduated earlier this month, thinks something beyond
modern sports medicine helped her cope with her faulty knees – playing music.
Musical evolution
Mullis has played the piano since she was 7 and the clarinet since she was 11.
“I considered majoring in music,” Mullis said. “But it’s such a competitive field,
and I felt I had other options.” She settled on psychology and biology – with a
minor in Arabic – and then joined the lab of psychologist Mark Hollins.
At first Mullis didn’t think playing music had anything to do with relieving her own
chronic pain. She just wanted to do research that would have real-life
implications for others.
But during a course on evolutionary psychology, a few short textbook passages
piqued her interest in why humans started playing musical instruments. “It’s a
phenomenon that evolutionary psychologists can’t explain,” she said.
Mullis thought that maybe music had functioned as a kind of pain modulator for
humans living tens of thousands of years ago. That is, playing music somehow
helped the brain cope with pain.
She devised a project to test her hypothesis. Mullis recruited 41 UNC students
and used a standard survey to sort participants by whether they had chronic pain
and whether they played music. She gave each participant two cognitive tests: a
letter-counting task and a number-prediction task.
Researchers in the past had used similar methods to show that chronic pain
sufferers struggle
with cognitive tasks. And clinical observations showed the same thing, Mullis said.
Fibromyalgia patients, for instance, often say they feel like they’re in a fog; their
brains don’t function as well as other people’s brains.
After crunching her data, Mullis found that people who have chronic pain and
play music at least once a week did substantially better on cognitive tasks than
people who have chronic pain but don’t play music.
Her results also showed that people without chronic pain who play music didn’t
do any better on the cognitive tasks than people without chronic pain who don’t
play music. The findings suggest that music had a protective effect against
chronic pain.
The number-prediction task, which involves making decisions, was such a good
predictor of musicians maintaining cognitive skills that Mullis hopes the test can
be turned into a diagnostic tool.
“It’s really hard sometimes to differentiate between acute and chronic pain,” she
said. “Those patients need to be treated differently; a new tool would be
enormously helpful to the field.”
The brain on music
Mullis said that music as a pain alleviator doesn’t work like a pill or an ice pack.
When her knee would flare up after swimming laps, she wouldn’t towel off and
start playing the clarinet to soothe her ailing knee. Instead, the theory goes,
playing music for years helped Mullis’ brain cope with pain and not focus on it.
Whenever a person experiences the same pain stimulus over and over, neurons
in the brain fire in consistent ways, day after day for months or even years. That
much is fact. What that does to cognition is unclear, but Mullis said that those
consistent neural responses may train the brain to process specific pain stimuli at
the expense of other impulses.
The result would be loss of cognitive ability, which is what those cognition tests
predicted.
“Think about it like a neural rut,” she said. “Interactions between the brain and
body become more linear.”
Brain activity becomes simplified and focused, something called
decomplexification, and it can lead to problems including lower pain thresholds,
sensitivity to light and touch, and emotional sensitivity. Patients say they can’t
help but focus on the pain.
Music, Mullis said, might serve as a kind of countermeasure, a recomplexifier.
“Brain imaging studies have shown that when people play music, their brains just
light up,” Mullis said. Many parts of the brain are involved, because playing music
is about complex patterns interacting.
That’s the way the brain functions, until chronic pain takes hold. Music may help
the ruts from getting too deep, Mullis said, which helps people avoid the worst
that can result from chronic pain – such as a diminished capacity to make
decisions or even depression. And that could explain why chronic pain never got
the best of her.
“I don’t know if my data say as much about recomplexification as about music
being effective for people with chronic pain,” Mullis said. “But it’s an interesting
idea that’s worth looking into.”
Mullis might do just that in graduate school. But first she wants to publish her
thesis and work for at least a year before choosing a doctoral program.
“I want to make sure I choose the right one,” she said.
FACSTAFF
Alumni association honors three for distinguished service
The General Alumni Association on May 7 honored three people with deep ties to
the University – a former business school dean and two alumni – for outstanding
service to Carolina and the association.
Recipients of the 2011 Distinguished Service Medals are Erskine Bowles, who
retired at the end of last year as president of the UNC system; Jack Evans,
former dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School; and Sallie Shuping-Russell,
a member of the Board of Trustees. The association has awarded the medals
since 1978.
Bowles was president of the 17-member UNC system from January 2006 until
last December. A 1967 Carolina graduate with a degree in business, he was as
an investment banker until President Bill Clinton tapped him in 1993 to direct the
Small Business Administration.
Bowles became deputy White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration in
1994 and chief of staff from 1996 to 1998. Recently he co-chaired President
Barack Obama’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and
Reform with former Senator Alan Simpson. They were charged with identifying
ways to cut the federal debt.
Before retiring in December, Evans was Distinguished Professor of Operations,
Technology and Innovation Management at the business school, where he had
served as dean from
1979 to 1987.
He joined the faculty in 1970 and, through the years, held senior administration
roles for the University, including serving as executive director of Carolina North,
where he coordinated plans for the prospective research campus. For many
years, Evans also was a faculty representative to the NCAA and Atlantic Coast
Conference.
Shuping-Russell graduated from Carolina in 1977, having majored in English and
political science. Now managing director of the BlackRock investment firm, she
has been on the UNC Board of Trustees since 2007. She also has served on the
University Board of Visitors, the advisory board of the Gillings School of Global
Public Health and the board of directors of UNC Health Care.
Shuping-Russell is a trustee of the University’s Endowment Fund and a director
of both the UNC Foundation and Carolina’s Foundation Investment Fund Inc.
She established the Margaret R. Shuping Distinguished Professorship in creative
writing at Carolina in 2008 to honor her mother.
WRAL.com’s Clark to lead Reese Felts digital news project July 1
John Clark, WRAL.com general manager, will join the faculty at the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication on July 1 to lead the school’s Reese Felts
digital news and audience research project.
Clark helped build WRAL.com into one of the most successful local news
websites in the nation, increasing traffic to more than 1 billion page views last
year. He used a mobile news strategy and established a strong social media
presence for the site. Under his leadership, the site won the Edward R. Murrow
Award for best broadcast-affiliated website, the Editor & Publisher award for best
local TV-affiliated website and a regional Emmy for
continuing coverage.
Jean Folkerts, dean of the school, said Clark’s leadership is a significant boost to
the journalism school’s digital mission. “He understands the critical importance of
audience research to the news industry, and he will build a powerful research
infrastructure for reesenews.org,” she said. “He knows where technology is
taking us, and his students are going to shape the future of the mobile news
platform.”
Clark said he was excited to be a part of such a critical project. “As the Web
matures and the mobile world explodes,” he said, “students in the digital
newsroom will develop theories and test them in a practical, real-world
environment – and report the findings back to the industry.”
Honors
Wei You, assistant professor of chemistry, has been named a 2011 Camille
Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. The five-year, $75,000 award was given by the
Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation of New York City, created in 1946 to
promote the chemical sciences.
Hannah Grannemann, managing director of PlayMakers Repertory Company,
has been elected secretary of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT). LORT is
the largest professional theater association of its kind, with more than
70 member theaters located across the United States.
Grannemann heads the theater’s administrative departments, working in
partnership with PlayMakers’ producing artistic director Joseph Haj. Haj’s 2010
production of “Hamlet” at Washington, D.C.’s Folger Theatre took top honors for
Outstanding Production at the Helen Hayes Awards on April 25, tying for best
play.
Four academic advisers in the College of Arts and Sciences have won 2011
national advising awards for making significant contributions to the improvement
of academic advising. The awards will be presented at a conference of the
National Academic Advising Association Oct. 2 in Denver.
Winners of Outstanding Advising Certificates of Merit are Barbara Lucido,
assistant dean of academic advising, social and behavioral sciences; David
Adamson, faculty adviser, fine arts and humanities; and George Maitland, senior
academic adviser, social and behavioral sciences. Sarah Howard, adviser in
natural sciences and mathematics, won a New Adviser Certificate of Merit.
Laine K. Stewart, instructor and clinical education coordinator in the Division of
Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS), Department of Allied Health Sciences, has
received the 2011 Louise Ward Excellence in Teaching Award in Clinical
Laboratory Science. Stewart teaches microbiology and hematology laboratory
courses for first-year CLS students.
The Society for Women’s Health Research presented its Sixth Annual Medtronic
Prize for Scientific Contributions to Women’s Health to Denniz Zolnoun,
associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, at the society’s annual dinner
on May 9. The prize is given to a female scientist in her early to mid career who
has devoted a significant part of her work to sex differences research and has
served as a role model and mentor for both colleagues and students.
Cynthia Bulik, William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of
Eating Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry and professor of nutrition,
received the Meehan-Hartley Advocate Award from the International Academy
for Eating Disorders on April 30 in Miami. The award recognizes and supports
advocates who have made significant contributions in advancing patient rights
and access to quality care for those with eating disorders.
Sam Odom, director of FPG Child Development Institute and research professor
at the School of Education, will receive the 2011 Distinguished Graduate Award
from the University of Washington’s College of Education on June 11. The award
was established in 1986 and is awarded annually to a College of Education
graduate of marked distinction.
Bill Roper, CEO of the UNC Health Care System, vice chancellor for medical
affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, has been ranked No. 35 among the
50 Most Influential Physician Executives in Healthcare for 2011. The rankings
were compiled by Modern Healthcare and Modern Physician from among a list of
100 physician executives who were voted on by the magazines’ readers.
WORKING
Jill Fitzgerald finishes a Hall of Fame career
When Jill Fitzgerald retires from her position as professor of literacy in the School
of Education at the end of May, it will be as a new member of the Reading Hall of
Fame. The honor, given at the International Reading Association annual
conference earlier this month, recognizes her extraordinary contributions to
theory and research in the study of literacy.
“She’s a fearless researcher,” said Dixie Lee Spiegel, one of Fitzgerald’s
longtime collaborators and the person who chaired the search committee that
brought Fitzgerald to UNC in 1979. “She doesn’t shy away from controversial
topics. She doesn’t pump out 60 articles in a year, but the one or two that she
does write become instant classics.”
Two particularly influential theories that Fitzgerald advanced dealt with English
language literacy for non-native speakers and improving reading comprehension.
“When people say, ‘What is it that you study?’ I say, ‘It’s how people think as they
read and write. I study young children’s emergent literacy processes,” Fitzgerald
said.
For example, in one study she found that teaching fourth-graders the parts of a
story helped them better understand what they were reading because it gave
them a way to organize the information in their minds.
In her research about teaching English as a second language, Fitzgerald
debated the accepted wisdom that students needed to learn to speak English
well before they could read in English. She reasoned that using reading and
writing in English could help them to learn to speak English. Fitzgerald’s theory
was that reading could be taught to young Spanish speakers the way native
speakers learned it, with “a beautiful big book.” A teacher holding up an
oversized book with a few words in large print and a bright picture and reading it
aloud to the class is teaching in two ways – reading English and speaking
English.
Fitzgerald took an extra step in her research by learning Spanish herself and
taking a year away from UNC to teach a class of half Spanish speakers and half
English speakers at an elementary school in a neighboring county.
“That was a really wonderful thing for her to have done, just on her own,” said
Jim Cunningham, another longtime collaborator. That year of first-hand research
in a first-grade classroom resulted in several first-rate articles, in peer-reviewed
research journals and also in journals read in the average teachers’ lounge.
Her research has influenced education policy nationwide and so has her ability
to turn that research into practical articles for teachers and lessons for future
educators in the classes she taught at UNC. After retiring from the University,
Fitzgerald will continue her literacy research at MetaMetrics, a psychometric
research organization in Durham.
“Jill has changed the lives of thousands of children,” Spiegel said. “She is so
deserving of this honor.”
Ann Trollinger acts as personal financial adviser to Carolina Covenant Scholars
When the Carolina Covenant Scholars arrive for summer orientation, they are
greeted by Ann Trollinger, associate director for the Office of Scholarships and
Student Aid. During this first opportunity to meet new scholars and their parents,
Trollinger, along with Fred Clark, professor of Romance languages and academic
coordinator for the Carolina Covenant program, and Michael Highland, the
program’s assistant academic coordinator, tell them, “We’re your Covenant team.
Welcome to Carolina.”
“At orientation, we want to introduce ourselves to the scholars so they are not
intimidated about coming to see us,” Trollinger said.
Intimidating? Far from it. Within this team, the scholars find an answer for every
question and a solution to almost every problem. Trollinger’s open-door policy
invites scholars to bring their concerns about financial issues to her at any time,
with no appointment necessary.
“A lot of new scholars are concerned with timing – when financial aid will be
deposited to their student account; what it will cover; and what happens if the
money isn’t there when the bill is due,” she said. “We alleviate those anxieties,
and we include their parents to keep them involved and eliminate their concerns
as well.”
Trollinger works one-on-one with the scholars to match their interests and
academic major with a fitting federal work-study job. She helps the scholars learn
to budget, explaining ways to make their award disbursements last a whole
semester and pay for books, additional costs and miscellaneous expenses. She
manages the financial aid that allows scholars to study abroad.
“Many students don’t realize they can use their financial aid to study abroad,”
Trollinger said. Work-study funds convert to grants when a student is enrolled in
a study abroad experience, and students can turn to Trollinger to help them
choose a program that corresponds well with their financial aid.
Covenant scholars can sign up for financial management workshops with tips
and tools to help them manage their money – throughout their undergraduate
career and as they make plans for life after college.
“We are more than helping them understand their Covenant scholarship,”
Trollinger said. “We are teaching them financial strategies for life.”
Trollinger has helped students with financial aid services for
22 years –17 of them at Carolina – but, to her, the Carolina Covenant
is special.
“This is the best program I’ve been involved with because it’s so rewarding,” she
said. “My favorite part is when the students come back and sit in my office and
share their success stories with me.”
The Carolina Covenant allows eligible low-income students to graduate from the
University debt free. Currently, 2,200 Covenant Scholars are studying at Carolina,
and more than 2,900 students have benefited from the program since it began
in 2004.
Classics: a rewarding pursuit
Cecil Wooten, professor and chair of the classics department in the College of
Arts and Sciences, poses in the lobby of Murphey Hall with statues of Apollo, left,
and Athena, in the background. A statue of Aphrodite, not shown in the photo,
stands to the far left.
The statues were given to the University by the classes of 1900, 1901 and 1902
“at a time when most Americans did not go to Europe and could thus become
acquainted with classical culture only by means of plaster of Paris reproductions,”
Wooten said at the department’s graduation ceremony earlier this month.
He told the graduates that the three Greek figures were appropriate choices for
the pursuit of classics, the study of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome,
their languages, literature, history, art and archaeology.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, symbolizes the love of a scholar for the text, of
an archaeologist for a beautiful object, of a philosopher for a complex idea,
Wooten said. Essentially, it is a love of what Apollo (the sun god) stands for:
civilization, poetry and art – the finer aspects of human nature.
“And it is this higher nature that Apollo represents that can temper and control
those dangerous elements in human life, warfare and technology, represented by
Athena (the goddess of wisdom and justice),” Wooten said.
But the mythological figure that most closely represents people who choose to
study classics, he added, is Hercules.
When offered a choice between a life of ease and pleasure or one of hard work,
but with glorious rewards, Hercules chose the latter, Wooten said.
“In a world where many people look for the easy way out, they (classics
graduates) have chosen to do something that is demanding and difficult,” he said.
“In a world where many people are attracted only by prospects of almost
immediate, tangible gratification, they have chosen to pursue a field that offers
rewards that are tremendous, but for the most part intangible.”
State Health Plan
annual enrollment
ends June 8
The health insurance enrollment period ends June 8.
Faculty and staff should keep in mind the following important points:
n
You must take action to remain in the PPO Standard 80/20 Plan. This
includes completing the tobacco use and weight management attestation
sections of the online enrollment; and
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You should use your Onyen and password to log in – not the instructions
provided in the State Health Plan enrollment booklet.
For enrollment information and a link to the online enrollment site, refer to
hr.unc.edu/benefits/benefits-enrollment/CCM3_027450.
The Benefits office will be available on the following dates to assist people with
enrollments:
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June 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Porthole Training Facility; and
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June 8, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Employee Forum Community
Meeting in the Great Hall of the FPG Student Union.
Also, the State Health Plan’s customer service hours have been extended during
the annual enrollment period, to
8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the following days:
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Every Monday (including June 6); and
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June 7 and June 8.
The customer service toll-free number is 888-234-2416.
STUDENTS
Beating the odds: C-STEP helps student earn degree, go on to law school at
carolina
Roy Dawson, who turned 30 on April 28, was always incredibly bright, but the
odds were stacked against him when it came to college.
He grew up in Alamance County, the son of hard-working parents. His mother
managed a restaurant, and his father worked as a roofer and dishwasher. Still,
there never seemed to be enough money.
To help ends meet, he got a job at a sandwich shop when he was 14. And even
though he dropped out of high school to help pay the bills, Dawson still earned a
diploma at the same time as his classmates by taking night classes at Alamance
Community College. Then he went to work in nearby Swepsonville, at Honda
Power Equipment, living on his own.
Dawson moved back home to care for his mother, Delores, when she contracted
severe neuropathy, a condition that started with redness and tingling in her
hands and feet that soon affected her ability to use them. As his mother improved,
she encouraged him to live at home expense-free and to enroll at Alamance
Community College.
That’s where Dawson discovered the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence
Program (C-STEP), a way for him to earn the college degree he thought was
impossible to achieve. Maybe he could even go on to be a lawyer, like his TV
hero Matlock.
In C-STEP, talented low- and moderate-income students are guaranteed
admission to Carolina if they enroll at Alamance or Carteret community colleges,
or Durham, Fayetteville or Wake technical community colleges and complete the
program. Carolina also guarantees to meet 100 percent of every admitted
student’s financial need through grants, scholarships and loans.
From the moment she read Dawson’s first personal memoir for her expository
writing class, Maria Baskin knew he was an ideal candidate for C-STEP. His
essay, “Waiting Is the Hardest Part,” about a day he spent in school dreading a
promised beating from a bully, touched her with its honesty and clarity. When he
read it to the class, the other students burst into applause. “I knew he was a
diamond in the rough,” Baskin said.
She approached Dawson after class to tell him about C-STEP and refer him to
an Alamance C-STEP adviser, Perry Hardison.
“These are students who have been mugged by reality,” Hardison said. “They’ve
pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, and they have a maturity and a
work ethic that you may not see in a typical college student.”
But C-STEP students also face special challenges. They may have more bills to
pay than a typical student, or have a family to support. As they make the
transition to college, these transfers – unlike first-year students – are taking
junior-level courses in their majors. And since they have taken detours and are
often the first in their families to go to college, they don’t have the same kind of
support network.
C-STEP advisers guide students in taking the right courses to transfer to
Carolina, and they help smooth the cultural transition. Dawson’s adviser, a
Carolina alumnus and Chapel Hill resident, led his students on “tours, from the
Dean Dome all the way to Franklin Street,” Dawson said. He and his peers saw a
performance of the New York Philharmonic and a play, while other C-STEP
students attended a football game.
“It served as motivation,” he said. “It made you want to hurry up and get here.”
When Dawson did get to Carolina, he decided, at 28, that he was too old to share
a room in a residence hall with an 18-year-old, so he went to Rams Village,
where he shares a four-bedroom apartment with three students. The classes
were as tough as he had been warned about, but he buckled down and
maintained a 3.7 GPA, with a major in political science on a pre-law track. “That
first semester wakes you up,” he said, “but it’s really satisfying when you realize
you are on that level with the others in your class.”
Dawson wants to be a criminal defense attorney because he has read so much
about wrongful convictions.
“I want to become part of the system to fix the system,” he said.
Dawson has also committed to give back to C-STEP as much as he has received,
by being a peer mentor to other students, speaking to community college faculty
about challenging their students – even to UNC President Tom Ross and
members of the North Carolina General Assembly. Because of his
encouragement, his sister, Maria, is now enrolled at Alamance Community
College.
His mother, who has recovered enough to get around the house, attended
Dawson’s graduation in May. “I thank God every day for C-STEP,” she said. “If it
wasn’t for C-STEP, I don’t know what we would have done.”
But Dawson also credits his mom for what he’s been able to accomplish. “She
always knew I was capable of it,” he said. “She saw the opportunity to make my
life better. She saw the benefit before I did.”
Now he has beaten the odds again by being accepted into Carolina’s School of
Law. After waiting for four months to hear the verdict, he checked the status of
his application before his criminal law class started and read the welcome word,
“Congratulations.” He called his mom immediately, and Delores cried for the next
30 minutes.
“I cannot tell you what it means to make it into UNC Law,” Dawson said. “It is the
single greatest thing to ever happen to me. My dream is coming true.”
C-STEP supports the Innovate@Carolina Roadmap, UNC’s plan to help Carolina
become a world leader in launching university-born ideas for the good of
society.
NEWSBRIEFS
work-study supervisor orientation sessions
The Office of Scholarships and Student Aid will offer training sessions for fulltime, permanent faculty and staff members interested in joining the Federal
Work-Study Program. Training is mandatory and covers topics such as
institutional and federal guidelines, student payroll, the job classification system,
documenting student hours in TIM, creating job descriptions and marketing
jobs online.
No registration is required. Postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and parttime employees are not eligible to serve as work-study supervisors. All sessions
will be held in Room 121 of Hanes Art Center on the following dates: June 14, 2–
4 p.m.; July 6,
10 a.m.–noon; and Aug. 4, 2–4 p.m.
For information, contact Michelle Klemens, assistant director for employment
programs (962-4176 or michelle_klemens@unc.edu).
Seven programs honored for
Academic Progress Rates
The NCAA is honoring seven UNC athletic programs with public recognition
awards for ranking among the top 10 percent nationally in Academic Progress
Rates (APR) for its student-athletes. UNC has the third-most programs ranked in
the top 10 percent of their respective sports among Atlantic Coast Conference
schools.
The NCAA is honoring Carolina’s men’s basketball, women’s fencing, women’s
golf, gymnastics, men’s and women’s swimming and diving and volleyball teams
for ranking in the top 10 percent nationally in the APR.
Duke (15), Boston College (11) and UNC lead the ACC in the number of teams
recognized and are followed by Wake Forest (6), Virginia Tech (5), Georgia Tech
(4), Miami (4), NC State (3), Virginia (3), Clemson (1), Florida State (1)
and Maryland (1).
The award highlights programs that
demonstrate a commitment to academic progress and retention of studentathletes by achieving the top APRs within their respective sports.
The APR is a multi-year score that measures a team’s academic success by
tracking the progress of each student-athlete on scholarship. The APR accounts
for eligibility, retention and graduation.
Trustees to meet May 26
The University’s Board of Trustees will meet on May 26, beginning at 8 a.m. in
the Carolina Inn, Chancellor’s Ballroom East
and West.
The agenda for both the full board meeting on May 26 and the committees’
meetings the day before is posted online,
www.unc.edu/depts/trustees/agendas.html.
The Gazette’s coverage of the Board of Trustees meeting will be included in the
June 15 issue.
Deadlines to watch
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Sept 30 – The Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH) is soliciting
application materials for Faculty Fellowships and Faculty Arts Fellowships. Both
fellowships provide on-campus semester leaves for faculty to work on projects,
and fellows participate in weekly seminars over a meal in Hyde Hall. IAH Faculty
Fellowships are available for work in the arts, humanities and the qualitative
social sciences. Faculty Arts Fellowships, co-sponsored by the Office of the
Executive Director for the Arts, support art or art-related projects.
iah.unc.edu/programs/fellowships
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Nov. 1 – The IAH is also soliciting applications and nominating materials
for the Academic Leadership Program (ALP). ALP works with current and
emerging faculty to develop their leadership skills, clarify their career
commitments, build a leadership network within campus and extend their
contacts to leaders beyond the University. All tenured faculty are eligible to
participate. iah.unc.edu/programs/leadership-programs/academic-leadership
Print Stop and copy center opens at Student Stores
Student Stores has opened the Print Stop and Copy Center on its third floor,
offering printing and copying services for faculty, staff, students and departments.
Services include black-and-white and color copies,
digital printing, lamination, posters and banners, binding
and fax services. All forms of payment are accepted,
including cash, checks, credit cards, UNC OneCards and departmental accounts.
For information, call 962-7016, email printstop@store.unc.edu or refer to
http://bit.ly/jBSkiV.
Registration open for pre-college math, science STEM camp
The UNC NC-MSEN (North Carolina Mathematics and Science Education
Network) Pre-College Program Summer STEM (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics) Camp will be held June 20–
July 1. Spaces are open for students who will be in grades 6 through 12 in the fall.
The camp includes courses for the upcoming school year with hands-on activities
that complement their learning objectives, as well as field trips, speakers,
projects and fun. Hours are Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Applications will be accepted through
May 27. For information, call 962-9362, email Dianne Affleck
(affleck@email.unc.edu) or see www.unc.edu/depts/ed/pcp.
Golf clinic for teens to be held June 4
Volunteers for Youth, an Orange County nonprofit organization, will host a free
golf clinic for community youth on June 4 at the Finley Golf Course driving range,
11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Golf professionals from Finley will be on hand to coach youth in golf basics
before setting them loose on the driving range. The 2011 UNC football team will
also take part in the event: playing with the kids, signing autographs and taking
photos after the clinic.
The event is free and open to the public.
Pre-registration is requested. No experience is required and first-time players are
encouraged to attend. Golf clubs and refreshments will be provided.
To register, contact Scott Dreyer (967-4511 or sad@
volunteersforyouth.org).
Albee’s ‘Virginia Woolf’ completes Playmakers’ Mainstage Season
PlayMakers Repertory Company has announced that Edward Albee’s marital
slugfest “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” will complete its 2011–12 mainstage
season. The Tony Award-winning play will be presented Nov. 30–Dec. 18.
Longtime PlayMakers company members Ray Dooley and Julie Fishell will play
George and Martha.
PlayMakers producing artistic director Joseph Haj said “Virginia Woolf” will
“definitely be a change of pace for the holidays. Take the worst family gettogether you can imagine, add a fifth of scotch and chase it with some of the best
one-liners in American theater for a truly unforgettable performance.”
Tickets are available now as part of the theater’s season subscription packages.
For more information, call the PlayMakers box office at 962-PLAY (7529) or visit
www.
playmakersrep.org.
University holiday schedule posted for 2011–12
The Office of Human Resources has posted the University holiday schedule for
2012, and just as a reminder, holidays for the remainder of 2011 are included
here, too. For more information about University holidays, refer to
hr.unc.edu/benefits/leave-and-holidays.
2011
Memorial Day – May 30
Independence Day – July 4
Labor Day – Sept. 5
Thanksgiving – Nov. 24–25
Winter Holiday – Dec. 23, Dec. 26
New Year’s Eve – Dec. 30
2012
New Year’s Day – Jan. 2.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day – Jan. 16
Spring Holiday – April 6
Memorial Day – May 28
Independence Day – July 4
Labor Day – September 3
Thanksgiving – Nov. 22–23
Winter Holiday – Dec. 24, 25, 26
New Year’s Eve – Dec. 31
Campus garden tours and tastings On May 26, the Carolina Campus
Community Garden will celebrate its first anniversary of vegetable gardening on
the UNC campus for the benefit of the community. There will be tours of the
garden, an opportunity to hear from Chancellor Holden Thorp and those who
have been involved in the program, and tastings. To attend the free event,
R.S.V.P. to Lauren Davis (laurende@email.unc.edu or 962-9522). The garden is
located on Wilson Street, off Cameron Avenue. To learn more, refer to
sites.google.com/site/uncgarden.
June 8 Employee Forum community
meeting focuses on campus budget issues
The Employee Forum is holding a community meeting on June 8, from 10 a.m. to
noon in the Great Hall of the FPG Student Union.
Chancellor Holden Thorp will be present to discuss campus budget issues.
Brenda Malone, vice chancellor for human resources, will attend to discuss
Senate Bill 575, a proposal that would create one personnel management
system for all UNC system employees under the auspices of the Board of
Governors.
Both before and after the meeting, representatives from the Office of Human
Resources’ Benefits Services will be on hand to help employees complete their
enrollment for the State Health Plan.
Employees who want to submit questions in advance can send them to
forum_office@unc.edu or call 962-3779.
The Carolina Union will stream the event live through its network at
carolinaunion.unc.edu/live. Soon afterward, the session will be posted on the
Employee Forum’s website, forum.unc.edu.
Attendance at the community meeting is considered work time if it occurs during
an employee’s regular work schedule with approval from the supervisor to attend.
ARTS
Connecting to North
Carolina’s clay
In art professor Yun Nam’s studio, ceramic tea bowls stack on every surface. In
the throwing room, bowls crowd the shelves. Outside amid toasty kilns, bowls sit
on ware carts, nested into tiny towers.
Each is a part of Nam’s journey.
For years, he purchased his clay from commercial dealers and never considered
the origin of the clay, only the finished product. But a lifetime of producing work
solely for the visual result had left the acclaimed Korean-born ceramist feeling
disconnected with the nature of his process.
“I didn’t know everything,” Nam said. “As artists, we look for the visual. How big is
a piece; how well is it glazed? I decided to look beyond the visual and tangible,
connect the past, present and future of the material.”
He stopped working and started studying. He learned of a long-held tradition of
using mica clay, some of which could be found in Kings Mountain, west of
Charlotte. Pyrophyllite minerals could be found in the soil of nearby Hillsborough.
He would use materials from both cities to make his own clays and bring them to
his teaching. Other local clays could
be purchased from the clay factory at STARworks Studio in Star, N.C.
“Using clay from North Carolina, that is bonding for me,” Nam said. “And it’s
important that I show my students how to work with it.”
His research provided the clay with which his students would craft. A connection
to the state where he’d taught for about
16 years and raised his children was providing the inspiration he needed to
create again.
“What do I need to teach? How to make a good handle or candleholders? Yes,
but I also like them to learn a beautiful lesson through the clay, to think beyond
visible and establish a connection to the environment that is part of their history.”
A good pot is about good materials, honest process and where it’s made, he said.
“In searching for the invisible, I see so much more.”
He’s made hundreds of tea bowls, experimenting with heat, glaze and
composition,
balancing and neutralizing elements to bring different visual effects. From each
finished work, he drinks a cup of Matcha, a brightgreen tea.
“People wonder why I am throwing so many bowls and testing so many glazes,
but it is a wonderful journey about finding,” he said.
‘Nothing Is Impossible’
The Ackland Museum Store, now open at the corner of Columbia and Franklin
streets, has chosen seven North
Carolina artists to take part in its first exhibit “Nothing Is Impossible,” on view
through July 9.
Every year, 1,200 artists venture to Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina’s
Blue Ridge Mountains to engage in workshops in clay, books and paper, drawing
and painting, glass, iron, metals, photography, printing and letterpress, textiles,
wood and other media. The artists’ ages and life experiences are widely varied,
but they all come seeking what Penland offers: an environment in which to
immerse themselves in one medium at a time, growing from the knowledge and
experience they gain from the school’s instructors, students and staff.
“Nothing Is Impossible” represents North Carolinians who have made a
transformative journey to Penland as students, artists-in-residence, studio
assistants or teachers. They are:
n
Margaret Couch Cogswell, who makes whimsical books of paper mache,
paint, found objects and the written word;
n
Celia Gray, whose encaustic paintings are created intuitively, guided by
her observations of landscapes and the subtle movements within them;
n
Bryant Holsenbeck, who documents society’s “stuff” that is typically used
once and thrown away;
n
Ann Marie Kennedy, whose handmade paper works evoke memory,
desire and the evolution of experiences;
n
Evan Lightner, who uses period-specific furniture forms as a jumping-off
point for reinterpretation and elaboration;
n
Gretchen McLaren, whose jewelry has its roots in the artistic movement of
Minimalism
and draws upon German, Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics; and
n
Sylvie Rosenthal, who has gained recognition for her intricate and detailoriented furniture, sculpture, contraptions and art objects.
All proceeds from the Ackland Museum Store support the Ackland’s exhibition
and education programs. See www.
ackland.org/shop.
Above, McLaren’s “Meditations on a Birthday” includes the shapes she frequently
uses in her work, but with an interesting twist: The circular “tokens” are cast from
an original token that she found in a junk store in Mars Hill, and it turned out to be
an early form of Social Security tax in Oklahoma. Combining the tokens in a
piece that was an homage to a professor who was a mentor – and who was
passing away at the time – turned the necklace into a reflection on birthdays,
aging, dying and transforming – the kind of talisman McLaren believes every
woman should have to wear on a significant birthday.