®lff Batlg 3ar Hrri BRIEFS Stones frem tbt University and Chapel HiU Law School Information Day to Bo Held Friday A Law School Information Day spon sored by the UNC School of Law, Blade Law Students Association and Studait Bar Association will be held Friday at 8:30 a.m. The conference is open to anyone con sidering law school. The session will provide information about preparation, admission, financial aid policies and job opportunities. It will also offer a realistic view of law school and its demands on students. Winston Crisp, assistant dean of stu dents for the law school and a 1992 UNC graduate, will deliver the conference key note address. Assistant Dean for Admissions J. Eliza beth Furr will offer an overview of admis sions. Three concurrent midday sessions will allow students to attend a simulated class taught by a law faculty member. The program is free and will be held at the Institute of Government and the nearby law school. Registration is required. UNC Biologist to Receive Lifetime Mentoring Award The American Association for the Ad vancement of Science will honor Lawrence Gilbert, William Rand Kenan Jr. profes sor of biology, for promoting science ca reers for women, minorities and people with disabilities. Gilbert will receive the 1995 AAAS Lifetime Achievement Mentor Award at the group’s annual Meeting in Baltimore on Feb. 10. The professor’s former students nomi nated him for the award. Gilbert is a 1950 graduate of Long Is land University. He earned his master’s degree in 1955 at New York University and his doctorate from Cornell in 1958. He taught at Northwestern University from 1958 until 1980, when he joined the UNC faculty. Fraternity Raises 3,000 Pounds for IFC Shelter The Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity col lected 3,000 pounds of canned goods for the Inter-Faith Council Homeless Shelter last week. The project was an effort to help meet the food needs of the surrounding areas. The effort was part of the North American Food Drive, the fraternity’s national phi lanthropy. Lambda Chi Alpha has been donating canned goods to the IFC shelterforthe last three years. The largest food drives tradi tionally occur around Thanksgiving. Business Students Win Consulting Competition A team of four MBA students from the Kenan-Flagler Business School were awarded the grand prize for the Third Annual Deloitte & Touche LLP MBA Consulting Cup Challenge on Nov. 2. UNC’s and Duke’s business schools competed, with each school represented by ten teams. Competing teams of students were given an actual case performed by the manage ment consulting division of Deloitte & Touche LLP and prepared presentations in front of a mock board of directors. Visiting Artist to Speak On Black Equality Tonight Asa part of the Hanes Visiting Artists Lecture Series, Kerry James Marshall will speak on the “psychological inability on the part of white Americans to see ‘black’ people as equal and American.” The free lecture will take place tonight at 7 p.m. in 218 of Hanes Art Center. Sale of Nutcrackers to Benefit Local Charities Revco Drug Stores will be selling holi day nutcrackers from now until Dec. 24 or while supplies last. Proceeds will benefit the Ronald McDonald Houses in Chapel Hill and Durham. Nine different nutcrackers are available to choose from; they range in price from $5.99 for smaller nutcrackers to $9.99 for larger ones. Last year, the Chapel Hill and Durham houses received a total of $12,000 com bined. The Ronald McDonald House is a non profit organization that provides a home like setting for families of seriously ill chil dren receiving treatment at nearby hospi tals. Mayor-Elect to Address Leadership Program Grads Chapel Hill Mayor-elect Rosemary Waldorf will be the keynote speaker at the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Pro gram graduation Friday at The Siena Ho tel. The graduates of the program, which is sponsored by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, spent 10 weeks meeting community leaders and discuss ing issues such as local government, Or ange County health care and crime. Twenty-six businessmen and business women will receive their graduation cer tificates during Friday’s special commence ment program. FROM STAFF REPORTS Five-Foot Python Slithers Into Apartment’s Kitchen ■ The snake apparently had lived behind the apartment’s refrigerator for six months. BY OLIVIA PAGE STAFF WRITER Laura Gross had plans to spend Friday night with Michael Stipe in a sold-out Smith Center. But when she arrived home with her arms full of groceries, she was greeted by a 5-foot-long ball python, and her plans changed dramatically. Gross, a senior from Charlotte, and her two roommates were warned prior to mov ing into their apartment on Merritt Mill Road that the previous renters apparently had misplaced their pet snake while mov ing out in May. But almost six months later, having seen no signs of the snake, the roommates had forgotten almost completely about the missing reptile. “The snake was sort of a concern when we moved in, but we really weren’t too worried about it,” Gross said. “We always spoke of the snake in a half-joking way, but we didn’t really think that it was still here.” On Friday night, however, Gross found out the “disappearing snake” had reap Officials: North Campus Needs Better lighting BY RUTH BORLAND STAFF WRITER After touring the campus to assess safety, students and Univer sity officials agreed Wednesday that lighting improvements were most needed on North Campus. More lighting is needed in the quad between Hanes and Gardner Halls, behind Lenoir Dining Hall, in between Lenoir and Davis Library, in the alley behind Winston Residence Hall in the Olde Campus Upper Quad and near many North Campus residence halls, officials said. The tour route originally did not include any North Campus dorms, where lighting is poorest, but University Police Chief Donald Gold and Susan Gelb, University watch coordinator for student government, asked officials to extend the tour to include the area. Some of the lightposts and fixtures on North Campus were installed when gas was used to light the University. They do not illuminate the campus as well as the newer lights on South Campus, said Phil Brooks, a secretary with UNC Hospitals. Officials said they planned to replace the old lights as soon as they could, but the process was still in the engineering stage, he said. Members of the tour also suggested that the best way to address exterior lighting concerns on the University was to build a system of lighted corridors through the heavily traveled parts of the campus. “Think of the Student Union and the library as the hub of a wheel and the dorms and other buildings as spokes off that wheel,” Gold said. He said he wanted a system of lighted pathways starting at the library and extending across campus. Gelb said she wanted to work with the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Physical Plant and the Department of Public Safety to create a campus map highlighting the brightest path ways and marking the emergency call boxes. The tour identified spots on campus that needed better lighting and monitored people’s feelings about campus lighting and safety, said John Laetz, the electrical engineer for the Physical Plant who organized the tour. “Because of people’s changing feelings, we are always trying to improve lighting,” Laetz said. “When construction occurs, it can change the exterior lighting. Tree and shrub growth can also affect it,” he said. “If something has changed, this tour lets us find out about it.” The officials found lighting adequate in the Pit, between Fetzer and Woollen gyms and on most of South Campus. ‘Cave Painting’ Livens Up Parking Deck Atmosphere ■ A local artist and students have received much praise for their mural on Rosemary Parking Deck. BYMEGAN MONTGOMERY STAFF WRITER It all began as a joke. But a local artist’s idea of a joke ended up transforming a dark parking deck into a multicolored, creative mural. Artist Michael Brown, with the assis tance of many Chapel Hill public school art students and art teachers, painted the walls of the new parking deck on Rose mary Street in the spirit of a “cave paint ing” theme in April. Brown said the re sponse from locals and out-of-town visi tors to the mural had been very positive. “People said, ‘Wow, that’sanice, funny, witty addition.’" Brown said even the parking deck archi tect felt fairly positive about the alteration of his work. “I received an overwhelm ingly and extraordinarily positive reaction, ” Brown said. The painting came about as a result of an art project for the Arts Downtown ‘95 Committee. UNIVERSITY & CITY peared. As she set down her second load of groceries, she noticed a suspicious head and tail lurking under the kitchen cabinet. “As soon as I saw the snake, I knew exactly which snake it was,” Gross said. “I immediately ran out and looked for my neighbors, but they weren’t home. Luck ily, the father of one of my other neighbors was visiting for the weekend, so he came over and hit the snake with a broom and told me to call 911.” After calling 911 and learning an ani mal control officer was on the way, Gross perched herself on a stool four feet away from the snake and watched it patiently as she waited for help to arrive. “I know it sounds strange that I just sat there and watched it, but I didn’t want it to escape into another part of the house and lose it again,” she said. The snake remained almost motionless until the moment before animal control arrived. As the officer came through the door, the snake quickly headed for the cover of the refrigerator and positioned itself safely around the coils. The officer was afraid of injuring the snake because of the awkwardness of reach ing it, so she called for more help. Eventu ally, a snake specialist from animal control arrived and removed the snake from its hiding place. DTH/CELESTE IOYE Ed Donegan, owner of Judges Coffee Roastery, checks on the Diedrick roaster in the front of the shop. Donegan says with the cold weather, the industry expects an increase in business. “The painting was Michael Brown’s idea,” said Robert Humphreys of the Downtown Commission, who also worked on the committee for the project. “It was sort of a play on the idea people have of parking decks being like a cave, a subterra nean world, and he played off on the idea of a cave. I thought it was kind of clever.” Brown said the idea for the "cave paint ing” theme began as a joke in his head that he never imagined would become a reality. “There had been some comment at some point that although we’d put much effort into putting together one of the nicest park ing decks around, it seemed cavernous,” Brown said. “People asked me what we could do to make it look less like a cave. As a joke, I told them that I couldn't make it look less like a cave but could make it a friendlier cave.” The Arts Downtown project involved all the public schools in Chapel Hill, Humphreys said. The “cave paintings” were conceived as the work of semi-nomadic peoples who lived about 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, stated Phyllis Lotchin, chair of the Arts Downtown committee, in a press release. The figures and their activities, done in warm brown, yellow and orange hues, created a series depicting the year-long travels of semi-nomadic peoples during The snake was in good condition over all but was suffering from mouth rot (foam ing of the mouth) and bums on various parts of its body. The bums probably were caused by the refrigerator’s coils, which most likely had been the snake’s home for the past six months. The animal control officers said the snake probably had been surviving principally on a diet of mice but was capable of eating small pets and even newborn babies. “The whole thing just kind of gives me the creeps,” Gross said. “I’m not really afraid of snakes, but I don’t like them that much, either. I just wonder what it’s been doing all these months. I wonder if it’s been watching us every time we opened the refrigerator.” Gross’ roommates and neighbors were relieved it was she who stumbled upon the snake rather than one of them. “If it had been me, I would have screamed, ran out of the apartment and not come back,” said Schuyler Quinn, a junior from Gastonia. “It is really freaky to think that we have been living with a huge snake all of this time. I don’t like to go into the kitchen now.” Carly Bryant, a senior from Fayetteville and a neighbor of Gross and Quinn, ex pressed similar sentiments. “I’m very glad it’s gone,” Bryant said. Good to the Last Drop V ,nt } Ski:, \ \9h/ n i' '\ \ n\l \ ' |/JR • 11*# I \ 7 ** { T'^i I* ■ tin ~ ~ —~ k \ \ kispP^ ti^ jjfe|; v , ' L~llr ' \' t 'l _ Dfm/SIMONELUKX With the help of Chapel Hill area children, artist Michael Brown painted murals meant to create a cavelike atmosphere in the Rosemary Street parking deck. The project was commissioned by the Arts Downtown '95 Committee. that stage ofhuman development, she said. Brown said about 100 to 120 students worked on the mural and that all public schools participated in the art festival. “The students, came from art-related groups,” Brown said. "1 had a lot of kids wandering in and just asking to help, but many also Infant Mortality lied To Education, Income BY JOHN PATTERSON STAFF WRITER Lack of education and income contrib ute to the higher rate of infant mortality among North Carolina blacks, said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor mUNC’s School of Public Health. The latest installment of the biweekly Blacks in the Diaspora Lecture Series, “Racial Differences in Infant Mortality in North Carolina: The Impact of Educa tion,” focused Wednesday on factors that contribute to the disparity in infant mortal ity between blacks and whites. “This is a problem that many people are working on,” Hertz-Picciotto said during her lecture at the Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Center. “The ideas about what causes infant mortality have been evolving over time.” Factors such as education and income may explain why blacks consistently have higher infant mortality rates - deaths that occur within the first year of life, Hertz- Picciotto said. “If you compare African-American mothers to white mothers, among those that have less than 12 years of education, there was about a 30 percent higher chance of infant mortality for the African Ameri cans,” she said. Hertz-Picciotto, who works in the De partment of Epidemiology, said financial security also affected infant mortality. came with their art teachers.” Brown said the students worked on the painting for two days, and he spent two months on it afterward, adding, amending and refining. The project cost approximately SB,OOO and was funded by Glaxo and the Town of Thursday, November 16,1995 “Making a higher income and holdinga job with more status makes one more re ceptive to health education messages,” she said. “In this country, having higher in come and job status definitely buys you access to health care.” Education also makes for a better rela tionship between physicians and patients, Hertz-Picciotto said. “Physicians may themselves feel more confident talking to a patient with a higher education,” she said. But factors such as marital status may also contribute to infant mortality rates. “The babies of single mothers die at a higher rate than babies of two parents,” Hertz-Picciotto said. “Personal behaviors like smoking and alcohol can also affect infant mortality. The epidemiologists’ job is to disentangle which factors are playing a role in infant mortality.” Hertz-Picciotto said analyzing trends in infant mortality was also extremely impor tant. “North Carolina has been consistently having high rates of infant mortality in relationtoother states in theUnitedStates,” she said. “Within North Carolina, the coun ties that have the worst infant mortality rates are along the eastern section of the state.” Stress may also impact infant mortality. Often black mothers must deal with addi tional societal pressures that white moth ers do not face, Hertz-Picciotto said. Schools To Provide Job Training ■ The town and the high school are cooperating to give students an opportunity to work and learn. BY JENNIFER ZAHREN STAFF WRITER In the race to equip students for employ ment in the 21 st century better, Chapel HiU High School is pulling ahead with the establishment of the Youth Apprentice ship Program. Geared toward giving students on-the job training that will potentially benefit the town, the program was opened officially with a ceremony Wednesday. One year in the making the program is the result of a joint effort by the school, the town and the N.C. Department of Labor. “We have all put a great deal of work into this program,” said George Small, town director of engineering. “Determin ing which areas of the town would be able to successfully handle an apprenticeship was the greatest challenge.” Following much deliberation, program developers narrowed the fields down to two areas, the transportation department and building maintenance and inspection. The program allows selected high school juniors and seniors to use technical skins learned in course work to train for munici pal jobs. Gosely supervised by an adult mentor, participants master the specified skills, and their hourly rate of pay is in creased accordingly. “If this program succeeds, it will be very exciting forthe participants and the town,” Small said. “Our biggest long-term goal is to teach a trade to a young person who will then return the contribution by either con tinuing to work for the town or at least making a concerted effort during their train ing.” See SCHOOLS, Page 4 Chapel Hill, Brown said. He said die busi ness had donated about $3,000 and the town had pitched in roughly $5,000. “This donation by Chapel HiU is unusual, ’’Brown said. “NormaHy, the town doesn’t give anything, but the painting involved their property.” 3

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