FEBUARY 3, 2010
1801 Fayetteville Street
Durham, NC 27707
North Carolina Central University
VOLUME 101, ISSUE 8
919 530 7116/campusecho@nccu.edu
WWW.CAMPUSECHO.COM
Campus
1-4
A&E
Sports
Opinions
Life in the Worid
Beyond
5
Is Corinne Bailey Rae
Athletes grind in the
Chris Hess is worried
Brandi Joy Myers
Feature
6-7
the black Norah Jones?
classroom, on field
that swag has
ioves her church. Have faith
A&E
SB
Read about her lastest
and the courts
destroyed hip hop
in God is the word for 2010
Classifleds.....
10
CD, “The Sea”
Sports.
.. 11
Opinloa
.. 12
Page 8
Page 11
Page 12
Pages 6 - 7
Campus Echo
Students petition assembiy
UNC System students ask General Assembly to keep tuition funds on campus
By Amarachi
Anakaraonye
ECHO STAFF REPORTER
If the N.C. General
Assembly gets its way, the
money raised from next
fail’s systemwide tuition
increase will not end up at
UNC campuses.
It will end up instead in
North Carolina’s general
fund.
And that’s got students
from all 16 UNC universities
up in arms.
Since the late 1990s,
North Carolina’s public uni
versities have both proposed
and spent their own tuition
increases.
“All of this money is going
back to the state,” said
Dwayne Johnson, NCCU’s
SGA president.
“I think it needs to come
back to the University. Who’s
to say that that money is
going to be used by the uni
versities once it goes to the
state?
At least if it goes to the
schools, we can see the
direct benefit.”
Last year North
Carolina’s general assembly
mandated an 8 percent
tuition increase at the
state’s 16 universities to
■ See PETITION Page 2
LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW I
Classes started late Monday and Tuesday after 6-7 inches of snow blanketed Durham Friday. Forecasts predict rain and snow for later this week.
Mike DEWEESE-FRANK/Aiieretou)n Morning Echo staff photographer
Put
out I-
Juniors, seniors
scramble for off-
campus housing
By Tommia Hayes
ECHO STAFF REPORTER
For most juniors and seniors
the bad news is just now begin
ning to sink in. It arrived in an
October 29 memo from Jennifer
Wilder, N.C. Central
University’s director of
Residential Life. It was titled;
“2010-2011 Housing Outlook -
Letter to Students and Family
Members.”
The memo stated that if
you’re a junior or senior, and if
you’re not a student athlete or
in one of the University’s learn
ing communities, such as the
honors program, then you’ll
need to find housing some
where off campus. ■
Housing has been a long
standing problem at NCCU.
The demand for rooms has for
many years not been met.
In 2006 1,771 upperclassmen
entered a lottery for an avail
able 1,692 housing slots.
Today, with increasing
enf&ltnreht, ^he shortage is
even worse.
According to Jennifer
Wilder, director of Residential
Life, about 8,500 students are
enrolled at NCCU, which has
only 2,300 beds. Or as she put it
in an e-mail, “We are currently
at .27 beds per student.”
The picture isn’t pretty:
Thousands of NCCU juniors
■ See HOUSING Page 2
Debt,
degree,
jobs
By Mara Rose Williams
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS (MCT)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Being
“upside-down” means owing
more on your house or car
than it’s worth.
Right now, Patricia
Summers is upside-down on
her college degree.
She still owes $18,000 on
loans taken to get her degree
in advertising from the
University of Missouri. Her
college time will end up cost
ing more than $50,000, not
counting what she could
have earned from a full-time
job had she not gone to col
lege.
But that job probably
would have been a dead-end,
low-paying service job, advo
cates of higher education
■ See DEGREE Page 5
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54 years later, an Echo editor reflects
Shirley Temple James-Holliday pushed students, faculty to take activist stance
By Carlton Koonce
ECHO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The 1950s were a dynamic
time on the campus of North
Carolina College at Durham.
As a center of
learning for
colored peo
ple through
out the South,
the College
attracted a
variety of stu
dents who would go on to
become future educators and
community activists.
Shirley Temple James-
Holliday, the 1956 editor of
the Campus Echo newspaper,
recently dusted off her mem
ories of Chuck Berry, B. B.
King and Billie Holiday to
share with present-day
Eagles.
Holliday remembers N. C.
Centennial News
Central University legends
such as Sam Jones who
played for the Boston Celtics,
Tex Harrison who played for
the Harlem Globetrotters,
and actors Robert Cheek and
Ivan Dixon.
She also remembers learn
ing to swim in the pool at the
old women’s gymnasium,
located in what is now the
Student Services building.
“We still had mandatory
vespers [church sermons] on
Sundays and had to sit in
assigned seats in B. N. Duke
Auditorium,” said Holliday.
Holliday said the services
were stopped because they
eventually ran out of seats.
“I didn’t have time to
watch TV because I was in
charge of the student United
Way on campus and I would
go on TV to talk about money
we had raised. It wasn’t
much,” she said.
“We paid $546 for room,
board and everything. The
Echo was in the library on
the first floor back then,
before they built the porch.
We had two desks and two
typewriters, one for the advi
sor and one for the editor.”
The year that Holliday was
editor, the Campus Echo won
an “Excellent” rating from
the Associated Collegiate
Press.
She also was the Alpha
Kappa Alpha sorority repre
sentative to the Pan-Hellenic
Council and a member of the
National Social Science
Honor Society, Pi Gamma
Mu.
“I had to set type and I had
to get special permission
from the dean of women,
■ See EDITOR Page 3
Shirley Temple James-Holliday edited the Campus Echo in 1956.
Jes’neka JoNESlEcho staff photographer
Campus to host its own ‘Biggest Loser’
By Ashley Griffin
ECHO ASSISTANT EDITOR
Some 66 percent of all
Americans are overweight,
according to the Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention.
Of this percentage,
African Americans take the
lead.
According to the U.S.
Office of Minority Health’s
latest report, African
Americans were 50 percent
less likely to engage in phys
ical activities than non-
Hispanic whites in 2007.
A National College
Health Assessment study
conducted during the 2008-
2009 academic year found
that NCCU student over
weight and obesity rates
were 41 percent.
“After doing the fitness
assessment test, nearly 60
percent of my students had a
BMI [body mass index] over
25, which classifies them as
being either overweight or
obese,” said Erica Dixon,
NCCU’s director of Campus
Recreation and Wellness.
Such statistics inspired
Dixon’s office, Sodexo, and
the Division of Student
Affairs to initiatate an eight-
week contest: “NCCU’s
Greatest Loser Weight Loss
Challenge.”
Sodexo is the University’s
food service provider.
The winning team will be
awarded $1,000.
The inspiration for this
program comes from the
popular television show,
“The Biggest Loser.”
The selection of 50 stu
dents — 10 teams of five
members — runs from Feb. 8
through Feb. 14.
Teams will be assigned by
contest coordinators based
on application information.
Appplications for the con
test are now available in
Pearson Cafeteria, Walker
■ See BIGGEST Page 3