2
Friday, November 15, 2002
Students Get a Taste of Southern Culture
Bv Kirsten Valle
Staff Writer
Will McKinney is a big fan of
Carolina barbecue.
Eastern or western style, urban or
rural, he can’t get enough.
McKinney certainly isn’t alone in
his enthusiasm for this Southern tradi
tion, but he might be the king of bar
becue at UNC.
About a year ago, McKinney, a
senior political science major, founded
the Carolina BarßQ Society, an orga
nization that meets about once a
month to eat barbecue at various loca
tions around the state.
“Some friends and I were just going
out to eat barbecue a lot,” said
McKinney about what prompted him
to found the society. “Ever since we
could drive at UNC, we’ve been going
to these restaurants.”
McKinney, who hails from South
Carolina, said most of his friends were
from out of state or from major cities
in North Carolina and had not really
been exposed to rural culture.
“There are so many little cultures in
North Carolina,” McKinney said. “A lot
of people have never gotten off the high
way.”
The idea for the society was an imme
diate hit, with 40 people at the first meet
ing. That number quickly grew to 140
members, including students, faculty
members and Chapel Hill residents.
In addition to eating barbecue,
McKinney hopes members can gain
some education and insight into the
culture of the South.
“Will has done a terrific job; he’s
been able to put it in a historical con
text,” said Eric Mlyn, the director of
the Robertson Scholars Program at
UNC and Duke University and the
society’s faculty adviser.
“The society’s purpose is a combina
tion of education and eating,” Mlyn
GPSF Considers Letter Scale to Replace Pass/Fail
By Meredith Craig
Staff Writer
Graduate students could face a letter
grading scale similar to that of under
graduates as soon as next year if a pro
posal is approved by the Faculty Council.
In the meantime, graduate students
can voice their opinions on the proposed
grading scale in an online survey spon
sored by the Graduate and Professional
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Seniors Walt Kuhn (left), Will McKinney, Chris Sellers and Charles Epstein, all members of the
executive board of the Carolina BarßQ Society, eat barbecue in Chapel Hill.
said. “Will always has a speaker,
whether it’s the owner of the restaurant
or someone speaking about Southern
culture.”
John Shelton Reed, professor emeri
tus of sociology, spoke to members of
the society last year at Bullock’s, a
restaurant in Durham.
“Traditional barbecue is an impor
tant and endangered aspect of North
Carolina’s cultural heritage. It’s also
good to eat,” Reed said.
“Understanding barbecue as a food,
a process and an event does help one
understand North Carolina and the
South.”
Word of the society’s promotion of
Southern culture has spread all over
the South since its humble beginning at
UNC.
John Edge, director of the Southern
Foodways Alliance in Oxford, Miss.,
has taken a profound interest in the
club and hopes to attend an event in
Student Federation. The survey will be
accessible online until Saturday.
As of Wednesday evening, 700 grad
uate students had taken the survey. The
results will be presented to the
Education Policy Subcommittee by the
GPSF representative Wednesday.
If approved, the earliest the new scale
would take effect is the 2003-04 acade
mic year.
The undergraduate letter grading
the future.
His group, part of the Center for the
Study of Southern Culture at the
University of Mississippi, works to
“celebrate, teach, preserve and pro
mote the diverse food cultures of the
American South,” Edge said.
Edge said he finds the society both
silly and inspiring. “I think it’s intrigu
ing that college students have such a
passion for barbecue,” he said.
The society goes hand in hand with
the work he has been doing for years,
Edge said.
“These students are doing what I get
paid to do,” Edge said. “The society
speaks to anew generation of
Southerners who understand Southern
food culture.
McKinney said his favorite part of
the society is the eating. “A close sec
ond, though, is seeing what is different
about restaurants around the state,” he
said.
scale is different from the current HPLF
graduate scale, which consists of the
grades “high pass,” “pass,” “low pass”
and “fail” and does not provide students
with a grade point average.
The proposed change would only
impact those departments and schools
that are a part of the Graduate School.
The schools of Law, Medicine, Dentistry
and Pharmacy, which do not use the
HPLF system, would not be affected.
The new grading system was discussed
by the Graduate School Administrative
Board at the request of deans and profes
sors, said Linda Dykstra, dean of the
Graduate School. After data was collect
ed, the board decided the change should
be considered and forwarded it to the
Education Policy Subcommittee.
The proposal is in that subcommittee
and, if passed, will be forwarded to the
Faculty Council for a vote.
“They felt that most students were at a
disadvantage by not having a GPA when
applying to other programs,” Dykstra said.
Dykstra said a letter grading scale is
traditional for graduate schools. UNC is
one out of five or six in the country that
use the HPLF system, she said.
Some graduate students and profes
sors also are concerned with the current
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The North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows present
An American Injustice: Inequalities in Healthcare
What can we do to reduce health disparities?
Monday, November 18, 2002 Dr . Gtae^*^Blu l
ft: JO-B: 3opm UNC-CH Department of Social Medicine and Medicine
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“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice In health Is the most shocking and inhumane.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1966
News
The society’s upcoming event, the
Down East Extravaganza, will allow
members to do just that.
On Saturday, members will stop at
about five restaurants along U.S. 70,
referred to as “the road of barbecue”
by McKinney.
“We won’t eat too heavy at these
places, but it will just be interesting to
go and see a lot of the traditions used
there,” he said.
In a few years, the society might
become a tradition itself.
If nothing else, Mlyn said, the soci
ety promotes Southern culture in per
haps the most entertaining way.
“I think the society is fun, and I
think it’s important to learn about
North Carolina,” he said. “I’m not sure
if eating barbecue is the best way, but
it’s a fun way.”
The Features Editor can be reached at
features@unc.edu.
scale because of the wide range that a
“pass” grade encompasses.
“The difference between the low end
of pass and the high end of pass, in
terms of communicating students’ per
formance, is enormous,” said Sue
Estroff, Faculty Council chairwoman.
GPSF President Branson Page said
the scale makes the graduate student
experience less stressful than a letter
grading system would.
“There are merits to both ways,” Page
said. “But I like the fact that Carolina can
distinguish itself with this type of system.”
Stephanie Schmitt, vice president of
external affairs for the GPSF, sent an e
mail to graduate students Tuesday asking
them to complete the brief survey to deter
mine prevailing opinions on the proposal.
Schmitt, who sat on the Administrative
Board, said the issue has been raised so
early on in the approval process because
it is such anew concept. “We just wanted
students to have a chance to provide
input before it went though.”
The GPSF survey can be accessed at
http://www.unc.edu/~sschmitt/
project/GradingSystem.html.
The University Editor can be reached
at udesk@unc.edu.
2 in Congress Resign;
O'Brien to Run Again
Next special election scheduled for Nov. 26
By Laura Bost
Staff Writer
Two members of Student Congress
resigned Tuesday, making it possible for
one member who stepped down recent
ly to run for election.
Congress members Kristin Taylor,
District 16, and Ben Davidson, District
19, both announced their resignations.
Taylor said she had to resign because
she recently moved out of her district
and into District 18. She said she hopes
to return to Congress in the future.
Davidson said he wished to announce
his resignation now, before time conflicts
prohibiting him from participating in
Congress forced him to resign at the
beginning of the spring semester.
Davidson represented the same dis
trict that former Congress Speaker Pro
Tem Matt O’Brien moved into two
weeks ago. O’Brien’s move forced him
to resign from Congress.
While Davidson said knowledge that
O’Brien was in his district didn’t influ
ence his decision, O’Brien said Davidson
approached him about a week ago.
O’Brien said Davidson let him know
about the decision to resign, allowing him
time to consider rejoining Congress as a
representative for the district. O’Brien
said he was grateful for the information.
“I didn’t know about Ben’s decision to
Accused Terrorist Cell Leader
Arrested in North Carolina
The Associated Press
DETROIT - A fugitive accused by
the government of leading a terrorist
sleeper cell in Detroit has been arrested
in North Carolina and will be extradited
to Michigan to face charges, authorities
said.
Identified in court papers only as
Abdella, the man was accused in an
August indictment of acting with “a
covert underground support unit” and
an “operational combat cell” for a radi
cal Islamic movement allied withal-
Qaeda. The indictment alleged the man
“provided direction” to the Detroit ter
rorist cell.
His alleged accomplices, Karim
Koubriti, 24, Ahmed Hannan, 34, and
Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 22, were arrested
less than a week after the Sept. 11,2001,
attacks. A raid on a Detroit apartment
the men shared yielded a cache of false
documents and videotapes that
Campus Calendar
Today
noon - The Orange County
Chapter of the American Red Cross
and Morrison Residence Hall are spon
soring a blood drive from until 4:30 p.m.
Appointments are encouraged. Contact
Kenny Olson at olsonk@email.unc.edu.
8 p.m. - UNC Opera Workshop:
Mozart Opera Scenes - “Down Under”
will be held in Hill Hall Auditorium. It
is free and open to the public.
Saturday, Nov. 16
7 p.m. - Tonight is the 16th annual
(Eljr Daily (Ear Urrl
P.O. Box 3257, Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Kim Minugh, Editor, 962-4086
Advertising & Business, 962-1163
News, Features, Sports, 962-0245
One copy per person; additional copies may be
purchased at The Daily Tar Heel for $.25 each.
© 2002 DTH Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved
Catholic
Questions?
www.CatholicQandA.orq
lailg (Tar Hrri
resign when I moved,” O’Brien said. “But
now I do plan to run for his position.”
O’Brien will be on the ballot for the
Nov. 26 special election called to fill
vacancies in Congress. If elected, he will
return as a regular Congress member
rather than as the speaker pro tem. “I
don’t think it will be weird at all,” he
said. “Any member of Congress can be
just as actively involved as any other.
Just because I would no longer be pro
tem wouldn’t stop me from voicing my
opinions.”
Speaker Pro Tem Matt Liles echoed
O’Brien’s sentiments. “It could be strange
with Matt coming back, but knowing him
and knowing how he is, I don’t think
there will be any problems,” he said. “He
is so professional and legislative and good
at making his ideas heard, I don’t even
think it will throw a kink in the works.”
Liles said he has given no thought to
stepping down and allowing O’Brien to
resume his former position.
O’Brien said he is “only concentrating
on getting in right now” and does not
have a specific agenda in mind if elected.
“People have been asking me if I’m
going to run for speaker, but right now
I have no idea,” he said. “I have to get
back in first - I’ll decide all that later.”
The University Editor can be reached
at udesk@unc.edu.
appeared to case U.S. landmarks,
authorities said.
Abdella was charged with providing
material support to terrorists and con
spiracy to engage in fraud and misuse of
visas, permits and other documents.
He was arrested Nov. 5 outside
Greensboro, federal authorities said. He
appeared in U.S. District Court in
Durham and was ordered held without
bond. He will be transferred to Detroit,
Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the
U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, said
today.
Koubriti, Hannan and Ali-Haimoud
pleaded innocent in September to a
charge of conspiracy to provide materi
al support or resources to terrorists.
Their trial is scheduled for Jan. 21.
The indictment suggested the men
were involved with an Islamic extremist
movement known as Salafiyya, which
became associated with Osama bin
Laden’s al-Qaida network.
Sangam Nite Show: Kal, Aaj, aur Kal,
A Passage Through Time. Join us in the
Great Hall for a journey through gener
ations as we explore South Asian culture
with performances, skits, and dances.
8 p.m. - In celebration of Black
Student Movement Month, show off
your loose rap in Loose Rap Open Mic,
Part II: Verbal Fusion. It will take place
in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium.
Tickets are $2 in advance, $5 at the door.
8 p.m. - The UNC Walk-Ons will
be holding their annual fall concert in
100 Hamilton Hall. Tickets can be pur
chased for $5 this week in the Pit or for
$6 at the door.
Sunday, Nov. 17
7 p.m. - Student government will
be having its weekly Cabinet meeting in
109 Lenoir Dining Hall. All are wel
come to attend.
8 p.m. - UNC Chamber Singers are
holding a concert in Hill Hall Auditorium.
It is free and open to the public.