Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Aug. 24, 2004, edition 1 / Page 3
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(% Smly ®ar Mrrl CAMPUS BRIEFS Safe Ride program extends late-night shuttle services The Safe Ride program, a stu dent-led initiative that transports students to and from well-popu lated areas late at night, is expand ing its services to coincide with the start of the school year. The program, which already runs two routes, has added a third: the G route, which will stop at loca tions including Finley Forest, the Hams Teeter at Meadowmont and Glen Lennox. The programs other routes are: ■ The T route, which serves Airport Road up to the Timberlyne shopping center as well as Hillsborough Street; and ■ The J route, which covers the Merritt Mill Road and Smith Level Road areas up to the Rock Creek apartment complex, in addition to the N.C. 54 Bypass and downtown Carrboro. The buses offer service Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 10:45 p.m. to 2:30 am. Committee seeking names for award nomination The University Committee on Teaching Awards is asking stu dents, faculty, staff and alumni to nominate outstanding faculty for campuswide awards. Among the most notable awards are the Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Distinguished Teaching Awards for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction and Awards to Faculty for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Winners will be recognized at a basketball game in early 2005 and Receive framed citations and checks the annual awards banquet in April. The deadline for nominations is Pt. 1. More information and nomi nation forms are available on the Internet at http://www.unc.edu/ leachawards. Grounds Department asks students to stay off quad ■ Much of Polk Place was fenced off this summer as contractors .Installed anew steam line and hot water-heating lines. Three tractor trailer loads of sod were installed by the Grounds Department late last week. The new soil is very soft in Diaces, and the sod has^^^^ 5 Officials request tfeat Itay off the cordonedwg™^bing-; j|f Polk Place. % fy'- fsiftfra* ’ jjM 1 1 PHilyF m IfILK committee applications due to town at month's end The town of Chapel Hill is accepting applications until Aug. Si for its special committee to con sider renaming Airport Road. Y Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy |>rarposed ft resolution June 14 to 4sablish the committee to exam ine a proposal to rename Airport Rbhd in hohor of civil fights leader Martin Luther King Jr. after a series of heated public forums. The committee is slated to con tain 20 members, including Foy and two Chapel Hill Town Council members; four members of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; four Airport Road residents or business own ers; two people familiar with the history of the community and United States events; and a diverse group of seven at-large citizens. Emily Dickens, a worker in the mayor’s office, told The Daily Tar Heel that as of press time, the town has received only 10 appli cations. Dickens said anyone inter ested in serving on the commit tee can access the application on the town’s Web site at http:// www.townofchapelhill.org or by visiting the town clerk’s office. The committee nominations will be received at the council’s Sept. 7 meeting, and committee appointments will be made Sept. 13, Dickens said. calendar Tuesday 9 p.m. The Interfraternity Council kicks off its fall recruit ment period Tbesday with the Rush Information Session. Attendance at the session, held at 100 Hamilton Hall, is encouraged for all men \vho are considering joining a fra ternity. All IFC fraternities will be repre sented at this meeting and will dis tribute calendars detailing upcom ing rush events. Wednesday and Thursday will feature Open House sessions at each fraternity house from 6 to 9 p.m. Rushees are required to visit at least 50 percent of the IFC fraterni ties during this time. From staff and wire reports. UNC’s research receipts see jump Grant funds increase by 7.5 percent BY EMILY STEEL UNIVERSITY EDITOR University researchers are discov ering the root of premature infant deliveries, cures for cystic fibrosis and how to safeguard the nation against potential bioterrorism attacks. And each piece of knowledge generated in labs and libraries throughout campus comes with a price tag, one that has created the building blocks of the research mission of the University. Sponsored research funding at UNC increased 7.5 percent this year to $577-6 million, according to num bers recently finalized by the Office of Sponsored Research. The figures I ' /§ I I Hlr I I 3 : jl In ™ jUjJjJI Jfl Kgdflß] IN I ™w 1 ■ g 9 m DTH/ANDREW SYNOWIEZ Mara Mathews and Adrienne Witherspoon look at works from The Hewitt Collection of African-American Art at the grand opening of the Sonus Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History's Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum, which occurred early Sunday evening. Gallery opens in Stone Center Centerfeatures familial African art BY PHILIP MCFEE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Hanging among the 55 pieces on display in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History is John Biggers’ char coal piece “Family #1" ( i • The piece depicts a warm group embrace in which the figures are made into a single form by soft lines and blurred borders. Its sig nificance is much like that of the Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum: a space that hous es a dynamic collection of works unified by a single theme. “The reason why we selected this exhibit is that it shows the diversity of African artists,” said Paul Baker, the Stone Center’s museum and program coordina tor, about the Hewitt Collection, the gallery’s inaugural, family themed exhibit. “(It’s) not one media, one genre Despite cuts, UNC system spared worst by legislature BY EMMA BURGIN STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR After several years of severe hits in the money belt, the state legisla ture showed UNC-system schools the light at the end of the tunnel with a budget cut that allows cam puses to start rebuilding. The N.C. General Assembly passed a budget July 18 that cut the UNC system’s budget by 1.47 percent, or $22.6 million. Jeff Davies, UNC-system vice president for finance, said the sys tem is thankful for what seem like lenient cuts after several years of harsh slashes. “The governor and the House and the Senate all had deeper bud get cuts (of 1.7 percent),” he said. “But when they had the opportu nity to restore some of the reduc tions, they took advantage of it.” Now, some universities can start to rebuild from money provided by their campus-initiated tuition increases, as well as enrollment growth funds. The budget allocates $64 mil lion to the system to fully fund enrollment growth because its 16 campuses gained about 7,500 stu dents this year. Last year, enrollment growth Top News represent a jump of $40.2 million. “Every year, we have had signifi cant increases,” said Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development. “It is because of the quality of the faculty that we have here at Carolina who do outstanding research.” The totals reflect increases in the amount of research grants awarded to faculty from the federal govern ment, state agencies and private sources. Federally funded research constituted the largest gains in University funding. The amount jumped 8.3 percent this year, increasing to $429-8 million. ... one of the good things in the col lection is it’s based on friendships.” In addition to works by the North Carolina-bred Biggers, the collection, assembled by Vivian Hewitt and her late husband John Hewitt during the course of more than 50 years, features pieces by 20 prominent contemporary art ists including Jonathan Green and Henry O. Tanner. Although they span styles from realism to cubism, the works come together to give the collec tion a distinct continuity. “All (of the) paintings hung in our house. Most of our things are related to family,” said Vivian Hewitt, 81, while touring the gal lery before its opening ceremony. She noted that the famil ial theme is at the center of the exhibit, not a bold social state ment. Hewitt added that although the 55-piece collection represents was funded with money from a systemwide tuition increase. This year, since the legislature funded enrollment growth, an across-the-board tuition hike was not passed. Instead, only campus-based tuition increases approved by the system’s Board of Governors took effect this year. UNC-Chapel Hill implemented a $366.50 increase in tuition and fees for in-state students and a $1,616.50 increase for out-of-state students. Mark Lanier, assistant to the UNC-Wilmington chancellor, said the university requested an incre mental tuition increase of $360 for all students during a five-year period. But after Gov. Mike Easley stumped for a freeze to tuition hikes, the increase was reduced to $225 for in-state students. “Our plan (for that money) is to restore faculty positions that were lost so we can offer more class sec tions, reduce class size and restore the student-to-faculty ratio we once had,” Lanier said. UNC-W has lost 19 faculty posi- SEE SYSTEM BUDGET, PAGE 7 The School of Medicine, the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Public Health attracted the most funding to the University. Research grants at the School of Medicine, which generated $303.5 million last year, helped to support the school's three-tiered mission of educating students, providing health care and conducting schol arly investigations. “Research has to float on its own ship,” said Robert Golden, vice dean of the School of Medicine. “Our research mission could not survive without this funding.” Across the road at the School of Public Health, officials are experi encing the same budget crunch. At the school, which generated $56.5 million in research grants her “best” finds, she still is con nected to her art. “If you walked into my living room, you’d never know anything was missing.” During the opening ceremony, she reflected on her lifelong expo sure to artists and unique works. “Every one of the paintings in the collection has a story behind it ... we lived with them every blessed day of our lives and loved them,” she said. “It’s very impor tant, I believe, that this collec tion be here at this time... in the University setting, where the stu dents can see it.” At the ceremony, attended by community members, center officials, art professors and many of Hewitt’s personal acquain tances, Stone Center Director Joseph Jordan recognized the aid that helped the building’s vision become a reality. “We really have been fortunate to attract the kind of support that many institutions dream about,” he said. “Folks know there’s a promise Reductions scramble UNC budgets Even small cuts have palpable effect BY STEPHANIE JORDAN ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR For the fourth straight year, the University has been forced to take a hard look at what it, and its stu dents, can do without. Squeezing money out of the University’s budget has become routine during the past three years thanks to budget cuts from the N.C. General Assembly. And, as students return to classes today, the issue is still at the forefront of administrators’ minds. The state legislature included budget cuts of 1.5 percent for all 16 UNC-system campuses in the budget it passed in July. The cut wasn’t as large as in previous years, but course offerings have been reduced and faculty positions have been eliminated. At UNC-Chapel Hill, the cut translates into $5.56 million of lost money sending various profes sional schools and offices scram bling to make things work. “We’re down to the quick,” said Richard Cole, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “We had to scruti nize every line item in our budget." Said Linda Cronenwett, dean TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2004 this year, funding also supports crucial programs. State funding covers the costs of just 25 percent of the school's budget, and research grants help fill in the holes. As the University sustains budget cuts year after year, research receipts become all the more crucial. “The state has been cutting back funding over the last five years, and the only reason we can offer the same quality of courses and have the same or more number of stu dents that we have is because the research programs are generating enough support,” said Steve Zeisel, associate dean for research at the School of Public Health. Although the level of funding through research grants has con tinued to rise, officials expressed here, and that promise can be ful filled if people invest in it.” Kenneth Reece, Bank of America’s market president for the Triangle region, also celebrat ed the richness of the building and the traveling exhibit, which the bank has owned since 1998. “This private coflection repre sents more than 50 years 0f... ded ication, spirit (andji great vision,” he said. “African-American art... is a vibrant and vital part of our community and our society.” -I9 her jovial address, Hewitt those present of thfe upoefined boundaries the worlcsiqjjjresent. “The artists are American artists who just happen to be black? Hewitt emphasized the person al ways in which the diverse coflec tion can affect the gallery’s visitors. “Art sustmnkand soothes and gives you comfort in troubled times.” Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu. of the School of Nursing: “We're at the breaking point. Tliere’s no flexibility left. We get squeezed on every side.” The nursing school wasforced to cut a full-time and a part-time fee ulty position because of the reduc tions. That might seem minimal, Cronenwett said, but when the school is both losing tenure-track positions and increasing enroll ment, the result is crippling. “There’s a nurse shortage in North Carolina,” Cronenwett said. “We’re being asked to take more students, not less.” She added that the school is having to depend more heavily on outside funding, such as two sig nificant grants the school recently received, to maintain programs. The grants will provide the school with $1,350,000 during the next three years, but the requirements the school must fulfill to keep them mean mpre work for an already strained staff, Cronenwett said. And the nursing school is not alone in its budget woes. Cole said the journalism school, like most other departments, had to increase some class sizes and reduce the number of course offerings. concern that tight budgets nation wide will hinder development. Golden said that finding grants only will become more difficult as government agencies cut grants out of their budgets. “The pie isn't going to be grow ing as quickly, and so what we are going to have to do is successfully compete for a larger share of the pie,” he said. Zeisel also underscored the importance of continued funding. “That money really supports a great deal of what makes this University great,” Zeisel said. “Without it, it would be very hard to function.” Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. Voting becomes a moral decision Stem-cell research a focus of debate BY KAVITA PILLAI ASSISTANT STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR Morality as a political issue has never been more prevalent than in the current climate of the presiden tial election. Following the recent death of former President Ronald Reagan from Alzheimer’s Disease, the debate over stem cell research has reached an all time high. Closely tied to THE CAPITOL DIVIDE A ten-part series on major issues that could divide the electorate. Today: Abortion/ Stem cell research that discussion is the ever-present abortion rights controversy. “My opinion is that the stem-cell debate is a way of raising the abor tion issue in,a.less obvious and less strident form,” said Lloyd Steffen, chairman of the Religion Studies Department at Lehigh University. “It’s a way of Sublimating the abor tion issue.” And while the split between the parties on both the stem-cell and abortion issues seems clear cut, it is actually much more nuanced. President Bush’s policy on stem cells allows research on embryonic cell lines existing before Aug. 9, 2001, a stance that is not clearly anti-stem cells. But the policy is nevertheless a major obstacle to researchers, experts say. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that research on human embryonic stem cells is not proceeding at the pace it could be with the current guidelines,” said Laura Grabel, a professor of biology at Wesleyan University. “Who’s doing the research and the quality of research is definitely being influenced by the political climate.” She added that anyone wishing to do research on new stem-cell lines would have to find private funding for that portion of his research. SEE STEM CELL, PAGE 7 The school also has had to take hits to its keystone course, “News Writing," or JOMC 053. Students in all five tracks of the school are required to take the course, and the budget cuts have meant that fewer sections are offered. “Students have to shop around more,” Cole said. But University officials say there is some good news for students. Shirley Ort, director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, said that though the office took a 5 percent cut, none of the money will be taken from student aid packages. Rather, the office’s travel and publi cation budgets have been cut. “It means a little belt-tighten ing, but it won’t affect our ability to serve students,” Ort said. Despite the cuts, more money was allotted for faculty salary increases, which in turn increases faculty retention. Provost Robert Shelton said that UNC’s campus-based tuition increase also provided the University with sll.B million for faculty sala ries. Enrollment growth provided additional money for the increases. “The legislature and the gov ernor did a really good job for us this year.” Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. 3
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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