University Gazette, July 17, 2002

Campus planners seek to preserve trees

If, as so many believe, the Carolina campus is a magical place, it could be said that the most potent ingredient in the potion is a thick sprinkling of trees.

At Polk Place and McCorkle Place, giant oaks stand sentry like carefully placed pieces on a chessboard. In their full splendor they appear immovable and inviolate.

But unlike chess pieces, they are not seen as assets to be toyed with. Or sacrificed.

Even so, some trees on campus will be lost as some of the biggest construction projects get under way.

Sometime this fall, for instance, site preparation between Wilson Library and Dey Hall and south of Phillips Hall will begin to accommodate the first of several new buildings that will comprise the Science Complex.

The fact is that the new buildings have to go somewhere on campus, and the only open green fields left on campus already have soccer or football goals at the end of them.

If there is anything on campus that can stir as much emotion as a tree, it is a personal parking space. Even so, space is at such a premium that roughly half of the 22 acres of existing parking lots will be ripped out to either make room for new buildings or, on the south campus, to plant quads of trees and grass to create some of the look and feel of north campus that is now missing.

Anna Wu, director of facilities planning, said the master plan seeks to enhance the aesthetic and historical qualities of the campus, while at the same time create new building spaces to accommodate both a growing number of students and Carolina's research enterprise.

Throughout the master planning process, dozens of people spoke of how the preservation of the oldest and most majestic trees must remain a priority, Wu said.

That sentiment is now codified as a guiding principle in the final master plan.

This past spring, the University hired architect Paul Kapp, who specializes in the preservation of historical buildings, to make sure that the traditions of the campus remain intact even as new buildings are added.

Landscape architect Jill Coleman was hired about the same time as Kapp.

Coleman has the expertise to review site plans and help in the tweaking of the decisions about which trees at a construction site can stay and which must go.

There are a lot of stages to a building project, from schematic designs to the breaking of ground, and there are a number of internal reviews conducted at each stage to consider issues ranging from grounds management to utilities placement to stormwater management.

Decisions over trees are weighed into this larger equation, Coleman said.

Beyond the question of where buildings will go, an environmental master plan calls for safeguarding forested slopes not only to protect the trees but because of the overriding importance of these natural areas to storm water management, Coleman said.
"We do the best job possible to try to coordinate all the utilities and tree locations and all the other proposed landscape elements," Coleman said.

"It's a team effort to work those things out and sometimes we are going to have to remove trees and sometimes we can save them. No one is cavalier about this. Everyone is very serious about doing the best we can."

Already, new guidelines for tree protection have been adopted to make sure that trees located near construction sites are not damaged, Coleman said. When possible, trees that are cut will be recycled and used as mulch by buildings and grounds crews.
In places where trees will have to be cut down there are already plans to replant others.

"We understand it's not the same as having a full grown tree there, but we are committed to making a new beautiful landscape where we've had to remove existing trees," Coleman said.

Coleman is a native of Greensboro who came to Carolina as a student in 1972 and later earned a degree in the School of Design - now the College of Design - at N.C. State University.

Coleman said it has been a delight to return to the campus and find it as beautiful as she remembered it. Part of her job, she knows, is to help make the campus even more beautiful even as millions of dollars worth of construction projects are completed through the end of the decade.

Despite the extreme care that is being taken to keep as many trees as possible, it is important to remember that trees are a "living resource," Wu said.

Buildings can age into historical treasures that can be renovated or restored when they fall into disrepair.

Not trees.

They sprout. They grow. Eventually, they will die. But unlike a building, trees can grow back over time.

Wu said that fact was driven home to her recently when she looked at a 1960 photo of Polk Place.

The picture shows a line of trees that clearly had been replanted. At the time, a person standing on the steps of the South Building could see the Bell Tower. Thanks to the tops of the trees in Polk Place, that view is gone, she said.

Personnel flexibility report
under chancellor's review

The University does not now have the flexibility to design a personnel system tailored to fit its needs, but Chancellor James Moeser wanted to know what such a system might look like if the N.C. General Assembly should ever confer the authority to do so.

Toward that end, Moeser in August of 2001 appointed the Personnel Flexibility Committee at the suggestion of John Heuer, former chair of the Employee Forum. Moeser charged the panel with the task of reviewing personnel systems at other public universities, gathering input from a broad spectrum of University employees and making recommendations about broad, general characteristics to show what a desired system might look like.

The committee was co-chaired by Laurie Charest, associate vice chancellor for human resources, and Elmira Mangum, associate provost for finance and human resources. The committee included three members each from the Faculty Council and Employee Forum. Additionally, faculty and staff were added to ensure that all major areas of the University community were represented.

Currently, state university employees in 32 states are in a personnel system that is separate from the state system. North Carolina is among the 18 states that include their university employees in the larger state system.

Moeser's action coincides with similar steps taken by both the General Assembly and UNC President Molly Corbett Broad to study the larger question of whether university administrators should have a freer rein in the hiring and handling of their employees.

The General Assembly charged a committee with examining issues related to personnel flexibility for the 2003 legislative session. Later, Broad issued a request for proposals from outside consultants to make recommendations in personnel administration for the UNC system.

Last month, the University's Personnel Flexibility Committee issued its final report to the chancellor, who is reviewing it in detail and will use the report to help him pass along Carolina's position to the Office of the President. The report's recommendations fall into these major categories: pay, benefits, working conditions, recruitment and selection, and career development. A summary of each:

* Developing a better pay system. The committee recommends that a "compensation philosophy" be implemented that would allow the University to better recruit, retain and reward staff. To make that happen, the University should establish a market-based pay system, link pay to performance and recognize years of service.
To make it happen will require adequate funding so that excellent work can be rewarded. It will also require developing a valid and reliable process to evaluate performance so that financial reward goes to the people who most deserve it.

* Benefits. The committee recognized that benefits are critical to the protection of employees' health and well being and that these protections should not vary based on the class or level of the employee.

With regard to health insurance, employees would like to see more options for types of plans and for cost and coverage.
With regard to retirement benefits, the University should consider providing matching contributions to employee 401(k) or 403(b) accounts.

For part-time employees who work at least half time, benefits should be made available on a pro rata basis.

* Working conditions. A range of concerns and suggestions were raised here, among them the need for the University to reward good performance based on reasonable expectations and, conversely, to deal quickly, fairly and appropriately with unsatisfactory performance or conduct. Failure to deal with unsatisfactory performance, it was noted, ends up hurting other employees who can end up doing or correcting the work of others.
An ideal personnel system would also promote the use of flexible work arrangements such as flexible scheduling, job sharing and telecommuting.

One recommendation, which seems all the more timely during this year's budget crisis, suggests that the University develop a plan to protect employees in bad economic times in order to avoid losing dedicated, productive employees.

* Recruitment. One of the concerns addressed in the recommendations is that it now takes too much time to identify and hire the best candidates. A new system should use technology to route applications quickly to departments.

A new system should also include ways to highlight critical, hard-to-fill positions and include "fast track" procedures that would allow the University to be more competitive with other employers.

* Career development. The personnel system should include a strong commitment to employee development by making provisions for such things as career ladders, mentoring and job-related training.

The committee recognizes the vital role of supervisors in supporting such development. The system must recognize the need for employees to be relieved of their duties to attend training sessions. To help make that possible, staff should be cross-trained so that one employee can fill in for another.

The committee's recommendations came after it gathered information about personnel practices at peer institutions as well as input from Carolina employees, an effort that included several campus forums and a survey.

At a June 27 Employee Forum Community Meeting, Moeser called the committee's work an "excellent report." It would be difficult to implement the recommendations fully because of funding constraints, Moeser said, but they would represent a good start on standing by the University's desire to make employees its highest priority.

Moeser also said that the campus needs to carry out a "dynamic conversation" about what personnel flexibility would mean.

Report available online

To get to a copy of the Personnel Flexibility Committee's full report, go to www.ais.unc.edu/hr/ and click on the "Personnel Flexibility" link in the left-hand frame.

Transition services available
for laid-off workers

Help is available for University employees who lose their jobs as the result of the state's current budget crisis.

The Chancellor's Budget Committee has allocated funds to provide career transition services for employees whose positions have been or will be eliminated in response to budget cuts.

The University has hired Right Management Consultants of Raleigh to provide the services. Right Management is a leading career transition and organizational consulting firm with extensive experience in the field.

Services available through the program include an orientation packet with description of program services, two-day group career transition workshops, online research, job banks, career resource materials, follow-up individual career coaching session and two enrichment seminars.

The curriculum for the two-day workshops covers such topics as market research, marketing communications tools, developing a personal action plan and resume writing. Upon completing a final draft of a resume, Right Management types and makes 50 copies of the final product for each participant.

The service became available May 1. SPA employees are told about the program in lay-off interviews. The Provost's Office is identifying faculty and non-faculty staff eligible for the program.

As of last month, Right Management Consultants had served 13 employees. Eleven are scheduled for a session in July.

The Office of Human Resources, meanwhile, will continue to offer re-employment assistance to laid-off employees.

Laid-off SPA employees are eligible for priority re-employment assistance up to 12 months from the date they received written notification of their layoff.

Laid-off employees have priority over applicants from outside of state government, but they do not have greater priority than current state employees.

This priority applies not only to openings at the University but to all state agencies and all universities within the UNC system.

Health drama aims to close
Latino language gap

The rapid influx of Latinos into North Carolina and across the United States has caught health-care providers unprepared, experts say. Seriously compromising the quality of available services, too few doctors and nurses speak Spanish, have access to interpreters or possess enough knowledge to address immigrant health-care needs.

Acknowledging this gap, the Office of the Provost at Carolina has spearheaded a three-year project aimed at closing the communication gap between Spanish-speaking patients and their care providers.

Targeting intermediate Spanish speakers in the health professions, the program revolves around an 80-minute health drama set in the rural South.

The new film, A su salud!, is modeled after Destinos, the highly successful Spanish language story-based program, and combines language development and cultural awareness with health content focusing on Spanish-speaking immigrants. Using a blend of technology and media - video, interactive exercises, web and traditional print-based materials - the program is ideal for distance learning and will enable students and professionals to complete their course work anytime anywhere, said project director Claire Lorch, a clinical instructor in public health nursing at the School of Public Health.

An interdisciplinary committee worked with WrayMedia, a production company from South Carolina, and an Argentine screenwriter to develop the program. The team created a pilot to test the methodology and technology. Pilot participants representing six health professional schools rated the program very favorably.

"The unique combination of technology, media and written text accommodates the needs of a diverse range of learning styles," said committee member Julia Cardona Mack, a lecturer in Romance languages. "It also enhances learning by allowing students to see, hear and participate in 'real' interactions, something a textbook alone cannot accomplish."

Casting calls were held and 26 actors hired from Miami, Mexico City, Raleigh, Durham and the Charlotte area. Filming on the larger project began in Columbia, S.C., at the end of May, with most action taking place in an old house converted - through the magic of props and set design - to a community health center run by Latino health professionals serving immigrants.

"During the filming in South Carolina, what stood out was how much the actors liked the script, and how they absolutely got into the story," Lorch said. "I can't tell you how many of them came up to me and said how much they appreciated the opportunity to be part of this."

Filming continued in Chapel Hill and Carrboro through July 8 with scenes taking place first at the emergency room at UNC Hospitals and then during a patient home visit and at a local dance club.
The completed film will be offered as part of an elective course in spring 2004 to students in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health and social work. Negotiations are underway with Yale University Press to publish the program's materials.

The project is funded by a $470,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education and by additional funds from the University.

Team members include Lorch, Deborah Bender, Chris Harlan and Amy Trester, all of the School of Public Health; Bob Henshaw of Academic Technology and Networks; Julia Mack and Elizabeth Tolman of the Department of Romance Languages; and Chris McQuiston of the School of Nursing.

Carolina becomes partner in statistics and mathematics institute at RTP

The University is a partner in a unique new research center specially designed to confront difficult scientific challenges through application of statistical and mathematical reasoning.

With $10 million in principal funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Research Triangle Park on July 1 became home to the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute, or SAMSI. Other partners in this effort are Duke University, N.C. State University and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences in Research Triangle Park.

SAMSI is the first institute in the world to focus on enlisting both the statistical and applied mathematical sciences to confront the most difficult and most important scientific challenges in scientific modeling and data analysis. Those challenges will be as diverse as global climate simulations and modeling the course of HIV infections.

While the NSF has committed to providing $2 million annually for the first five years, the Triangle university partners also are contributing about $1.1 million in annual matching funds, divided roughly equally among the three. In addition, the William R. Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science is contributing $50,000 per year in leveraging funds.

SAMSI will be "an exciting combination of NSF and Triangle-area resources," said J. Stephen Marron, Amos R. Hawley professor of statistics. These include the universities, local institutions, and - most important - our people. In particular, there are more than 400 faculty members in related areas, together with many hundreds more in local industry. This special concentration of talent is fundamental to SAMSI's tackling a wide range of major modern problems, from climate modeling to bioinformatics."

Central to SAMSI's mission is attracting both young and senior researchers from universities, government laboratories and industries in the United States and beyond for collaborative research, said James O. Berger, SAMSI director and Arts and Sciences professor of statistics at Duke. Their goal, he added, is addressing problems whose complexity requires extraordinary levels of group multidisciplinary interaction. SAMSI also focuses on what experts call a big need at the institutional level: training the next generation in both fields to work and think collaboratively on major scientific and societal issues.

Statistics uses the tools of probability and data analysis to model complex phenomena. Applied mathematics uses mathematical equations that describe the physical or biological properties underlying such complexities.

"In the past these problems have been addressed in two different ways by these different groups," Berger said. "What we're saying is the groups should work more closely together to find a new synthesis for modeling complex phenomena. The effect will be considerably more powerful than the two approaches separately."

The institute will be led by a directorate that includes Berger; H. Thomas Banks, Drexel professor of mathematics and director of the Center for Research in Scientific Computation at N.C. State; Alan F. Karr, National Institute of Statistical Sciences director as well as a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Carolina; and Marron. It will be housed in the National Institute of Statistical Sciences building in RTP.

"SAMSI will educate graduate students and postdocs in a unique environment focused on the synergism between applied mathematics and statistics," said Banks. "These young researchers will address problems ranging from HIV dynamics to nanotechnology."

In his dealings with the corporations and government agencies that are affiliated with the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, "I see daily evidence of the need for SAMSI," added Karr. "The problems faced by these organizations, which range from homeland security to drug design, are too complex to be solved without bringing together multiple disciplines, especially statistics and applied mathematics."

Scientific input will be provided by a National Advisory Council, chaired by Peter Bickel of the University of California at Berkeley and Margaret Wright of New York University, as well as by a Local Development Committee of leading Research Triangle scholars.
SAMSI is one of three new research institutes being established by the NSF to "help strengthen the mathematical sciences as the backbone for U.S. scientific and engineering research," according to a July 2 announcement by the agency. At all three, "mathematicians and statisticians will tackle new and compelling research and create venues for educating the next generation of scholars," said Philippe Tondeur, director of the agency's Mathematical Sciences Division.

'Proud to be a Heeler, Carolina Cares'

The July blood drive at Carolina is the second-largest one-day blood drive in the United States. This year's drive will be held July 23, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Dean E. Smith Center.

Summer blood drives are critically important because blood has a limited shelf life and, while vacations reduce the number of donors summer activities result in accidents and trauma that increase the need for blood beyond the demand created by critical illness and elective surgeries.

This year's goal is to collect 1,000 units. Since each unit can be broken down into five different components and usually helps at least three people, meeting the goal will mean 3,000 seriously ill people may be treated. Last year's drive netted 998 usable pints of blood.

Those who can are asked to contribute because less than 5 percent of the eligible U.S. population gives blood, while about 96 percent of the total population will need a blood product sometime during their lifetimes.

Anyone from the community that wishes to donate may do so by calling for an appointment or going to the Smith Center on the day of the drive. Free parking will be available in the surrounding lots. First time donors will receive at least one coupon from a local vendor for a free or discounted product.
To schedule an appointment call 96-Blood or 962-5663. Walk-ins are also welcome.

Office helps minority businesses
get a fair chance

Nearly two years ago, North Carolina residents voted to approve more than $3 billion worth of construction to address long-neglected building needs throughout the state university and community college systems.

The building boom for higher education triggered a boon for architects and construction companies as well. Now, there is a newly created office on the Carolina campus to ensure that a fair share of the contracts be awarded to qualified minority businesses that traditionally were seldom given an equal chance.

The Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUB) Office is located in the Giles F. Horney Building at 103 Airport Drive and is run by two coordinators, Garland Burton and Al Richardson.

Burton and Richardson come from different backgrounds, which they see as complementary.

Richardson's background is as a middle manager in the corporate world. He has worked for Xerox, General Electric and Digital Equipment Inc. Later, Richardson worked with the business school at N.C. Central University.

Burton, in contrast, is a civil engineer with experience in municipal engineering departments and, for the past 10 years, as the owner of his own construction company specializing in public utility work.
The office and its mission exist because of a provision contained within Senate Bill 914, Richardson said.

The provision establishes as a goal that 10 percent of the contract work associated with bond money be awarded to minority businesses. Just as important, Richardson said, the provision sets aside money to fund HUB offices to ensure the goal is met or exceeded.

More precisely, the office seeks to increase the participation for African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and women, along with any group that can show that it has been "socially and economically disadvantaged" in the construction and design business.

A company qualifies for this underutilized status when at least one or more minorities owns 51 percent of the company.

"If you think about it, if we do the proper job here, we will get things moving to the point we will work ourselves out of the job," Richardson said. "There should not be a need for someone doing what we do to make sure these businesses are included."

Richardson said overt racism is no longer the big problem.

"Keep in mind people don't want to discriminate," Richardson said. "But people do want to work with people they have a relationship with and people they trust."

If someone is in a position to complete a $2 million building, that person wants to hire somebody who did a previous job for them who completed it on time and at cost.

The problem, Burton said, is that these longstanding relationships lead to de facto exclusion of minorities companies who have never been in these closed loops. These companies never get a chance because they lack a proven track record, but they cannot build that record unless they get that first chance.

The task of the HUB office is to help make that happen, Burton said.

What exacerbates the situation still further is the fact that many small firms are less familiar with the process of navigating the sometimes-Byzantine process of seeking and winning government contracts. The HUB office offers training for such companies so they can untangle the complexities of the process as well as larger firms can.

In the future, the office will offer workshops, seminars and trade fairs that offer opportunities to educate and recruit HUB contractors. These activities will also facilitate interaction between minority firms and non-minority firms as well as with prime contractors.

The fundamental starting part, of course, is to help businesses know about what work is available. Toward that end, the HUB office features both a web site (http://www.fpc.unc.edu/HUB) and a "plan room" that provides project plans and specifications for review by potential HUB contractors.

The various schools have differing records in terms of hiring minorities businesses, but the range is between 2 percent and 8 percent, Richardson said.

That's not acceptable when one considers the proportionate representation of minorities within the population, Richardson said.
It might seem that people within the University community could do little to change these numbers, but Richardson offered some suggestions that could help.

There is a power to word of mouth, and anybody who knows somebody who works in or owns a minority business should remind them of the abundant opportunities that now exist, Richardson said.

Second, faculty and staff should encourage young minorities to consider going into such fields as architecture and engineering and forming their own businesses.

Effort serves disabled children

A new federally funded technical assistance organization has begun a multi-year effort to help states streamline and strengthen service systems for children with disabilities.

Funded by a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs, the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center will focus on providing individually tailored strategic work planning to help individual states address a major systemic challenge or barrier, said Pat Trohanis, director of the center.

In addition to staff located at the University's FPG Child Development Institute, the new center has staff at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education in Alexandria, Va., and the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Education Rights Center in Minneapolis.

Trohanis said the center already has begun working with administrators from all states and other U.S. jurisdictions who are responsible for planning and implementing services under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This includes those with Part C (Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities) and Part B, Section 619 (Grants for Preschool Children with Disabilities).

The center also will work with administrators from Part D early childhood discretionary projects, state interagency coordinating councils, state improvement grants, the Continuous Improvement Monitoring Process and other organizations, Trohanis said.

Graduation distinction will reward
public service

Students at the University who demonstrate outstanding commitment to community volunteer work will be able to graduate with "distinction in public service" thanks to Strowd Roses Inc., a new nonprofit foundation based in Chapel Hill.

In its first gift to the University, the foundation donated $15,000 to the Carolina Center for Public Service, said center director Lynn Blanchard. The grant will fund and promote the first year of a new public service recognition program expected to begin in January 2003. The center will seek additional private funding to sustain the program in years to come.

"Every year literally thousands of young people come to UNC with the potential to make a difference and to build a life-long sense of civic duty," Blanchard said. "The 'Distinction in Public Service' initiative is a commitment by the University to help its students realize that potential."

A committee of faculty, staff and students designing the program anticipates offering the distinction to any undergraduate or graduate student who:

* Performs at least 300 hours of community service during their years at Carolina;

* Completes academic service-learning courses that include placements at community agencies;

* Attends skill-building workshops; and

* Writes or presents a summary reflecting on the experiences.
Blanchard estimated that fulfilling the requirements will take two years. Students who do so will have "Distinction in Public Service" printed on their transcripts, receive certificates and be recognized in the commencement program when they graduate.

Already, Carolina students perform thousands of hours of community service. Leslie Gydos, coordinator of Volunteer Orange!, the volunteer center for Chapel Hill and Orange County, said students are a primary source of volunteers for many community agencies. "The proposed program to develop and recognize distinction in public service will make the already positive contributions of UNC students much more powerful," she said.
In a letter to the foundation, Chancellor James Moeser pledged his support for the program, which will underscore public service as a major part of Carolina's mission.

"The University has a history of service in partnership with the community, and I am committed to building on this tradition through public engagement," he wrote. "This program will help prepare our students to make a difference in the world."

Strowd Roses' gift counts toward the goal of the Carolina First campaign, a multi-year effort to position Carolina as the nation's leading public university. The campaign goal and the total raised to date will be announced in October.

The foundation, dedicated to supporting the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community, was established last year with funds from the estates of Irene Strowd and her sister, Gladis Adams, in memory of Strowd's husband, Gene, and his love of roses.

Gene Strowd was a Chapel Hill alderman and co-owner of the former Johnson Strowd Ward Furniture Co., a mainstay on Franklin Street from the years following World War II until 1979, when Strowd retired. He was a president of the Chapel Hill Rose Society and won the American Rose Society's Silver Honor Medal.

In 1987, Strowd proposed creation of a public rose garden on land owned by the Town of Chapel Hill. The town agreed, and Strowd and the town's parks and recreation department designed and planted the garden in the Chapel Hill Community Center Park at 120 S. Estes Drive. Dedicated in 1990, the Gene Strowd Community Rose Garden now contains more than 350 bushes representing some 130 varieties of roses.

Gene Strowd died in 1991 and Irene, in 2000.

"We're thankful that the foundation's generosity is enabling us to move forward on this initiative," said Blanchard. "Strowd Roses' support at this phase in the project is key to its long-term success."

The ideals of the Distinction in Public Service program mesh well with the Strowds' desire to give back to the community, said Ed Norfleet, a member of the foundation's board of directors and vice chair of the medical school's anesthesiology department. "Gene was a real servant to the community, and the program looked like something that he would certainly smile upon," he said.

Task force completes review
of student judicial code

A task force appointed by Chancellor James Moeser has completed its review of the student judicial system at the University. The review stemmed from concerns about academic integrity and related issues with the completely student-run judicial and Honor Court systems. The task force considered input from a consultant as well as from campus community members including faculty and students who were both involved and not involved in the current system.

Professor Marilyn Yarbrough, of the School of Law and task force chair, said the main focus of the panel's efforts was to devise proposals that would instill "a culture of honor" at Carolina.

Many members of the campus community don't know about the current systems, so task force members focused on how to increase awareness of academic integrity issues and to encourage both students and faculty to take the system and its consequences very seriously, she said.

Key issues the task force considered include proposals addressing the:

* Standard of evidence used to decide judicial cases. The panel recommended a "clear and convincing evidence" standard instead of the current "beyond a reasonable doubt."

* Length of time required to complete the judicial process and the current cumbersome nature of the student judicial instrument.

* Educational value of the honor code. Includes a new grade of "XF" that would signal an academic integrity violation on a student's transcript. That designation could be removed if the student completes a stringent academic course focusing on integrity, ethics, honor and related issues.

The report also deals with non-academic issues covered in the campus code. Such issues account for more than half of the cases currently going through the student judicial system, said Melissa Exum, dean of students. So how students relate to each other and to the community outside of the classroom also is crucial when considering a culture of honor, she said.

Moeser formally received the task force's report in June. He will refer the report back to Dean Bresciani, interim vice chancellor for student affairs, with a request for its recommendations to be reviewed by the Committee on Student Conduct, which oversees student judicial governance at Carolina. Moeser will ask that the committee seek input including hearings involving the Faculty Council and the Student Congress this fall and submit its final suggestions for action by Dec. 1.

Moeser said, "The University community owes a debt of gratitude to Professor Yarbrough and all of the task force members for taking on these enormously complex issues of the judiciary system, our Honor Court and academic integrity.

"Now it will be important to involve the Committee on Student Conduct and a process this fall to receive additional feedback from faculty and students about how best to reform these systems," he said. "I encourage the campus community to participate fully in those deliberations and look forward to receiving the committee's final suggestions later this fall."

University Gazette