|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
 |
Springsteen and E Street Band to tackle Kenan StadiumBruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will appear in a final area concert of their current world tour at Kenan Stadium on Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m. This event marks the first major concert at Carolina's football stadium since the Carolina Concert for the Children in 1983 which featured Todd Rundgren, U2, The Producers and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The upcoming September concert is the third visit by Springsteen to Chapel Hill, and the only date in the Southeast on the current leg of the summer stadium tour. Springsteen's last appearance in Chapel Hill with the E Street Band was 1988's Tunnel of Love tour at the Smith Center, where two sold-out shows entertained more than 40,000 fans. The concert is being promoted by C & C Concerts of Bishopville, S.C., through SMG, an event program manager working with the Department of Athletics. "We are excited about the opportunity to bring these great entertainers to our campus," says Director of Athletics Dick Baddour. "It is their only stop in the South on this tour, so we are pleased to be able to host this event for our students, the Chapel Hill/Carrboro community and the state. Kenan Stadium is a fantastic venue for this event." Tickets are on sale at the Smith Center box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone (919-834-4000) or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Tickets are $75 and $55 plus applicable service charges and fees. Two types of tickets will be offered: a limited number of general admission tickets on the field that allow patrons to stand, club-style; and reserved seating for all other field seats and the lower and upper levels of the stadium. Cash is preferred at the Smith Center box office, but VISA and MasterCard are accepted as well. For more information regarding this event, see www.TarHeelBlue.com. Parking/chiller project examinedThe Employee Forum may endorse a proposed project to build a parking deck and chiller plant near Cobb residence hall in the northeastern part of campus. "We feel like we've come up with an excellent scheme to meet two major requirements," Bruce Runberg, associate vice chancellor for planning and construction, told forum members at their July 9 meeting.
The project calls for a five-level parking deck to be built in the area where surface parking now exists west of the Paul Green Theatre. The deck would have about 600 spaces compared to the area's current total of 350. Access to the deck would be along Paul Green Theatre Road from Country Club Road, with a new traffic light at the intersection. Vehicles also could get to the deck from Raleigh Road using a lane at its western end, with traffic being one way into the deck in the morning and one way out of the deck in the afternoon. Not only would the deck result in more parking in the area for employees, it would mean more spaces for patrons of after-hours events, such as PlayMakers productions in Paul Green Theatre and women's basketball games in Carmichael Auditorium, Runberg said. The chiller plant would be attached to the eastern end of the deck and would supply chilled water to buildings in this part of campus, providing the means for air-conditioning and other cooling needs. Like the parking deck, the plant would rise five stories, less than the height of Cobb residence hall, so that it would blend well with area architecture. The exterior would be built out of brick and precast concrete, further meshing with surrounding buildings, and landscaping would buffer the facility. "We're going to take a lot of effort to make the deck aesthetically pleasing," Runberg said. On the southern side, buffers on both sides of the street would run between the facility and the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, which is maintained by the Town of Chapel Hill and bordered by a dilapidated stone wall that would be repaired as part of the project. The project also calls for several new walkways in the area and reduces the number of tennis courts from 11 to six, as well as eliminating all but one basketball court. Runberg said the final result would improve on what is now there. "It's all asphalt and chain-link fence," he said. "It's a pretty nasty-looking area." The forum will vote on a formal resolution endorsing the project at its Aug. 6 meeting. Tommy Griffin, forum chair, said he supports the project because of the additional parking for employees and need for the chiller, which would provide critical cooling. The project is in the "conceptual" stage, Runberg said, and construction would not start for another year or so. He said the project would be phased in to alleviate the need for employees who use existing spaces in the area to park elsewhere while construction is under way. The deck's site resulted from the University's five-year transportation plan, which added it and a deck at Jackson Place next to the Dogwood deck while eliminating a deck that had been planned to go on Manning Drive between the Family Medical Practice building and the Smith Center. Based on feedback from the University community, campus planners determined that there would be limited demand for parking at the Manning Drive site because of its relative isolation from the rest of campus. The two new decks, in contrast, would be located conveniently for University and UNC Health Care employees. Because the two new sites are not included in the University's town-approved development plan and the Manning site is, the Chapel Hill Town Council must approve a modification to the development plan for work to proceed on the two decks. Some residents of neighborhoods near the Cobb site have voiced concerns about how the project will affect traffic in the area. Runberg said project engineers have worked dilligently to make sure that surrounding roads could handle the influx of vehicles. The Chapel Hill Town Council is scheduled to vote on the amendment at an Aug. 25 meeting, where members of the public also will be able to have their say on the project. At the forum meeting, Runberg suggested employees might turn out to voice their support. "Anything that you all can do is much appreciated," he said. Also at the forum meeting: * Griffin announced that the forum chair will sit in with the University Board of Trustees' Finance Committee starting with this month's board meeting, where he will be on the agenda. "This will be a good communication point for us," he said. * Members received copies of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," this year's Summer Reading Program selection. Members will read the book and discuss it as a voluntary assignment. Written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the book explores what it is like to be a low-wage earner in America. The choice has drawn criticism from a student group, but Chancellor James Moeser defended the move. "Our goal with the Summer Reading Program is to stimulate critical thinking among our new undergraduates," he said in a statement. "The focus is on discussion and dialogue, not the book itself." Moeser will lead one of the discussion sessions with first-year and transfer students on Aug. 25. He said that the campus welcomes "all views on this topic." "That is what we hope our students will bring with them to the program's discussion groups," he said. Moeser also has invited 10 state legislators who have voiced concerns about the book and written him a letter to come to campus and talk about the Summer Reading Program with people here involved in the program. Lucido and Boger review affirmative action decisionEditor's note: In the following Q&A, Jerry Lucido, vice provost and director of undergraduate admissions, and Jack Boger, professor of law, examine the outcome of recent Supreme Court decisions regarding undergraduate and law school admissions at the University of Michigan. Boger co-wrote an amicus brief filed by Carolina's School of Law that urged the court to permit willing colleges and universities to consider race as one factor in making their admissions decisions. In the cases, the court reconsidered its 25-year-old decision in the Bakke case. Bakke involved a challenge brought by an unsuccessful white applicant to the race-conscious admission practices of the medical school at the University of California at Davis. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell's opinion rejected Bakke's principal challenge, deciding that race could be "a plus factor" in university admissions decisions. But Powell added that it was impermissible for a university to reserve a fixed number of seats solely for non-white applicants. Since 1978, hundreds of colleges and universities have followed Bakke in shaping their own admissions policies. In the late 1980s and mid-1990s, several intervening decisions by the Supreme Court in other contexts -- striking down the use of race when making government employment and contracting decisions -- suggested that Bakke may no longer command majority support from the increasingly conservative court. In the recent cases, the court reviewed Michigan's undergraduate admission process, which operates on a point system in which an applicant is admitted after being awarded a threshold number of points. In Michigan's undergraduate system, 20 points are automatically awarded to the application of any student from an underrepresented minority group. The court found that this system is not narrowly tailored to meet the objective of educational diversity. That is, the automatic addition of 20 points to every underrepresented minority student's file removes the decision from the context of individual decision-making. In contrast, the court upheld the less mechanized process -- no point system and individualized decisions -- used at Michigan's law school. GAZETTE How does the court's decision about undergraduate admissions at Michigan affect the undergraduate admissions program here? LUCIDO The decision appears to have very little impact on the undergraduate process at Carolina. Our admission process closely resembles the one in place at Michigan's law school. GAZETTE How does the law school decision affect Carolina's undergraduate admissions program? LUCIDO I'd say the decision affirms what we're doing, because our undergraduate admissions process is so similar to the system that the Michigan law school uses. Like it, our admission process uses no formulas or point systems. More specifically, this means that we make individual decisions; that we use many factors in determining who best may contribute to and benefit from the University; that we have no mechanized system of points that automatically accrue to one class of students or another; and that we include many forms of diversity, including race, as we construct our entering class. At the same time, the court was careful to point out its expectation that the use of race should no longer be a necessary factor toward the achievement of diversity one day in the future. Specifically, the court cited a 25 year horizon. This suggests that periodic reviews will likely need to be conducted to determine if our use of race remains necessary to achieve our diversity goals. GAZETTE How is race used at Carolina as a determining factor in undergraduate admissions? LUCIDO As implied in the previous responses, race is one factor, among many others, that we consider in our undergraduate admission decisions. These factors include the rigor of the high school academic program completed, performance indicators such as grades, class rank and test scores, special talents and aptitudes in areas such as music, drama, athletics, writing, science, and many others, personal qualities such as perseverence, curiosity, and openness to new ideas and cultures, and personal backgrounds such as race, economic or educational disadvantage, first generation college, or others. Our staff reviews each application comprehensively and holistically. You can see from this list that race is contained within the context of an individualized decision. GAZETTE What do you think these two decisions mean for undergraduate admissions at Carolina and in general? LUCIDO I think this means that we can continue to seek and construct a well-qualified, multi-talented and diverse student body using methods that have served us very well. I also think that the trust and confidence that our minority students and their parents have demonstrated in us was, and will continue to be, well-founded. GAZETTE Why does Carolina believe in having a diverse undergraduate student body? LUCIDO There are so many reasons why this is important. Keeping on the theme of the Supreme Court's University of Michigan cases, the court affirmed that diversity in the educational setting is a compelling government interest. Directly quoting Justice Powell's opinion in the Bakke case, the court noted that the "nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this nation." There is no doubt that Carolina trains the future leaders of our state and nation and that we take this responsibility to be an important element of our mission. GAZETTE Why, in your view, Professor Boger, did the court rule the way it did? BOGER The court is divided between a more liberal faction that believes government uses of race should not all be treated the same under the Constitution -- that tailored decisions to reach out to include previously excluded or underrepresented minorities (so-called "benign" discrimination) should be approved far more readily than decisions to exclude racial minorities (so-called "invidious" discrimination). Another more conservative faction of the Court has disagreed, insisting that all governmental reliance on race is equally problematic, except to remedy its own prior acts of discrimination. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has often voted with the more conservative faction, but she has repeatedly hinted that some government reliance on race may constitute a "compelling government interest" that would justify the use of race, even in non-remedial settings. The real question in the Michigan cases, then, was whether Justice O'Connor could be persuaded that "educational diversity" is a sufficiently compelling interest to justify race as one factor in making university admissions decisions. An extraordinary coalition of groups filed briefs urging the court to hold precisely that. The groups included over 60 major American corporations such as 3M, General Electric, Merck, Microsoft and Xerox. Another unusual brief came from 30-plus former generals and commandants of West Point and the Naval Academy. Finally, there were multiple briefs filed by the nation's leading colleges and universities. All of these briefs argued that a racially diverse student population is crucially important. The business brief stressed their need to hire college graduates who are comfortable operating in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic world market. The military brief stressed its "compelling national security interest" in forging a racially diverse officer corps through ROTC and service academy training. Colleges and universities argued that racial diversity improves both the in-class intellectual experiences of their students and their broader social learning and development. GAZETTE Why did the law school here file an amicus brief supporting the Michigan law school's position? BOGER The UNC Law School has long used race as a plus factor in our admissions decisions, and we deeply believe we are a richer and stronger institution for doing so. We thus share the belief expressed by many other leadings schools about the intellectual and social values of diversity. Moreover, we decided one very important point was not receiving sufficient attention. Diversity contributes not only to the in-class intellectual climate of schools but to their broader societal mission as well. Colleges and universities are a crucial training ground for society's leaders in all fields of endeavor, and we argued that this mission justifies our use of race. A key portion of our brief read: "We come before the Court today convinced that this crucial mission stands at risk in [the Michigan cases]. From our State's decades of bitter experience, from our hard-won commitment to racial justice, we know that a careful effort to build racial diverse student bodies in our public universities constitutes the single most effective -- indeed, an indispensable -- means of assuring that all the people of our State will be participants in its collective future, avoiding the reemergence of a regional apartheid, and contributing to our general State need for well-trained government and business leadership." In her opinion in the Michigan decision, Justice O'Connor adopted a very similar rationale: "[U]niversities, and in particular, law schools, represent the training ground for a large number of our Nation's leaders. ... In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity." We are pleased that the court accepted this argument as one important rationale for its Michigan decision. GAZETTE How does the decision affect Carolina's law school admissions program? BOGER The Michigan cases ratify the admissions program long in use at the UNC School of Law. We do not assign a specific weight to race but consider it merely as one positive factor along with many, many other factors such as prior achievement, work experience, motivation for legal study, geography, and the recommendations of those who know applicants well. Michigan Law School uses race in a similar fashion, and these practices are now plainly constitutional. The Supreme Court did strike down Michigan's undergraduate admissions practices, which gave racial minorities an inflexible point score (20 points of 150) in every circumstance. The court faulted this rigid practice -- which neither the UNC School of Law nor the UNC undergraduate admissions offices uses -- because it fails to consider every applicant as an individual. GAZETTE What do you think this decision means for law school admissions at Carolina and law schools in general? BOGER The Supreme Court's decision ensures that law schools at Carolina and nationwide will be able to continue to bring together students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds who will, as we wrote in our brief, be trained "to sit as our judges, people our legislative assemblies, serve as corporate officers and nonprofit directors, advise our school boards, and bring legal services to the poor throught the state." We are very pleased with the court's decision. GAZETTE Why does the Carolina law school believe in having a diverse student enrollment? BOGER We know that a racially and ethnically diverse classroom provides a richer intellectual experience for our students by exposing them to a wider variety of perspectives on important legal and social issues. It's not true, of course, that all non-white students share similar views; indeed, one virtue of a diverse student body is to dispel the all-too-frequent assumption that there is one African-American or Latino position on crucial questions. We also take very seriously our mission to prepare students for their roles as lawyers in the larger society. We know that the State's future leadership will be, and should be, racially diverse, and we are pleased to be able to train the most promising of these future leaders. For more information about the affirmative action case, see: www.admissions.unc.edu/diversity/affirm.htm. Moeser
assesses ACC expansion
With the Atlantic Coast Conference expansion debate settled, Chancellor James Moeser says it's time to move on and welcome the league's two incoming members. Virginia Tech and the University of Miami recently accepted offers to join the ACC starting in 2004-05. Moeser had opposed adding both schools but said "we will do everything we can to make their ACC participation a success" in a July 3 memo to the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, the Faculty Athletics Committee and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee. In a vote taken by ACC leaders, Moeser joined Duke University President Nan Keohane in opposing the move to invite Virginia Tech and Miami into the league. Moeser said he voted no because of concerns that expansion would spread the conference too thin geographically and place an academic burden on student-athletes. Moeser also said he lacked confidence in projections showing that new television contracts and income from football championships would lead to additional revenue for ACC schools. Projections not panning out would be of particular concern to Carolina, which fields 28 varsity sports -- more than any other school, Moeser said. "If the projections fall short and Carolina's revenues drop, it could result in our having to re-examine the overall scope of our current athletics program," Moeser said. As a compromise, Moeser proposed inviting only Miami to join the ACC, but that idea failed to garner support. Still, he said, "we respect the democratic process" in which the majority of ACC leaders voted for adding Virginia Tech as well as Miami. In a statement following the news that the two schools had accepted the invitation, Moeser said, "Despite the concerns I have expressed about expansion, we at Carolina are committed to making it work. "The strengths of this conference have always been its wonderful culture and great collegial relationships among member institutions, and I am confident those strengths will continue as we move forward." Videoconferencing a big piece of Internet2It was the early 1990s when the term "information highway" entered the American lexicon. Now, if you are a professor or graduate student involved in university research, you soon will be able to ramp up to a higher, faster, better section of that highway called Internet2. And one of the engineers who has helped to get a part of Internet2 up and going is Tyler Johnson, the University's assistant director for video networking with Information Technology Services.
Internet2 is a consortium led by 202 universities working in partnership with industry and government. Eventually, Internet2 will enable professors to do many things they cannot do on the existing Internet. One feature will be a "real-time application" of being able to use a joy stick in one location to control a cutting instrument in a research lab hundreds of miles away. Another feature envisioned will be high-bandwidth applications that would allow vast data sets to be sent far more quickly than is now possible. (For more information on Internet2, go to www.internet2.edu.) But Johnson's contribution, as his title suggests, has to do with enhanced videoconferencing capabilities. In the early days of the Worldwide Web, Johnson said, nearly every state government in the country allocated money to enable people in their state to conduct advanced intra-state videoconferencing. That worked fine when two people were communicating from within the same state. But if you were a research scientist from North Carolina trying to connect with a scientist in California, it was a hit-or-miss proposition. Most of the time, the technology from one state wouldn't work with the technology from another. It was the technological equivalent of the Tower of Babel, Johnson said. About five years ago, the University, through Johnson's leadership, partnered with a handful of other institutions in an attempt to knock that tower down. Other partners in addition to Carolina were Georgia Tech University, the University of Tennessee, Ohio State University and NYSERNet, which serves the members of the State University of New York. The collaboration evolved into what is now "ViDeNet." Johnson said what the group did was to identify the key technologies needed for videoconferencing and, in a sense, test drive them together. One of the technical aspects explored is what Johnson called "scalability." It is one thing for a technology to be able to handle two end users, but what if there were 100. "Internet2 proved to be a fabulous test for these technologies," Johnson said. As a result of these tests, both manufacturers and end users have an idea of what "video architecture" works best. Today, ViDeNet has grown from the original five institutions to more than 100 universities throughout the world, all connected using the same compatible technology. And that technological Tower of Babel that was inadvertently erected a decade ago is now beginning to crumble. The working group's recommendations for videoconferencing "architecture" also has been accepted by the International Telecommunications Union, which is an arm of the United Nations. "We are really proud of that," Johnson said, because it is the first component of Internet2 that has achieved full international status. Johnson said it is important for people to see the technology as a vital tool, not a toy. He is convinced that it holds the potential one day to replace the telephone. Suppose, for instance, that a University professor had received a research grant along with collaborators at three different universities. Typically, the principal investigators from the four universities would have a conference call every few weeks and get together once a year or once a quarter, Johnson said. With videoconferencing technology, the research staffs themselves can communicate more frequently, and by doing so, develop stronger relationships that could lead to stronger, better, quicker results. "What we are seeing is that this technology is about multiple institutional collaboration-and what it does is make that collaboration stronger," Johnson said. ViDeNet comes from the Latin word "vide," meaning "to see." It serves as a virtual network that allows people from anywhere in the world to see and hear one another-provided they use the standard set of protocols. For more technical details on how this works, see videnet.unc.edu/index.phtml. Johnson said the University already has several hundred users on campus who use the technology almost daily. One of the most appreciative and active of those users is Gerald Cecil, a full professor within the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the project scientist for the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope in Chile. University initiated the SOAR project in 1990, but the project now is a collaboration between Carolina, Michigan State University, Brazil and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories. The telescope, which has been in development for more than a decade, is expected to be fully operational around the end of the year, Cecil said. Based in the foothills of the 20,000-foot Andes mountain range, the $28 million telescope will offer an unfettered view of the universe, many miles away from smog and city lights. And many miles away from the varied scientists all over the world who will be seeking to use it. But with the videoconferencing technology now available, those miles can melt away with a few clicks of a mouse, Cecil said. By using the videoconferencing technology, Cecil will be able to see and talk to the operator of the telescope in the control room in Chile while Cecil is sitting in his office in Chapel Hill, with both looking at the light-years-away image captured by the telescope. Even more important, Cecil can see and talk with collaborators from around the world while he is doing this. On campus, there will be two 11 foot by 11 foot video projection screens-one in the second floor room in the Morehead Planetarium, another in the entrance lobby of the newly renovated Phillips Hall-that will be used to display images from the SOAR telescope as well. Cecil said the video technology is not only good because of its compatibility but because of the quality of the images and sound. "It's the video phone of the Jetsons," Cecil said, "and it's a spectacular collaborative tool. We can bring in many more people to make observations than we would be able to do if we had to buy everybody a $1,000 plane ticket." And Cecil should know. Over the past eight or nine years, he has racked up some 800,000 frequent flyer miles. But this year, thanks to the use of videoconferencing, he will be spending more of his time peering into the skies rather than flying them. As he put it, "This beats sitting in a plane for three days." Technically speakingFriday Center boasts the latest in videoconferencing, available for use by campus units By
Russell C. Campbell III Mark Farber, assistant professor of vascular surgery at Carolina, performs aortic aneurysm repairs on a patient in front of a class of 60 physicians and medical students. But Farber's classes are unlike the classical setting of the surgical amphitheater that painter Thomas Eakins depicted in his works "The Gross Clinic" and "The Agnew Clinic." From the sterile environment of an operating room at UNC Hospitals, Farber uses the latest in videoconferencing equipment to transmit the live case study to a conference room in the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.
"Videoconferencing is becoming the standard where the technology is available, and the Friday Center has the capability to provide two-way audio and visual," Farber said. "We've done this eight or 10 times now, and it has gone extremely well." The Friday Center Conference Services is continually updating its technology to keep up with current trends. In Farber's case, the video-conferencing (VC) is routed through the campus's fiber optic network to provide optimal sound and picture quality. The Friday Center also uses the Polycom Codec system, state-of-the-art for videoconferencing technology. This provides multi-point video conference calls using a digital signal. The broadcast is transmitted through either ISDN, secure digital telephone lines, of which the Friday Center has six, or, H.323, the public Internet. The Master Control Room is the center of operation and where R.J. Ellis, the technology manager at the Friday Center, and his team of audio-visual technicians can supervise, record or change camera angles during a broadcast of a lecture or seminar. They also can include the presenter's audio-visual sources. From inside the Master Control Room, technicians operate three-chip digital robotic cameras on a touch screen system designed specifically for the Friday Center. They can adjust the camera angle, zoom in or switch cameras with just a touch of a finger. QVC plays continuously on one monitor, not because the technicians are compulsive shoppers, but to monitor the integrity of the center's satellite signal. The Sunflower Room is ready for videoconferencing, because Ellis had the conference tables installed with power outlets, data jacks for Internet access and VC microphones to record audience participation and questions. The Friday Center is capable of smart classroom technology in three of its meeting room. The multimedia lecterns in the rooms are equipped with Crestron control panels, which operate the room's controls and audio-visual equipment with the touch of an icon. Rear projection screens were installed to eliminate fan noise and heat caused by the LCD and slide projectors. "The Friday Center is one of the most technologically advanced conference centers in the Southeast," Ellis said. "We know this because our clients tell us." " The nice thing about this technology is that not only can we send the signal to just about any room in the building for large groups," Ellis said, "but we can also send it to anywhere in the world." Ellis, who began working for the Friday Center in 1999, initiated a four-year plan to upgrade the center's audio-visual technology in March 2001. Outside of a few audio upgrades, his plan is nearly complete. "There's a bright future for video conferences," Ellis said, "especially with the growing concerns about travel." The Friday Center also is equipped with a mobile computer lab capable of wired and wireless Internet connections. In addition, the center has purchased the latest technology in LCD projectors. These projectors ensure a flat screen image by using an extreme horizontal and vertical lens shift, particularly useful if the projector cannot be set up in front of a screen and has to project an image from off to the side. 'Changing Lives, One Drop at a Time'There are just a few days left to make the decision to become a blood donor at the July 22 University-wide blood drive. Fact #1: There are few things we do voluntarily that can give us the willies like giving blood for the first time. Fact #2: There are few things we do voluntarily that can save someone's life. And to hear blood drive volunteers tell it, there's a third fact to consider when we mull the decision to lay down our arms: the enormous sense of accomplishment that comes from being involved with what is the largest one-day blood drive on the East Coast.
The event at the Smith Center will be the 15th summer drive for Carolina, and Steve Weiss has been there for all but one. The chair of computer science admits to initially being "chicken" just like everyone else, but it fell upon him to recruit others for that first drive, and, he said, "I figured that if I was going to try to recruit other members of the department to donate, I better donate, too. That got me started. When I realized how easy it was and the value of the donated blood, I just continued." Katrina Coble works next door to Weiss as the business manager for computer science, and she also works as chair of recruiting for the drive. Coble, too, had never donated before she became a recruiter in 1992. She said she felt she couldn't do the job effectively until she gave, and so she did. "I'm deathly afraid of needles," she said, "so it was horrible to overcome, but ... I felt like a kid once I had done it, and I've given ever since." When it comes to becoming a regular donor, nothing seems to motivate quite like the need hitting close to home. For example, Coble's goal "is to give back at least 64 units of blood in my lifetime -- the equivalent of what my grandfather had to receive before his death." Amy Rix works as a research assistant and marketing and recruitment coordinator in a joint position with the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine's Program on Aging, and her experience with blood donations couldn't be any closer. She's the recipient of a transfusion herself some 10 years ago, and she's also the artist and inspiration behind this year's blood drive theme and poster: "Changing Lives, One Drop at a Time." Mandy Hollowell has a little brother who needed four units of blood during brain surgery when he was a teenager. Hollowell, a faculty assistant with the School of Nursing, is not able to give herself, so she's made a commitment to volunteer every year. Thus far, she's done every job a volunteer can do, short of driving a golf cart. And her "little" brother? Today, she said, he's a paramedic and respiratory therapist in an underserved area, a physician's assistant in training -- and the father of her two nephews. He's alive and thriving because people donated blood. Shannon Blake is an office assistant with operative dentistry in the dental school. She, like many others, got her start when the associate dean asked her to take over recruiting. She willingly took on the assignment, but then her co-workers found out she'd never donated before and started kidding her about it. "I was way too scared to sign up," she said. "I just kept sending e-mails begging other folks to give blood. ... Then I got an e-mail from a young girl who had never donated before. She had a million questions, some of which I couldn't answer because I had never donated, so I told her my little secret. "We decided to go together as first-time donors and invited others who had never donated before to go with us." And what was her experience like? "I was extremely anxious, but everything went so smoothly! ... I honestly felt like a 3-year old who had finally conquered the big, twisty slide. ... I went from being terrified to feeling very proud and excited. I couldn't wait to donate again." Now Blake recommends the "buddy system" to all the first-time donors she recruits. As inducements to give: You'll get free parking in the S11 lot by the Smith Center. You'll get a free 15th Annual Carolina Blood Drive T-shirt. You'll get a coupon for a free Chick-fil-A sandwich. It's practically a guarantee that you'll get undying thanks from a stranger. And you might just get the feeling that you've finally conquered the big, twisty slide. Creating ways to improve moraleMorale, unlike money, is hard to measure in exact detail. Building morale, at a time when money is in such short supply, was a central topic explored during a June 16 retreat at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education. The retreat was for University units and departments that fall under the supervision of Nancy Suttenfield, the vice chancellor for finance and administration. Among them were Human Resources and Facility Services. Chancellor James Moeser told University trustees in May that morale is as low as he has seen it since he became chancellor three summers ago. Since then, Suttenfield and other administrators have put increased focus on doing what can be done to improve it. Suttenfield, by focusing attention on the issue, said she hopes managers and supervisors can find creative new ways to let their employees know that they are appreciated. Employees have to know that the work they do makes a difference. And the best way for them to know is for supervisors to tell them. The retreat began with people joined at different tables, brainstorming ideas. Later, the ideas from each table were presented before the whole group. As the presentations unfolded, many common themes emerged. Perhaps the strongest insight gleaned from the exercise is that no one thing works for every employee. Some employees respond to a codified award program such as Star Heels, while others respond to more spontaneous, impromptu praise-provided it is heartfelt. But praise is similar to money in at least one respect: A discerning person can almost smell the difference between the counterfeit and the real thing. Others suggested a form of indirect praise in which a person's good work is noted in some public forum and then news or the public recognition is relayed to the person who was praised. Other ideas that appeared on the lists included: * Comp time; * E-mail messages showing appreciation; * Peer-to-peer recognition; * Greater involvement in decision-making; * Supervisor taking a deserving employee out to lunch; and * Letters of recognition.
Another table put down at the bottom of its list: "$." At the time, they might as well have put a question mark after it. Since then, a new state budget was approved that offers employees an across-the-board, one-time $550 bonus, along with 10 bonus vacation days. Small gestures, genuinely made, can make a big impact. And it doesn't always have to come from management through some formalized, predictable process, presenters said. One department has a "loving cup of candy" that sits on a recipient's desk for a specified time before it is replenished and passed on to the next recipient. Suttenfield charged the people at the session with trying at least one of the suggestions put forth at the retreat, then reporting back later on how well it worked. The idea was to remind supervisors that part of their job, each and every day, is to show appreciation for all the vital work that so many people do. Brysons commit $5 million to establish clinical genetics research centerCarolina alumni Vaughn and Nancy Bryson have committed $5 million to their alma mater to establish a clinical genetics research center on the University's medical campus. "This gift permits us to build on our investment in genomics by reinforcing our program's commitment to translating findings in biosciences into clinical work," said Jeffrey L. Houpt, School of Medicine dean. Beginning this month, the center, a component of the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, will bring researchers, physicians and medical faculty together to explore the relationship between genetics and diseases, address the critical need for trained clinical geneticists and transfer promising new treatments from the laboratory to patient bedsides. The close collaboration between laboratory scientists and physicians is expected to advance the knowledge of both groups. "There have been tremendous advances in our understanding of disease over the past two decades, coming not only from basic science investigations but also from the care and study of patients with genetic disorders," said James P. Evans, associate professor of medicine. "The donors have a specific interest in trying to help bridge the gap that oftentimes exists between basic science and the bedside." Arthur S. Aylsworth, professor of pediatrics and genetics and chief of the pediatric division of genetics and metabolism, said clinical geneticists are uniquely suited to bridge this gap. "This is a need in medicine that is growing exponentially; the future will require many more clinical geneticists than are currently being trained," he said. "It is extremely forward-looking for the donors to recognize this as a major societal need." Another critical aim of the program is to expand genetics education and training for physicians who have expertise in other areas. "We want to disseminate genetic knowledge throughout the clinician community here at UNC," Evans said. Many physicians today, at Carolina and elsewhere, report being ill-prepared for the influx of genetics into clinical medicine, as relatively few had received sufficient training in this burgeoning field, he added. Along with raising the visibility of genetics among physicians, the new center will promote the use of genetic approaches to diagnosis. "We also really need to be training the next generation of clinical geneticists," said Terry Magnuson, Sarah Graham Kenan professor of genetics and director of the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences. "This is an important component of the new center." Magnuson added that establishment of the center will also enable basic scientists to understand the relationship between genetics and disease by enabling them to tap into clinical work at the University with patients and their families. The genetics department at the School of Medicine recently recruited two human geneticists, Pat Sullivan from Virginia Commonwealth University and Kirk Wilhelmsen of the University of California at San Francisco. Both will play important roles in the new research center. "We hope to engage in community training, as well," Evans said. "Genetics education doesn't stop with clinicians. It's having such a powerful impact on broad aspects of society that educating the public is important, too." In February 2001, Chancellor James Moeser announced a campuswide genomics initiative representing a public-private investment of at least $245 million over the next 10 years. Four new buildings affiliated with genomics research are supported by a combination of funds from the statewide higher education bond referendum, prior state appropriations and campus sources including private gifts. The initiative involves faculty from the schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health -- as well as the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Law. The Brysons, who live in Florida and Michigan, are 1960 graduates of the School of Pharmacy. Vaughn Bryson is retired chief executive officer at Eli Lilly and Co. Both are members of the Carolina First campaign steering committee. They have supported the School of Pharmacy, athletics, the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health, the University Library and Carolina baseball. Their gift counts toward the Carolina First campaign goal of $1.8 billion. Carolina First is a comprehensive, multi-year private fund-raising campaign to support Carolina's vision of becoming the nation's leading public University. |
|||||||||||||
