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Summer book choices narrowed to five finalists
The
list of some 500 books has been chiseled away to five, and in
the next week one will be chosen as the 2004 Carolina Summer Reading
Program (SRP) selection.
That list included more
than 100 selections suggested by the campus community following
an e-mail inviting input last November. Others came from suggestions
from student participants and volunteer discussion leaders over
the past five years of the program along with titles used by other
campuses.
Jan Bardsley, associate
professor of Asian studies and chair of the 2004 SRP Book Selection
Committee, said of this year's choices, "The nearly 500 titles
suggested by the campus community set our committee on a path
of richly diverse readings. We're confident that our top choice
will inspire entering students to read, to question, and to talk
about the book with their family and friends over the summer,
and with their new classmates in the fall."
The finalists are:
 "Absolutely
American: Four Years at West Point," by David Lipsky;
"Enough:
Staying Human in an Engineered Age," by Bill McKibben;
"A
Hope in the Unseen," by Ron Suskind;
"Life
of Pi," by Yann Martel; and
"The
Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community,"
by Mary Pipher.
The selection committee
-- made up of faculty, staff and students -- will meet on Feb.
22 to pick the book. Members are:
Jan Bardsley, chair, associate professor of Asian Studies;
John McGowan, professor of English;
Reginald Hildebrand, associate professor of African and African-American
Studies;
Kimberly Abels, director, Writing Center;
David Gilbert, assistant dean of students;
Cookie Newsom, director, Diversity Education and Research, Office
of Minority Affairs; and
Students Zachary Clayton, Jennifer Peddycord and John "Freiler"
Wayne.
The committee's selection
process has been open to observers for the first time this year
even though the panel does not meet the criteria for a public
body and the state's open meetings law.
Chancellor James Moeser
made that determination to open the process in response to a request
from "The Daily Tar Heel" saying that would best serve the University
and the committee.
Observers at recent meetings
have included media representatives and the Pope Center for Higher
Education, affiliated with the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh.
To enhance first-year students'
experiences, the Intellectual Climate Task Force Report in 1997
recommended a summer reading program as one component of a "First
Year Initiative," and it became a reality in 1999.
Transfer students take on
the non-credit assignment as well as entering freshmen. The SRP,
however, is not a requirement. Students read the selected book
during the summer and prepare for small group discussions during
Fall Orientation.
The goals of the program
include enhancing students' participation in the intellectual
climate of the campus, enhancing a sense of community among students,
faculty and staff and providing a common experience for all incoming
students.
More information about the
SRP is available on its web site, www.unc.edu/srp.
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Task force promotes 34 measures
"It's as important
as any issue I've dealt with since I came to Carolina."
That's what Chancellor James
Moeser told a campus audience that had gathered to hear about
a report that identifies ways to improve the work environment
at the University.
Presented Feb. 5 at an Employee
Forum Community Meeting, the report of the Chancellor's Task Force
for a Better Workplace includes 34 measures that range from healthy
lunch alternatives to a community college program located on campus.
All aim to boost employee
morale, which has suffered in the face of sparse -- if any --
pay raises and higher health-care costs in recent years. Eroding
morale threatens Carolina's goal of becoming the nation's leading
public university, Moeser said, because staff play such a critical
role in supporting the work of faculty and students, as well as
facilities.
"While our staff ranks
second to none, it is foolish to believe it will always be that
way simply because it always has been that way," Moeser said.
The 34 points in the task
force's plan cover short-, medium- and long-term steps, with the
top priority in each timeframe being:
Short term -- Establish
an ombudsperson's office to help make sure that employees are
treated fairly in job disputes.
Medium term -- Increase
financial assistance available for employees to attend community
college or college classes, and publicize the availability of
resources to assist employees.
Long term -- Expand tuition
waiver program to include more courses per year, coverage of dependents,
and inclusion of non-credit courses.
The task force report reflects
campus community input garnered from a survey distributed to SPA
and EPA non-faculty employees. Lynn Williford, director of institutional
research, reviewed the results at the Feb. 5 meeting.
What people wanted most
included flexible scheduling options, expanded tuition waiver
offerings and wellness classes, she said. Higher salaries, improved
benefits and better and more affordable parking and transportation
also scored high.
The task force report addresses
all of these except compensation, which the panel did not tackle
because that falls under the jurisdiction of the state General
Assembly.
But Moeser pledged that
he and his administration, along with the UNC Board of Governors
and Office of the President, would continue to lobby legislators
to improve pay and benefits for state employees.
Employee Forum Chair Tommy
Griffin, who co-chaired the task force with Moeser, said that
the panel's work will pay off, as each step has been assigned
to someone for action and will be tracked by a committee.
"We'll keep on informing
the campus, so they'll know where we're at," Griffin said.
Employees at the meeting
raised issues such as the perception on campus that faculty are
more important than staff. Others, while praising the task force's
report, questioned whether it could have been even better with
more rank-and-file representation on the panel.
Moeser said the task force's
composition of faculty, staff and students provided perspectives
that "made for a dynamic process and a better set of recommendations."
Griffin, too, credited the
panel for its diligence.
"Every time I left
a task force meeting, I was walking about 10 feet off the ground,"
he said.
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Workforce growth patterns vary
It's
a tale of two staff workforces at Carolina.
On one hand, there are the
growing ranks of employees brought in to work on research grants.
On the other hand, there are the employees who work in the offices
and in the shops and on the grounds, whose numbers have stagnated
in the face of state budget cuts and efficiency gains.
That was the picture painted
in a Feb. 4 Employee Forum meeting presentation by Laurie Charest,
associate vice chancellor for Human Resources, and Bob Knight,
assistant vice chancellor in finance and administration.
The University workforce
has grown 18 percent in the last 10 years, and much of that growth
has stemmed from Carolina's burgeoning research enterprise. Since
1994, the full-time equivalency number of employees paid with
funds from contracts and grants has jumped by 53 percent, from
1,533 to 2,337. And those paid with overhead receipts have increased
even more, from 241 to 455, a climb of 88 percent.
While some of this growth
has come in faculty, much has come from staff, who work on the
grants that faculty members secure. In the area covered by the
vice chancellor for research and economic development, the permanent
non-academic staff workforce has risen 60 percent since 1994,
from 395 to 631.
Meanwhile, the number of
employees paid with state appropriations or tuition dollars has
increased just 3 percent in the past 10 years, with the full-time
equivalent of 4,531 in 1994 and 4,670 now.
In fact, the number of permanent
non-academic staff under the vice chancellor for finance and administration
has dropped by 5 percent in the past decade, from 1,638 to 1,562.
Specific job classifications reflect those numbers. Permanent
SPA clerical employees have decreased from 2,290 to 1,834 and
maintenance/skilled trades from 1,189 to 1,072.
In a graphic illustration
of how those declines have affected Facilities Services, the presentation
showed that there was one facilities worker for every 5,958 square
feet of building space in 1994, compared to one for every 7,597
square feet in 2002.
One SPA job classification
to increase in numbers since 1994 is technical/professional --
from 2,320 to 3,355 -- reflecting the rise in demand for information
technology specialists.
Knight warned that the trend
in lean state funding for positions here could get to a "dangerous
tipping point" and encouraged forum members to let legislators
know about the importance of the issue.
The presentation that the
forum saw also has been shown to the University Board of Trustees,
and Employee Forum Chair Tommy Griffin said that trustees already
are hearing that message.
"They know that we
need money," he said.
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Williams family joins Carolina
Covenant team
North
Carolina men's basketball coach Roy Williams is lending his name
and -- with his family -- making a generous gift to the Carolina
Covenant, the University's groundbreaking initiative to make a
debt-free Chapel Hill education possible for low-income students.
Williams, a 1972 Carolina
graduate and the nation's winningest active college coach, his
wife, Wanda, and their children, Scott and Kimberly, have pledged
a $100,000 gift to the Carolina Covenant. The Carolina Covenant
was a first for a major U.S. public university when it was announced
last fall to emphasize the University's traditional commitment
to access for those who are academically qualified.
Williams, an Asheville native,
also endorses the Carolina Covenant in a new 30-second institutional
television message that Carolina will use in its national and
regional TV games and in other venues, including the Smith Center.
The spot opens with a narrator
noting Carolina's commitment to excellence, a better future and
educating the next generation of leaders in medicine, business,
education and other fields. Then Williams discusses one of the
University's latest commitments -- the Carolina Covenant -- from
one of the most picturesque academic settings on campus: the Rare
Book Reading Room in the Louis Round Wilson Library.
Says Williams in the spot:
"The Carolina Covenant is a promise. It's a promise to help kids
from low-income families get a college education debt-free. It's
a promise that Carolina is proud to make because everyone deserves
a shot."
Starting next fall, the
Carolina Covenant will enable qualified low-income students to
come to Carolina and graduate debt-free if they work on campus
10 to 12 hours weekly in a federal work-study job instead of borrowing.
Carolina will meet the rest of those students' needs through a
combination of federal, state, University and privately funded
grants and scholarships.
When Chancellor James Moeser
announced the Carolina Covenant last October in his "State of
the University" speech, Williams called the chancellor to say
that he was proud of Carolina's leadership. He also expressed
interest in making a personal gift to assist students with needs
the initiative aims to meet.
The coach's call later gave
Moeser the idea to ask Williams to appear in the University's
TV message. Most networks airing men's basketball and football
games give each campus 30 seconds of air time for an institutional
message supplied by the university. Those spots typically run
at halftime or another point in the broadcasts.
"The University is
grateful for all of Coach Williams' generous support for the Carolina
Covenant and what it stands for: a commitment to access for those
students who can make the grade academically regardless of their
ability to pay," Moeser said. "Coach Williams was moved by this
powerful message, and now he is helping us reach out to prospective
students, their parents and the public. His involvement, as one
of America's most successful coaches and teachers, is just one
more indication of the strong momentum the Carolina Covenant has
achieved over the four short months since it was announced."
The gift from the Williams
family counts toward the Carolina First Campaign, a comprehensive,
multi-year private fund-raising campaign with a goal of $1.8 billion
to support Carolina's vision of becoming the nation's leading
public university.
The covenant is the first
program of its kind to be launched by a public university in the
United States. The University of Virginia just announced plans
for a similar program. UVa. officials began consulting with their
Chapel Hill counterparts to learn more about Carolina's program
shortly after it was announced.
Several other major public
campuses have been exploring the possibility of creating similar
programs and have contacted the University for information. Reaction
in North Carolina and across the nation has been overwhelmingly
positive to the plan. University officials have been in frequent
demand in recent weeks to give presentations at national and regional
meetings with educators and others. Interest from public school
officials and even elementary school-age students also has been
strong.
Carolina's initiative comes
at time when the cost of college is rising steadily for low-income
families. Nationally, the average student loan debt has nearly
doubled to $17,000 over the past decade. About one-fifth of full-time
students work 35 or more hours a week.
As a result, many low-income
youth abandon plans for college -- or drop out -- because the
burden of that debt and workload is too much. The patterns are
even stronger among minority students. Research also shows that
low-income families need more information -- and greater predictability
-- about the availability of financial aid.
The Carolina Covenant responds
to such concerns. The University already meets 100 percent of
the documented financial need of all students who apply for aid
on time, but about one-third of that need is met through loans.
To fund the Carolina Covenant, the University will make reallocations
of existing funds in the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid
and pledge growing private gifts dedicated to low-income students.
Eligible students must be
at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Under current
federal poverty levels, a family of four with an annual income
of about $28,000 would qualify. For a single parent with one child,
the eligible income would be about $18,000.
The state of the economy
and the rising number of families living in poverty demonstrate
the need for the Carolina Covenant. Since one in four North Carolina
children now live in poverty, the need for an accessibility initiative
like the Carolina Covenant will remain strong. According to the
North Carolina Children's Index of 2002, more than one-third of
North Carolina's families made less than $28,000 a year in 1999,
the last year data were available.
In fall 2003, 281 of Carolina's
freshmen, or 8 percent of the freshman class, came from low-income
families. Most of those -- 89 percent --were from North Carolina.
More than half were minorities. Federal and state financial aid
covered about 60 percent of the college costs for those students.
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Leloudis covers Carolina's twists
and turns
How
could anyone, in the space of a single lecture, capture the essence
of this place?
It fell upon James Leloudis,
while giving the inaugural Gladys Coates University History Lecture,
to make the attempt. The lecture was delivered Feb. 12 before
a packed Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library.
As associate professor of
history, Leloudis knew too much of the University's history to
even pretend its many stories could be knitted together into a
single uplifting tale.
"The truth, of course,
is there is no essence to capture or convey," Leloudis said. "Its
history has been contentious and contested, and it is centered
on some of the most fundamental and profound questions we can
ask in the academy."
What should a university
be? What counts as knowledge? What is to be taught?
How should the University
understand its relationship to the larger society?
We struggle with these questions
today, he said, but they are not peculiar to our own time.
"They are, in fact,
our inheritance," Leloudis said. "And they are, by their very
nature, irresolvable."
Born
of revolution
As the nation's first public university, Carolina was established
to serve a radical experiment in the founding of a republic, a
society of citizens rather than subjects.
The curriculum was the handiwork
of William Richardson Davie, a former officer in the Continental
Army and author of the University's charter. Under Davie's plan,
science and modern language stood on an equal footing with the
classics of ancient Greece and Rome. Students were free to make
their choice between two diplomas. One was in Latin, for young
men wishing to master an ancient tongue. The other was in English,
for those who concentrated on science and politics and modern
literature.
But Davie's experiment would
be swallowed up by the tide of reaction that swept throughout
Europe and America in the wake of the French Revolution. Troubles
broke to the surface here in 1799 when, after a popular student
was expelled, students rallied to his defense by rioting. The
rioting would culminate with students horsewhipping the president
of the University.
Samuel McCorkle, who was
a Presbyterian minister on the Board of Trustees, argued that
Davie's curriculum be abandoned lest it perpetuate in America
the same forces of infidelity, free thinking and moral decay that
corrupted the French Revolution and unleashed a reign of terror.
By 1804, Greek and Latin
had been restored here as the twin pillars of instruction.
By the midpoint of the 19th
century, the mission of the University was no longer in question.
Sons of the slaveholding elite came to Chapel Hill from every
corner of the South to learn to become master, in every sense
of the word, Leloudis said. "Young men came to Chapel Hill to
affirm their place in society, not to discover a prescription
for making the world anew," Leloudis said.
Rapid
rise of a modern university
After the Civil War, North Carolina began to be remade by the
establishment of cotton mills and tobacco factories and the construction
of thousands of miles of railroad. The University began remaking
itself in the image of that economic revolution, starting in 1875
when the trustees scuttled the antebellum curriculum, Leloudis
said.
"This University,
they insisted, would serve no longer as a mere storehouse of knowledge.
It would operate instead as -- their phrase -- `a great metropolis
of thought.' By gathering and creating and distributing knowledge,
they said, the University would become a force in the world of
progress, a dynamo of change.
"Under this new conception
of the University, the faculty changed from a handful of ministers
who had served as jacks-of-all-trades to include specialists certified
by a degree, borrowed from German universities, called the doctorate
of philosophy, the Ph.D."
The first of Carolina's
new faculty to hold the Ph.D. was a chemist named Francis Preston
Venable who came here in 1881. In turn, Carolina conferred its
first Ph.D. to one of Venable's students in 1883.
"North Carolina was
one of the poorest states in the nation," Leloudis said. "It labored
under the burden of defeat, and like the South at large it was
hobbled by the legacies of slavery, most particularly, a rigid,
unforgiving and brutal system of racial segregation. In that context,
the embrace of the research ideal was accompanied by something
akin to missionary zeal. The knowledge that research produced
came to be valued not only for its own sake but also as a tool
of redemption and reform."
That pattern built steam
throughout the 20th century.
Edward Kidder Graham and
Harry Woodburn Chase, the eighth and nine presidents of the University,
insisted that Carolina engage the South's great ills: racism,
poverty, illiteracy, sickness and disease. Howard Odum in the
1920s established the School of Social Work and the Institute
for Research in Social Science that produced scholarship on such
taboo topics as lynching, unions and child labor.
Frank Porter Graham, president
of the University from 1930 to 1949, crafted a declaration of
workers' rights, and, as a member of Harry Truman's Commission
on Civil Rights, called for the dismantling of Jim Crow.
And there were Albert Coates
and his wife Gladys, who took seriously Edward Kidder Graham's
suggestion that the boundaries of the University were coterminous
with the boundaries of the state, Leloudis said.
"They struggled for
many years in the middle of the last century to establish the
Institute of Government, now the School of Government, and to
promote standards of public administration that would bring new
opportunities and better lives in communities all across North
Carolina," Leloudis said.
In 2001, the University
awarded Mrs. Coates, who was then 99, an honorary doctor of laws
degree. She died Sept. 25, 2002, 13 years after her husband's
death.
Chancellor James Moeser
described the Coateses as "thinkers, writers, researchers and
teachers, movers and shakers, founders and promoters. Above all,
they were doers." The Institute of Government, he said, "is their
firstborn child." Her last act of generosity came to the University
in a $1 million bequest for the benefit of the University's libraries
and North Carolina Collection, he said.
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Bookies practice economics by
the book
If
you bet a few dollars on the Super Bowl this month, you weren't
alone. Americans place billions of dollars in bets on sports each
year, according to the American Gaming Association.
Only 1 to 3 percent of those
bets were legal. Those numbers qualify illegal bookmakers as big
business, and these underground operations act like real corporations
in many other ways, according to a study conducted by Koleman
Strumpf, associate professor of economics.
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Technology transfer
update
The
Office of Technology Development helps Carolina faculty,
students and staff develop and commercialize patentable
inventions resulting from their research. In the last four
months of 2003, the University executed seven license agreements
and had nine U.S. patents issued.
A patent is a legal document granting inventors the exclusive
right to prevent others from making, using or selling an
invention for a number of years. A license agreement is
a written contract granting permission for a person or company
to use an invention under certain terms. For more information
about OTD, go to research.unc.edu/otd.
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Strumpf studied detailed
records from six bookmakers who were arrested from 1995 to 2000
in Kings County, New York. The records included such information
as what prices were set, where bettors lived and how much they
owed.
Summing up his results,
Strumpf said, "Standard economic principles that you would learn
in a principles course govern what these guys do." That finding
goes against some common assumptions about bookmakers, he said.
"Most people claim
that bookmakers always try to balance books on a game," he said.
"For example, the assumption is that on the Super Bowl, bookmakers
would try to get the same amount of bets on the Panthers as on
the Patriots, so they would pay out the same amount of money regardless
of who wins." Then the bookmakers would simply make their profits
from commissions.
But the bookmakers that
Strumpf studied didn't operate that way. Instead, they would take
huge losses on some games and make big profits on others. "Sometimes
they win a lot, sometimes they lose a lot. But on average it works
out well for them," Strumpf said.
He also found that these
bookmakers use a practice that economists call "price discrimination."
If certain bettors always bet for the same team, regardless of
the price, the bookmakers tended to charge them higher prices.
"The only way a bookmaker can consistently charge someone a high
price is by knowing how the bettor will behave," Strumpf said.
Strumpf was surprised by
the volume of business these operations handled. One of the bookmakers
took about $250 million a year in bets. "That's as big as a legal
Las Vegas Strip bookmaking operation," Strumpf said. To handle
the potential payouts, the bookmaker had to keep as much as a
million dollars in cash lying around. "When the guy was arrested,
they found $600,000 in cash in the room," Strumpf said.
Do these operations make
a lot of money? Strumpf found that the average profit was about
$2 million a year. That sounds like a lot. But Strumpf points
out that it's lower than what the bookmakers could have made if
they invested a similar amount of capital in legitimate markets.
"But these people do not have an extensive formal education,"
he said. "I don't know how they would have made this kind of money
anywhere else."
Strumpf has submitted his
study to a peer-reviewed journal. For more information about the
study, visit his web site at www.unc.edu/~cigar.
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Music in a world gone wired
Is the Internet the music industry's enemy
or its saving grace?
Editor's note: This story
is reprinted from the Winter 2004 issue of Endeavors, a magazine
highlighting research at Carolina. It is published three times
a year by the Office of Graduate Studies and Research. Neil Caudle
serves as editor. Michelle Coppedge wrote this piece. Employees
who would like a free subscription to Endeavors should send their
name, job title, department and campus address to the Endeavors
office via campus mail (Endeavors, CB 4106), e-mail (endeavors@unc.edu)
or the subscription form at the magazine's web site (research.unc.edu/endeavors).
The
business of music is in turmoil. Record stores close. Industry
executives lose their jobs. Sales of albums drop -- and many in
the record industry blame the countless people who share music
over the Internet. You hear sinister words such as "piracy" thrown
around. But is file sharing really responsible for the industry's
woes?
"I've never seen anything
that even comes close to providing evidence of that," says Koleman
Strumpf, associate professor of economics.
The fall in record sales
-- a 26 percent reduction in total units from 1999 through 2002,
according to figures released by the Recording Industry of America
(RIAA) -- could be due to many factors, he says, including the
state of the economy, competition from video games and cell phones
for consumers' time and money, or changes in consumer demographics.
Strumpf, an avid music fan himself, is studying the effects of
file sharing -- freely sharing digital versions of songs among
computer users via the Internet -- on record sales.
Strumpf is analyzing log
files from a file-sharing service called Open Nap. His data are
lists of what people were looking for and what they actually downloaded
on Open Nap over a four-month period. "I have over 1 million transfers,"
Strumpf says. "That's actually a pretty large sample of what's
out there."
The goal of Strumpf's research
is to link the names of the songs people downloaded to a database
of record sales by album from the same period. Two years ago,
in the midst of a court case involving Napster, a file-sharing
service, he found that no one had done a concrete study of the
correlation between the rise in file sharing and the fall in record
sales. Was there really a direct connection between the two trends?
If so, he also wanted to know if the loss of royalties hurt the
people actually making music -- the artists.
"The music industry
says that it's being decimated by file sharing and there's no
longer any incentive to become a musician," Strumpf says. He thinks
his research will show that this is not the case. In the United
States, there are somewhere around 30,000 bands on the five largest
record labels, he says, and probably only 500 of them make a living
from their album royalties anyway. "The economic incentives for
being a musician are very, very limited," Strumpf says. "A lot
of it is luck. Regardless of what file sharing's going to do,
I believe it will not have much influence on people's desire to
form bands and create music."
But whether or not file
sharing is hurting musicians or putting record executives in the
poorhouse, it is still a problem for the industry, and it is still
illegal.
"The law doesn't deal
specifically with file sharing," says Laura Gasaway, professor
of law and director of Carolina's law library. "But it's a reproduction
of a copyrighted work, which is infringement." Hence the recent
onslaught of lawsuits by the RIAA, a powerful music-industry lobbying
group, against individuals they identify as heavy file sharers.
These legal efforts hit Carolina in November 2003, when the RIAA
subpoenaed for the personal information of a student who had allegedly
shared files.
But could the lawsuits really
be making things worse? Strumpf thinks so. "This lawsuit approach
fuels the people who are the backbones of these file-sharing networks
and gets them even more ticked off at the music industry," Strumpf
says. "There are going to be people who are even more committed
to helping other people do this."
What can the music industry
do for what ails it without alienating all its customers? This
is a question that intrigues Anne York and her students. York,
assistant professor of management-strategy in the business school,
incorporated in-depth case studies of the music industry into
the syllabus for her senior-level strategic management course
in both the spring and fall 2003 semesters.
"Basically the recording
industry is an oligopoly -- just a few big companies that control
pricing, distribution, everything about the process," York says.
It has been this way for years. "But of course the little chink
in the armor is that now the Internet is here."
Discussions of the music
industry merge technology, market power, legal issues, and ethical
issues, York says. "And students are the best ones to see what
the opportunities are. They're the ones going to the concerts,
buying the albums, downloading the music." Students in her classes
admitted they downloaded and shared music -- and that they considered
it stealing. When asked why they did it, though, "Their reasons
were pretty valid," York says. "They haven't been given what they
want -- the ability to buy individual songs affordably, to make
their own mixes digitally. They also see recording firms as huge
companies that rip off customers and the artists, too."
York's students researched
the history of the industry and its five major companies. A music
executive, a legal expert (Gasaway, from Carolina's law school),
and an ethics expert visited the class. Students also investigated
the artist's perspective and developed business strategies for
the companies.
To share her students' research
with others, York is compiling an instructional case based on
their work for distribution to business schools. Their case will
be one of the first to package information about an entire industry's
trends with studies of individual firms, York says -- a way to
teach students about competition in an industry that's changing
almost daily.
Former music executive Jay
Boberg, one of the speakers to York's class, is convinced that
the old recording-industry model may no longer work. "He suggested
that firms will have to accept downloading as inevitable and look
for ways to increase the value of what they provide to consumers,"
York says.
What are some of the strategies
the music giants are using besides lawsuits? "Mergers are the
biggest thing right now," says Josh Payne, a senior business major
who took York's class and contributed an independent study to
the final teaching case. "There are two theories: Either you get
bigger and cut your costs, or you sell off noncore assets such
as CD manufacturing or publishing and try to be flexible." Even
though there are many successful independent, or "indie," music
companies and artists, Payne points out, 80 to 90 percent of the
music market is controlled by the five major companies.
The companies are also pursuing
new marketing tactics. York mentions car ads that promote catchy
songs along with shiny new vehicles, as well as an emerging trend
to sell live concert videos at venues immediately following performances.
Strumpf points to the cross-marketing of like items by retail
services such as Amazon.
Most important, perhaps,
to the music industry's economic survival are the resources of
the Internet itself. A major advantage of the Internet's pervasiveness
is that it can help indie artists and companies. Musicians not
backed by one of the big five companies, or not on a label at
all, can get their music directly to listeners via the Web. Often
the listener then purchases the music he or she has heard.
Sean McCrossin, the owner
of CD Alley, an independent Chapel Hill record store, says the
Internet is good for business. "It gives people an opportunity
to get turned on to music," he says. CD Alley, McCrossin says,
hasn't experienced any drop in sales resulting from file sharing,
since most of the music they sell is not mainstream. "We've never
really sold the stuff that's been affected," he says, adding that
the independent music community is self-supporting.
Several fledgling pay services
for downloading music, including iTunes and a new version of Napster,
have emerged, and Napster recently announced a preliminary arrangement
with Pennsylvania State University to include music-downloading
as part of students' technology services.
"If companies can,
to some extent, protect their content from sharing, and offer
it over the Internet at a lower cost, they could have a really
viable alternative to piracy," Payne says. Gasaway says, "They're
already saying that file sharing is decreasing, but we don't know
if it has anything to do with the lawsuits. It could be that people
understand what infringement is now or that they're using the
new pay services for downloading music."
Strumpf is a little more
skeptical about these services. "Until they get the selection
up to snuff, it's going to be tough," he says. People are used
to freely downloading not only material that can be purchased
in stores, but much that cannot, including live and unreleased
versions of songs.
"Currently, there
are very big gaps. There are a lot of copyright holders to deal
with -- and they would have to get all the indie labels if they
want to have a big selection on board," Strumpf says.
Will the music industry
learn to use the Internet's complexities to meet consumers' demands?
It seems that it must. File sharing is inevitable, York suggests.
And it's too global, Strumpf says. Two-thirds of the song downloads
over the period he's studying were done outside of the United
States. Even if all U.S. file sharing were stopped by the RIAA's
lawsuits, the problem wouldn't be solved. And file-sharing networks
them-selves continue to be centered farther and farther out of
U.S. reach.
"The whole thing is
reminiscent to me of Prohibition," Strumpf says. "You shut it
down here, it appears somewhere else. Whether you think it's a
good thing or a bad thing, when there's a tremendous demand for
an activity, markets tend to find a way to provide it."
Strumpf expects to have
updated results of his study -- which he will post on his web
site, www.unc.edu/~cigar -- in March. York's teaching case on
the music industry will be available for distribution in the spring.
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Cogeneration facility honored
for efficiency
The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of
Energy recently recognized Carolina's cogeneration facility for
promoting efficient energy.
The University, along with
the University of Michigan, received the Energy Star Combined
Heat and Power Award that recognizes exemplary cogeneration projects
for increasing the nation's electric generation efficiency.
In 2000, Carolina received
a certificate from the departments in recognition of its project's
ability to demonstrate leadership in environmental performance.
Programs that receive certificates are not required to meet all
award standards set by the EPA.
"I think it's an honor
to be recognized twice in such an elite program," said Raymond
E. DuBose, director of energy services. "To receive recognition
twice in a four year period emphasizes the clean and efficient
operation we have at cogeneration systems."
Cogeneration produces significant
environmental benefits, said Tom Kerr, chief of the energy supply
and industry branch of the EPA, who presented the awards.
"Cogeneration uses
less fuel, so you have less emissions," he said. "When you burn
less fuel, you're also saving money."
Carolina's cogeneration
facility, located off Cameron Avenue, was completed in 1992. It
uses advanced technology called circulating fluidized combustion,
making it one of the cleanest coal-burning facilities in that
nation, DuBose said.
The facility burns coal
to generate and distribute steam to the campus and UNC Hospitals
through about 40 miles of steam pipes and 10 miles of chilled
water pipes. Steam is used for heating and cooling, as well as
for heating domestic hot water, sterilization, humidification,
cooking and cleaning. The plant also generates about one-third
of the University's electricity; the rest is purchased from Duke
Power.
"The primary purpose
of the facility is to produce all the steam for the University
and UNC Hospitals," DuBose said. "We produce electricity as a
byproduct of the steam, so we can produce it a lot cheaper."
Carolina's heating and air
conditioning system serves about 200 campus buildings containing
more than 14 million square feet of floor space, DuBose said.
The plant is capable of producing 750,000 pounds of steam per
hour, while its generator can produce 28 megawatts of electricity.
"Our combined heat
and power technology provides for beneficial use twice the energy
from a pound of coal than does the average power plant in the
United States," he said.
DuBose said that because
the University uses steam for heat during the winter and for air
conditioning in the summer, the facility is able to generate power
for little additional cost.
"Our cogenerated power
costs less than a penny per kilowatt hour compared to purchased
power cots of about 4.3 cents," he said.
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How much does elder care cost?
The figures cited in this
article are only averages; it is important to call your care providers
to determine the cost of services in your area. In addition, be
sure to contact your elder's insurance provider to find out what
services are covered by health insurance.
You
know that your elder adult needs help. Now is the time to compare
costs of at-home care versus care in a facility. If your elder
can no longer live at home, you need to consider the costs of
nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. If your elder can
remain at home but needs assistance, you might consider home care
and home health care, adult day-care programs and senior centers.
Other services for your elder might include an emergency response
or medication reminder service, companion or friendly visitor
programs and transportation.
Nursing home care is the
most intense level of care and therefore is the most expensive.
Nursing home care provides comprehensive care -- skilled medical
and personal care, medication management and meals as well as
other necessary services. Nursing homes range in cost, but the
average cost of care could be $50,000 annually or $115 per day.
Medicare will pay for nursing home care under certain conditions,
such as a brief stay after a recent hospitalization. Medicare
does not cover nursing home costs for a person who lives in a
nursing home permanently. Medicaid, if a person qualifies for
it, does cover nursing home costs.
Assisted-living facilities
are an option for seniors who do not require daily medical care.
Assisted-living options vary in cost -- from $1,000 to more than
$5,000 a month. Most assisted-living facilities offer several
living options, recreational activities, meals, transportation
to doctors' appointments and staff on location 24 hours a day.
Assisted-living costs are not covered by health insurance plans,
Medicare or Medicaid.
Home care is a service for
elders who need assistance with activities of daily living in
order to live at home. Home care usually includes assistance with
personal care and running errands. Home care is not covered by
health insurance or Medicare but may be covered by Medicaid in
some instances. Private pay for home care usually costs $15 to
$20 an hour, or $100 a day for 24-hour care.
Home health care is medical
care provided in a senior's home. Home health care is typically
covered by Medicaid or health insurance if a doctor can provide
a qualifying condition. Home health care is usually time limited
and does not provide personal or home care services. Private pay
home health care can cost as much as $85 per visit.
Adult day-care programs
typically offer a place where elders can congregate and participate
in various activities. In some cases, adult day programs offer
meals and transportation. Some programs specialize in certain
types of care, such as dementia care. Adult day programs vary
in cost -- from $10 to $50 a day.
Senior centers are community
centers, usually operated by the local department on aging. Most
centers offer a range of recreational activities and a place for
seniors to gather and socialize. Most senior center activities
are offered free of charge with the exception of transportation
and meals.
If your senior loved one
chooses to remain at home, you may want to institute certain services
to ensure your elder's safety and health. An emergency-response
service will ensure that if your loved one needs help, he or she
will get it as soon as possible. Emergency response services feature
various options that usually cost between $35 and $50 a month,
with an additional, one-time installation fee of from $50 to $100
month. Another helpful at-home service is a medication-reminder
service. Such a service will call your elder to remind him or
her to take medications. These programs will usually make up to
four calls a day for $20 a month. Other costs to consider if your
elder lives at home are meals or meal-delivery programs, companion
or visitor programs and transportation.
After surveying the options
available to you and figuring out what you and your elder's budget
can manage, you can choose the type or types of care that will
work best for your loved one. As always, your local department
on aging can guide you in finding the right care for your family.
Contact me by calling 962-6008
or e-mail Leslie_Bacque@unc.edu.
Stay balanced!
Writer: Leslie Bacque, Work-Family
Manager,
Employee Services, Office of Human Resources
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