UNIVERSITY GAZETTE | March 28, 2007 | The University of North Carolina

A proposal to add a new measurement of student performance is now being debated among University faculty.

The measure, called the Achievement Index, would put each student’s grade into context the grades of his or her classmates, and at the same time, take into account the different grading practices of professors.

Nearly a full hour was devoted to exploring the idea at the Faculty Council meeting on March 23. Because of the complexity of the issue, Faculty Chair Joe Templeton called for a special meeting of Faculty Council on April 13 to explore the idea further. It will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Toy Lounge at Dey Hall. The council is expected to vote in the proposal on April 27.

The index could have a profound impact on students and their professional careers. If approved, a student’s Achievement Index rather than his or her grade-point average (GPA) would be used to decide which students graduate with distinction and highest distinction.

The recommendation is part of a report developed by a subcommittee of the council’s Educational Policy Committee chaired by Peter C. Gorman. Other members of the panel are Andrew J. Perrin, Gwendolyn Sancar and Kevin G. Stewart.

Gordon said the Achievement Index looks at the grades in one particular class and establishes equivalence groups that can be used to as a basis for deciding what impact that one grade in that one class should have on the student’s overall academic performance.

One criterion used in the Achievement Index is the extent to which the distribution of grades in a particular class differentiates levels of student performance within that class, Gordon said. The second criterion is the general level of accomplishment of students in that particular class based on their performance in other classes.

Gordon said the recommendation to use the Achievement Index as the basis of class rankings and awards instead of the GPA is based on its statistical capability of taking into account the fact that students take classes with different levels of difficulty and that the grading policies within the same course vary widely.

Gordon said the proposal calls for the Achievement Index to supplement GPA, not replace it. The committee also recommended that procedures be developed on how to use the Achievement Index, how to communicate how it would work to students and faculty as well as to employer and graduate school admissions offices.

The index was developed by a former statistician at Duke University. No other campus has adopted the measure.

In other matters, Chancellor James Moeser reviewed Carolina’s response to the University of North Carolina Tomorrow, the 18-month initiative that the UNC Board of Governors launched in February to determine how the 16-campus university system can best meet the needs of the state and its people over the next 20 years.

BOG Chair Jim Phillips created a blue-ribbon group called the University of North Carolina Tomorrow Commission to help guide that effort. A related campus visit is planned in late April to talk with senior leadership.

The chancellor said a related issue was the role Carolina would be expected to play to accommodate the rising number of college-age students who will be seeking entry into the system. Within the next decade, Moeser said, the number of high school graduates in the state will increase from just under 200,000 currently to up to 300,000. Another trend is the dramatic increase in Hispanic students. Current projections show a 500 percent increase in Hispanic students by the end of the decade. Moeser said he does not anticipate that Carolina will grow at the same rate as other state universities or community colleges to meet this demand.

Moeser said he anticipated the University’s contribution to accommodate growth would be in the graduate and professional schools. About 40 percent of current enrollment is at the graduate and professional level, Moeser said, adding, “We want to keep that equilibrium as well as maintain the quality of the undergraduate experience.”

In other action, the council gave final approval to amendments to the Faculty Code of University Government discussed in recent months and approved a resolution encouraging the use of the Office of Technology Development for the commercialization of work.

The BB&T Charitable Foundation has given $1 million to the Department of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences for the second time in four years. Like the first gift, it aims to support visiting scholars who are experts in at least one of these areas: Aristotle and theories of human nature, ethics and economics, social and political philosophy, or objectivity and values. The gift also will continue support for research and undergraduate and graduate programs in philosophy.

The Carolina Ballet will perform “Monet Impressions,” its original new work inspired by the art of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

Carolina Performing Arts will present the two-part performance at 8 p.m. March 31 and 2 p.m. April 1 in the Beasley-Curtis Auditorium of Memorial Hall.

The performance by the state’s premier dance troupe is inspired by the North Carolina Museum of Art’s recent exhibition “Monet in Normandy” (October 2006 to January 2007) and is a joint effort of ballet choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett and artistic director Robert Weiss.

“Picnic on the Grass,” the first part of the ballet, is based on Monet’s “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” and set to music by Parisian composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963). Monet painted the work about two years after the appearance of a painting of the same title by Edouard Manet.

“The Gardens at Giverny,” the second part of the performance, is influenced by Monet’s “Water Lilies, Evening Effect” and set to music by French composers Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918). The lifetimes of all three composers overlapped that of Monet, who lived from 1840 to 1926.

Tickets for “Monet Impressions,” $30-$60 and $18 for children under 12, are available online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org, by calling 843-3333 or from the Memorial Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Tickets for Carolina students are $10. Tickets also are on sale for other performances. For more information, visit www.carolina performingarts.org.

Daniel A. Reed, Chancellor’s Eminent Professor and director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), has been named senior adviser to the chancellor for strategy and innovation and executive director of an expanded RENCI.

In the new roles, Reed will work with Chancellor James Moeser, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bernadette Gray-Little, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Tony Waldrop and faculty to develop new multidisciplinary research initiatives. Reed will also oversee an expansion of RENCI, which he founded in 2004.

The University will launch a national search to hire a new chief information officer. Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology John Oberlin will serve as interim chief information officer (CIO).

Moeser said Reed’s new appointment and the RENCI expansion will be instrumental in securing $1 billion in external research funding by 2015 (Click here to read related story). Moeser announced the external research funding goal in his September 2006 “State of the University” address.

“Dan Reed turns big ideas into reality,” Moeser said. “Since his arrival at Carolina, he has assembled world-class computing and technology resources that enhance this University’s ability to find innovative solutions to complex, multidisciplinary problems.”

Reed said, “Our goal is the creation of wide-ranging initiatives — the kind of big research and academic ideas that will have transforming benefits for North Carolina and the world.”

RENCI is a collaboration of UNC, Duke University, N.C. State University and the state of North Carolina. Its mission is to foster a “renaissance” atmosphere by building multidisciplinary collaborations among research teams aimed at finding solutions to the most important problems of our time.

With enhanced state and federal support, RENCI will grow with additional faculty and staff. It also will integrate research computing, storage capabilities and new technology initiatives from UNC’s Information Technology Services (ITS) into an advanced research infrastructure to support the campus and RENCI’s statewide virtual organization.

Reed also will develop a branch of RENCI that will leverage UNC faculty expertise and advanced technologies to catalyze new multidisciplinary research opportunities. Called RENCI at UNC-Chapel Hill, it will provide a wide range of technological resources to the University’s major collaborative research activities. It will be an integral component of the statewide RENCI organization, which fosters partnerships at campuses and in communities across the state, and will contribute to the institute’s ongoing statewide initiatives in areas such as emergency response.

This integrated infrastructure also will complement and support RENCI’s statewide outreach mission. The expanded presence at UNC will elevate RENCI into one of the premier technology and research centers in the nation, with a total staff of more than 100 professionals supported by some of the world’s most advanced computing capabilities.

In his three years at Carolina, Reed has served the dual roles of RENCI director and CIO for the ITS. During that time, the revamped ITS has integrated campus computing services, helped launch the campus Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) process, and enhanced services for education, research, administration and outreach. Reed will assume his new role in April.

The new CIO will report to the provost and will manage the educational and administrative services components of ITS. Interim CIO John Oberlin is the associate vice chancellor for information technology planning and technology assessment. Before that, he was executive director for Academic Technology and Networks. In that role, Oberlin was responsible for managing and supervising the coordination of operations and technology systems and ensuring technology support for the University’s instructional mission.

Reed is a member of President Bush’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, charged with providing advice on science and American competitiveness, and chair of the board of the Computing Research Association, which represents major academic departments and industrial research laboratories in North America. He chairs the policy board for the National Research Scientific Computing Center and is a member of the electronic records advisory board for the National Archives. He came to Carolina from the University of Illinois in 2004, where he was director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

It’s 3:30 in the afternoon, and school’s out — do you know where your children are?

For a surprising number of teenagers, the answer is “at work, operating dangerous equipment.” According to a nationwide study conducted by UNC, 52 percent of males and 43 percent of females between 14 and 18 who work in grocery stores and restaurants are breaking federal child labor laws — using slicers and box cutters, selling alcohol where it’s consumed.

To add to the trouble, approximately one-third of the 866 teenaged workers surveyed didn’t receive any safety training, said lead study author Carol Runyan, director of UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) and professor of health behavior and health education in the School of Public Health. And those who did weren’t told what to do in case of robbery or fights in the workplace — a dangerous omission, given that the majority of these kids handle cash at work and that robbery-related homicide is responsible for up to half of youth fatalities in the retail trade.

For chidren under 16, working after 7 p.m. on school nights is illegal — but the study found that more than a third of those workers reported doing so. Some teens said they worked till after 11 p.m. Many teens also reported that they were working one or more days a week with no adult supervision. While Runyan believes parents need to be involved in making sure their children are safe at work, “Employers are the ones ultimately responsible for ensuring workplace safety and compliance with labor laws,” she said.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Collaborators on the study include: Michael Schulman, professor of sociology and anthropology, N.C. State University; Janet Dal Santo, IPRC senior research program coordinator; Michael Bowling, IPRC statistician and research associate professor, UNC department of health behavior and health education; Robert Agans, research associate, UNC department of biostatistics; and Myduc Ta, doctoral student, UNC department of epidemiology.

Ruth Marinshaw, acting assistant vice chancellor for research computing with Information Technology Services (ITS), works on connecting a network.

ITS staff spent spring break moving a significant portion of the campus computing infrastructure from Phillips Hall to ITS Manning, the first facility built for information technology on campus.

Staff also moved into ITS Manning in this month, consolidating most of ITS in two buildings, ITS Manning and ITS Franklin.

People who eat a high-fruit, low-meat diet have about half the risk of developing precancerous colon polyps than those who eat a high-meat diet, University researchers have found.

Surprisingly, the study also found that people who eat a high-vegetable, moderate-meat diet have essentially the same risk of developing a colorectal adenoma as the high-meat group, said Gregory Austin, a clinical fellow in gastroenterology at UNC Hospitals and lead author of the study, which is published in the April 2007 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

“People should eat more fruit and less meat. That’s the key finding here,” Austin said. “Eating a high-fruit, low-meat diet does seem to decrease your risk of developing a precancerous colorectal polyp.”

At the same time, people should not take this study as an indication that vegetable consumption is not helpful, Austin said.

The higher meat consumption in the high-vegetable, moderate-meat group may have led to the increased risk of developing an adenoma (a precancerous polyp) compared to the high-fruit, low-meat group.

Another surprising finding, Austin said, was that the high-fruit, low-meat group consumed more total calories than the high-vegetable, moderate meat group. As expected, the high-meat group consumed the largest amount of total calories.

The results are based on analysis of dietary patterns and lifestyle data collected from 645 patients who had a colonoscopy at UNC Hospitals. All of the participants were between 30 and 80 years old and had no personal history of colon cancer, precancerous polyps, inflammatory bowel disease or previous colon resection. Both men and women were included and the average age of study participants was 58. Among all participants, 179 had one or more adenomas.

Austin and colleagues collected information about the participants’ eating habits by using a food frequency questionnaire that records portion sizes for 124 food items developed by the National Cancer Institute. Participants provided information about their eating habits for the year leading up to their colonoscopy.

An initial analysis of the questionnaire data revealed three distinct clusters, or groups of dietary patterns. The largest group was the high-meat cluster, which included 53 percent of participants, whose eating habits most closely matched the typical American diet. The second-largest group was the high-fruit, low-meat cluster, which included 28 percent of participants. The smallest group was the high-vegetable, moderate-meat cluster, representing 18 percent.

The researchers adjusted their statistical analysis to control for differences in total calories consumed and for other potentially confounding variables. These included age; body mass index (BMI); race; use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin; sex; alcohol consumption; and if the participant smoked (if so, the number of years the participant smoked was factored into the analysis).

The final results showed that participants in the high-vegetable, moderate-meat cluster were more than twice as likely than participants in the high-fruit, low-meat cluster to have an adenoma. Participants in the high-meat group were 1.7 times more likely to have an adenoma than those in the high-fruit, low-meat cluster.

These results show a clear protective benefit for the high-fruit, low-meat diet, Austin said, while the other two groups have essentially twice the risk.

Austin’s co-authors, all from UNC, are Linda S. Adair and Jessie A. Satia, both from the department of nutrition; and Joseph A. Galanko and Christopher F. Martin, both from the division of gastroenterology and hepatology in the School of Medicine. Senior author is Robert S. Sandler, chief of the division of gastroenterology and hepatology.

Bald is beautiful - and profitable

Don Coulter, clinical fellow in pediatrics in the School of Medicine, submits with nervous good grace as Isaac Yarborough, 8, shaves his head during the March 8 fund raiser for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation in the lobby of the N.C. Children’s Hospital. Yarborough, who has osteosarcoma, is one of Coulter’s patients. The annual event — whose name fuses “bald” and “St. Patrick’s Day”— raises money and awareness for pediatric cancer research and to show solidarity to cancer patients who lose their hair during treatment. By the time Coulter’s last lock had fallen, the event had raised more than $3,000.

Keeping abreast of technology

Martha Pendergrass, center, director of Material and Disbursement Services, talks with a Nikon representative during the scientific research equipment and supplies vendor forum held at the Medical Biomolecular Research Building on March 15. Also pictured are, from left, Roger Patterson, associate vice chancellor for finance, and Bernard Law, director of Purchasing Services. The vendor forum offered researchers and staff an opportunity to see the latest research equipment from a variety of companies. Twenty suppliers participated with their products and in some cases made technical presentations.

Highway safety center expands global reach

The UNC Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) has expanded its international reach through a collaborative agreement with the Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Verkeersveiligheid (SWOV) Institute for Road Safety Research.

Representatives gather on March 7 to sign a memoradum of understanding on a research collaboration between UNC and the Institute for Road Safety Research in the Netherlands. Pictured are: (left - right) Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development; Fred Wegman, managing director, Institute for Road Safety Research; David Harkey, director, UNC Highway Safety Research Center; and Peter Coclanis, associate provost for international affairs.

Representatives from the University and the Netherlands-based research center gathered on March 7 to sign the memorandum of understanding, which will help both research centers collaborate on highway safety research.

“We are excited about the opportunity to share our highway safety knowledge with the Netherlands and learn more about the type of research conducted at SWOV,” said David Harkey, director of HSRC. “As we look ahead to the future of HSRC, we intend to include an international scope as part of our mission — this agreement is a step in that direction.”

The two centers will work in conjunction to advance road safety in the Netherlands and the United States by means of scientific research and the exchange of information. The agreement includes an exchange program that will allow researchers to experience and work within the other country. The centers also will explore opportunities for collaborative projects to improve road safety in developing countries throughout the world.

Attendees signing the agreement included Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development; Peter Coclanis, associate provost for international affairs; David Harkey, HSRC director; and Fred Wegman, managing director, Institute for Road Safety Research.

For more than 40 years, the HSRC has been a leading research institute helping to shape the field of transportation safety. The center’s mission is to improve the safety, security, access and efficiency of all surface transportation modes through a balanced, interdisciplinary program of research, evaluation and information dissemination.

Safety first at Carolina

Kitty Lynn, right, a fire safety inspector with Environment, Health and Safety (EHS), demonstrates proper use of a fire extinguisher to Karen Willis, center, administrative assistant in University Advancement, during the Health and Safety Fair March 14. Looking on at left is Conor Keeney, also a fire safety inspector. EHS turned the Great Hall of the FPG Student Union into exhibit space with booths and health and safety topics that included biosafety, lab safety, workplace safety, fire safety, ergonomics, radiation detection, workers’ compensation and exercise science.

Girls who mature early, date older boys at higher risk

Teenaged girls who mature physically sooner than their peers and who also have a romantic partner at least two years older have a higher risk for substance abuse, sex and a combination of sex and drug use, according to a University study.

“Adolescent girls and boys all are at risk for experimenting with sex, alcohol and drugs,” said Carolyn Tucker Halpern, associate professor of maternal and child health in the School of Public Health. “Those who mature early are known to be at higher risk for these problems. But within that group, girls who have an older boyfriend appear to be at an extra risk for multiple high-risk behaviors such as intravenous drug use, marijuana use and sexual intercourse.”

The study was based on a nationally representative sample of about 4,000 adolescents who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The students were under age 15 for the first part of the study, carried out during the 1994-95 school year, and have been tracked since then through follow-up surveys. The results are published in the March 2007 issue of the journal Prevention Science.

One in five teen girls in the study who started maturing physically earlier than their peers reported having a romantic partner who was older, compared to only one in 25 males who matured. There were not enough boys with older girlfriends in the study to allow researchers to draw any conclusions about whether older partners increased the boys’ danger for engaging in risky behaviors. However, having a romantic partner of any age increased the likelihood of risk behavior for both boys and girls.

More than 40 percent of the teens in the study reported having no romantic partners, and more than 36 percent of girls and 47 percent of boys had romantic partners of the same age or younger.

Halpern said this research should be a caution for parents.

“Parents of all teenagers have a responsibility for talking to their children and guiding them through romantic relationships and the risks of drug use,” she said. “But this study shows that parents of girls who reach puberty ahead of the peers and who have an older boyfriend should take a special interest.”

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Other authors of the study are: Christine Kaestle, assistant professor of human development at Virginia Polytechnic and State University, who recently received her Ph.D. from the UNC School of Public Health; and Denise Dion Hallfors, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Chapel Hill.

Automatic backup solution available online

Now, protecting all your computer’s data and settings is as easy as a few clicks from the comfort of your own desk.

ITS’ automatic data backup solution, Iron Mountain, is available for purchase online at software.unc.edu/IM. Customers can access backup information and user documentation from the website, make a personal or departmental order and instantly install the backup solution on their computers.

Iron Mountain costs $120 for a one-year subscription. Customers pay for the service online with their UNC One Cards.

Customers can visit the Information and Technology Resource Center for assistance with the installation and first backup, especially if their computers will be connecting to the Internet from off-campus.

The online data backup and recovery service gives users on-demand data retrieval 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over any Internet connection anywhere in the world. Easy to use, efficient and reliable, Iron Mountain protects data through regular, secure, automatic backups.

ITS encourages faculty, staff and students to back up their data manually using solutions such as CDs, DVDs, USB drives, iPods and e-mail if they do not choose to backup with Iron Mountain. For more information about backing up data, visit help.unc.edu/?id=141.

Automated Account Request system eases process
A new system that automates the creation of trust and special funds accounts has rolled out campuswide.

The new application electronically creates accounts that receive non-state and non-sponsored research funding. The system is used by campus departments that request accounts for gifts, endowments, loan funds, plant funds and receipt-supported institutional activities and service centers. The project will eventually include 16 types of accounts; the first phase will be expendable gift accounts.

The previous account request process was entirely manual. The new system is automated and electronic, from the initial request to the granting of the fund authority — the document from the University Controller authoring the use of the account.

For information on how to electronically request a trust and special fund account, visit Finance Central at https://s4.its.unc.edu/frs.

Oracle calendar tip: Including non-Oracle calendar users in meetings
Many faculty, staff and students on campus use the Oracle calendar, making it easy to find meeting times when everyone is free. Sometimes a meeting needs to be scheduled that includes people who are not Oracle calendar users.

Although it is not possible to include them in the meeting record, it is possible to use the Oracle calendar to send them an e-mail invitation to the meeting.

To do that, create the meeting. When you finish, you will be prompted to send e-mail to the meeting participants. Select “Yes” and enter the person’s e-mail address in the text entry box. Select the checkmark icon next to the text box to add that address to the list. You can choose to include an iCal or a vCal attachment with the meeting details in it.

For more information on using the Oracle calendar, refer to help.unc.edu and search for “Oracle calendar.” You can register for workshops or take short online tutorials about the calendar at LearnIT.unc.edu.

New take on ‘The Tempest’ coming to Memorial Hall stage

The storm to beat all storms is coming to Chapel Hill on April 5.

4D art, a Canadian theater company, will perform a high-tech version of Shakespeare’s masterpiece “The Tempest,” featuring live actors in a vivid digital landscape. The virtual reality performance weaves spells, creates visions and shares poetry.

4D art’s dazzling approach also includes a previously unimaginable storm worthy of the play’s name that appeals to the senses as well as the mind.

Carolina Performing Arts will present the play at 7:30 p.m. in the Beasley-Curtis Auditorium of Memorial Hall.

The Montreal-based 4D will perform in French, with Shakespeare’s original English text in supertitles.

“This cutting-edge performance, blending today’s technology with the words of Shakespeare, will be absolutely fascinating and magical,” said Emil Kang, executive director for the arts.

The play is a decidedly new take on the 400-year-old story of Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, stripped of his throne for favoring the quest for knowledge over the pursuit of power. He is exiled on a mysterious island with his daughter, Miranda.

Prospero taps magic in the stars to create a storm meant to destroy the enemy who brought about his downfall, but in the long run, realizes that forgiveness is his only option. The moral of the story, the directors write, is that in a world of constant change, the only goal to which we can aspire is to become better human beings.

Tickets for the “The Tempest,” $24-$50, are available online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org, by calling 843-3333 or from the Memorial Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Tickets for Carolina students are $10. For more information, visit www.carolinaperformingarts.org.