Bright yellow Alert Carolina posters are being hung in classrooms and classroom laboratory spaces across campus.

The new poster is part of the ongoing efforts to keep Carolina as safe as possible. It outlines what faculty and students must do when the sirens sound for a significant emergency or immediate threat to health and safety.

The poster responds to some confusion and uncertainty evident last fall when the University twice in one day activated the emergency sirens for separate tornado warnings in Orange County, said Chief Jeff McCracken, director of public safety.

A tornado warning means a tornado has been spotted and is on the ground. Because the threat is real, people should take immediate action, he said, but that is not what happened across campus. The timing of the siren activation near the beginning or end of class periods was a major factor in people’s confusion, McCracken said. And it was the first time officials actually turned on the sirens for a real event.

The poster is an additional way for the University community to become familiar with emergency response issues and the need to think in advance about what to do in an emergency. Recent reports of crimes on other campuses, including last month’s deadly shooting at Virginia Tech, are a stark reminder of why this is so important, McCracken said.

The poster also is included on the Alert Carolina website.

Published January 11, 2012.

UNC safety researchers are the winners of the first Carolina Apps Competition.

The contest was co-sponsored by the office of the UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovate@Carolina.

Each year in the United States, about 6,000 teens between the ages of 15 and 20 die in motor vehicle crashes.

But researchers from the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are working on a smartphone app to tackle the problem. A Highway Safety Research Center team will develop a mobile app that will get critical safety information into the hands of parents and teens as they begin the graduated driver licensing process.

For years, the center has designed programs that reduce young driver crashes and the resulting injuries and fatalities. Its initiatives include graduated driver licensing systems, a concept developed and championed by the center, which have been adopted in North Carolina and many other states. The systems are designed to give young drivers substantial practice under safe conditions.

Barbara Entwisle, vice chancellor for research, said projects that turn research into useful products for the public are exactly what her office wants to support.

“We want to encourage Carolina faculty, staff and students to think creatively about ways their research can benefit the real world,” Entwisle said. “The Highway Safety Research Center’s findings will inform and improve the teen driving experience through an easily accessible and engaging mobile app. It’s exciting to see Carolina-born ideas move out into the community.”

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Published December 13, 2011.

A UNC-Chapel Hill law professor who has hands-on experience with the confirmation process for U.S. Supreme Court justices will share his insights at a Constitution Day lecture Sept. 17.

Michael Gerhardt, Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor in Constitutional Law, will present “Constitutional Civility: What We Have Learned about the Confirmation Process from Marshall to Kagan” at noon in the rotunda of the UNC School of Law. Light refreshments will be served.

Gerhardt is director of the UNC Center for Law and Government. He has served as special counsel and testified before Congress.

Constitution Day commemorates the day on which the Constitution of the United States was signed in 1787.

The University will celebrate its history as the nation’s first public university on University Day, Oct. 12.

The featured speaker, Thomas W. Ross, president of the University of North Carolina, will give the keynote speech for the convocation, which begins at 11 a.m. Classes will be canceled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. to all faculty, staff and students to participate. Chancellor Holden Thorp will preside.

In case of rain on Wednesday morning, faculty and staff participating in the processional should line up inside Phillips Hall.

University Day marks the laying of the cornerstone of Old East, the nation’s first state university building, in 1793 and the beginning of public higher education in the United States. The campus first celebrated University Day in 1877.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1971 consolidation of North Carolina’s public institutions of higher education under one governing body and president. Ross became the fifth president of the 17-campus UNC system on Jan. 1, 2011, and was inaugurated on Oct. 6 at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

A native of Greensboro, Ross earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College in 1972 and graduated with honors from Carolina’s School of Law in 1975. After a short stint as an assistant professor at the School of Government, Ross joined the Greensboro law firm of Smith Patterson Follin Curtis James & Harkavy. He left the firm in 1982 to serve as chief of staff in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Rep. Robin Britt.

The following year, at the age of 33, he was appointed by Gov. Jim Hunt as the youngest North Carolina Superior Court Judge at the time, a position he held for the next 17 years.
In 1999, Ross was appointed director of the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts. Two years later, he became executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and in 2007 he was named president at Davidson, serving in that role until he assumed leadership of the UNC system.

He has served on the boards of trustees at Davidson and UNC Greensboro, as well as the boards of visitors at Wake Forest University and Carolina. In addition, his many honors include Distinguished Alumni Awards from Davidson and the law school at Carolina, and an honorary doctorate from UNC Greensboro.

Other University Day convocation highlights will include the presentation of Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Awards, a practice begun by the faculty in 1971 to recognize Tar Heels who have made outstanding contributions to humanity.

This year’s recipients are prize-winning songwriter Alan Bergman; Denise Jean Jamieson, a physician and national leader in promoting women’s reproductive health; Frederick Otto Mueller, professor emeritus and former chair of the department of exercise and sport science; Linda Ellen Oxendine, one of the first American Indian woman to receive a bachelor’s degree from Carolina; and Thomas Hart Sayre, co-founder of multidisciplinary design firm Clearscapes.

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Tar Heel basketball fans can watch the Carrier Classic on the Jumbotron in Carmichael Arena on Nov. 11, while alumni groups around the world will use the event as a time to serve U.S. military veterans.

The game features Carolina versus Michigan State aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in San Diego harbor. After a volleyball match against Georgia Tech at 5:15 p.m., fans can watch the 7 p.m. game. Admission is free for both events. Concessions will be available throughout the evening.

Carolina alumni worldwide will gather in honor of Veterans Day to watch the Heels as well as perform service projects to support the military. UNC alumni clubs perform service projects each fall as part of Tar Heel Service Days.

Among those watching will be alumni in Brazzaville, Congo.

Closer to home, the San Diego Carolina Club will feature a game-viewing party and collect donations in cash and retail gift cards for Homefront San Diego. Homefront provides young military families with food, clothing, cribs and auto maintenance.

Among other alumni clubs’ plans:

• Atlanta alumni will write thank-you notes to military members for their service. Participants also may donate $11 to help local military families during the holidays.

• Baltimore alumni will collect donations and raffle gift certificates from businesses to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. The foundation provides full scholarships and educational and family counseling to surviving children of special operations personnel who die in operational or training missions, as well as immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families.

• Pittsburgh alumni will serve dinner to local Veterans of Foreign Wars members.

• In North Carolina, the New Bern club will hold a raffle to pay for sending a veteran on a trip with Honor Flight of Southeastern N.C. The nonprofit arranges one-day flights for veterans from New Bern to Washington, D.C., to see the World War II memorial and others. On the UNC campus, the Orange and Durham counties club will gather at the Blue Zone event facilities in Kenan Stadium while collecting toiletries and other supplies for the local Veterans Administration hospital.

Published November 7, 2011.

Teaching athletic trainers and medical providers how to prevent deaths and serious injuries among high school and college athletes will be the focus of top experts from around the country meeting at UNC-Chapel Hill April 29-30.

The experts will teach athletic trainers and medical providers at the inaugural Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Neurotrauma Symposium. The symposium will bring about 150 health-care professionals from across the Southeast and beyond for presentations from more than a dozen experts. Registration for the sold-out event is closed.

The agenda represents a comprehensive overview of sports-related serious injury and sudden death issues, including brain injuries such as concussions. Between 1.6 million and 3.8 million sport-related traumatic brain injuries occur in the United States every year, estimates show.

Conference chair Jason Mihalik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the exercise and sport science department in the College of Arts and Sciences, said experts from a diverse range of fields – including the military, legal, medical, exercise science and coaching realms – will share their knowledge.

“Sport injuries, especially head injuries, don’t occur in an athletic vacuum,” said Mihalik. “Brain trauma can seriously affect every aspect of a student’s life, from their playing ability, to their studies, to their relationships with family and friends. Their whole future can change in an instant.

“Dealing with neurotramua is not just a sporting or medical issue. It’s going to take a lot of smart people from different fields to prevent these kinds of injuries and help kids that do get hurt to recover from them. That’s why we’re holding this meeting,” he said.

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Published April 26, 2011.

More than 23 programs, tours, workshops and performing arts events, ranging from dance lessons and films to a comedy performance, will mark American Indian Heritage Month at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Gov. Bev Perdue is scheduled to sign a proclamation declaring November American Indian Heritage Month in North Carolina on Thursday (Nov. 3).

UNC events are free and on campus unless otherwise noted. Find campus locations.

American Indian Heritage Month was first proclaimed by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. It recognizes contemporary American Indian tribes and individuals as active participants in American society and honors their histories, cultures and achievements. November marks a time to note the existence of Indian tribes and reflect on their significance in American history and contributions to American culture.

Published Nov. 1, 2011.

UNC ranks fourth among large colleges and universities contributing the greatest number of graduating seniors to Teach For America, according to the organization’s annual ranking of schools released Aug. 2.

Carolina made its debut at eighth on the top contributors list in 2008 and has risen steadily since then. This year, UNC contributed 80 graduates to the incoming corps. Nearly 8 percent of UNC’s senior class applied to Teach For America. Throughout Teach For America’s 20-year history, more than 540 UNC alumni have taught as corps members.

Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity. Teach For America recruits individuals from all academic majors and backgrounds who have demonstrated outstanding achievement, perseverance, and leadership.

Carolina’s Project Uplift has grown from a small, student-led initiative to the point where the program brings 1,200 high school students to campus each summer.

Directed by the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, the summer residential recruitment program began 43 years ago with the goal of enhancing the racial/ethnic and socio-economic diversity of Carolina’s undergraduate student body.

Each year, high school guidance counselors across North Carolina nominate students to attend the two-day program. They are from the top 25 percent of their class and are from historically underrepresented populations: African American, American Indian, Latina/o, Asian American, low-income, rural and first-generation.

Project Uplift allows students to experience Carolina for themselves and gain essential information about the campus.

The program’s main goal is to recruit students to UNC-Chapel Hill, but program organizers also focus on helping students choose the college, university or higher education opportunity that best serves their needs. Campus administrators and faculty show the students how to apply for scholarships and student aid, as well as teach them how to apply themselves in an academic setting.

Project Uplift challenges and encourages students to become leaders. Participants leave knowing more about themselves and others, and how to make a college experience work for them. UNC-Chapel Hill is a committed and inclusive community of people who want to make life successful. Participants have the opportunity to learn, to network and to make lifelong friends.

Researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill have been awarded a $32 million, five-year federal grant to develop ways to cure people with HIV by purging the virus hiding in the immune systems of patients taking antiretroviral therapy. Tackling the latent virus is considered key to a cure for AIDS.

“This is the first major funding initiative ever to focus on HIV eradication, and we at UNC are excited to lead this collaboration of an incredible group of 19 investigators from across the country,” said David Margolis, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology in the UNC School of Medicine and principal investigator of the effort.

While previous HIV funding initiatives focused on prevention and vaccine development, “with this funding, the NIH and the scientific community are saying that finding a cure for AIDS is a realistic goal and should be part of our plan of attack against the epidemic,” said Margolis, who is also professor of epidemiology in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Although individuals infected with HIV may effectively control virus levels with antiretroviral drugs and maintain relatively good health, the virus is never fully eliminated from the cells and tissues it has infected. Researchers need to better understand where these reservoirs of HIV are located, how they are established and maintained, and how to eliminate them.

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