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NC State University News Clips for September 14-16, 2002

Compiled by North Carolina State University’s News Services, a part of the Public Affairs Office. Listed below are the current news clips. Click on the headline of interest to be taken to the full text. Click on “Return to Headline List” at the bottom of each clip or use the scrollbar to be taken back to this location.

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NCSU's Fox joins PPD's board of directors

Friday, September 14, 2002
The Business Journal
By Sabine Vollmer, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.

Marye Anne Fox, North Carolina State University chancellor and a NCSU chemistry professor, has been named to the board of directors of Wilmington-based PPD.

Fox also serves on President Bush?s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Research Council's science engineering and public policy committee. She is co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences? council of government-university-industry research.

Considered a creative physical organic chemist, she has more than 25 years of experience in research and teaching.

PPD provides discovery and development services and products for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The company has an operation in Morrisville.

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Small scale, big promise

Monday, September 16, 2002
News & Observer
By Catherine Clabby, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Imagine computers the size of sugar cubes and wired with new materials one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair.

Or microscopic machines cruising through a child's veins tracking a deadly virus. Or military uniforms smart enough to detect a chemical weapon and repel it.

Such is the promise of nanoscience -- innovation on the tiniest scale that is revving up on Triangle campuses. Promoters say the field could transform everything from manufacturing to medicine. President Bush likes it enough to ask Congress to expand funding by 17 percent in 2003 to $679 million. Local campuses are positioning themselves to cash in.

"It's one of the handful of areas that is going to dominate scientific interests for decades ahead," said Robert Shelton, provost at UNC-Chapel Hill. "If you don't go into this and do it in a sufficient way to attract the best people, you'll always be below critical mass. It's that competitive."

To better compete, UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser recently announced plans to open a $3 million Triangle National Lithography Center at N.C. State University in Raleigh, largely to keep star chemist Joseph DeSimone and his nanoscale research in the Triangle. Its doors on Centennial Campus will open to businesses and other scholars, too.

Moeser also unveiled plans for a new Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology in Chapel Hill, to cost at least $10 million annually. It will house chemists, physicists, computer scientists and biologists streaming to nanoscience. NCSU and Duke University in Durham plan to build new nanoscale labs as well, which can require vibration-proof chambers and highly sensitive equipment.

To envision the nanoscale, think small and then much smaller. Keep shrinking your thinking. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. It takes 1 million of them to stretch across the head of a pin. But it takes 10 hydrogen atoms to span one nanometer.

Nature works on that level when assembling atoms and molecules to make everything from water droplets to the many components in human cells. In recent decades, scientists linked ultrasensitive probes and computers to generate images of nature's handiwork. Now they want to learn to build from the bottom up, too.

"To look at the ultimate detail is to look at atoms," said Rich Superfine, a UNC-Chapel Hill physicist and one of the best-known nanoscience researchers in the Triangle. "The promise is to be able to control matter at that scale."

One obvious application is electronics, the realm of the microchip, where scientists package ever-smaller circuitry to make computers smarter and faster.

The newly announced lithography center will give Triangle researchers and businesses access to lasers needed to make even smaller chips and devices. It will also permit DeSimone, who has a joint appointment at UNC and NCSU, and his NCSU collaborator, Ruben Carbonell, to try to shrink them further still.

"We'll be the only university that has this kind of facility where users can come," Carbonell said. "It will attract new collaborators and research grants."

Nanoscience, which has already attracted tens of millions in funding to Triangle campuses, tends to yield collaborations across specialties. At Duke, David Needham, a materials science professor, works closely with Mark Dewhirst, a radiation oncology professor, and others.

Needham invented a wax membrane that can carry chemotherapy drugs through the bloodstream to cancerous tumors. It leaks when heated to the right temperature, spilling a toxic assault near the tumor rather than all over the body.

The approach, which like many nanoscale results is patented, has worked on dogs at the NCSU and Colorado State University veterinary schools and is approaching human clinical trials on breast and prostrate cancer.

"To do it properly, you have to have a series of people involved," Needham said.

Still, nanotechnology mostly remains more theory than reality.

Scientists recognize that some of the physical laws that control larger objects don't apply when you reach the atomic scale, where quantum mechanics hold sway. Some environmentalists wonder if work on this scale could have unintended consequences.

To a large extent, scientists are exploring unmapped terrain.

Superfine runs his sprawling lab at UNC-Chapel Hill with fellow physicist Sean Washburn and computer scientist Russ Taylor. Much of their work focuses on creating tools helping people explore this new ground, including creation of a "nanomanipulator."

The device does not only display nanoscale objects, which can be extremely strong and promising energy conductors. Thanks to virtual technology, it also lets users feel them, so they can push the objects around, make them twist and roll and measure their physical properties.

Awesome machines

Increasingly, the lab is building instruments that can display and measure the tiny machines inside the human body.

Scientists are intrigued by living machines, from the devices that transport nourishment across cells to the motors that move cilia -- the tiny hairlike structures that perform countless tasks, including sweeping debris off the surface of people's lungs. "The closer you look, the more you can't help but be in awe of the machines of biology," Superfine said.

Still, even at these preliminary stages of work, Triangle nanopioneers are attracting attention.

Jan Genzer, a chemical engineering professor at NCSU, made national headlines in 2000 when he devised a novel way to coat rubber with a layer only one molecule thick that is fully waterproof.

Not only might it inspire better raincoats and umbrellas, it might one day eliminate the need for windshield wipers.

More recently, Genzer succeeded at creating a material out of gold that researchers could use in laboratory filters to sort tiny things, including DNA molecules.

Genzer stressed that he is not certain that nanotechnology will ever deliver everything enthusiasts dream of. Work on the atomic and molecular scale is bound to prove complicated.

Still, he said, there is great promise in copying nature and harnessing its smallest building blocks.

"Mother Nature is a beautiful example for all of us," Genzer said. "We are trying to mimic her in every way possible."

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Professor helps put face on history

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer; News 14 Carolina
By Dan Kane, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

N.C. State University English professor Robert Kochersberger has spent half his life researching the life and times of Ida M. Tarbell, one of the original muckraking journalists, so he knows how she would react to seeing her image on a 37-cent U.S. postage stamp.

"She'd be embarrassed," Kochersberger said. "She was always very unprepossessing, and she didn't like attention very much."

But when Tarbell's stamp is unveiled today, one of her biggest fans will share the blame. Kochersberger, 52, served as a historical consultant for the stamp, one of four commemorating pioneering female journalists. Fifteen million tiny portraits of Tarbell in straw hat and bow tie will grace letters and stamp books across the country.

Tarbell is best known for a series of magazine articles on Standard Oil Co.'s attempt to monopolize the oil industry at the turn of the 20th century. Her reports sparked federal antitrust legislation that broke up Standard Oil.

Kochersberger first learned of Tarbell while growing up in Chautauqua County in southwestern New York. Tarbell had received her early experience in journalism at the Chautauquan Magazine during the 1880s, before traveling to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and write free-lance articles for U.S. publications.

She returned to the United States three years later to work for McClure's, then a popular general interest publication, and published books and articles up until her death in 1944 at the age of 86.

When Kochersberger returned to college after several years as a newspaper reporter in upstate New York, a professor at Syracuse University suggested he write his thesis on Tarbell. He became awed by her lifelong devotion to precision journalism. In 1994, eight years after joining the NCSU faculty, Kochersberger produced a book of her writings entitled "More than a Muckraker: Ida Tarbell's Lifetime in Journalism."

A scientist by training, Tarbell advanced the cause of journalism through her steadfast attention to the facts and through her desire to remain neutral -- tenets as important today as they were 100 years ago, Kochersberger said.

"People wanted her to be their Joan of Arc, but she wouldn't do it," Kochersberger said. "That was part of her attention to detail. It was her desire to uncover absolutely everything on both sides of every issue."

The other journalists honored on new stamps to be issued by the Postal Service today are Nellie Bly, Marguerite Higgins and Ethel L. Payne.

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Footnotes

Monday, September 16, 2002
News & Observer
By staff reports
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

NCSU selects vice chancellor

N.C. State University has decided to hire from within for its new vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, naming John G. Gilligan, professor of nuclear engineering and associated dean for research and graduate programs in the College of Engineering.

"Dr. Gilligan brings outstanding records in both research and administration to this challenging post," NCSU Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said. "We're confident that his leadership will enhance the university's role as a top-tier research institution."

A specialist in fusion-energy technology, fusion fuel cycles, plasma-material surface interaction, low-temperature plasmas and electric plasma guns, Gilligan received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. He joined the NCSU faculty in 1983.

NC colleges make the list

It's that time again. College rankings are released almost daily each September. Several North Carolina universities recently made Kiplinger's "Baccalaureate Bargains," a list of the 100 best and most affordable public colleges. UNC-Chapel Hill topped the list for the third time in a row - "a remarkable three-peat for the Tar Heels," Kiplinger's said.

Other North Carolina institutions on the list are: N.C. State, No. 17; UNC Asheville, No. 21; Appalachian State, No. 37; NC Central, No. 49; UNC-Wlimington, No. 68; UNC Charlotte, No. 70; NC A&T, No. 94; and Elizabeth City State, No. 96.

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People

Monday, September 16, 2002
News & Observer
By staff reports
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Gregory D. Jennings, professor and extension specialist in biological and agricultural engineering, has been named associate director of the UNC Water Resources Research Institute at NCSU. It promotes partnerships in research and information transfer on water-related issues. Jennings earned a doctorate in agricultural engineering from the University of Nebraska and is a licensed professional engineer in North Carolina. He joined the NCSU faculty in 1990.

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Wake-up call -- at 1 a.m.

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer; WRAL-TV (AP version)
By Jane Stancill, staff writer
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Raleigh -- What started as a silent midnight "read-in" to protest reduced library hours turned into a raucous event in the wee hours of Friday morning, when hundreds of N.C. State University students marched across campus and knocked on the door of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

The students were upset about a state budget crisis that has led NCSU to cut overnight hours at the university's D.H. Hill Library. They say they're enduring crowded classes and curtailed campus services, yet paying higher tuition.

"There's a lot of frustration," senior Michael Anthony, student body president, said Friday. "The library was the last straw."

The students marched along Hillsborough Street, yelling, "No more budget cuts!" When they got to Fox's home, the chant was "Open the door!"

The chancellor emerged and talked with the students for more than hour.

"There's not much that captures your attention more than 300 or 400 students on your front lawn at 1 o'clock in the morning," Fox said later on Friday. "I thought we had a good exchange, and we have a pledge to meet again [Saturday] at noon to continue the discussion."

NCSU has been operating on the assumption of a 5 percent cut, though the legislature hasn't reached a final budget yet. The budget could be settled next week, and it looks as if the UNC system will receive a cut of no more than 3 percent.

Still, university students are feeling the cumulative effects of past cuts, said NCSU student Jonathan Ducote, the student representative on the UNC Board of Governors. "The buildup of all these cuts is finally cutting into academic instruction," he said.

Fox asked the students to thank legislators who supported the university during a tough year, but she said she understood their anger.

"Obviously they're concerned about the quality of their education when cuts need to be imposed," she said.

Fox promised she would restore the library's hours if the final budget permits it. Another high priority, she said, would be to ensure that students have access to the classes they need to graduate.

Anthony said the protest wasn't really aimed at the chancellor. "We know she doesn't have the money in her pocket," he said. "But we know who does -- the General Assembly. We want to send the message that we're too important to the economy and the future of the state to have these cuts."

Despite the inconvenient hour, Fox said the students were well behaved. They even raised $200 to help cover the expenses of library workers who had to stay on the job past midnight.

"You just wanted to put your arms around them and say, 'Thank you for participating,' you know?" Fox said. "Thank you for caring about your education."

Then, after a pause, she said: "Now, maybe I might not have chosen 1 o'clock to do it. But they're great kids."

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Hefty harvest, thin profits

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer
By Jerry Allegood, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

BEAUFORT - Workers at Homer Smith Seafood Co. snatched up handfuls of thumb-thick shrimp piled high on a wooden table, snapping off the heads to produce a delicacy as pricey as steak. Shrimp hauled from coastal waters are among the most valuable harvests for North Carolina fishermen -- worth about $25.4 million last year. But in recent years, they've gone head to long-whiskered head with seafood shipped from as far away as South America and Asia, and some fishermen and dealers say the imports are depressing prices and threatening their livelihood.

"The imports are hurting, very much so," said Leslie Daniels, a Carteret County seafood dealer. "It will eventually destroy the industry."

U.S. fleets cannot satisfy the country's appetite for shrimp -- a record 3.4 pounds per person last year, outpacing canned tuna for the first time. U.S. producers' share of the market has shrunk to about 12 percent, and many shrimpers want tariffs or restrictions on foreign seafood, which, they claim, is not produced under environmental, health and safety regulations U.S. shrimpers face.

Shrimpers along the Gulf of Mexico who produce the bulk of the United States' 170 million pounds a year are considering suing countries they accuse of dumping low-cost shrimp in this country. Louisiana fishermen in particular blame increasing amounts of pond-raised shrimp for the lowest prices in 20 years, causing many to tie up their boats.

Some North Carolina industry officials are wary of a costly battle over imports, but there is no question the state shrimp industry is ever less profitable.

Foreign imports swelled supplies this year as North Carolina's own harvest increased to near-record volume. Biologists say the lack of rainfall during spring and early summer increased salinity in creeks, rivers and bays, creating ideal conditions for young shrimp to grow. The take is expected to be double the 5.2 million pounds caught last year.

"It was one of the biggest seasons we've had in 10 or 15 years, as far as volume," said Tony Frost, manager of Homer Smith Seafood Co. in Beaufort.

That meant lower prices at the dock.

Billy Carl Tillett of Moon Tillett Fish Co. in Wanchese in Dare County said prices paid to fishermen this year, about $2.50 a pound, were roughly a dollar less than in 2001. That price, he said, is not worth the effort to catch the crustaceans with the 85-foot trawlers his company runs. Workers were rigging one boat to fish for croaker.

"In dollars and cents, it's not going to be a record year," he said.

Jim Bahen, a seafood specialist with the N.C. Sea Grant program, said 80 percent to 85 percent of the shrimp consumed in the United States comes from foreign waters, and only about 12 percent is fresh domestic shrimp. Much of the imported shrimp is caught or raised in aquaculture operations in South America and Asia.

Fishermen complain that foreign fleets can use cheaper labor and don't have to comply with regulations for protecting sea turtles. U.S. fishermen are required to use turtle excluder devices in nets that are pulled for long periods. The devices allow turtles to escape before they drown, but fishermen say they also reduce the catch.

"With the trawler-caught and aquaculture shrimp, these guys [U.S. fishermen] are having a tough time," Bahen said.

A Sea Grant study in Texas shows that in 1980, 208 million pounds, 45 percent of the 466 million pounds of shrimp consumed in the United States that year, was caught by U.S. fishermen. By 2001, consumption rose to 1.4 billion pounds, and the domestic share fell to 170 million pounds. Those figures are for shrimp with heads off.

Jeff Lowrance, a spokesman for the Food Lion Grocery Co., said wholesale prices this year are about 8 percent to 10 percent lower, a savings he said is passed to consumers.

Glenn Hieronymus, operator of Hieronymus Seafood and Produce Co. in Hampstead, said he handles only fresh-caught domestic shrimp, but it is tough to compete in price with imports. He offered large head-on shrimp for $4.99 a pound and the decapitated variety for $7.50 to $8.95. "That's a low price," he said.

He said head-off shrimp selling for $6.99 at some retail outlets are large tiger shrimp imported from Asia. Pond-raised shrimp are not as tasty as wild shrimp, he said, yet large numbers push down prices for the domestic products.

"When customers are misled and mistreated, they don't know any better," he said. "They think they're getting a good deal."

Hieronymus' wife, Marlene, a chef at the family's Cary restaurant who teaches cooking classes in which she touts the virtues of the natural product, said more people are expressing interest in learning ways of cooking shrimp, including European dishes where the whole shrimp -- head and all -- is included. But she worried that imports could supplant domestic shrimp just as crab meat imports have pushed U.S. blue crab out of many markets.

"It makes me so mad when we see fishermen we've been dealing with for 30 years have to go to work in other jobs," she said.

Frost said restaurants and retailers should let consumers know where their shrimp were caught. "The consumer thinks it's coming from these boats," he said, motioning to the trawlers outside his fish house, "but it's not."

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Biotech training center sought

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer
By David Ranii, staff writer
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Senate leaders are preparing to introduce a bill that would provide $35 million to build a biotechnology manufacturing training center that could help attract manufacturers to the state as well as serve the work force needs of existing North Carolina companies.

The measure also is expected to include $130 million to build a new cancer treatment center at UNC Hospitals, which would replace a 49-year-old facility that hospital officials consider inadequate.

Erecting a 65,000-square-foot pilot biotech manufacturing plant that could train 2,000 students annually -- from community college students to Ph.D. candidates -- would supplement the Golden LEAF Foundation's recent announcement of a $70.4 million economic stimulus package that focused on attracting biotech manufacturing. That plan included $10 million for job training programs handled by the N.C. Community College System and others, as well as $42 million in venture-capital funds to lure biotech manufacturers.

"You have to have the work force," said Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight. "If you just have the money and not the work force, you can't succeed." He added: "We want to be the leader in biomanufacturing in the world."

The Senate leadership has been working with Charles Hamner, the retired head of the state-funded N.C. Biotechnology Center, on the training project.

Funding for the training facility and the cancer center would come from a bond issue. Debt payments on the bonds would come from future tobacco lawsuit settlement money going to the Tobacco Trust Fund and the Health and Wellness Trust Fund.

N.C. State University's Centennial Campus is the site most often mentioned for the training center, but no decision has been made. Another candidate, said Sen. John Kerr, a Goldsboro Democrat and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is the Environmental Protection Agency's old headquarters in Research Triangle Park, which the agency is leaving.

"There is nothing like it, to my knowledge, in the country," Peter Kilpatrick, head of NCSU's chemical engineering department, said of the proposed training facility. Its ability to provide hands-on training as a supplement for textbook and laboratory courses, he added, can be a magnet for biotech companies seeking sites to manufacture their products.

Biotech companies with manufacturing facilities in the state are scrambling to fill jobs, which require workers with a more education and training than old-line manufacturing jobs, said Sam Taylor, executive vice president of the N.C. Biosciences Organization, an industry trade group. North Carolina ranked fourth in the nation last year with 14 publicly owned and 73 privately held biotech companies, according to a survey by Ernst & Young.

"There is absolutely a critical need [for training], even if we didn't add any more companies here," Taylor said. He said the combined expansions of the six companies with biotechnology manufacturing facilities in the Triangle -- Bayer's biologicals unit, Biogen, Diosynth RTP, Novo Nordisk, Novozymes and Wyeth Vaccines -- is expected to amount to hundreds of new jobs each year for the next several years.

Biotech manufacturing companies have been lobbying for a training facility that could meet their future needs, said Hal Price, director of manufacturing administration and community relations at Biogen in RTP. Biogen has 360 employees at its RTP complex and expects to expand to 1,000 by the end of 2005. Fifty-five percent of Biogen's manufacturing employees have at least a bachelor's degree, and 70 percent have at least an associate's degree.

"The manufacturing process isn't a put-it-together, widget kind of a situation," Price said. "It's a process that changes daily. We need people with a background in science, that have a mechanical aptitude, and that are computer literate to support the needs of the process."

North Carolina is facing competition from other states that are investing heavily to attract biotech companies. But North Carolina has an advantage because it already is "one of the premier places, if not the premier place, for doing biotech manufacturing," said Ken Tindall, senior vice president for science and business development at the biotech center.

A new cancer center for UNC Hospitals is being tethered to the biotech manufacturing training center because the cancer center's mission includes conducting clinical trials of experimental oncology drugs.

UNC Hospitals' current cancer treatment center is so antiquated that the floors can't support the weight of some of the latest cancer-treatment equipment, said Jeffrey Houpt, dean of UNC's medical school and chief executive officer of the health-care system. "This facility is inadequate to do the work," he said.

UNC wants to build a new 272,000-square-foot, seven-floor building on Manning Drive in Chapel Hill, adjacent to the Neurosciences Hospital. "The need is great. We have a fast-growing cancer program. This is going to be a great asset to the people of North Carolina," Houpt said.

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Wake-up call -- at 1 a.m.

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer; WRAL-TV (AP version)
By Jane Stancill, staff writer
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Raleigh -- What started as a silent midnight "read-in" to protest reduced library hours turned into a raucous event in the wee hours of Friday morning, when hundreds of N.C. State University students marched across campus and knocked on the door of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

The students were upset about a state budget crisis that has led NCSU to cut overnight hours at the university's D.H. Hill Library. They say they're enduring crowded classes and curtailed campus services, yet paying higher tuition.

"There's a lot of frustration," senior Michael Anthony, student body president, said Friday. "The library was the last straw."

The students marched along Hillsborough Street, yelling, "No more budget cuts!" When they got to Fox's home, the chant was "Open the door!"

The chancellor emerged and talked with the students for more than hour.

"There's not much that captures your attention more than 300 or 400 students on your front lawn at 1 o'clock in the morning," Fox said later on Friday. "I thought we had a good exchange, and we have a pledge to meet again [Saturday] at noon to continue the discussion."

NCSU has been operating on the assumption of a 5 percent cut, though the legislature hasn't reached a final budget yet. The budget could be settled next week, and it looks as if the UNC system will receive a cut of no more than 3 percent.

Still, university students are feeling the cumulative effects of past cuts, said NCSU student Jonathan Ducote, the student representative on the UNC Board of Governors. "The buildup of all these cuts is finally cutting into academic instruction," he said.

Fox asked the students to thank legislators who supported the university during a tough year, but she said she understood their anger.

"Obviously they're concerned about the quality of their education when cuts need to be imposed," she said.

Fox promised she would restore the library's hours if the final budget permits it. Another high priority, she said, would be to ensure that students have access to the classes they need to graduate.

Anthony said the protest wasn't really aimed at the chancellor. "We know she doesn't have the money in her pocket," he said. "But we know who does -- the General Assembly. We want to send the message that we're too important to the economy and the future of the state to have these cuts."

Despite the inconvenient hour, Fox said the students were well behaved. They even raised $200 to help cover the expenses of library workers who had to stay on the job past midnight.

"You just wanted to put your arms around them and say, 'Thank you for participating,' you know?" Fox said. "Thank you for caring about your education."

Then, after a pause, she said: "Now, maybe I might not have chosen 1 o'clock to do it. But they're great kids."

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Campus construction a lesson in patience

Monday, September 16, 2002
News & Observer
By Anne Blythe, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

CHAPEL HILL - Elisabeth Gates was in a history class last week on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus when the professor called for a brief period of silence in observance of Sept. 11.

A hush fell over the Peabody Hall classroom as the teacher sat down in the front row with the students. But 20 seconds later, the piercing sound of a drill overhead jolted the class from solemn meditation.

"It was very frustrating," Gates, a senior, said. "It was a pretty serious thing we were doing, and this drill just kept going. It really made it hard to concentrate."

The din of construction is disrupting life for students and staff members on the Chapel Hill campus. Beyond the noise, there are barricades and plastic orange fencing to dodge, trucks and heavy equipment to sidestep, and fierce parking wars for the dwindling number of spaces near classrooms, labs, dormitories and offices.

"What's troubling is the constant unfinished sections of the roads," said Miriam Settle, deputy director of the Center for Health Promotion And Disease Prevention. "There is always something new. I'm particularly sensitive to the chaotic stuff around the hospital complex and by the Ambulatory Care Center. For people who live in town, we can figure other ways to go. But I'm sympathetic to the out-of-town visitors who have to figure out how to get around it."

Chapel Hill is just one of the UNC system campuses feeling the effects of the construction spree spurred by the $3.1 billion in higher education bonds.

Since November 2000, when voters approved the capital-spending plan for the 16-campus system, two-thirds of the bond program projects are in some stage of design or construction, according to Kevin MacNaughton, the UNC system vice president of finance and overseer of the property office.

Bonds sold so far total $443.5 million and support contractual obligations of more than $583 million, with some private money being put toward some projects.

At N.C. State University, where $468 million in bonds are earmarked, 27 of the 59 project bid packages are in the design phase, MacNaughton said.

Four projects have been completed on the Raleigh campus or outlying parcels: new horticultural classrooms at the Arboretum, several field research labs, a feed mill project and new greenhouses for the undergraduate sciences teaching labs.

Also at NCSU, construction has begun on the $17 million undergraduate science complex, and a site on the Centennial Campus is being prepared for the first phase of a building for the College of Engineering. Six other projects are under way at the system's largest school.

In Durham, much of the $121 million in bonds allocated for N.C. Central University has been put toward land acquisition thus far, with campus officials planning to build a new science complex on the old Hillside High School site.

Construction is nearly complete on the $2.4 million renovation of McLean Residence Hall.

"Central and State are both going to have a lot of activity in the next few months," MacNaughton said.

In Chapel Hill, where more than a sixth of the bonds' amount is to be spent, there is mixed reaction to all the construction.

Gates, the senior history major whose observation of Sept. 11 was interrupted by the sounds of building, said she knows there are benefits to come.

"I give tours, and it's very hard to explain to families with the students that we kind of have to go through this ugly stage now to get all the improvements on campus," Gates said. "It will be nice."

The Robert House Undergraduate Library reopened this semester after being closed for remodeling, and students and faculty members boast about the improvements.

Four new residence halls opened last month on the south side of campus, offering students new digs with classrooms and other amenities of campus life in their midst.

"You just have to be patient and know that they're working to meet your needs better," said Brooke Davenport, a senior business administration major who lives off campus. "But everybody has to suffer to reap the benefits."

On the Chapel Hill campus, where 12 bond projects are under way and 32 more are in the design phase, there typically is a lot of construction going on around UNC Hospitals.

On the west side of South Columbia Street, where the public health and pharmacy schools are expanding quarters, construction workers recently ran into rock and had to blast through the surface.

University officials try to keep students and staff members posted about the inconveniences they might encounter during the building boom. They circulate information online and post signs around campus.

The building boom comes at a time when budget constraints in the cash-strapped state are forcing legislators to call for layoffs and cuts on UNC campuses.

"Even though we know the money comes from different sources, that one is hard to explain," said Sue Estroff, chairwoman of the UNC-CH faculty.

If you discount the complaints about the lack of parking -- a sore subject even when there is no building going on -- faculty members for the most part are looking ahead to a time when there will be more lab, research and classroom space.

"The material science faculty are so excited about the science complex that you have to ask them to please stop talking about it," Estroff said.

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Private coalition criticizes NC State's hotel plans

Friday, September 13, 2002 2:06 p.m.
News 14 Carolina
By Associated Press
 © Copyright 2002 Associated Press; TWEAN d.b.a. News 14 Carolina

A coalition of private hotels says a scaled-down version of North Carolina State University's executive hotel and conference center is too risky financially and too expensive for university business.

The N.C. Travel and Tourism Coalition also says the center would draw nearly 75 percent of its customers from local businesses.

In a three-page report to legislators, the coalition says the center wouldn't advance the university's academic and research mission.

The university scaled-down its original plans last month at a consultant's recommendation.

Trustees are expected to approve plans for the $60 million hotel next Friday.

The House budget plan includes a provision that would require legislative approval of the project and any others of its kind on UNC campuses.

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Duke 4th, UNC 28th in U.S. News rankings

Friday, September 13, 2002
The Business Journal
By staff report
 © Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.

The U.S. News and World Report 2003 rankings of the nation's top 50 universities with doctoral programs includes two Triangle schools.

U.S. News and World Report ranks Duke University in a five-way tie as the fourth-best university in the country. Also tied for fourth are the California Institute for Technology, The Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is tied with Tufts University of Massachusetts for 28th place. UNC-CH is the fifth-highest ranked public school, behind the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Virginia, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Wake Forest University is the only other North Carolina school in the top 50. Wake Forest is tied with UCLA and Michigan for 25th place.

North Carolina State University was listed as a Tier 2 university, one level below the top 50. U.S. News and World Report ranks universities in four tiers.

Three Ivy League schools top the rankings. Princeton is first, followed by Harvard and Yale, which are tied for second.

This year's rankings will appear in Sept. 16th's U.S. News and World Report.

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Three N.C. Colleges in Top 50 Rankings

Friday, September 13, 2002 8:54 a.m.
WRAL-TV
By Assocaited Press
 © Copyright 2002 wral.com

Magazines just love North Carolina colleges. U.S. News and World Report lists three Tar Heel schools in its Top 50 annual rankings released Friday.

Duke University ranked the highest, tied for fourth. It rated eighth last year.

Wake Forest came in tied at 25 and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tied at 28.

For the third consecutive year, Princeton topped the list. Harvard and Yale tied for second.

Among public colleges, U.N.C. remains fifth, and North Carolina State ranked 41st.

Two weeks ago, Newsweek named Davidson College and UNC among the nation's hottest schools.

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Red Hat, IBM upgrade pact to push Linux

Monday, September 16, 2002
News & Observer; Winston-Salem Journal; NBC 6 Charlotte
By Christina Dyrness, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

RALEIGH - Red Hat will announce today what's being called a sweeping new partnership with computer giant IBM under which the Linux company will strike up a cozier relationship with Big Blue's hardware, services and software divisions.

Unveiled the day before software company Red Hat is scheduled to announce its second-quarter earnings to Wall Street, the agreement takes steps to address what has become a troubling issue for the 8-year-old company: how to make money on the Linux operating system -- a rival to higher-priced software like that sold by Microsoft -- when it's essentially available free over the Internet.

IBM, an early supporter of the alternative Linux operating system, has been able to profit from it by selling hardware to run it and services to integrate it with corporate customers' other computer systems.

Red Hat has also tried to make money on services, but has been slow to come up with a profitable business model. During its most recent fiscal quarter, Red Hat reported a loss of $4.3 million.

The new agreement with IBM may be a step in a more profitable direction for Red Hat.

Under the multiyear alliance with IBM, Red Hat's new and higher-priced software, called Red Hat Advanced Server, will be resold by IBM's global services division and will run across four lines of IBM servers and mainframes -- heavy-duty computers required to run corporate computer systems. In addition, a full line of IBM software popular with big businesses -- including Web Sphere, DB2, Tivoli and Lotus -- will be tweaked to run on Red Hat's version of Linux.

"We've been working with [IBM] to some degree already," said Mark de Visser, Red Hat's vice president of marketing. "But we've also been competing with them all the time in terms of their global services division -- their intention was always to own the customer relationship."

But with the new partnership, IBM's services division will act in effect as a reseller for Red Hat Advanced Server, which is priced from $800 to $2,400 per server depending on the customer's need for technical support services. The services provided to the customer after the sale will be provided by either IBM or by Red Hat -- in that sense there is still some competition. But for technical support, the duty -- and revenue -- will be shared by the two companies.

"It's all around Advanced Server," de Visser said. "It's their [IBM's] premier Linux platform. If there's an engagement and they deploy 1,000 Linux servers, there's a revenue model for us involved."

As is typical with IBM, the expanded agreement with Red Hat isn't exclusive. Big Blue remains neutral when it comes to the different Linux distributions that are available -- Red Hat competitors include German company SuSE, and a handful of domestic distributions. Market-share numbers from tech research firm IDC show that Red Hat is the undisputed market-share leader for Linux with about 52 percent of the market.

De Visser was unable to comment on an estimated effect of the IBM partnership on Red Hat's bottom line, citing rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission limiting what public-company officers can say before quarterly earnings reports.

Red Hat officials said in June that they expect the company to break even with $22 million in sales for the quarter that ended last month, compared with $19.5 million the quarter before.

The Linux operating system has made great strides in the past year or so as more corporate software purchasers look at the price comparison between open-source software -- the Linux source code, what makes it run, is made available to the user -- and so-called proprietary software systems like those sold by Microsoft and others. Red Hat customers include Credit Suisse First Boston, AOL Time Warner, Morgan Stanley, Cisco Systems and Amazon.com.

So far, progress, by both Red Hat and Linux in general has largely been on behind-the-scenes servers, but some industry watchers say that Linux on desktop computers is also making strides.

Red Hat's stock closed Friday at $5.25 per share and has been trading near the $5 level for several months.

The Triangle has had a front-row seat for watching Red Hat's roller-coaster evolution.

1994: Red Hat is founded by Bob Young and Marc Ewing to sell a version of the new Linux operating system.

1998: Red Hat attracts A-list venture capital firms Greylock Capital Management and Benchmark Partners.

February 1999: IBM first announces its support of Linux.

August 1999: Red Hat makes a stellar debut on the stock market, making multimillionaires of its founders.

January 2000: Red Hat's stock hits a high of $151 per share.

May 2000: Red Hat shares sink to $18 per share.

June 2001: Red Hat announces first quarterly profit of $600,000.

January 2002: Red Hat announces the move of its headquarters from Durham to N.C. State's Centennial Campus.

March 2002: Red Hat launches its higher-priced Red Hat Advanced Linux software for corporate customers.

September 2002: Red Hat announces an expanded relationship with IBM that could boost sales.

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Board backs academic freedom

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer; Winston-Salem Journal
By Jane Stancill, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

CHAPEL HILL - Having endured scathing criticism for its failure to pass a resolution about academic freedom last month, the UNC Board of Governors unanimously and quietly voted to support the principle on Friday.

The board reaffirmed two provisions in its own code that spell out the university system's commitment to academic freedom.

Board Chairman Brad Wilson blamed the bungled Aug. 9 vote on confusion about procedure. "I think we all recognize that last month's meeting was not our finest procedural hour," he said.

Then he warned board members about offering up spontaneous resolutions, saying, "Surprising the chair bodes ill for everyone." In the future, he said, if any resolutions are brought forth, the board will recess until the resolution can be typed and copied for all members to read carefully. And Wilson also suggested that members attend a special session on parliamentary rules planned for November.

"We think that will provide us all with some fundamental soundness," he said.

Last month, the board failed to reach a two-thirds majority to pass a last-minute academic freedom resolution by Charlotte lawyer Ray Farris in response to the legislature's move to block funding for UNC-Chapel Hill's Quran summer reading assignment. Some members said they wouldn't vote for the resolution for fear of angering the legislature while the state budget was unresolved.

The situation drew the ire of faculty and others, who said the board's inaction was cowardly. Faculty groups around the system passed their own academic freedom resolutions.

On Friday, board members said they were relieved the issue was settled.

"It was absolutely essential for the board to take the action that it did," said James Babb, a board member from Charlotte. "You just have to clarify. There was a little heartburn along the way, but in the final analysis, it helped us refocus and recommit."

Also on Friday, UNC President Molly Broad reflected on her five years on the job. During that time, the 16 universities have grown by 17,600 students -- the equivalent of adding the enrollment of both UNC-Wilmington and N.C. Central University campuses. That boom is expected to continue, with expansion made possible by the $3.1 billion higher education bond.

"We are now one of the fastest-growing universities in the nation," she said.

At the same time, the system's minority enrollment is growing at double the rate of the university as a whole, she said. "We are proud of our demonstrated success in making this university more accessible and more welcoming to students of color," she said.

Broad cited other accomplishments on the campuses: 35 online degree programs for adult learners, 120 new degree programs, 35 new research and public service centers, and several new initiatives aimed at improving public schools and teacher training.

And while tuition has increased dramatically during Broad's tenure, the university system has dedicated more money to financial aid, including a $15 million need-based grant program with state money.

But Broad said there was plenty of work ahead because of the ongoing transformation of North Carolina's economy from manufacturing to jobs that require more education.

"The pending retirement of baby boomers will only heighten the demand for more highly trained workers," she said. "By 2020, this country will face a shortage of 12 million college educated workers."

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Triangle turns up volume in Iraq debate

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, staff writer
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

Raleigh -- Retired Green Beret Pat E. Moffat, who has two sons in the military, strongly backs a rapid, efficient war against Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.

"If we don't deal with this, somebody else's kids or grandchildren are going to have to," he said Friday.

But Rachel Giles, 33, a Verizon employee who lives in Wake Forest, said she opposes any U.S. military action without U.N. support and wants the U.S. to concentrate on fighting terrorism.

"We're already in a war, and we haven't won the one we're in," she said.

The debate over going to war with Iraq is raging at the United Nations, on Capitol Hill and in cable TV talk shows. And it is starting to become louder in the Triangle, three days after the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two days after President Bush urged the United Nations to take immediate action to disarm Saddam.

Before Bush addressed the United Nations, national polls showed a slim majority of Americans supported military intervention, mostly because they feared Saddam's connection to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks. But many also wanted the United States to act only with the approval of Congress and the United Nations.

Moffat, 54, of Apex, watched the speech Thursday and thought Bush "called it like it was."

"The U.N. needs to enforce its resolutions or it will go the way of the League of Nations," he said.

N.C. State University electrician and Marine veteran Reuben C. Price said only a rapid strike against Saddam would do. Given the ongoing war on terrorism, he said, it seems impossible to offer that guarantee.

"They were over there before and didn't get him [during the 1991 Persian Gulf War]. When they were looking for [al-Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden, the same thing happened," said Price, 45. "That's my main concern: Let's be sure we can get him."

Critics of the war push and the Bush administration circulated petitions across North Carolina this week. Last week, several groups staged a peace march to the state Capitol grounds that drew about 300 people.

Among those toting signs at the rally was Raleigh physical therapist Frank Hielema, who ended the day by tying a banner he ordered from Kinko's -- "There is insufficient cause for war on Iraq" -- between two columns in his yard at the corner of Williamson Drive and St. Mary's Street. Hielema, 50, said Hayes Barton neighbors and passersby have noticed.

"I was somewhat fearful that it would be torn down or desecrated," he said. "But the response has been positive. They say 'I agree, good for you.' "

Rania Masri, who directs the Southern Peace Research and Education Center at the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, also opposes war and the current economic sanctions on Iraq. She founded the Raleigh-based Iraq Action Coalition to spread the message through 600 members nationwide. International debate heated up her phone line in recent months with questions and invitations to panel discussions. Most wanted to know why the Bush administration is talking war, she said.

"Generally I'm astounded at how ignorant people are both of the history and the current statements that the administration is making about the state of affairs between the U.S. and Iraq," said Masri, who describes support for military intervention as "thin and superficial."

"It just takes a little information for people to start questioning what this war is all about and what its consequences might be," she said.

She said that would include information about the U.S. stake in Persian Gulf oil or the chance a military strike would spark civil war in Iraq, fail to oust Saddam, spread anti-American sentiment or destabilize the Middle East.

Masri said as people learn more, they will demand a diplomatic approach to resolving the conflict.

But they also may become more hawkish if the Iraqi government continues to resist calls to let in weapons inspectors.

"For the most part, I think the U.S. should mind their own business," said N.C. State computer engineering student Robbie Stokes, 25. "But if no one else is stepping up, we should."

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Letter to the editor: Riding high, downtown

Saturday, September 14, 2002
News & Observer
By Charles Phlegar, Yuma, Ariz.
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

In a recent foray to my hometown, I found yet another tragic saga unfolding, another episode of "Let's Gut the Mall." Downtown Raleigh screams for a centerpiece, but I doubt that it will ever have one because CP&L's plans seem to be gathering steam. The inclusion of more hard, sterile cityscape will not do anything to soothe the Southern soul, nor attract patrons.

Tear out the concrete. Wonderful. But in its place, let's lay some crushed pea gravel. Save the trees and flowers. That's right. Back to nature.

High above, put a perforated galleria-type structure (can't enclose it because of the fumes of cross-traffic), covered with vinery and plantscape. Viola, instant aviary. Let N.C. State University use the structure for a working lab for its horticulture program. Add large active water features.

Next, create another, perpendicular mall. Enclose Hargett Street in the same fashion, from Nash to Moore Squares, serving the municipal complex, the transit center and the Exploris museum. Downtown streets are comparatively underused, so this should not present a problem.

The fatal flaw in the original design of the mall was the lack of a transportation component. Construct a suspended transit system, a gondola, with raised platforms to avoid interference with street-level activity, allowing for better utilization of the second and third floors of historic buildings. Running from the state complex to BTI, and Nash to Moore, the gondola system could also stretch to serve TTA's new station.

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Owners roadblocks to rural paving

Sunday, September 15, 2002
News & Observer
By Vicki Hyman, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

The highway man came to call on Ballentine Dairy Road, armed with an offer to pave the dusty, rutted former buggy path north of Fuquay-Varina in exchange for just a few signatures on a piece of paper. The residents did not greet him warmly.

"I think that guy could not get away from us fast enough," said Martha Sugg Field, 51, whose family still owns about 200 acres of fields and pasture on the road named for their old dairy farm.

Ballentine Dairy Road is among 70 miles of state roads across the Triangle that are stuck in paving purgatory: They have so much traffic that they've risen to the top of the state Department of Transportation's priority list to be paved, but nearby property owners refuse to sign off on the work.

Some of the roads on this "hold list," such as Ballentine Dairy, would offer alternatives to crowded thoroughfares -- if only they were paved. But transportation officials say they don't have the money or even the authority for legal wrangles with property owners who refuse to let the state cut through yards to straighten curves, widen lanes and make other improvements that go along with paving.

A new state law is supposed to make it easier for the state to pave some roads anyway, though it's uncertain what the effect will be when property owners are determined to fight.

Jim R. Weaver, 68, for example, said he isn't about to go along with paving a section of Green Level-Durham Road in western Wake County, one of the roads on the hold list.

He hates the dirt road. It's so rutted, it's like driving on a railroad track; and he has to be careful about hanging out the laundry or the wet clothes will turn to mud. Still, he opposes improvements because he said the new roadbed would be too close to his well. "I just absolutely said no," he said. "I can't sign off for that."

Green Level-Durham Road is unpaved between Green Level Church Road and Carpenter Fire Station Road, except for a short stretch in front of tony Cary Park subdivision. It parallels congested N.C. 55, and the town of Cary's long-range plan calls for the entire road to be a four-lane thoroughfare with a median.

"That road should have been paved, and it ought to be paved now," said Glenn Futrell, a Cary developer who helped assemble the land for Cary Park. "There would be a lot of traffic on that road that would take congestion off 55. ... You could get on it just north of Apex and never have to get on 55 until you get to RTP."

6,000 miles unpaved

The state Department of Transportation maintains more than 6,000 miles of unpaved roads, all of which date back to before 1975. That year, the DOT demanded that roads be paved and brought up to state standards before they could be included in the state system.

In most cases, the old roads are owned by the adjacent property owners, but the state has an easement to maintain them, and they are open for public use.

Some of the roads are too narrow or have dangerous curves, so the DOT widens and straightens them as part of the paving process, spending about $180,000 per mile. But property owners who don't want the extra traffic can prevent the paving by refusing to give up additional right-of-way.

Now the forces for paving have a little more ammunition. Last month, Gov. Mike Easley signed a bill that requires the state to condemn the land it needs if a majority of property owners with a majority of the frontage agree to provide right-of-way. Those property owners must cover the costs of condemning the remaining property, about $1,500 to $2,500 per parcel.

The state plans to send out notices about the new law to people who own land along roads on the hold list. If enough property owners participate, they would have their roads placed back in line for paving beginning with the next fiscal year.

But it's not clear how much paving will move forward because of the new law.

Field said she doesn't want her "little piece of heaven" on Ballentine Dairy Road destroyed by speeding cars or fancy subdivisions that the new asphalt would attract. She doesn't mind the dust and even painted her house the color of sand because it shows less dirt.

In West Raleigh, the primary property owner along unpaved Reedy Creek Road, which parallels Wade Avenue in Raleigh, is N.C. State University. The road abuts environmentally sensitive Schenck Memorial Forest, and N.C. State University refused to sign off on the easement, although officials may be softening their stance.

Yet on Raleigh's thoroughfare plans, Reedy Creek is a paved, two-lane road that provides an additional connection through fast-growing West Raleigh.

A frequent caller

Another unpaved road, a .32-mile stretch of Lineberry Drive, connects a residential area with Lake Wheeler Road, south of the Raleigh Beltline.

Of the five property owners, most of whom do not live on the road, only one has signed a right-of-way agreement. And the major push for paving comes from someone who lives on a street nearby.

Jason S. Hibbets, 24, who lives on nearby Ramsgate Drive, said Ramsgate carries extra traffic because Lineberry is unpaved. And drivers who use Lineberry kick up a haze of dust that drifts onto his property. One neighbor's white vinyl siding has taken on the dinginess of red clay despite power-washing.

Hibbets maintains a Web site about his efforts and has called the DOT so often that he has committed the county maintenance engineer's schedule to memory. The state, he said, should make a greater effort to pave roads on the hold list.

"That seems like something pretty simple to me," he said. "Give the DOT the right to pursue right-of-way on the hold list every year, because the property owners change every year, especially in our area."

Reducing the backlog

The state spends more than $100 million a year to pave dirt roads and is slowly cutting its backlog. More than half the money comes from the Highway Trust Fund, set up in 1989 to build urban loops, widen intrastate roads and pave all dirt roads that carry more than 50 vehicles a day, all by 2002.

In 1989, the state had 10,475 miles of unpaved roads that carry more than 50 vehicles a day; at the start of 2002, it had 3,082. But the number of busy dirt roads is a moving target because traffic volumes increase as rural areas develop.

Don Goins, the DOT's chief engineer for operations, is happy with the progress so far, but he doesn't expect to make dirt roads extinct in North Carolina, partly because of the ongoing difficulties with property owners. "We won't get them all paved," he said.

Certainly not Ballentine Dairy. Field said she once asked the state maintenance worker who scrapes the road every few weeks whether the DOT planned to pursue the paving project. "All I hear," he told her, "is 'Don't mess with people on Ballentine Dairy Road.' "

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Student press: Drug testing, Part I

Sunday, September 15, 2002
News & Observer
 © Copyright 2002 News & Observer Publishing Company

From Technician, the student newspaper of N.C. State University, an editorial says testing school property for the presence of drugs is appropriate.

A Washington company has provided litmus-paper, drug-screen tests, free of charge, to Wake County middle and high schools as part of a federally funded pilot program. The test will be administered to students suspected of using marijuana due to suspicious circumstances such as a strong odor, according to Corey Duber, senior director for security.

The program's original concept was to provide a means for schools to test their environment for illegal drug use. The tool is a strip of litmus paper that can be rubbed on surfaces such as hands or book bags. A spray is applied to the residue, which causes the paper to change color if traces of drug residue are detected.

This test can be an important resource for schools that want to test the school environment. If rest rooms, locker rooms or other areas of campus test positive, officials will know that they have problems that need to be addressed. These tests on students will test only for marijuana, while tests on surfaces will also screen for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.

Testing individual students is not appropriate, because too many mistakes made can be made with this inexact test. For example, if students are crowded in a narrow hallway, drug residue from one student could brush against another, possibly contaminating their clothes or book bag. In addition, a student may come into contact with drug residue outside the school, even in the home, when that child was never using an illegal substance personally.

Since students and their families know that these tests have possible flaws, they will contest every positive result. The ACLU is concerned that, while police officials would need probable cause [to administer a drug test], teachers and other staff members would not need as high a standard to choose whom to test.

One role of a school is to ensure a safe learning environment, including making the grounds free from illegal activities. This would make testing school property appropriate. A litmus paper test for illegal substances is a novel idea but one that must be used responsibly.

Read Technician on the Internet at technicianonline.com

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Brain, Not Braun: Is Education the Real Cost of the New Economy

August 2002
Triangle Business Leader
By Linda C. Ray, staff writer
© Copyright 2002 Triangle Business Leader
Electronic version unavailable. For a print copy of this article, please contact News Services at 515-3470.

A story about how employers are now looking for workers with college degrees. Quotes Dr. Carol Kaseworm, head of NC State's Adult and Continuing Education department.

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Biz Leads: On Top

August 2002
Triangle Business Leader
 © Copyright 2002 Triangle Business Leader
Electronic version unavailable. For a print copy of this article, please contact News Services at 515-3470.

Sherry McIntyre, of Fuquay-Varina, has been awarded the 2002 Watt Huntley Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Raleigh Public Relations Society. McIntyre is communication program manager at NC State University's Institute for Transportation Research and Education.

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Inside Information in Jeopardy?

September 2002
Triangle Business Leader
By Kirsten Tyler, staff writer
 © Copyright 2002 Triangle Business Leader
Electronic version unavailable. For a print copy of this article, please contact News Services at 515-3470.

Talks about what companies are doing to prevent cyber attacks. Mentions NC State's Computer Training Unit.

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Biz Leads: New & Improved

September 2002
Triangle Business Leader
 © Copyright 2002 Triangle Business Leader
Electronic version unavailable. For a print copy of this article, please contact News Services at 515-3470.

Eleven NC State food science students bring home first prize in a national competition to create the best new food product. Their creation, Mocha Royale, is a coffee stirrer with a truffle-like confection at one end that melts when stirred in hot coffee.

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Fish surgeries becoming more common

Friday, September 13, 2002
MSNBC News
By Jerry Nachman, host
 © Copyright 2002 MSNBC.com

(HOST) JERRY NACHMAN: I've been waiting all day to talk to my next guest. He's a fish surgeon, although his official title is even fancier. Dr. Greg Lewbart is associate professor of aquatic medicine at North Carolina State University's college of veterinary medicine.

Professor Lewbart, thanks for being here.

DR. GREG LEWBART, ASSOC. PROF., N.C. STATE UNIV.: Thank you for having me, Jerry.

NACHMAN: Let's start at the beginning. Was this a lark? I mean, why did you start doing surgery on fish?

LEWBART: My, that's a good question.

NACHMAN: I've got a million of them.

LEWBART: After veterinary school, I had an interest in marine biology and aquatic animal medicine. And I worked in a pet store in West Philly when I was in vet school at U. Penn, and I sort of spun that into a career doing this.

I took a job right out of vet school working for a large wholesaler of tropical fish in Philadelphia, one of the larger wholesalers on the East Coast. And then did that for almost five years and then came to N.C. State about 10 years ago to do fish medicine.

NACHMAN: Well, I have tropical fish. And as soon as I put them in the water, they invert and die immediately. Why was it that you first took this assignment? We read that you repaired some Koi with a growth on her belly? Some renal problems?

LEWBART: Yes, well we've done...

NACHMAN: Tell me about the surgery.

LEWBART: This is the Koi, now which one is it? Is it the one with the abdominal tumor?

NACHMAN: I assume that's it. I can't quite tell because my knowledge of icthyologic surgery is minimal, but...

LEWBART: I see. Well, you guys have some video. That video clip you have is - Yes, that video clip is of an abdominal exploratory in a Koi, and it's part of a teaching video that my colleague, Dr. Craig Harms (ph), and I developed to teach our students, and other students in other parts of the country, how to do surgery on fish.

NACHMAN: Are the fish underwater when you're doing it?

LEWBART: They're not under...

NACHMAN: Go ahead.

LEWBART: Yes, they're-not the entire fish. We-it's sort of like a fountain. The anesthetic is dissolved in the water. And then there's a pump that pumps the water into the fish's mouth and over its gills. And then it drains by gravity back into the container, just like a garden fountain. Except there's a fish attached to it under anesthesia.

NACHMAN: We read that some people in upstate New York sent a pet fish down to North Carolina for surgery? That's correct?

LEWBART: That's correct. That was Hot Lips.

NACHMAN: Hot Lips was a goldfish.

LEWBART: Hot Lips was a goldfish, yes.

NACHMAN: What's the point? I mean, other than essentially some form of microsurgery?

LEWBART: Well, in that case, Dr. Harms (ph) did do some microsurgery on that fish, and I wasn't there for that case.

But the point is, it's pretty simple. These are people's pets, and we treat them as we would any other pet at the veterinarian college, whether it's a dog or a horse or a bird. And they have...

NACHMAN: But don't you wind up charging thousands of dollars for a $2 fish?

LEWBART: Not usually thousands, but certainly hundreds. And upwards of $1,000 or a little bit more have been charged, yes.

But the analogy we draw frequently is a lot of pet owning people out there adopt strays, or find them and don't have a monetary investment to start with. Yet they'll spend money for veterinarian care.

NACHMAN: We've got to do this again, Dr. Greg Lewbart. I didn't even get started.

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Nanoengineered membranes

Friday, September 13, 2002
Machine Design
By staff report
 © Copyright 2002 Penton Media, Inc.

A clever use of nanoparticles let a team of scientists from the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) (www.rti.com) and North Carolina State University make plastic membranes that pass large molecules faster than smaller molecules.

Previously, membranes became less selective as their permeability rose. "Usually, adding particles to plastics makes them less permeable," says Tim Merkel of RTI. "For example, additives in plastic wrap might be used to allow less oxygen through, keeping food fresh longer. In our case, however, the particles work at a molecular level as 'nanospacers,' opening the membrane and making it more permeable."

The membranes are being used to purify hydrogen for fuel cells and to clean pollution-causing chemicals out of fossil fuels. Currently, only the physical structure changes, but future research will look at making membranes chemically active to pass or block specific chemicals.

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Pop, soda or coke? 29,000 Web votes define borders of passionate debate

Saturday, September 14, 2002
Seattle Times; Arizona Republic (Phoenix) 9/13; York (Pa.) Daily News 9/15; Las Vegas Review-Journal 9/15; Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune 9/14
Also aired on: MSNBC (National Cable news) 9/14/02
By staff report
 © Copyright 2002 Seattle Times

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - In the South it's called coke, even when it's Pepsi. Many in Boston say tonic. A precious few even order a fizzy drink.

But all those generic names for soft drink are linguistic undercards in the nation's carbonated war of words. The real battle: pop vs. soda.

Order a soda in Michigan or Minnesota and you're clearly an outsider. Ask for pop in New York City and you risk being ridiculed. Bert Vaux, a linguistics professor at Harvard, says many Americans are overly passionate about their beverage name.

"For reasons that are unclear to me people feel they have license to attack those who say pop as stupid or illogical," Vaux said. "I use coke because I grew up in Houston. They're not too fond of that around here. However, it's not as stigmatized as saying pop."

The pop-soda-coke divide has always created vague, and usually incorrect, assumptions about who says what where, Vaux said. But for the first time, Internet technology - and 29,000 votes on a Web site - has defined the debate's borders.

The site, created eight years ago as a college project, asks visitors to enter their childhood zip code and the soft drink term they use. Their vote is then placed on a U.S. map as a colored dot.

What has emerged is a swath of coke votes across the South, pop votes in the Midwest and Canada, and soda votes in the Northeast and California, and - curiously - in St. Louis and Milwaukee.

Who's winning? It's, um, bottle neck and neck. Pop and soda each have about 11,300 votes, or 39 percent. Coke has about 4,800 votes.

Aside from raw numbers, the site also captures the passion in the debate, as posted messages show:

-Historically, the correct term is 'phosphate,' which was defined by soda jerks. ... Therefore soda is clearly WRONG.

-Be aware that soft drink is common in the South, where I am from, and using 'pop' or 'soda' will get you a VERY peculiar look.

New Orleans resident Kristi Trentecosta, a coke person, is one of those giving out the peculiar looks. She said pop is "creepy."

"It's kind of dorky. It's kind of like a 'gee wilikers,"' Trentecosta said. "It's just one of those things that always sounded odd to me. I'm sure there's no good reason for it."

Vaux said, indeed, logic is not involved.

"A kid hearing pop growing up in Ohio doesn't think, 'Hmm, that isn't sufficiently logical for me. I'm not going to use it," Vaux said. "They just use whatever they hear."

When Alan McConchie was a freshman at the California Institute of Technology in 1993, he broke the ice with new classmates by asking, "Soda or pop?"

One Web page and almost 30,000 votes later, the computer programmer is now a part-time linguist.

"Florida splits almost right in half between saying coke and soda - just like the Bush-Gore thing," McConchie said. "We're learning that half of Florida is a Southern state and the other half is people who moved in from the North."

Seethu Seetharaman, a marketing professor at St. Louis' Washington University, said McConchie's data isn't reliable because it's not a random sample.

But North Carolina State University linguistics professor Walt Wolfram disagreed, saying the pop-soda-coke divide is regional and not based on race, age or income.

Either way, the site is giving linguists reams of data about a dialect variable with limited research behind it.

"It's blazed a trail for doing serious linguistic study over the Internet," said Vaux, who uses the site in his Harvard classes.

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Accounting involves ethics, not just technical issues

Sunday, September 1, 2002
Strategic Finance
By Paul F. Williams, Curtis C. Verschoor
 © Copyright 2002 ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. Copyright Institute of Management Accountants

ETHICS

THE ENRON/ANDERSEN AFFAIR IS PRODUCING ENDLESS ANALYSIS AND PUNDITRY.

Yet to dismiss the events as a simple technical failure susceptible to a technical fix would be a serious misunderstanding of what went wrong. We must also acknowledge what Enron/Andersen may have to teach accountants about what we hold as our human values and about how we educate ourselves. Enron/Andersen is a moral problem, and denying this is to seriously miss whatever point it may have.

The "free market" idea as a way to organize social life was most clearly articulated by that most prominent moral philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith. His argument for "free trade" was a moral one. In his famous book, The Wealth of Nations, Smith described free trade as the means to protect the world from the rapaciousness of merchants and manufacturers as much as he proclaimed it a prescription for efficient production.

The free trade idea and Smith's compelling invisible hand metaphor we all know have become the dominant ideas by which all of society is seemingly now organized. It is capitalism-which has been experienced in many ways by many people since. Unlike any other social/political system in human history, capitalism manifests itself fully in the form of a science-the queen of the social sciences, economics, or, more aptly, neo-- classical economics. No other social system has been articulated as an axiomatic, Newtonian-like system of equations except capitalism. It is the only social arrangement described by a system of mathematical equations that allegedly explains the well-- ordered behavior of humans pursuing exclusively their own, narrowly understood selfinterests to the optimal benefit of all. Economists' leveraging of the logical rigor of mathematics to justify their science makes capitalism appear as the only logical social order whose moral premises are made to appear as natural laws that merely characterize a "natural" social world.

But describing economics as a science in the same sense that physics is a science is an illusion. Economics is not a "science" but, rather, an unusual form of modern moral discourse. Though modern economists deny it, they're still largely engaged in the same pursuit as Adam Smith-whose trade was that of moral philosopher. The moral difficulty with contemporary economic discourse (habits of speech) is that it doesn't simply deny the moral-it seems to exhibit a glib contempt for it.

Throughout its history, accounting has been a moral discourse partially reflecting the moral order of the world in which it was practiced. Though its moral premises may be questionable, its moral content was explicitly acknowledged. The recent history of accounting in the academy, in the classroom, and in practice, however, has wrought significant damage to the moral possibilities inherent in accounting discourse and, thus, accounting practice.

In the 1960s, the academy where accounting is taught was transformed by its colonization with Positive Economic Science (PES). This was spurred by the creation of the Journal of Accounting Research and the aggressiveness with which the doctrines of PES were imposed on the unsophisticated teachers and practitioners who were unaware that they were sorely mistaken about what they understood accounting to be. Like missionaries filled with the spirit, the goal was to convert the heathens, and convert they did-by expelling from texts all but the "official language" in the name of increasing accounting rigor.

A serious consequence of this modern accounting discourse was the transformation of the accounting function from an essentially moral or legal one to a purely technical one, which, by the way, has no real technical foundations. This is demonstrated vividly in Williams Kinney's observations from his 2000 Presidential Lecture at the American Accounting Association meeting in Philadelphia. He identified accounting academics' core competency: "I believe that choice of a standardized (one size fits all) measurement structure and understanding of that choice is central to accounting scholarship." In this view, accounting scholarship, and eventually the content of accounting education, is modeled as a straightforward, rational economic choice problem that is purely technical in nature, i.e., economic measurement.

This PES principal/agent model of social relationships is now what is almost exclusively taught in our classrooms as the model of human affairs. There's little wonder then that entrepreneurial accountants calculate what they can get away with, since that is what we humans are by our very nature. Andersen's troubles are not because it's any different from the other four; it simply had the misfortune of having a client whose shenanigans were so complex and rapaciously ambitious that its calculations were apparently beyond Andersen's ken. Our "New Economy" also contains new avenues for sin, which the large public service firms have apparently yet to appreciate fully.

The bizarre nature of our accounting version of economist discourse is further illustrated by the AAA president's message in the issue of Accounting Education News that appeared after Andersen began to sink. President Demski notes that, "Our recent notoriety, though surely unwelcome, also provides opportunity and challenge." What sort of challenge might it be? He notes:

Consider the broad topic of earnings management. Drawing the circle narrowly around the subject, we tend to proceed with the presumption such behavior exists and focus on its documentation. Yet a broader approach would treat the behavior as endogenous and focus on the web of institutional and organizational arrangements that precede any ability to detect that behavior.

Note that accountants' notoriety is characterized as simply posing technical problems for which empirical research within the structure of PES will provide solutions, even though in the 35 years we have been doing this, it has yet to do so. There is no acknowledgement that anyone did anything that might be construed as morally wrong. That's because the discourse of accounting in the houses of higher learning has eradicated from its vocabulary any language capable of allowing us to discuss whether what happened with Andersen was behavior that might be construed as morally wrong. Andersen could be economically stupid, since its reputation is its product, and it damaged that, but it could never be concluded that what Andersen did might be immoral.

It may be that Andersen is merely the epitome of the ethical transgressions of many others. - Paul F. Williams

QUESTIONS: Are university accounting programs really the cause of the departure of moral values from accounting? If not, what institution is at fault?

Who should be in charge of rectifying this situation? The SEC? The AICPA? Congress? The firms?

Please send your comments to the editor of Strategic Finance at kwilliam@imanet.org.

Paul F. Williams is professor of accounting at North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

Curtis C. Verschoor is the Ledger & Quill Research Professor, School of Accountancy and MIS, DePaul University, Chicago. His e-mail address is cverscho@condor.depaul.edu.

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