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NCSU puts new face on diversity
N.C. State University's new diversity czar got an earful at his first public event Monday afternoon -- about how some students feel lost in the crowd, how others feel they must shed their own identities to blend in and how the constant din about "diversity" always tends to reach the same people around campus.
Developers
give gift of green
A donation from a group of developers will preserve a slice of nature among
concrete and steel to help educate residents about the environment.
PETA
activists make pitch to save pigs
As more than 400 agricultural specialists from around the world gathered
at Durham's Sheraton Imperial Hotel on Monday to discuss better ways to raise
animals and crops, three animal-rights activists, one of them dressed as a
pig, staged a small protest outside.
Residents
to air complaints about cleaners
Neighbors objecting to Hangers Cleaners' plans for installing a new machine
in its Fidelity Street location will get a hearing on Wednesday before the
town Board of Adjustment.
Universities
recruit more Native Americans
North Carolina's two largest public universities are trying to attract more
Native Americans.
Peterson
found guilty of killing wife
In the end, the defining image in the State of North Carolina v. Michael Peterson
was not Kathleen Peterson's butchered scalp, the smirk of a former gay prostitute
named Brad or Peterson's own blank stare as jurors pronounced him guilty of
bludgeoning his wife to death.
ACC to
discuss pursuit of Boston College
Ruling drops Big East schools' lawsuit against league but not Miami
BC only
one of ACC's options today
A morning teleconference may determine whether the league will add a 12th
member
Boston
College Makes ACC an Even Dozen
The Atlantic Coast Conference decided even was much better than odd.
Point
of View: In college, good sports from all over
N.C. enrollment limit spares varsity athletes
Editorial:
Here’s why others want to come
If the UNC system could admit a few more bright out-of-state students to its
16 campuses, it would get them, no doubt about that.
Editorial:
Out of state and out of luck?
North Carolina might benefit if UNC-Chapel Hill and other campuses in the
university system could admit a few more out-of-state students with superior
academic credentials.
Letter
to the Editor: Unacceptable
It is with disgust that I read your Oct. 13 article "Fame is his constant
escort," about Brent Wolgamott, the "escort" in the Michael
Peterson drama.
NCSU puts new face on diversity
Oct. 14, 2003
The News & Observer
By Barbara Barrett, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
RALEIGH -- N.C. State University's new diversity czar got an earful at his first public event Monday afternoon -- about how some students feel lost in the crowd, how others feel they must shed their own identities to blend in and how the constant din about "diversity" always tends to reach the same people around campus.
Jose Picart, the university's new diversity czar in his third week on the job, has a few ideas about how to change those issues.
He wants professors to include diversity issues as part of their curriculum, whether they're teaching English or engineering. He likes the idea of diversity training for faculty and staff. And he applauded a plan at UNC-Chapel Hill to pay the tuition of low-income students.
In his introduction to the campus Monday, he held a forum on diversity that lasted more than two hours and drew more than 200 faculty, staff and students.
"We've got to walk the talk," he said. "We say academics is our core mission. So we must put diversity into academics."
Picart's appointment comes in the wake of findings that the campus climate still is not what all students would wish. A classroom survey conducted last year found that ethnic minorities and gay students felt less comfortable in class than other students. A follow-up survey is planned for the winter.
On Monday, several students expressed frustration at the climate on campus, where they said students of various backgrounds often feel left out.
"We're walking across campus every day. We sometimes feel we're in a hostile environment," said Faith Leach, a junior in public relations.
Andrea Hernandez, a junior in math and math education, said professors from older generations aren't well-educated in diversity issues. Faculty should be required to take training every few years, she said. "Because times change."
Picart, the former director of psychology studies at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., said professors should integrate diversity into the classroom of every discipline, no matter how technical. For example, he said, a humanities student could be required to attend a lecture or dinner and then write an essay about it. An engineering professor could require students to go into the community to conduct group projects, then grade them on their interactions with residents.
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, who sat quietly through the forum, acknowledged afterward that faculty may resist any requirements to change their courses or attend diversity training. But she said faculty would be willing to alter curriculum for the better.
Staff writer Barbara Barrett can be reached at 829-4870.
Oct. 14, 2003
The Durham Herald-Sun
By Angela D. Forest, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Durham Herald Company.
DURHAM -- A donation from a group of developers will preserve a slice of nature among concrete and steel to help educate residents about the environment.
The 45 acres of undeveloped land on Briggs Avenue off the Durham Freeway -- estimated at about $1.35 million -- will allow the Durham County Cooperative Extension Center to provide greater outreach to the community through activities such as nature walks and conservation classes, said Cheryl L. Lloyd, cooperative center director.
"What we often do is ... help homeowners or help people in the landscape and green industry to see what types of things can be done in an urban community that will conserve and support the natural landscape," Lloyd said. She added that the land also would give youths a chance to do hands-on science projects and get a physical workout.
Located near Durham Technical Community College, the land was given to N.C. State University by Briggs Land Corp., which developed the Briggs Avenue Commerce Center, Lloyd said. N.C. State operates extension offices in counties statewide, including Durham's office, which is on Foster Street. The cooperative center will maintain the land as a satellite site of the downtown office.
Because the land is so close to Durham Tech, Lloyd said she sees the college as a potential partner in working with extension specialists to get students to think outside of the classroom about such subjects as environmental and physical science.
"This might be a wonderful additional teaching experience not only for professors but for students, to look at things a little bit differently," she said.
Cooperative center officials look to join forces with institutions, government agencies and organizations in the private and public sector in developing nature trails and educational programs for young people.
"We still will need additional resources," Lloyd said. "We see this as a long-term project for us that we will work on from year to year."
N.C. State will hold a dedication Wednesday for the new Expressway Conservation and Education Site, during which Steve Stroud, founder and chairman of Carolantic Realty, will officially donate the land. An N.C. State alumnus, Stroud was involved in more than a year of negotiations regarding the land transaction, said Lloyd and David Hays, executive director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service Foundation.
The land donation is a way to highlight what county extension offices do best -- take N.C. State's ongoing instruction and research and apply it in practical ways that benefit communities, Hays said.
"Any time you can place 40 acres of green space in an area as urban as this ... that's probably a good thing," he said. "It's a real asset to Durham County."
PETA activists make pitch to save pigs
Oct. 14, 2003
The Durham Herald-Sun
By Jim Shamp, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Durham Herald Company.
DURHAM -- As more than 400 agricultural specialists from around the world gathered at Durham's Sheraton Imperial Hotel on Monday to discuss better ways to raise animals and crops, three animal-rights activists, one of them dressed as a pig, staged a small protest outside.
The three, representing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), included Nirmala Markman of Durham; Ravi Chand, campaign coordinator from the group's Norfolk, Va., headquarters; and intern Charlene Edgerton, wearing the costume and sitting in a "cage" of plastic tubing.
"Pigs are as smart and sensitive as the family dog, yet we treat them like nothing more than meat machines," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a news release. "Making a profit from their intense suffering is inexcusably cruel."
Conference representatives, however, said the three-day event will cover some of the same issues raised by PETA.
Frank Humenik, N.C. State University professor of biological and agricultural engineering and coordinator of animal waste management programs, said the conference has four hours Wednesday morning alone devoted to animal welfare concerns.
This is the second time in three years that the Society for Engineering in Agricultural, Food and Biological Systems has sponsored the conference.
Outside, Chand said PETA's goal is to get people to consider the practices that are used to put meat on their tables.
"Most people are compassionate," he said. "And once they understand that these industries chop the tails off pigs, rip their teeth out and castrate them without painkillers, they're not going to support them. Eating meat is horrible for health, for the environment and a living nightmare for these animals."
Asked if he was disappointed at the turnout of only three PETA representatives and a few reporters, Chand said, "Absolutely not. Any time we can have even one or two people become more socially conscious, we consider it a victory."
Inside the hotel, Larry Jacobson, a professor with the University of Minnesota College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences department, said pork producers have become increasingly responsive to welfare concerns.
"We're examining our practices right here," he said. "All these things go into producing healthy animals."
Michael Brumm, swine specialist with the University of Nebraska Haskell Agricultural Laboratory, said teeth are not routinely pulled, though some producers trim the tips off the "needle teeth" of 1- to 3-day-old piglets. He said it was done to prevent injury to sows' teats, but more recent research has shown it to be unnecessary. So most producers have stopped the procedure.
Jacobson said Americans demand 100 million pigs a year for food, and meeting that demand requires high-efficiency production. So-called gestation crates measuring 2-by-7 feet keep pigs from fighting with and injuring one another, he said. He also said many non-farm people tend to apply human characteristics to food animals, wanting them to roam freely. But hogs root vegetation so actively that most areas of the country couldn't support more than five pigs per acre, he said.
Also, he said, consumers wouldn't accept meat from male pigs that weren't castrated, because it takes on a bad odor when cooked, called "boar taint."
Edgerton, of Winston-Salem, and Markman said they graduated at different times from UNC Greensboro but met this summer during internships at PETA headquarters. Edgerton said she just started hers this summer, receiving free room and board and a modest stipend while volunteering to develop expertise in PETA issues.
Residents to air complaints about cleaners
Oct. 14, 2003
The Durham Herald-Sun
By Rob Shapard, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Durham Herald Company.
CARRBORO -- Neighbors objecting to Hangers Cleaners' plans for installing a new machine in its Fidelity Street location will get a hearing on Wednesday before the town Board of Adjustment.
The town's planning staff already has approved the cleaning business's plans, ruling that the plans are in keeping with the site's B-3 "neighborhood business" zoning.
The large machine would allow Hangers to boost its cleaning capacity at its location at 127 Fidelity St., including its capacity for processing clothes from the chain's other stores in the region.
The homeowners association of the adjacent Village Square townhomes has appealed the town staff's approval of a building permit for Hangers' plans, and also the decision to dismiss the association's initial complaint about that approval. The Board of Adjustment is set to make its own decision on those appeals Wednesday.
Bob Proctor, a Village Square resident and UNC math professor, has been perhaps the most vocal critic of Hangers' plans. He and the Village Square association say they're worried the new machine and increased capacity would cause more noise, traffic and other problems, and that Hangers could run the machine 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They're arguing in part that, as a facility that processes clothes from around the Triangle, and not just the Carrboro area, the Fidelity Street facility would not be the kind of "neighborhood business" that they feel the zoning requires.
"This plant should be allowed to process only clothes which are dropped off at this neighborhood retail counter," the association argued in a recent letter to the Board of Adjustment. "This plant sits in our front yard. We hope that you will vote to uphold the existing zoning law, and thereby make its neighborhood protection provisions meaningful."
Proctor, who also has created a Web site in the bid to stop the cleaner's plans, added 17 pages to the association's letter to the board, contending in part, "Our modest-income neighborhood is being asked to endure the degradation of our living environment to provide a non-essential service to wealthier neighborhoods spread around parts of four counties."
Proctor also stated that he expected Hangers to offer Wednesday to put the new machine in the business's new location on Elliott Road, rather than Fidelity Street.
"That is not our preference," said Joseph DeSimone, one of the Hangers owners, when asked about the Elliott Road possibility.
"Will we ultimately do that? I'm not in the day-to-day operations. There might be a possibility we would do that. I'm not sure what our current thinking is on that," he said.
DeSimone is a chemistry and chemical engineering professor at UNC and N.C. State University. He also is chairman and co-founder of a company that led the creation of a technology using carbon dioxide to dry-clean clothing, according to a Web site linked to the UNC chemistry site.
Hangers came out of that effort, and the chain touts the carbon-dioxide technology as much more environmentally friendly, since it doesn't involve the solvent perchloroethylene.
DeSimone mentioned that fact on Monday, and he said he found it ironic that Hangers was being targeted, considering that it's been much easier on the environment than previous, traditional cleaners in the same location.
The Board of Adjustment is scheduled to meet at 7:30 p.m. in the board room at Town Hall, on West Main Street.
Editorial: Here’s why others want to come
Oct. 14, 2003
The Wilmington Star-News
© Copyright 2003 The Wilmington Star-News.
If the UNC system could admit a few more bright out-of-state students to its 16 campuses, it would get them, no doubt about that.
Whatever the shortcomings of its administrative leaders, North Carolina’s university system maintains its national reputation for academic quality and excellent value.
True, for what it’s worth – probably nothing – UNC-Chapel Hill slipped a notch in the dubious academic rankings that sell magazines every year for U.S. News & World Report. Among all universities, Carolina ranked 29th. Among public universities, it came in fifth.
But for the fourth year in a row, a personal finance magazine has concluded that UNC-Chapel Hill offers the best value in the country – even for out-of-state students, who pay more than twice as much as North Carolina residents.
Saying it was looking for schools that “combine great academics with reasonable costs,” Kiplinger’s listed “the 100 best values in public colleges across the country.” N.C. State ranked 10th, UNC-Asheville 23rd, Appalachian State 30th and – ahem – UNC-Wilmington 35th.
No wonder students from other states want in.
Editorial: Out of state and out of luck?
Oct. 14, 2003
The Wilmington Star-News
© Copyright 2003 The Wilmington Star-News.
North Carolina might benefit if UNC-Chapel Hill and other campuses in the university system could admit a few more out-of-state students with superior academic credentials.
It would improve the academic atmosphere and reputation of our universities. By admitting bright children of wealthy out-of-state alumni, it could help the universities raise money. And after graduation, some top students would remain in North Carolina to enrich our economy and our communities.
Yet lifting the cap on out-of-state students to 22 percent from 18 percent is a hard sell. Residents who pay taxes to support our universities can’t be faulted for finding it hard to accept the notion that their children might be rejected at the campus of their choice so that some brainy kid from Connecticut can go to Carolina.
In short, the idea needs good salesmen – respected people whose judgment is trusted by the people of North Carolina and their elected representatives.
Unfortunately, in recent years – in recent weeks – the UNC system’s reputation has been eroded by evidence of financial extravagance, administrative incompetence and political ineptitude.
That makes it easier for public school officials, parents and legislators to shout down the proposal to lift the cap on out-of-state students. It might be a good idea, but a lot of people need to be convinced. The university’s current leaders will have a hard time accomplishing that.
Universities recruit more Native Americans
Oct. 13, 2003
News 14 Carolina
By News 14 Carolina Staff
© Copyright 2003 News 14 Carolina.
North Carolina's two largest public universities are trying to attract more Native Americans.
Administrators at N.C. State and UNC-Chapel Hill are encouraging more American Indians to enroll.
Last week, UNC hosted its first Native American Visitation Day. At N.C. State, an administrator specifically focuses on Hispanic and Native American affairs.
North Carolina has more Native American than any other state east of the Mississippi River.
Peterson found guilty of killing wife
Oct. 11, 2003
The Charlotte Observer
By Anna Griffin, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Charlotte Observer.
DURHAM - In the end, the defining image in the State of North Carolina v. Michael Peterson was not Kathleen Peterson's butchered scalp, the smirk of a former gay prostitute named Brad or Peterson's own blank stare as jurors pronounced him guilty of bludgeoning his wife to death.
In the instant after the verdict Friday, sisters Martha and Margaret Ratliff collapsed into each other.
Michael Peterson's adopted daughters clasped hands, gripping so hard their knuckles went white, then red. They shook in silent misery, two young women who have now lost every parent they ever knew.
Their weeping intensified as the 59-year-old novelist turned around, gave them a wan smile and said, "I love you. It's going to be all right. It's OK."
Barring appeal, he will spend the rest of his life in a state prison. Jurors took about 15 hours over five days to decide that he killed Kathleen Peterson, his wife of five years, culminating one of the most publicized and sensational trials in N.C. history.
Peterson, a Vietnam veteran who used his Marine Corps experience in his fiction, was a local celebrity long before he dialed 911 almost two years ago to report his wife's fall down some stairs. Court TV carried his trial live daily, and a French film crew followed his every move for a planned television documentary.
By convicting Peterson of one murder, jurors may have suggested they believe him guilty of another. None of the 12 jurors publicly explained their decision.
But prosecutors used Elizabeth Ratliff's death as a crucial piece in their case against Peterson, arguing that the author knew from experience how to make a murder look like an accident. Ratliff's daughters do not agree and stayed by his side throughout the trial.
Like Kathleen Peterson, Elizabeth Ratliff was found dead at the bottom of a staircase. Like Kathleen Peterson, Ratliff was last seen in the company of Michael Peterson.
"I feel so bad for those young women," said Assistant District Attorney Freda Black. "I feel bad because I cannot imagine their pain ... and I feel bad because I don't think they're ever going to be able to acknowledge the truth."
`Something was not right'
Michael Peterson called 911 in the wee hours of Dec. 9, 2001, panting and sobbing. His wife, he told the dispatcher, had fallen down between 15 and 20 stairs and was bleeding.The first police to reach the couple's 10,000-square-foot home, used as a set in the film "The Handmaid's Tale," treated the death as an accident. But as lead detective Art Holland described Friday, the mood changed when veteran officers began arriving.
"The blood on her, it was everywhere," Holland said after the verdict. "It hit you in the face when you walked in there that something was not right."
Investigators and prosecutors acted fast, so fast that Peterson claimed they were out to get him. Peterson had frequently criticized Durham police in his Durham Herald-Sun newspaper column and in two failed political campaigns.
Eleven days after Kathleen Peterson's death at age 48, a grand jury indicted Peterson for first-degree murder.
"There's no doubt in my mind there was a rush to judgment. There was reasonable doubt in this case in every way you could think of," said defense lawyer David Rudolf, who plans to appeal. "I'm very disappointed this jury failed to see that."
Friends and neighbors described the Petersons as a happy, if complicated, couple. Both were worldly, well-spoken and cultivated in their tastes. Their family resembled the Brady Bunch: Peterson had two sons, Todd and Clayton, from his first marriage. Kathleen had a daughter, Caitlin Atwater, with her first husband. Elizabeth Ratliff, a widow when she died, gave Peterson custody of her two girls in her will.
But the happy pictures and affluent lifestyle hid deep problems, prosecutors said. The Petersons were $143,000 in debt, and Kathleen Peterson feared she might get laid off from her job as an executive with Nortel Networks.
Michael Peterson kept a stash of homosexual pornography on his personal computer. He solicited a gay prostitute over the Internet and kept print-outs of e-mails from the man in his desk.
After the verdict Friday, prosecutors laid out a more detailed theory than they offered in court: About 11 p.m. Dec. 8, 2001, Kathleen Peterson sat at her husband's desk to receive e-mail from a colleague. Unfamiliar with personal computers, she stumbled onto proof of her husband's bisexuality. She questioned him. They argued. Then, violence.
Michael Peterson called for help almost four hours later.
"We believe Kathleen Peterson discovered who her husband was," said Black, the assistant prosecutor. "... Then she died a horrible death."
Exhuming a body
It took seven weeks to select a jury, and an additional 14 weeks for prosecutors and defense lawyers to go through the 65 witnesses and more than 800 pieces of evidence.
The district attorney mounted a case that relied on circumstantial evidence. He called medical examiners and biomechanical engineers who testified that Kathleen Peterson's wounds -- including seven deep lacerations to the head -- could not have the been the result of a fall.
They granted immunity to the gay prostitute, now an N.C. State University chemistry student, who testified that he stood Peterson up at their planned meeting. They presented credit card bills and called Kathleen Peterson's co-workers to testify about uncertainty regarding her job security.
The prosecution also brought witnesses from Germany to talk about Elizabeth Ratliff. Eighteen years ago, doctors in Germany ruled Ratliff died of a stroke. This spring, her body was exhumed and a state medical examiner ruled that her death was actually the result of "homicidal assault." Peterson has not been charged in Ratliff's death.
"I don't know whether German authorities might act on this, but I don't think you can walk away from this case without feeling some vindication for Elizabeth Ratliff," said District Attorney Jim Hardin.
The defense's case was much shorter, but no less detailed.
Forensic scientists showed computer models of a simulated Kathleen Peterson falling down the stairs, striking her head repeatedly, then slipping in her own blood as she tried to stand.
Famed forensic scientist Henry Lee, who worked for O.J. Simpson, spit a mouthful of ketchup in an attempt to explain how a fall could lead to 10,000 blood splatters in the stairwell. His theory: Kathleen Peterson's lungs filled with blood after she fell.
The defense team pointed out several mistakes by investigators and prosecutors. Crime scene technicians failed to bag potential evidence, including towels used to mop up the blood from Kathleen Peterson's head and the sandals she was wearing. A prosecution injury expert lied about his academic credentials, and his testimony was thrown out.
Then there was the missing murder weapon. In his opening statement, Hardin said he believed Peterson bludgeoned his wife with a fireplace blow poke, then ditched the weapon somewhere. Police did not find a poker in several searches.
Two days before closing their case, defense lawyers introduced what they said was the Peterson family blow poke, apparently found in the house. It was coated with dust, spider webs and dead bugs, and did not appear to have blood on it.
"This verdict shows that we are not idiots, and that we do know how to do our jobs, and that we did it well," said Holland, the Durham police detective. "... I'm just pleased the jury was able to see through all the distractions the defense put up."
Life in prison
As the legal drama played itself out, a family drama did, too.
Caitlin Atwater supported Peterson in the days after her mother's death, but by the trial she had filed a wrongful-death suit against her stepfather. Martha and Margaret Ratliff grudgingly allowed prosecutors to exhume their mother's body, but swore he was not a murderer.
On Friday morning, just before the verdict was announced, Peterson turned to his children -- biological and otherwise -- and smiled. "It's going to be OK," he told them.
Moments later, jurors filed in. None of them looked at Peterson. Most frowned and stared straight ahead, or looked at their laps. Jurors would not comment after the verdict, and issued a statement saying they will speak publicly later as a group.
Later, juror Lilar Pennington told The Associated Press that none of the jurors had a hard time voting to convict. Another juror, Shirley Ferrell, told Court TV the jury wasn't bothered by confusion over the missing blow poke.
Peterson's straight-ahead stare remained steady as the court clerk read the verdict. As the clerk polled jurors, he watched them, lips slightly open. When Judge Orlando Hudson asked whether he had anything to say before sentencing, he turned to his family and went down the line addressing each one with a nod and a quick word: "I love you," he said, and, "It's all right."
With the announcement that Peterson would be sentenced to life in prison without parole, the courtroom, so loud for so long, fell quiet except for the flicker of camera shutters and the click of the handcuffs.
As bailiffs led Peterson away, bound for processing at Raleigh's Central Prison, he glanced over his shoulder one last time.
Todd Peterson gave his father a quick salute. The Ratliff sisters gaped at the man they call Dad. Still shaking, they wept together in near silence.
ACC to discuss pursuit of Boston College
Oct. 11, 2003
The Charlotte Observer
By Ron Green Jr., staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Charlotte Observer.
A decision on whether to invite Boston College to become the ACC's 12th member could come Sunday morning when leaders of the nine current league schools hold a conference call.
In a related development Friday, the ACC was dropped as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Big East schools over expansion.
The ruling leaves only Miami as a defendant in a suit filed by four Big East schools accusing it of conspiring with the ACC to weaken the Big East. The suit was filed by Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.
Boston College has emerged as the ACC's primary target if it chooses to expand to 12 schools. ACC officials pursued Notre Dame recently, but when it became apparent the Fighting Irish would not join, the league's attention shifted back to Boston College, league sources said.
Tim Lucas, a spokesman for N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, said Fox told members of the school's faculty athletics council on Friday that nothing had been decided, but that those issues would be part of Sunday's discussion.
When the expansion process began earlier this year, Boston College was one of three targets along with Miami and Syracuse. However, the league instead invited Miami and Virginia Tech.
It is becoming more likely the ACC won't be allowed to hold a conference football championship game with only 11 members. The NCAA sanctions league championship games only for conferences with at least 12 teams.
Boston College officials have reportedly discussed the ACC issue and, according to published reports, would accept an invitation if one is offered.
Another factor at work is a scheduled meeting of Big East leaders Nov. 4 in Philadelphia. The league, which many expect to add Louisville, DePaul, Marquette and Cincinnati, may increase the buyout fee for schools that wish to leave from $1 million to a reported $5 million.
Virginia Tech and Miami must pay a $1 million fee to leave the Big East. By acting now, Boston College could also escape for the smaller fee.
If the ACC is to add a 12th member, one school president or chancellor must vote differently. Virginia Tech and Miami were accepted by a 7-2 vote (seven votes are required) while Boston College received only six votes.
North Carolina's James Moeser and Duke's Nan Keohane voted against all three schools. N.C. State's Fox voted in favor of Virginia Tech and Miami but cast the deciding vote against Boston College, citing travel costs.
BC only one of ACC's options today
Oct. 12, 2003
The Greensboro News & Record
By Tim Peeler, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Greensboro News & Record.
A morning teleconference may determine whether the league will add a 12th member.
For a full-text version of this story, please contact News Services at 919/515-3470.
Boston College Makes ACC an Even Dozen
Oct. 13, 2003
WTVD, Associated Press
By David Droschak, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.
The Atlantic Coast Conference decided even was much better than odd.
Less than four months after the ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech to form an 11-team league, Boston College agreed Sunday to become the 12th member. The Eagles most likely will begin conference play in 2006, ACC commissioner John Swofford said.
"An 11-team league can work, but does it work in the best way you would like to it to work from a number of different angles?" Swofford said. "We found the answer to that to be no."
No guarantee of a football playoff game and scheduling headaches in a league with deep-rooted rivalries helped persuade the ACC's chancellors and presidents to move swiftly to add a 12th team.
"It's almost like a suit, you put it on and wear it for a while and then you decide it needs some alterations," Clemson president James Barker said.
Unlike in June, when Duke and North Carolina balked at expanding, the vote Sunday was 9-0 in support of adding the Eagles, a Big East charter member.
"We had opposed expansion," North Carolina chancellor James Moeser said. "But once we became a conference of 11 the arguments for adding a 12th member became persuasive."
Boston College had until Nov. 1 to accept the ACC's offer, but agreed in less than four hours to jump leagues.
"We are extremely disappointed with Boston College's decision to leave," Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said. "Our membership is very surprised that the ACC presidents continue to come back into our league for membership."
Big East bylaws require 27 months notice to leave that conference or face a reported $5 million exit fee. It's unclear if Boston College is willing to pay such a fine to join the ACC before 2006. Miami and Virginia Tech will begin ACC play next season.
"We are disappointed with the ACC's continued attack on the Big East Conference and in Boston College's decision to turn its back on its fellow members of the Big East," Pittsburgh AD Jeff Long said.
West Virginia deputy athletic director Mike Parsons was confident the Big East can regroup.
"The conference will be strong," he said. "It will come out of this thing. We'll have some rebuilding, but we'll come out of it."
The addition of Boston College will give the ACC the number of members required by the NCAA to stage a lucrative league championship football game.
Boston College and Syracuse were the Big East schools in the ACC's original expansion plans -- along with Miami -- but were voted down in favor of adding the Hurricanes and Hokies. Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State voted against adding Boston College at the time.
But other pro-expansion schools in the ACC kept pushing for another member.
Swofford said it wasn't awkward to approach Boston College again after the ACC spurned the Eagles during the initial expansion plans.
"It became evident over the summer that was some continued interest on both parties part," Swofford said.
ACC bylaws require campus visits of each school being considered for prospective membership. That requirement was satisfied before ACC presidents initially rejected Boston College for membership in June.
"The ACC is a strong, stable conference," said the Rev. William Leahy, Boston College's president. "The move to the ACC will generate greater revenues in the future."
Four Big East schools have sued Miami for leaving the Big East to join the ACC. A Connecticut judge dropped the ACC as a defendant in that lawsuit Friday.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Sunday that Boston College would be named as a defendant in the suit.
"Our claim is that Boston College is part of a continued conspiracy to weaken and destroy the Big East as a competitor for broadcast revenue and other rights," Blumenthal said.
Point of View: In college, good sports from all over
Oct. 14, 2003
The News & Observer
By William H. Pruden, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
It was inevitable. As North Carolina's leaders in public higher education push more aggressively for an increase in the percentage of out-of-state students enrolling in the university system, some members of the legislature have started to weigh in. Predictably, they raise the specter of unhappy voters (and taxpayers) whose children might be displaced by an increase in out-of-state representation.
Proponents counter that the change is part of the never-ending quest to achieve excellence, and would only improve a state system seen by some as losing ground in the rankings. They argue that it would strengthen the academic culture, making the UNC system even more attractive to the state's own "best and brightest" and thus slowing a brain drain that has become an increasing concern.
There are also murmurings about the financial benefits of increasing the number of students who would have to fork over the significantly higher out-of-state tuition.
What is not yet a part of the debate is the one area of the university system that long ago abandoned any pretense of keeping the sacred 82/18 in-state/out-of-state ratio. Ironically however, it is this area -- intercollegiate athletics -- that on almost a daily basis serves as the most visible representative of the state to the outside world.
Over the years, the defense of big-time athletics has centered -- as does the current call for an increase in out-of-state students -- on the desire to achieve "excellence." In defending athletic programs that have sometimes been troubled by criminal behavior and low graduation rates, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser and N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox both have said that top-flight athletic programs are central elements of each school's broad-based commitment to excellence.
Apparently, one way to achieve that excellence is to give athletic recruiters a USA atlas -- indeed for a few squads, a world atlas -- and tell them to hit the road.
What other reason can there be when roster after roster at both N.C. State and UNC-Chapel Hill features out-of-state athletes whose numbers are far in excess of 18 percent?
For example, last year's Carolina women's lacrosse team, a group that proudly displays "North Carolina" its uniform, had not a North Carolinian on the its 23-player roster. Men's lacrosse was only slightly better, boasting four in-state residents on a squad of 42.
These are not isolated cases. Out-of state representation well in excess of 18 percent is the norm. In Chapel Hill, John Bunting's football team contains almost as many out-of-state as in-state players. On the current N.C. State squad, the representation from Florida alone -- Coach Chuck Amato's old stomping grounds -- is just under 25 percent, while the whole out-of-state delegation makes up a touch more than 45 percent of the squad. And while Roy Williams is a North Carolina native, he has been away for a while, so the fact that seven members of his 15-man basketball squad are from out of state should help make the transition easier. His campus coaching counterpart Sylvia Hatchell has a women's basketball roster dominated by out-of-staters, with only four of her 13 hitting the Rams Club for in-state tuition.
Last year's discussion about exceptions to the standard admissions policies opened a slight window onto the world of athletic admissions. Left unexamined were the ignored deadlines and the differing standards that can, in fact, characterize the athletic admissions process. Now it is also clear that athletics gets a pass on the 18 percent figure. And for what? Certainly, at UNC at least, not much football success this year.
It is easy for a legislator to huff and puff at the ivory-tower academics who talk of possibly taking away coveted spots from their constituents. What is harder is to hold accountable an athletic colossus that already takes a considerable number of those very same spots.
For a legislator seeking re-election, UNC system President Molly Broad certainly makes a more appealing target than does a football coach. But politics is not the issue. Rather, now that the question of who should make up the student body is on the table, the state has an opportunity to address issues that should go far beyond mere numbers. They include some fundamental questions about excellence, about who gets in, and about what and who the universities' teams -- indeed the universities themselves -- represent.
William H. Pruden is director of the Upper School and a college counselor at Ravenscroft School.
Letter to the Editor: Unacceptable
Oct. 14, 2003
The News & Observer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
It is with disgust that I read your Oct. 13 article "Fame is his constant escort," about Brent Wolgamott, the "escort" in the Michael Peterson drama. I am not angry at the fact that he earned his living as a male escort. No, I am angry that you created a story that made Wolgamott's actions seem acceptable.
It is not acceptable to be in the U.S. Army and have an "escort," or prostitution, business on the side, it is not acceptable to use the Peterson tragedy for personal gain and it is not acceptable for The N&O to advertise for Wolgamott in a subheadline that "Trial notoriety delights witness." Your story made it seem as if his actions were acceptable. They are not.
Bryan Andersen
Raleigh
Oct. 14, 2003
The News & Observer
MARTHA UNDERHILL KREEM, 67, of Raleigh died October 12, 2003 at Wake Medical Center.
Martha was a native of Johnston County and was the daughter of the late Percy F.L. Underhill and Hester Smith Underhill. She attended Selma schools and graduated from East Carolina University with a BS in Science. Following college, Martha taught High School science in Morehead City and then worked as a lab chemist in the Soil Science Department of NCSU. Martha married Aaron Kreem in 1964 and became a full time homemaker. She was a former member of Athens Drive Baptist Church and Forest Hills Baptist Church. She and her husband have been members of Hayes Barton Baptist Church since 1991.
Her brother, William H. Underhill, preceded Martha in death.
She is survived by her husband of 39 years, Aaron M. Kreem of the home; their two children, Andrew P. Kreem of Raleigh and Linda C. Kreem of Brooklyn, NY; four sisters, Esther Rollins of Youngsville, NC, Florence Vernon and husband, Frank of Culpepper, VA, Helen Frances Peele of Danville, VA and Ruby Briley and husband, James of Tarboro, NC; a brother, Percy Underhill and wife, Edel of Seattle, WA; and numerous nieces and nephews.
The family will receive
friends Tuesday evening, October 14, 2003 from 7-9 p.m. at Brown-Wynne Funeral
Home, 300 Saint Mary's St.
A memorial service will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Hayes Barton Baptist
Church. Interment services will follow at Montlawn Memorial Park.
The family of Martha Underhill would like to extend a special thanks to the staff of Wake Medical Center and Dr. Robert Wehbie for their professional and compassionate care.
In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to Hayes Barton Baptist Church Television Ministry, 1800 Glenwood Ave. Raleigh, NC 27608 or to the North Carolina Chapter Office of the Nature Conservancy, One University Place, Suite 290, 4705 University Dr. Durham, NC 27707, (919) 403-8558.