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Studio may advance Raleigh revival
College of Design
Forestry
school branches out
College of Natural Resources
Taylor:
Senate/Presidential Races Still Too Close To Call
Andrew Taylor, political science
Pope:
GOP benefactor, enforcer
John Locke Foundation
Conference
says Fair, Football Tie-Ups Inevitable
David Horning, athletics
Jackie's
ghost (part three): The sighting
Creative Writing Program
Black
groups reject governor
campaigning at NC State
Computer
seized from NCSU dorm
students
Point
of view: 'Stolen Honor' skews its view of Vietnam
Michael J. Allen, history
DuPont
research on protective suits and garments promising
Roger Barker, Textile Protection and Comfort Center
New
ideas transform views on aging
Thomas Hess, psychology
Textile
researchers produce super-strong nylon fibers
Alan Tonelli and Richard
Kotek, textile engineering, chemistry and science
IBM's
$70 Million University research investment grows
IBM Academic Initiative
Cotton
insect shifts documented in North Carolina
Jack Bacheler, entomology
Diversify
the Presidency
George Vaughan, adult and community college education
Across
the USA: North Carolina
football game and the NC State Fair
Studio may advance Raleigh revival
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By DUDLEY PRICE AND JACK HAGEL
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- N.C. State University's College of Design is planning an urban design studio in downtown that supporters say could give redevelopment an unprecedented boost.
Scheduled to open in February in a two-story building at 133 S. Wilmington St., the Downtown Design Studio will be home each semester to two dozen undergraduate and graduate students and professors. The students will study innovative ways to renovate buildings, sign systems, pedestrian seating, urban art and infill housing.
Margaret Mullen, president of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, a booster organization, said design schools have established similar classrooms nationally with significant results.
"They typically are the leaders on the front end of urban renewal in every major city in the country," Mullen said. "Not only do we need their intellectual capacity ... but we need the message that it sends to the rest of the country about what is happening here."
In other cities, a university presence downtown has sparked residential, retail and office development.
In Providence, R.I., Johnson & Wales University and the Rhode Island School of Design helped revitalize the city's main business district with classrooms, dormitories, studio space and offices.
And in Savannah, Ga., the Savannah College of Art and Design opened a downtown office and ended up buying and restoring buildings "no one else would touch," Mullen said. The school also has grown from about a dozen buildings to more than 60 to house a student body of 7,000.
"There was a period when everybody would leave to go home from work by 6 p.m.," said Beth Reiter, a preservation officer in Savannah. "And now you have this bustle of students."
Tom Barrie, director of NCSU's school of architecture, said the university could help Raleigh's downtown in a similar way.
"You get more of what we call a 24-hour city, the more you get activities downtown," Barrie said. "We aren't 9-to-5. At the school of architecture, the lights are on all the time."
Students ideas
Downtown supporters say the design studio will feed into the city's other revitalization efforts. Progress Energy's $100 million mixed-use project is being finished, and work to open Fayetteville Street to vehicles and build a new civic center and hotel are scheduled. More redevelopment is on the horizon, with condo projects, hotels and retail areas being discussed.
Now, city officials must pay professionals to devise concepts for urban renewal projects. With the design studio, officials could benefit from the impartial ideas and suggestions of dozens of architecture, landscape architecture, graphic and industrial design students.
"They come to learn," Mullen said. "They don't have a political agenda; they aren't trying to foist their ideas on you. They're just trying to come up with solutions and figure out new ways to do things.
"One thing I'd like them to look at is an inexpensive way to clean up storefronts on Salisbury and Wilmington streets. I can't pay a professional to do that, but students will do that."
In Phoenix, where Mullen worked previously, Arizona State University opened a downtown classroom that studied streetscapes, facades and developed a program to paint murals on blank building walls.
"For me, it's a huge deal," Mullen said.
Community focus
College of Design Dean Marvin Malecha, who helped get $25,000 in annual funding from NCSU for the urban classroom, said opening the downtown site is in keeping with the university's historical land grant mission to better the surrounding community.
Students "have a responsibility to get in the streets and work in the problems of the people," Malecha said. The College of Design does sporadic urban studies for Raleigh and other municipalities, but taking the classroom downtown will bring a full-time focus, he said.
Malecha credited new NCSU Chancellor James Oblinger and developer Greg Hatem, who owns the 3,000-square-foot space the university will lease for the studio a block east of the Wachovia tower.
Malecha had wanted to open a downtown studio for two years and approached Hatem, one of downtown's largest private landlords and supporters. Hatem agreed to subsidize rent to match the university's $25,000, and a deal was struck.
David Stein, an extension planning specialist at the College of Design, will be the studio's director. The students' first projects will be to document existing downtown buildings through photography and suggest ways to create a downtown identity.
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By TIM SIMMONS
© Copyright 2004
Nekesha Williams moves comfortably among the trees and underbrush of Raleigh's Schenck Forest, collecting data for her master's degree at N.C. State University.
Williams' past hardly suggests that the student in the College of Natural Resources would one day spend hours among stands of pine, birch and sweet gum. She was born on the island of Trinidad and arrived two years ago from the environmentally challenged landscapes of Brooklyn.
But like the college itself, Williams doesn't like to be pigeonholed.
The College of Natural Resources is marking its 75th anniversary this year by highlighting a collection of programs that underscore the many ways in which forests, wildlife, paper mills, parks and even golf courses are interrelated.
"Much of what we do today would still be recognizable to our founders, but the biggest change is how we define our ecosystem," said Larry Nielsen, dean of the college, which began as a department of forestry in 1929.
"When we started, it was thought that nature could absorb pretty much all the insults we threw its way," Nielsen said. "Today, we have a better appreciation of how nature's responses are interrelated."
Nielsen has been preaching that message for much of his career, including classes he teaches for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The message also was repeated by others during a conference celebrating the school's anniversary last week.
The irony of gathering at a hotel conference to talk about nature wasn't lost on those who participated. In places such as Schenck Forest and Umstead State Park, Williams was happier to go about her task of mapping the headwaters of local streams.
For almost a year now she has made weekly trips to streams and stream beds, measuring the depth of the waters with detailed notes on when and why the streams go dry. It's called forest hydrology.
The point, Williams explained, is to pinpoint places where water feeds into local streams. Builders and planners can then better understand how development affects water pollutants and stream flow.
"In years past, people would look at the blue line on a map and say, 'OK, I guess this is where the stream starts.' But we understand the process much better now," Williams said.
At Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, Brandon Earl understands little about forest hydrology, but he appreciates the College of Natural Resources for what it teaches him about golf course management.
"Just about everything, really," Earl said. "From growing turf grass to operating the grill in the clubhouse."
Surprising variety
A retired Marine, Ben Herrmann doesn't manage golf courses or map streams. But the 1998 graduate of the college's Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management program is pleased with his second career as manager of Lake Wheeler Metropolitan Park in Raleigh.
"The variety of what the college offered surprised me a bit, but it makes sense," Herrmann said. "It's all tied together by the natural resources we have to offer in this state."
And the natural resources, in turn, are tied tightly to the state's economy, Nielsen said.
Golfing and park facilities, for example, are part of a statewide tourism industry that generates about $12 billion a year in sales. At the same time, the wood products industry of lumber, furniture, pulp and paper ships $19 billion worth of products each year from inside the state's borders.
"That means the areas are not competing interests at all," Nielsen said. "They are parts of the same economic picture."
Given its history and its source as a raw material, forestry still commands the most attention at the college. About 58 percent of the state's 33 million acres are covered in forests. Most is privately owned and not the property of government or industry.
Such huge tracts are difficult for most people to appreciate. "They don't live in the forest, so they don't think about it," Nielsen said.
That lack of understanding, in turn, makes it even harder to appreciate that the state's forests can be depleted without proper management. For example, each person in the state uses in a single year enough wood and paper equivalent to a 100-foot tree 18 inches thick.
Sometimes we learn the hard way about how important it is to maintain a balance, Nielsen said. In the 1930s and 1940s, poor land management all but eliminated deer and wild turkey in some states while creating Dust Bowl conditions. Policy decisions after World War II that encouraged the development of single-family homes put severe stress on forests, which in turn put severe stress on wildlife.
"Fish and wildlife, wood and paper products, parks, recreation and tourism: The success of those industries all depends on how we manage our forest land," Nielsen said.
Nekesha Williams thinks about this at times while she quietly goes about her business in places such as Schenck Forest.
"I've really learned a lot in this program about the way things work together," Williams said as she picked a leaf off the ground and turned it over.
"Yellow poplar," she announces.
"Who says a Brooklyn girl can't know trees?"
Pope: GOP benefactor, enforcer
Oct. 27, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By ANNA GRIFFIN
© Copyright 2004
Before Patrick Ballantine debated Gov. Mike Easley last month, an owlish man in an unassuming suit took the stage to carefully arrange a folio of notes at the Republican challenger's podium.
It wasn't Ballantine, or his campaign manager, or any of his paid strategists. The man with the folio was much more important than that.
Most N.C. voters, certainly those outside the Triangle, have likely never heard of Art Pope. But at the moment, the former state representative and failed candidate for lieutenant governor is the most influential Republican in North Carolina not named Elizabeth Dole.
Pope's fingerprints are all over the Nov. 2 ballot. In addition to helping Ballantine craft a conservative message, he's helping lead the push to defeat Amendment One, a constitutional change that would allow communities to borrow money without taxpayer approval.
In recent years, his family has donated to dozens of Republican candidates at the state and national level and spent millions to promote conservative ideals.
The race to control the N.C. General Assembly this fall can be best described as a battle not between Democrats and Republicans, but between Pope's wing of the Republican Party and the bipartisan coalition between Moore County Republican Richard Morgan and Mecklenburg County Democrat Jim Black.
"If you're a Republican in this state -- a true Republican -- he's someone you need to know," said state Rep. Frank Mitchell, an Iredell County Republican. "He is a man who is willing to use his checkbook to back up what he believes."
But, as both his friends and enemies agree, Pope isn't some power-mad multimillionaire only out to win elections. He and his parents, particularly his father, John W. Pope, are working to plant the seeds of a long-term philosophical shift in North Carolina and nationwide.
To that end, they helped start the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the Pope Center for Higher Education, which studies college matters. They recently spent $500,000 to help the N.C. Republican Party buy a new headquarters. They give to national groups such as the American Conservative Union and have, over the years, helped fund magazines and groups on college campuses. Recently they gave N.C. State $511,500 to create a program for undergraduates on the relationship between economics and politics.
"They are incredibly generous," said Marc Rotterman, a Republican political consultant in Raleigh and a longtime friend of the family. "And they don't ask for anything in return except for efficient and effective government."
They do expect loyalty to those beliefs. The biggest political story in North Carolina right now is the GOP schism between House Co-Speaker Morgan, who shares power in the legislature with the Democrats, and the self-proclaimed "true Republicans" led publicly by Rep. Leo Daughtry of Smithfield and privately by Pope.
Both sides say the battle is philosophical: Two years ago, Republicans appeared to have won a majority of seats in the N.C. House on Election Day. But with a few allies, Morgan threw his support behind a coalition government, sharing the gavel with Democrat Black.
Pope and his allies say Morgan's actions go beyond bipartisan cooperation to outright treachery, given that the House voted under Morgan and Black's watch to continue several temporary tax increases. Morgan also behaved in a less-than-statesmanlike way toward his loudest critics, taking away their off-season secretarial help, banishing them to tiny offices and redrawing legislative lines to hurt their re-election chances.
The Pope family has spent $260,000 this year boosting anti-Morgan General Assembly candidates. They managed to beat several of Morgan's top allies in the Republican primaries, including Rep. David Miner, a Wake County Republican. Morgan himself barely escaped the primary.
"This is not personal for me," Pope said. "I supported Richard when he was right on the issues."
Morgan echoes that, saying his battles with Pope are philosophical. And he's not the only moderate Republican to suggest that the ideological rigidity that's become common within the GOP -- the kind of our-way-or-the-highway thinking that drives anti-tax pledges -- could create a party of extremes. But talking about Pope clearly riles Morgan, normally the most measured of speakers.
"I don't like Art. I think he's a spoiled little brat. I think he wants to own the entire Republican Party, and this is all personal with him," Morgan said. "That may be sugarcoating it. Let's just say that when he checks out, he's going to check out a really bitter person."
Pope doesn't go out of his way to seem either likeable or disagreeable. He is who he is, a balding, bespectacled policy wonk. He says what he thinks, often in highly technical terms that only a serious student of the budget-writing process can fully understand. He doesn't seem to worry that he might offend by letting you know, in no uncertain terms, why you're wrong on a particular issue.
He's been that way his entire career, friends say: Serious about his beliefs.
"Art can be a fun guy. He enjoys the outdoors, hiking and canoeing. He loves Carolina athletics. He's a wonderful family man. But he was remarkable at an early age because he knew exactly what he thought, and he didn't vacillate and didn't wander from it," said Bob Orr, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice who stepped down from the bench this summer to lead the Pope family's latest intellectual and ideological endeavor, the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.
Orr has known Pope, now 48, since they worked together on Jim Martin's successful 1984 campaign for governor. Back then Pope was a Republican whiz kid pushing a conservative agenda and the use of computers in the campaign, then a new idea. A lawyer by trade, Pope served as Martin's special legal counsel. But he's spent much of his adult life working in the family business, the discount retail empire known as Variety Wholesalers Inc.
Pope's grandfather, James Pope, began with two Triangle-area variety stores in the 1930s. Today, Variety Wholesalers owns more than 500 discounts stores across the country, doing $750 million in sales last year.
Pope became the company's president not long after he left the General Assembly in 2002, opting not to seek re-election to spend more time on the business and with his children.
He has not ruled out running for something again. But he may be more powerful out of office than he was in it. As his role in this fall's elections suggests, Pope doesn't need any titles in front of his name to leave an impact.
Except maybe one: Benefactor.
"If he or his family wanted to be really powerful, they could be. But that's not what they're all about. These are people, self-made people, entrepreneurial people, who don't want attention. They just want to do what they think is right," said John Hood, who has benefited greatly from the Pope family's largesse as head of the Locke Foundation. "If you were in their shoes, what would you do with that kind of money? Would you donate it to a think tank and try to make the world a better place? Or would you buy a vacation home in the south of France?"
Conference says Fair, Football Tie-Ups Inevitable
Oct. 27, 2004
Associated Press; Winston-Salem Journal; WTVD-11; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
(10/26/04 - RALEIGH) — If you like the State Fair, or N.C. State football, just get accustomed to an annual traffic nightmare.
The Atlantic Coast Conference said Monday that additional teams in the league means the football schedule will include one game during the fair, which stretches over two weekends each October.
Fairgoers and football fans, and some motorists who weren't headed to either venue, spent hours sitting in traffic on Saturday. This year, the fair coincided with the sold-out N.C. State-Miami game, which drew 55,600 fans.
Once Boston College begins ACC play next fall, league officials will have to coordinate the home schedules of N.C. State and 11 other conference teams. "With N.C. State, we can honor having one weekend off during the fair," said ACC assistant commissioner Mike Finn, who oversees football scheduling for the league. "But we can't promise two weekends."
The fair, which is run by the state Agriculture Department, reported a Saturday attendance figure of 119,461 people. Fair officials said it amounted to about 10,000 fewer people than on the second Saturday of last year's fair, when the Wolfpack played at Duke and the stadium was empty.
Last month, Agriculture Commissioner Britt Cobb wrote ACC commissioner John Swofford to ask him to avoid scheduling future home games during the 10-day fair.
State's home schedule didn't overlap with the State Fair last year. The Wolfpack had a Thursday night home game before the 2003 fair opened and played at Duke the next weekend.
Despite the problems last weekend, the scene has been more complicated.
During the 2002 fair, N.C. State hosted Duke in an early afternoon game. That night as the football crowd left, hockey fans headed to the RBC Center for a Saturday night Carolina Hurricanes game.
Wolfpack senior associate athletics director David Horning said he can remember past years when coaches got stuck in traffic. They ended up parking on the shoulder and jogging to get to the game on time. "It's been something we've been dealing with for 40 years here," Horning said.
Taylor: Senate/Presidential Races Still Too Close To Call
Oct. 26, 2004
WPTF 680 AM
By Mike Blackman
© Copyright 2004
(WPTF)--It's the final week of campaigning. We go to the polls next Tuesday.
Just too close to call in the U-S Senate race in North Carolina. North Carolina State University Associate Professor of Political Science, Dr. Andrew Taylor tells News Talk 680-WPTF.
"The polls are showing it could go anywhere but, certainly I think that Congressman Burr has a little bit of momentum on his side and it might well all turn on how the presidential race goes in the state."
In the Presidential race, Dr. Taylor says he doesn't expect any great shift in the polls for either candidate this week and thinks it will be a very, very close vote.
"I don't really expect either candidate to say, get much more than fifty one, fifty two percent of the vote if that, and 285, 290 votes in the electoral college for the winner."
You can hear more with Dr. Taylor on Carolina Closeup with Don Curtis at 7:30 Sunday morning on News Talk 680-WPTF.
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By BRENT WINTER
© Copyright 2004
Michelle came fully awake all at once. Her entire body beat in time with her galloping heart. She didn't know what the noise was that had awoken her, but it had echoed in her dream, as if it had occurred in an echoey room -- like a bathroom. She already couldn't remember the dream anymore. The noise had shattered it like a stone thrown at a mirror.
The living room was dark, but enough diffuse light leaked in through the curtained, blinded windows for Michelle to glimpse bare outlines of furniture. She lay still, listening with every scrap of her attention, but all she could hear was the squirting thud of her own heartbeat. Sweat broke out all over her.
Maybe the house really was haunted, Michelle thought. Maybe John had only been trying to protect her when he'd warned her not to stay there.
She blinked up into the darkness and imagined a figure coming to stand over her -- a woman with long dark hair and a terrible white face, two gleaming black pits for eyes and a mouth stretched in a stained grin, leaning over the sofa.
Michelle looked around the room, moving only her eyes. She saw nothing. Yet she couldn't quit seeing, or imagining that she saw, the scary woman.
Michelle looked at the blacker rectangle where the hallway began and saw an image of the woman standing there, hunched over, her white face turned toward Michelle. It wasn't a hallucination; Michelle knew, or at least believed, that there was not an actual physical woman there. What scared her was the possibility of some other kind of woman being there.
Michelle was really sweating in her clothes now, which made a corner of her mind think about doing laundry and taking a shower. She spared a moment from her terror to think about what she had to do in the morning. Surely Grandma Ellen would let her come home and get her stuff. Although it wasn't Michelle's home anymore, she reminded herself. Home. What a great idea.
Michelle would have to try it sometime. And she would. First thing in the morning, she would get on the phone and arrange a more permanent place to stay, somewhere, with someone.
But she still had to get through this night.
Was that a noise? A foot rasping across carpet? Michelle wanted to whimper, or maybe scream. It wasn't fair that her own kin had turned her out onto the street. It wasn't fair that she had to come here and lie awake and be scared and not know where she would spend the next night, or the one after that.
And then the urge to scream won out over the urge to whimper, although Michelle didn't act on it by screaming; she simply sat up, abruptly, and threw the covers off, daring any ghost in the room to come and accost her now that Michelle had openly shown herself to be awake.
Nothing happened. The image of the woman withdrew, became less substantial.
Michelle stood up, taking care to move smoothly and with self-assurance in case she was being watched. Still nothing. She took a few steps forward, toward the hallway. Then she stopped.
The bathroom door in the hallway was open; not just cracked ajar, but standing wide open. The same weak light that outlined the furniture in the living room came in through a window in the bathroom and made the sink a gray shadow among shadows.
Michelle was only a step or two from the bathroom door. She was afraid to go forward, afraid to go back. She ground her teeth in an agony of indecision. Not fair, she thought, not fair. Then she decided she was just being stupid, and there was no such thing as ghosts, and she'd never get back to sleep if she didn't establish that there was nothing in the bathroom, or at least no leering, white-faced woman who would come and stand over her while she slept.
Michelle took another step, and a pale woman's face appeared in the bathroom in front of her, and this time she did scream.
Brent Winter is a freelance editor living in Carrboro. He also is a degree
candidate in the MFA Creative Writing program at N.C. State University in
Raleigh. Winter owns a Ouija board, but so far it only spells out gibberish.
Point of view: 'Stolen Honor' skews its view of Vietnam
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By Michael J. Allen
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- On Friday, the Sinclair Broadcast Group aired the much-anticipated "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure, and the Media" on 40 of the 62 television stations it owns around the country, including Raleigh's WB affiliate, WLFL. Hastily assembled after Democratic criticism forced Sinclair to abandon plans to broadcast the controversial anti-John Kerry film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," the revised program was a poorly produced mess that no doubt disappointed Sinclair's critics and supporters alike.
Repackaging "Stolen Honor" as a news special allowed Sinclair to televise its incendiary charges without assuming responsibility for them. The move turned its one-sided attack on Kerry into a debate between his detractors and defenders, thus satisfying FCC fairness rules. While the journalistic makeover met the low threshold for media objectivity in our polarized political culture -- a two-sided story -- it failed to adequately interrogate "Stolen Honor's" flawed history of the Vietnam War.
• • •
The 17 Vietnam War POWs featured in "Stolen Honor" blame John Kerry for their wartime victimization. Like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- recently renamed "Swift Vets and POWs for Truth" after joining forces with POWs who star in the film -- the former prisoners exude unconcealed rage at Kerry for his antiwar activities in the 1970s. And like the Swift vets leader John O'Neill, their fight with Kerry dates back to the Nixon era. Their vendetta has distorted public perceptions of the Vietnam War and Kerry's role in it.
The POWs interviewed for the film make a number of charges against Kerry. First, they contend that his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee bolstered enemy morale, thereby lengthening the war and extending their imprisonment. But the antiwar movement was organized and outspoken years before Kerry joined it, and its size and influence declined in the war's final years. Given this trajectory, most historians conclude that the flagging movement had little effect on the war's outcome or longevity. Whatever effect the peace movement had cannot be attributed to Kerry alone, a relative latecomer.
The anti-Kerry prisoners also accuse him of having contributed to their torture because their captors quoted his words in indoctrination sessions. In fact, the Defense Department's official history of the POW experience in Vietnam makes clear that the physical torture of Americans ended with Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969, long before Kerry criticized the war. Kerry's words clearly upset some prisoners, but that hardly constitutes torture.
Finally, these prisoners accuse Kerry of having secretly met with the enemy in Paris. They paint this as part of a larger pattern of antiwar activists aiding the communists through visits to Hanoi and elsewhere. This, too, is a distortion. Kerry spoke openly of his talks with Vietnamese officials in his Senate testimony as he called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the release of American POWs. Henry Kissinger and numerous POW wives also met Vietnamese communist officials throughout the Nixon years, often secretly, which the prisoners fail to mention for obvious reasons.
Many prominent critics of the war, Kerry included, worked for the release of American POWs. They did so to show they opposed the war, not its soldiers. Their efforts led to the early release of 68 American captives over the course of the war, most of whom were released into the custody of peace activists. Some of these men joined Kerry and thousands of Vietnam soldiers and veterans in speaking out against the war.
Of course, such differences among prisoners remind us of what most Americans know but are urged to forget by those who cast Kerry as the enemy: Vietnam prisoners and veterans hold varied views on the war and its opponents. Many also carry wounds from the war, physical and emotional, that may never heal.
Only a handful of POWs and Swift vets insist that Kerry was responsible for those wounds. It is a measure of the people's generosity that such claims have gone largely unchallenged. Yet Americans have a right to question if the wounds on display in Sinclair's broadcast aren't self-inflicted -- if not initially, then now. By recreating their victimization for a television audience, these men have turned their pain into a public platform, and a source of considerable political power.
(Michael J. Allen is an assistant professor of U.S. political and military history at N.C. State University.)
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By AMY GARDNER
© Copyright 2004
LUMBERTON -- Two black political organizations have declared their dissatisfaction with Gov. Mike Easley, accusing him of taking them for granted.
In its election-year report card on candidates, the N.C. Black Leadership Caucus gave Easley an F for failing to attend its annual banquet and for his positions on issues such as the death penalty and school funding.
And the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People declined to endorse a gubernatorial candidate -- an overt rejection of Easley from a group that typically backs Democrats.
The gestures are especially striking this year, when Easley's opponent, Republican Patrick Ballantine, is making an extra effort to reach black voters. Ballantine has attended the forums and interviews that Easley has skipped, and he has promised an openness to the concerns of African-Americans.
"We share the values of faith and hard work," Ballantine said in an interview Tuesday. "We need to build bridges. When a person is taken for granted by one party and ignored by the other, they have no leverage in the political system. We're trying to show that this is a new day."
But Easley, who on the campaign trail is continuing the "One North Carolina" theme of his campaign four years ago, said he believes the choice is clear for black voters.
"African-American citizens, whether voters or not, know that I care very deeply about issues that affect all North Carolinians," he said Tuesday at a jobs announcement in Lumberton.
The rejections of Easley might be more show than substance. Many black voters pay little attention to the committee and the caucus, a statewide organization of about 200 members.
"I'm not one of them," said George Zeigler, an 88-year-old retiree from Maxton, who listened Tuesday night to Easley at a campaign rally at the Lumberton Farmers Market. "He's been an excellent governor. The programs that he has given to us -- More at Four, Senior Care -- they're great."
Easley's support for extra school funding for the state's poorest counties -- ordered by a Superior Court judge in the so-called Leandro case -- is one example of how the governor reaches out to blacks and others, according to his campaign. The campaign also touts Senior Care, a prescription drug program that he started.
Several black leaders said that although they've grown frustrated with Easley's style, they plan to vote for him. And with recent polls showing the governor with a wide lead over Ballantine, they expect most African-American voters to do the same.
"The fact that he's not the politician that everybody is used to, the back-slapping, grinning, in-your-face politician ... that has to be overlooked," said state Rep. Mickey Michaux, a lawmaker from Durham. "I don't think it's going to make a difference because of the history of Republicans not reaching out."
Ballantine hopes to change that.
The Republican candidate, who campaigned Tuesday night at N.C. State University, also has visited inner cities and black churches, bringing a message of conservative values and empowerment for all groups. And it can't hurt Ballantine that Easley has alienated the two groups with an introverted personality and a penchant for skipping public events.
Easley, a former prosecutor and attorney general, is also an ardent believer in the death penalty and opponent of a proposed two-year moratorium to study its practice in North Carolina. Because black defendants are disproportionately sentenced to death, many black political groups oppose capital punishment.
Ballantine supports the death penalty, too. That's one reason he earned only a B from the Black Leadership Caucus, said its chairman, Larry Hall, a lawyer from Durham.
Hall said other issues came into play: Ballantine's attendance at the group's banquet and what Hall described as Easley's poor effort -- notwithstanding the Leandro case -- to improve funding for schools in poor counties.
"He has not been responsive to community concerns," Hall said.
Lavonia Allison, who leads the Durham Committee, said the group chose not to make an endorsement in the governor's race because Easley would not go to Durham for an interview. She refused to comment further.
Michaux, the Durham lawmaker, said the meaning of the group's decision goes only so far. "They certainly knew not to endorse Ballantine," he said.
Even Hall implied that he would vote for Easley in Tuesday's election. When asked the question directly, he said, "I haven't made that determination, but I am a lifelong Democrat."
And that raises the question of whether black groups are truly in a position to make a difference in the election -- or whether they're simply trying to send a message to the governor to pay more attention.
In any event, neither Easley, whose Lumberton rally attracted a crowd of 500, nor Ballantine, who spoke to about 200 at NCSU, is taking any vote for granted.
"I need you," Ballantine told the crowd. "I need you for seven days. ... Just seven days. It's close. We have an opportunity to change the future. We have an opportunity to elect a leader who will change our lives. Seven days is all I need from you."
(Staff writer Andy Curliss contributed to this report.)
Computer seized from NCSU dorm
Oct. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- Police officers seized a computer from an N.C. State University dormitory after they learned the machine contained child pornography, according to a search warrant.
NCSU police responded to 903-C Sullivan Hall on Friday after Steven Hall, a student, called officers, according to a search warrant. Hall told officers he had asked his roommate for permission to use his computer two weeks earlier. While Hall used the computer, he saved his work and noticed a file called "movies," according to the search warrant.
When Hall opened the movie file, he saw titles such as "6 y/o" and "7 y/o sex," according to the search warrant. Hall opened some of the files and saw short video clips that contained very young girls engaged in sexual acts with adult men.
Hall told police the files also contained a subscription page to a Web site where the videos could be bought, according to the search warrant.
The owner of the computer was out of town when Hall called police Friday, according to the search warrant. Police seized the Dell Dimension 8400 from the dormitory room Sunday, the day Hall's roommate was supposed to return to school.
Police have not charged Hall's roommate with a crime.
Horticulture Department Web site
Oct. 27, 2004
Hampton Roads Daily Press, VA
By Jennifer Cordero
© Copyright 2004
It may not seem like it yet, but winter is just around the corner. While it may still be too early for you to start thinking about hats and gloves, it is time to start thinking about protecting your plants from the forthcoming cold weather.
Many plants and shrubs need the winter for a period of dormancy and regeneration, much like a bear hibernating through winter. But there are important steps that you should take now to protect your outdoor flora and fauna to ensure that it survives and thrives in the cold winter weather.
PRUNE
First, trim any dead or dying growth from the plants. Then trim all the stalks that remain to about 4 inches. Pull as many weeds as possible from the area, as any that remain will come back in droves next spring. Living Homes' (www.livinghome.com) expert gardener Jeremy Powers demystifies the art of pruning for both fruit and flowering winter vines:
Fruits
Careful trimming before the hibernation period can create more growing points during the spring (higher yield of fruit) or fewer (less fruit, larger size). Neither method is recommended over the other; it's a personal preference for what you wish to yield.
Flowers
Lightly pruning at this stage is recommended for long-term plant health and flower production. However, heavy pruning will produce fewer, larger blooms in the spring. So if you're looking for a few good centerpiece stunners, snip away.
Protect
If you are prone to deer or rabbits getting into the garden during winter, now is the time to cage your trees. A simple circle of chicken wire will do the trick but make sure it has enough height to keep out taller animals.
After the first frost of the season you can lay a winter mulch around the plants, shrubs and trees to keep the temperature of the soil constant throughout the winter and protect them against the alternating freezing and thawing. In gardener's terms, this is called heaving. Make your own mulch by collecting leaves that have fallen and running the lawnmower twice over the pile. Other alternatives (www.gardenguides.com) are store-bought wood chips or shredded bark, dried grass clippings or cocoa bean husks available at gardening stores. Be sure to wait until the first freeze, usually sometime around Thanksgiving, to lay the mulch.
As extra protection for wildflower plants, cover the soil around them with a layer of newly fallen leaves about 3 to 4 inches deep. Be sure to remove the leaves after the last freeze of the spring. Other traditional forms of mulch can be used as well, but avoid wood chips or shredded bark which are harder to clean up in the spring. And if you live in a climate that regularly dips below 20 degrees you may want to consider stronger protection for your plants, especially those rose bushes. Turn a clay pot upside down to cover smaller bushes or for larger areas create a shelter out of chicken wire and a few wooden stakes then cover it with burlap and secure edges.
POTTED PLANTS
If you have potted plants outside, be sure to protect them as well. Clay pots specifically do not do well in the cold so it is recommended to bring them inside to a garage or other more temperature-regulated area.
Some plants are hearty enough to spend the season outdoors and some in fact prefer it. Rosemary, mint and parsley, for instance, are three herbs that prefer a cooler climate. If you do have to bring them indoors then just be mindful not to over water. If you are unsure about the heartiness of your herbs you can check with a local garden shop. A great online resource can be found on NC State's Horticulture Department Web site (www.ces.ncsu.edu /depts/hort/).
PLANT
It may seem counterintuitive, but winter is a great time to plant. Hyacinths, tulips, dwarf irises and narcissus and daffodils actually require a cold kickoff to start the flowering process, so start planting before it gets too cold!
If you miss your outdoor planting window of opportunity, you can "force" the bulbs into growth indoors by planting them in potting soil in a plain pot with a drainage hole.
1. Water bulbs immediately after planting, then again in two days.
2. Place your pots in a cool dark place (about 45 degrees) and water regularly for about 12 weeks.
3. Keep the pots moist and don't store them next to fruit. It gives off a gas that is harmful to the growing bulbs.
4. When the winter starts fading and the sun begins to shine, move the pots to a warmer area with indirect light.
5. In another two weeks move the pots to a cool sunny spot and six weeks later - voila! Your beautiful blooms are the first sign of spring.
Happy Planting!
DuPont research on protective suits and garments promising
Oct. 27, 2004
Onlypunjab.com, India
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Announcing promising research, DuPont today reported that the fight against
terrorism with the development of protective materials that are resistant to
chemical and biological agents would get further boost.
DuPont has developed suits to be worn by U.S. soldiers, firefighters, and other
first responders and their early feedback from wearers, has been positive.
The U.S. government has awarded nearly $2.5 million to DuPont and its partners to assist in the development of this new technology. Prototype military garments were recently tested by the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center (Natick).
Prototypes of firefighter turnout gear were shown at the recent International Association of Fire Chiefs show in New Orleans. In addition to traditional DuPont fire resistant materials, DuPont Nomex and Kevlar, these new, lightweight suits contain a selectively permeable membrane developed by DuPont that will help protect front line defenders from toxic industrial chemicals and military warfare agents.
A permeable membrane through a process of selective transfer allows water absorption allowing sweat evaporation and body heat to escape keeping wearers of the suit cool. However, the suit blocks harmful agents from entering within.
The new suits for the military are expected to be up to 50 percent lighter than existing protective gear, are impermeable to aerosols and biological agents and will fit compactly in a small duffel bag.
"In this post-9/11 environment, first responders and firefighters throughout the country are saying they need improved protection from weapons of mass destruction without compromising the weight and existing protection of their turnout gear," said Dale Outhous, DuPont Personal Protection business director.
"We believe this emerging technology could revolutionize gear for both first responders and military personnel. The new suits should be lighter, more compact, more breathable and resistant to chemical and biological warfare agents. It's just one example of the R&D pipeline from the DuPont Safety & Protection platform where we are developing new products to help keep people safe and protected."
On Aug. 30, the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center at Natick, Mass., awarded a $1.5 million cooperative agreement to DuPont scientists for the military application of the technology. Earlier this year, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security awarded North Carolina State University, in partnership with DuPont and Globe Firefighter Suits, a $830,000 grant to develop the next generation of firefighter turnout gear.
Dr. Roger Barker, head of the Textile Protection and Comfort Center (TPACC) at N.C. State's College of Textiles said, "The best firefighter suits today offer protection against several chemicals, such as battery acid, but that protection is limited. This suit is going to take that protection to an entirely new level with a wider range of chemical resistance at higher levels."
The DuPont Safety & Protection platform is focused on finding solutions to protect people, property, operations and the environment. The platform seeks to leverage and expand over 200 years of DuPont experience as one of the safest companies in the world with recognized excellence in science and technology and in-depth knowledge of key markets.
New ideas transform views on aging
Oct. 26, 2004
South Bend Tribune, IN
By KORKY VANN
© Copyright 2004
Members of the baby-boom generation, who benefited from Dr. Spock in their childhood and Dr. Lamaze in their childbearing years, have a new physician activist to help transform their old age. Dr. William Thomas, a self-described "radical geriatrician," says boomers soon will be gearing up for a revolution to change society one more time.
"Creating a new old age will be the boomers' last act on the public stage," says Thomas, who has outlined his pro-aging manifesto in a provocative new book, "What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World," published this month by VanderWyk & Burnham. "We're preparing for a revolution that will transform old age and the lives of elders the world over."
The first step, according to Thomas, is to end the American tendency of equating being old with being sick. Seeing old age solely in terms of disease and disability and condoning ageism damages all of society, especially the elderly. Instead, old age should be seen as a natural, developmental stage of life, rather than a difficult decline.
Research supports his claims. Two recent studies show individuals age better when they are happy and free of negative images of aging. In the first study, researchers at the University of Texas found a link between positive emotions and the delay of the onset of frailty. In the second study, researchers from North Carolina State University investigated how negative stereotypes about aging influence older adults' memory. Results showed memory performance in older adults was lower when they were presented with negative stereotypes than when they were given positive images of aging.
"The anti-aging business wants the public to think of wrinkles and other natural signs of aging as a disease," Thomas says. "They spend hundreds of millions of dollars to sow fear and reap a rich financial harvest. Currently, older adults only have value as long as they appear or act 'young.' It's time to change that."
Thomas, who graduated from Harvard Medical School, didn't set out to develop a radical philosophy on the process of aging. He originally planned to specialize in emergency room medicine until a job in a nursing home changed his mind.
"It was the most energizing and meaningful work I'd ever done," Thomas says.
But the insider's view of a long-term care facility made him wonder if there was a better solution to living arrangements for elders who no longer could remain in their own homes. Predetermined schedules and routines, he found, had a deadening effect on both residents and staff. With few spontaneous events and little social stimulation, patients often became withdrawn and depressed.
"Spontaneous events and happenings are the source of interesting conversation. Conversations grow into stories that can be told and retold. Stories become memories," Thomas says. "To live in a typical nursing home is to endure a famine of new memories."
In 1992, Thomas and his wife, Judith, introduced The Eden Alternative, a philosophy known for encouraging the presence of nature, pets and children in nursing homes and adapted by a number of long-term care facilities across the country. In 2000, they started developing a plan for a new model of long-term care called "intentional communities," housing as many as 10 elders who choose to live together with the help of several younger adults and strive to become a new community with a shared goal. Prototypes of these communities, called Green Houses, exist in a number of locations, including Tupelo, where United Senior Services of Mississippi built the first four Green Houses and relocated 40 residents from a traditional nursing home facility.
"Baby boomers are not going to accept living out their lives in 'old age archipelagoes,' " says Thomas, who has won a number of awards for his work. "They're the ideal generation to create this new model. With a higher level of education than any previous generation, a higher level of wealth and the well-established habit of reinventing social norms, I just don't see boomers accepting the fate of a nursing home."
In Thomas' vision, which he calls "Eldertopia," Green Houses will be mainstreamed into intergenerational residential neighborhoods where elders can maintain their status as part of the community and share their wisdom and legacy with others.
Textile researchers produce super-strong nylon fibers
Oct. 25, 2004
Onlypunjab.com, India
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Triangle - Raleigh - Nylon fibers have many uses, from clothes and carpets
to rope and the case that surrounds your computer monitor. Now researchers
at North Carolina State University’s College of Textiles, who are trying to
improve nylon, have created the strongest aliphatic nylon fibers ever reported.
Dr. Alan Tonelli, KoSa Professor of Polymer Science, and Dr. Richard
Kotek, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science, are investigating
methods of creating stronger nylon fibers without the expense of current, sometimes
complicated, processes. They are working with aliphatic nylon, or nylon whose
carbon atoms are joined together in straight or branched open chains rather
than in rings.
Stronger aliphatic nylon could be used in ropes, loading straps, parachutes and automotive tires, or to create composite materials suitable for high-temperature applications.
The findings were recently presented at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in Philadelphia and published in the journal Polymer.
Fibers are made up of polymers, or long chain molecules containing many repeating units. When those chains are arranged in a neat, orderly manner, the polymer is said to be crystalline – like a box of uncooked spaghetti. Other times, there is no order and the polymer chains are randomly coiled up – think of a bowl of cooked spaghetti – and referred to as amorphous.
The coiled-up polymers need to be stretched out and have their elasticity removed if they are to be made into strong fibers. Hydrogen bonds between nylon chains prohibit their stretching and alignment, so overcoming these bonds may be the key to creating stronger nylon fibers.
Super-strong fibers, like Kevlar for example, are created from so-called aromatic nylon polymers – very stiff, long chains containing rings. Unfortunately, aromatic nylon is very difficult to work with and, as a result, very expensive.
So Tonelli and Kotek have been using polyamide 66, also known as nylon 66, a commercial thermoplastic that is easier to work with, but difficult to stretch and align. It’s also difficult to remove the elasticity from nylon 66, the researchers say.
They discovered that by dissolving the nylon 66 in a solution of a chemical agent called gallium trichloride, they could effectively break up the hydrogen bonds. That allows the polymer chains to be stretched out. “Once the fiber is created, it is soaked in water to wash away the gallium trichloride, allowing the hydrogen bonds to re-establish,” Tonelli said.
According to Kotek, the resulting fibers are very strong. “It looks promising; we’ve had good results and this looks like a more straightforward approach. Just on the first try we’re getting strong fibers,” he said.
Tonelli says these new fibers are perhaps as much as 10 times stronger than typical aliphatic nylons. “We did a literature search and these are the strongest aliphatic nylon fibers reported. All kinds of techniques have been used to improve them – all by trying to modify the hydrogen bonds,” he said.
Using aliphatic nylon might even be more economical to produce. “High strength fibers like Kevlar® must be made in specialized factories due to the concentrated sulfuric acid used in its production. This product could be made in an ordinary fiber-spinning operation that currently exists. There’s nothing peculiar about the process,” Tonelli said.
Tonelli and Kotek are continuing with their research. They’re currently looking at what the results would be if all the hydrogen bonds were not broken and how that affects the strength of the resulting nylon 66 fibers.
IBM's $70 Million University research investment grows
Oct. 25, 2004
Strategiy, United Arab Emirates
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
IBM has announced the latest series of Shared University Research (SUR) awards, bringing the company's contributions to foster collaborative research to more than $70 million over the last three years. With this latest set of awards, IBM sustains one of its most important commitments to universities by enabling the collaboration between academia and industry to explore research in areas essential to fueling innovation.
The new SUR awards will support 20 research projects with 27 universities worldwide. Research projects range from a multiple university exploration of on demand supply chains to an effort to find biomarkers for organ transplants. The research reflects the nature of innovation in the 21st century -- at the intersection of business value and computing infrastructure. Universities receiving these new awards include: Brown University, Cambridge University (UK), Columbia University, Daresbury University (UK), Fudan University (China), North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Politecnico di Milano (Italy), SUNY Albany, University of Arizona, University of British Columbia (Canada), University of California -- Berkeley, University of Maryland -- Baltimore County, College Park, and Uppsala University (the Netherlands) and Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology.
"Universities play a vital role in driving innovation that could have a business or societal impact," said Margaret Ashida, director of corporate university relations at IBM. "The research collaborations enabled by IBM's Shared University Research award program exemplify the deep partnership between academia and industry needed to foster innovation that matters."
IBM is working with Oxford University to find better and faster access to more reliable and accurate mammogram images, thereby potentially increasing early cancer detection and the number of lives saved.
IBM is collaborating with Penn State University, Arizona State University, Michigan State University and University College Dublin to create supply chain research labs to conduct research on advanced supply chain practices that can be used to help businesses respond on demand to changing market conditions.
Columbia University and IBM researchers worked on a project to develop core technologies needed for using computers to simulate protein folding, predict protein structure, screen potential drugs and create an accurate computer aided drug design program.
As research drives innovation and growth, new skills are required to staff the emerging disciplines. This announcement complements the recently launched IBM Academic Initiative, a new program to deepen IBM's partnership with academia in preparing students for the information technology jobs of tomorrow through no-charge access to technology, training and curriculum development resources. Last week, North Carolina's largest research universities -- Duke University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University -- became the newest partners in this initiative, joining other leading universities from around the world.
Cotton insect shifts documented in North Carolina
Oct. 25, 2004
Southeast Farm Press
By Cecil H. Yancy Jr.
© Copyright 2004
Since the adoption of Bollgard cotton in North Carolina, damage from bollworms has decreased while stink bug problems have increased.
Jack Bacheler, North Carolina State University Extension entomologist, along with Extension agents, conducted the research from 1996-2003. Robeson County Extension Field Crops Agent Georgia Love prepared and presented the research at a recent field day.
The boll damage survey comes from randomly sampling 1,252 producer fields over the eight-year period.
The percentage of damaged bolls from bollworms likewise decreased to 1.54 percent in the Bollgard cotton to 4.99 percent in conventional cotton.
The percent of damaged bolls from stink bugs increased three-fold. Bollgard cotton had 2.96 percent damaged bolls from stink bugs compared with 1.04 percent for conventional cotton.
When comparing late-season insecticide sprays over the eight-year period, Bollgard cotton received 0.87 sprays compared with 2.63 sprays for conventional cotton.
Trends also suggest that stink bug damage is not showing a steady increase, but rather about the same percentage each year.
The total boll damage during the eight-year period for Bollgard cotton was 4.65 percent; for conventional, 6.54 percent.
Over the past two years, North Carolina growers have planted 71 percent of their acreage to Bollgard cotton.
Based on a 2002 study looking at beet armyworms in Edgecombe County, N.C., and comparing conventional, Bollgard and Bollgard II, Bacheler says it would appear that sprays for caterpillars in Bollgard II cotton will be very rare in North Carolina. “The potential for damage from bug pests will therefore increase.”
Oct. 29, 2004
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By GEORGE B. VAUGHAN
© Copyright 2004
Much has been said and written about a leadership crisis facing the nation's community colleges. According to a report published by the American Association of Community Colleges in 2001, 45 percent of the then-current presidents planned to retire by 2007. Added to that percentage would be forced resignations and deaths.
The word "crisis" begs for attention and smacks of a sense of urgency bordering on panic. But somewhere along the way the true crisis has been overlooked, or at least not addressed. The crisis has two aspects: First, community-college leaders have failed to fill presidential vacancies with members of minority groups at anywhere near the level that reflects the general population of the nation, and second, there is far too much inbreeding at the presidential level. Without diversity at the top, institutions face stagnation and loss of the fresh ideas and new perspectives that will keep them vibrant, responsive, and intellectually challenging.
Progress in filling presidential vacancies with minority leaders has been relatively slow. In 1996, 86 percent of community-college presidents were white; five years later the proportion had dropped only slightly, remaining at more than 85 percent. In 1996, 4.9 percent of the presidents identified themselves as Hispanic and 5.2 percent identified themselves as African-American. By 2001 those proportions had increased to 5.5 percent and 6.4 percent respectively, for a total increase of less than 2 percent. (During the same period, the number of female presidents increased from about 18 percent to 28 percent, including minority female presidents.) Meanwhile, the number of black people and Hispanic people have continued to increase as a percentage of the nation's population, currently constituting 26 percent.
Why do community colleges open their doors wide for minority groups as students, while the door to the president's office remains barely cracked? The main reason is that, to become a community-college president under current practices, one must enter the existing presidential pipeline. But minority candidates are not entering that pipeline in numbers that will assure a supply of minority presidential applicants in the future.
If one wants to become a community-college president today, one can greatly increase one's odds by doing the following: Be employed at a community college (90 percent of presidents were employed at a community college before becoming a president); move into a low-level administrative position; return to graduate school, often as a part-time student, and earn a doctorate in higher education (more than 90 percent of current presidents have the earned doctorate, with more than 60 percent of those degrees in higher education); do not alienate the current president; continue to move through the administrative ranks on the academic side, if possible, rather than through student affairs or administrative services; apply for a presidency upon reaching the vice-presidential level; and interview well with trustees and faculty members.
What, then, can be done to get more members of minority groups into the presidential pipeline? First and foremost, community-college leaders must acknowledge that the pipeline flows through graduate school and that the doctorate in higher education or a related area is now a prerequisite for most presidencies. It follows that under current practices, if members of minority groups do not obtain doctorates, they are unlikely to become community-college presidents.
Presidents should play a critical role in encouraging minority faculty members and administrators on their own campuses to pursue professional development, including earning a doctorate. Those people will then be well positioned to become vice presidents or other higher-level administrators who make up the small pool of presidential applicants from which governing boards select presidents. Presidents play a crucial role throughout the process: They are key in screening, inculcating, and selecting those administrators, and in most cases also serve as references for the ones who apply for presidencies. Presidents, then, must take responsibility for identifying, recruiting, supporting, sponsoring, and recommending promising minority candidates for presidential positions.
Based on many conversations with graduate students over a 15-year period, I have concluded that most graduate students in higher education "self-select" to attend graduate school. These people are usually well into their 30s or older, work full time, and occupy administrative positions at their colleges. But the self-selection approach is not adequate: Presidents must encourage promising minority faculty members and administrators to attend graduate school and then support them with resources, released time, and mentoring. Trustees should be aware of, endorse, and when appropriate support those efforts by working with presidents to develop internships that involve all aspects of the presidency, including working with governing boards. If presidents and trustees are serious about increasing minority leadership, they must move members of minority groups into the traditional presidential pipeline. Without the support of presidents and trustees, the flow of minority candidates into that pipeline will remain a mere trickle.
Although moving minority candidates into the traditional pipeline will bring much-needed diversity (as defined by race and ethnicity) to the presidential ranks, it will not materially change the cookie-cutter nature of the presidency. The existing process for moving into the community-college presidency results in far too much inbreeding for institutions to remain innovative and vital. With 90 percent of presidents coming from within the community-college ranks and the majority earning doctorates in higher education, presidents begin to look and act too much alike, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. Even minority presidents who go through the socialization process of moving through the administrative ranks and obtaining a degree in higher education will think and act much like current presidents. So, although moving more members of minority groups into the presidency will solve one aspect of the leadership crisis, it will not substantially lessen the pronounced inbreeding at the presidential level.
For that to happen, presidents and trustees must take the initiative. That is a major challenge especially for presidents, who most likely came through the traditional pipeline themselves. If presidents are hesitant to act, then trustees must do so. (One wonders how many trustees have actually thought about the makeup of the pool of applicants from which they select presidents, and how many realize just how limited their choices are in terms of applicants' educational backgrounds and experiences.)
So what can presidents and trustees do to solve this problem? Although the earned doctorate probably will remain the key to obtaining most presidencies -- as it should, since all professions need entry standards -- the qualifying doctorate need not be in education. I know of no studies that show that community-college presidents with doctorates in education are any more successful than are their presidential colleagues with degrees in history, English, psychology, music, mathematics, or any other field. Indeed, among the nation's institutions of higher education, only community colleges fill most of their presidential vacancies with education-degree holders. By turning to people with doctorates in the disciplines, trustees can stem one aspect of inbreeding.
Faculty members with terminal degrees in the disciplines must be identified, recruited, and given experiences that will prepare them to become community-college presidents. Those experiences can and probably should come through on-campus internships that involve all aspects of administrative leadership, including working with governing boards. Those internships should last two to three years and should result in an administrative position, or at least the opportunity to be considered a top applicant for administrative vacancies. An added benefit of dipping into the disciplines for future presidents is that members of minority groups with degrees in the disciplines can also be identified and recruited as future presidents.
Breaking the hold that degrees in higher education have on the presidency would be a major step in lessening the impact of inbreeding. But that alone will not be enough to bring new views and new thinking to the presidency. Trustees must consider looking beyond the community-college campus for future presidents. In the early days of the community-college movement, boards looking for presidents turned to public-school superintendents, administrators at four-year institutions, directors of branch campuses, heads of technical schools, and retired military personnel who had returned to graduate school and earned doctorates. Boards should once again look at those prospects. Current presidents are not likely to endorse that approach, however, nor will those people who are currently in the traditional pipeline; thus, board leadership is mandatory.
Further, and this suggestion will surely be anathema to many current presidents and faculty members, governing boards should recruit presidents from the ranks of business and political leaders, career-changing military personnel, and other people with high-level leadership experience, even if they do not hold doctorates. I do not advocate recruiting large numbers of presidents from such a pool, but a small number would go a long way to lessen inbreeding at the presidential level. As with recruiting from the disciplines, this approach also will offer a new avenue for bringing promising members of minority groups into the presidency.
Community colleges have a bright future, given their surging enrollments, diverse curricula, and increasing prestige. In their role as the nation's institutions of higher education committed to diversity -- in the students they serve, the training and education they offer, and the philosophy they practice -- community colleges will be major players in the nation's future. To achieve their full potential, community colleges must be more diverse at the presidential level. To diversify, the presidency will require strong, inspired leadership from current presidents and trustees. Are they willing to deal with the true crisis in community-college presidential leadership?
George B. Vaughan is a professor of higher education at North Carolina State University and editor of Community College Review.
Across the USA: North Carolina
Oct. 27, 2004
USA Today
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Raleigh - Fans of N.C. State football or the State Fair should get accustomed to an annual traffic nightmare. The Atlantic Coast Conference said additional teams in the league mean there will be one game played during the fair. Fairgoers and football fans spent hours sitting in traffic when the Miami-N.C. State game drew 55,600 fans on the last weekend of the fair.