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PlayMakers Reaches Out Acting, Teaching and Engaging the Community A l s o ins ide • Football Fallout • Lensing Lessons • ’Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited S p r i ng • 2 0 1 0 a r t s & s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l College of Arts & Sciences • Karen M. Gil, Dean • William Andrews ’70 MA, ’73 PhD Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities • Michael Crimmins Senior Associate Dean, Natural Sciences • Jonathan Hartlyn Senior Associate Dean, Social Sciences, International Programs • Tammy McHale Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Operations • James W. May Senior Associate Dean, Program Development; Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation • Bobbi Owen Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors • James L. Alexandre ’79, Haverford, PA, Chair • Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Riverside, CT, Vice Chair • Karen M. Gil, Chapel Hill, NC, President • William L. Andrews, ‘70 MA, ‘73 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President • Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer • James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary • D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC • Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC • R. Frank Andrews ’90, ’95 MBA, Washington, DC • Valerie Ashby ’88, ’94 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC • Constance Y. Battle ’77, Raleigh, NC • Laura Hobby Beckworth ’80, Houston, TX • William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY • Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA • R. Duke Buchan III ’85, Amenia, NY • Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88, ’93 MBA, New York, NY • Sunny H. Burrows ’84, Atlanta, GA • G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC • Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92, ’98 MBA, Los Angeles, CA • Steven M. Cumbie ’70, ’73 MBA, McLean, VA • Jaroslav T. Folda III, Chapel Hill, NC • Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA • Emmett Boney Haywood ’77, ���82 JD, Raleigh, NC • Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD • Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC • William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX • Edwin A. Poston ’89, Chapel Hill, NC • John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA • Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL • Alex T. Robertson ’01, New York, NY • H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC • Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88, ’94 MBA, Greenwich, CT • Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK • Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA, London, UK • Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH From the dean F r om t h e D e a n Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 Opening doors through learning, discovery and outreach Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04) must be a master multi-tasker. As the director of education and outreach for PlayMakers Repertory Company, our professional theater company in residence, he juggles multiple roles. As an actor, he played five characters in the ambitious production of Nicholas Nickleby. And as an educator, he has helped PlayMakers open its doors wide to the community in new and exciting ways — including teacher artists in the schools, open discussions with artists in public venues like the library or local bookstore, and the Summer Youth Conservatory. Through the SYC, young actors train with professionals and put on a full-scale production; my son Elliot is one of many local students who have participated in this amazing opportunity. In the College, part of our ongoing goal is to reach out to the community, the state and the world through learning and discovery. These are not separate objectives, but rather an interconnected part of our mission, which is illustrated in several stories in our spring ’10 issue of Carolina Arts & Sciences: • Twenty undergraduate students, led by political science faculty member Donna LeFebvre, went on a Burch Field Research Seminar to study and volunteer in Rwanda last summer and had a life-changing experience. They came back to UNC committed to forming an organization to support the Rwanda school where they had learned about that nation’s tragic past while serving its survivors. • Exercise and sport science researchers Kevin Guskiewicz and Fred Mueller are studying the long-term impacts of football players who suffer multiple concussions. Their work is gaining national attention and raising awareness across all levels of play, including the NCAA. • English professor George Lensing is living proof that teaching, research and service are energizing. As the former head of the Office of Distinguished Scholarships, he has helped many UNC students to land Rhodes and other prestigious scholarships. These bright students leave Carolina with bold ideas that will change the world. • We profile Erin Burns, one of the first graduates of UNC-BEST, our partnership with the UNC School of Education that enables science and math majors to simultaneously earn N.C. teaching credentials with their undergraduate degrees. Burns is now teaching biology at an inner-city Charlotte high school. • You’ll read about beloved music professor and tenor Stafford Wing, who retired after 40 years in the College. His many former students — including performers, teachers, musical directors and others — have benefited from his leadership, teaching and service. We appreciate the support of our alumni and friends more than ever before as we continue to face ongoing economic challenges in the year ahead. Many of our learning, discovery and outreach initiatives would simply not be possible without their commitment. Our door is always open to you — come see us and find out about all of the exciting things going on in the College of Arts and Sciences. — Karen M. Gil, Dean Karen M. Gil Steve Exum F e a t u r e s 6 • PlayMakers Reaches Out The College’s professional theater opens its doors wide to the community 10 • ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited Undergraduates explore the aftermath of atrocity 15 • Football Fallout UNC research examines the long-term effects of concussion impacts 18 • Lensing Lessons Teaching, research and service are energizing Cover photo: PlayMakers Repertory Company’s Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04) poses with Allison Press of Chapel Hill High School, who portrayed Helena in the Summer Youth Conservatory’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Photo by Steve Exum) Table of Contents T a b l e of Co n t e n t s Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 D e p a r t m e n t s inside front cover From the Dean Opening doors through learning, discovery and outreach 2 High Achievers Two Rhodes Scholars, literary prize for Asian studies professor, kudos for teaching, chemist wins polymer prize, biologists tapped for science association, computer graphics work honored, and more 20 Profiles UNC-BEST graduate Erin Burns is born to teach; Beloved music professor Stafford Wing leaves UNC on a high note. 22 Highlights New international experts join the College, gifts from retired geologist move mountains, pinpointing the causes of “runner’s knee,” celebrating first-generation college students, heading off “home-grown terrorism,” single atom controls how bacteria “walk,” and more 31 College Bookshelf Fiction exploring the segregated past, an international adoption and celebrity encounters with animals; reflections on secret interviews with President Clinton, growing up Jewish in N.C., raising a child with autism and why Muhammad matters; and more inside back cover Final Point Lady Mechanic, a poem by senior English major Michelle Hicks of Lafayette, La. Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 1 15 18 10 Steve Exum Donn Young Bruce Siceloff Two for the Rhodes In Taiwan, she taught English and computer skills at a shelter for Vietnamese victims of human trafficking. In Israel and Turkey, she conducted interviews and attended conferences to research tensions that arise between religious minority groups and their governments. As part of a fall 2008 study abroad in Switzerland, Longino traveled to Bosnia- Herzegovina to research human trafficking after the country’s civil war. At UNC, Longino is president of the Carolina chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student think tank. This year, Carolina’s was named the most outstanding chapter among 75 nationwide. Spelman has worked in refugee camps in Tanzania, tutored underprivileged high school students and trekked more than 125 miles in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. He is proficient in conversation in Swahili and in conversation and reading in German. He has won five competitive academic prizes from the classics department since 2007, including the Herington Scholarship twice. In addition to that scholarship, his classics awards include The Eben Alexander Prize in Greek, The Epps Prize in Greek Studies and The Albert Suskin Prize in Latin. Working to help Burundian refugees in Tanzania last summer — Spelman’s second time there with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees on a Morehead-Cain summer experience — he read himself to sleep at night with the ancient Greek poetry of Pindar. Spelman edits the Cellar Door, UNC’s undergraduate literary magazine, and has written a poem accepted by the internationally circulated Southern Poetry Review. He won the prize for the best poet in the junior class from UNC’s creative writing program. With Amnesty International, Spelman has participated in national planning sessions and a steering committee, coordinated activism by about 30 high school students in the Triangle and led the UNC chapter. • High Achievers 2 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences H i g h A c h i e v e r s UNC seniors Elizabeth Blair “Libby” Longino and Henry Lawlor Spelman have won prestigious Rhodes Scholarships for graduate study at Oxford University in England. They were among 32 American college students selected Nov. 21 for the prestigious honor, perhaps the world’s most competitive in higher education. Longino of Dallas is double-majoring in English and public policy analysis. Spelman of Swarthmore, Pa., is majoring in classical languages with a minor in creative writing. Longino will pursue master’s degrees in forced migration and comparative social policy at Oxford. She plans a career in human rights advocacy. Spelman will pursue a master’s degree in Greek and Latin languages and literature. His ambition is to become a professor. Both students came to Carolina on the Morehead-Cain Scholarship — a full, four-year merit award that includes four summer enrichment experiences. That’s not the only thing they have in common. They met during their first year at Carolina, reconnected about two years later on a research trip to Turkey, and then later started dating. They are looking forward to exploring Oxford together. Longino has interned with a microcredit program in Vietnam, helped start a group combating child prostitution in Cambodia and completed an Outward Bound Wilderness Expedition in the Pacific Northwest. Longino spent one of her Morehead- Cain summers in Vietnam, interviewing clients of a small microcredit project. One day, she heard a Vietnamese mother’s pleas for a heart treatment for her daughter. The experience resulted in an invitation later from Vietnamese colleagues to help start a foundation in Cambodia addressing child prostitution in Phnom Penh’s Vietnamese community. Asian studies scholar wins literary prize Sahar Amer, a professor of Asian studies, won a top prize from the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). Amer received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies for her book, Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). The award is presented annually for outstanding scholarly work that involves at least two literatures. Amer is a member of the MLA, the largest and one of the oldest American societies in the humanities. At Carolina, she is also an adjunct professor of French and international studies. She focuses her research on cross-cultural relations between the Arab world and Europe throughout the centuries; Arabs and Muslims in France and in America today; and cross-cultural constructions of gender and sexualities. • Sahar Amer Steve Exum Libby Longino Henry Spelman High Achievers Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 3 H i g h A c h i e v e r s Kudos for teaching Sixteen College faculty and graduate teaching assistants were recognized with 2010 University Teaching Awards, the highest campuswide honors for instructional excellence. This year’s nominee for the UNC System Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching is Rachel Willis, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor in the department of American studies. One recipient is selected each year by each of the 16 institutions in the UNC system. The UNC-Chapel Hill recipient is also the University’s nominee for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year competition, a national award for outstanding undergraduate teaching. Winners of Tanner Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching are: • Claudio Battaglini, assistant professor of exercise and sport science; • Robert Cantwell, Townsend Ludington Professor of American Studies; • Brian Hogan, assistant professor of chemistry; • Elizabeth Jordan, lecturer and associate director of undergraduate studies, psychology; • Greg Gangi, assistant professor, curriculum for the environment and ecology. Winners of Johnston Teaching Excellence Awards for undergraduate teaching are: • Daniel Wallace, J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor, English and comparative literature; • Albert K. Harris, professor of biology. Winners of Distinguished Teaching Awards for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction are: • Thomas Hill, Kenan Professor of Philosophy; • Robert MacCallum, professor of psychology. Winners of Tanner Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants are: • Stacey Treat, communication studies; • Ben White, religious studies; • Pablo Maurette, Spanish; • Andrew Pennock, political science. In addition, religious studies professor Omid Safi won the J. Carlyle Sitterson Fresh-man Teaching Award, awarded to a professor teaching first-year students, and political science professor Michael Lienesch won the University Professor of Distinguished Teach-ing Award. This three-year term professor-ship was established to recognize career-long excellence in teaching. • Simpson lauded for literature contributions Bland Simpson, a creative writing professor, author, composer and lyricist, was recognized for his significant contributions to North Carolina literature. Simpson, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor, received the R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. Simpson has taught in the College since 1982 and directed the creative writing program from 2002 to 2008. He is the author of numerous books about North Carolina, including The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey: A Nonfiction Novel, Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering and The Inner Islands: A Carolinian’s Sound Country Chronicle. He has been a member of the Tony Award-winning string band, The Red Clay Ramblers, since 1986. He has collaborated on or contributed to almost a dozen musicals, including Diamond Studs, King Mackerel, Kudzu and the Tony winner Fool Moon. • Bland Simpson Steve Exum Brian Hogan Michael Lienesch Lars Sahl Daniel Wallace Steve Exum Brodey wins language association book award Inger Brodey received the 2009 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Studies Book Award. Brodey is associate professor of English and comparative literature and Asian studies. Brodey won the award for her 2008 book, Ruined by Design: Shaping Novels and Gardens in the Culture of Sensibility. The book on landscape gardening and the history of the novel features the work of Laurence Sterne, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Jane Austen. “Inger Brodey has written a book of remarkable vitality about the fascination with ruins across eighteenth-century Europe,” said Wu Hung, a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago. Brodey has won national awards for her scholarship, including a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. She was recently awarded an Earhart Foundation Research Grant to complete a book-length comparison of cowboys and samurai in film. She also is working on a study of representations of Jane Austen in Asia. She won a 2006 UNC Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. • High Achievers H i g h A c h i e v e r s 4 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Two juniors receive Carson Scholarships Juniors Caroline Fish and Chase Jones have been named Eve Carson Scholars at UNC. The scholarship will provide half the cost of their senior year studies, plus $5,000 each for a summer enrichment experience. Fish, of Raleigh, is double-majoring in psychology and English, with a minor in creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences. Jones, of Greensboro, is majoring in business administration at Kenan-Flagler Business School, with a minor in exercise and sport science in the College. Carson, a senior from Athens, Ga., and UNC’s 2007-2008 student body president, was killed in March 2008. One of what she called her “Big Ideas” as president was to create a merit-based scholarship for UNC juniors. The scholarship was established in her memory to honor balanced, ambitious students who have shown strong involvement in leadership roles at Carolina and have at least a 3.0 grade-point average in their first three undergraduate years. Fish is a 2007 graduate of Ravenscroft School in Raleigh. She has worked toward solving the problems of sexual assault and domestic violence. She is working with campus colleagues to produce a documentary to raise awareness about sexual violence. She also has studied abroad in France, where she worked to help victims of sexual assault. “Caroline is an incredibly motivated person and inspired the committee with her drive to bring about positive change in this area,” said Thomas Edwards, a senior biology major who directed the scholarship program this year. Jones graduated from Ragsdale High School in Jamestown, N.C., in 2006. He has worked with patients at the N.C. Children’s Hospital and next year will lead the Carolina Dreams Program, which connects athletes to children in the hospital. A varsity baseball player, he overcame brain cancer during his first year at Carolina. “He took this devastating event and turned it into both a positive personal experience and motivation to work diligently to ease the burden of children in similar situations at the N.C. Children’s Hospital,” Edwards said. • Davenport wins award for Cobb program Randi Davenport, executive director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, received a statewide award for her leadership in the Connected Learning Program (CLP) in Cobb residence hall. The North Carolina Housing Officers Organization (NCHO) tapped Davenport for its Faculty Partnership Award. The new award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an academic faculty member to the housing and residence life department at their institution. The Connected Learning Program in Cobb, a joint project of the Johnston Center and Housing and Residential Education at UNC, was created in 2004. The program offers students the chance to shape their own learning experiences outside the traditional classroom. During the academic year, CLP students work in teams to develop projects of their own design — ranging from research trips and lecture series to music performances and film-making workshops. The participants live together in Cobb hall. Davenport is an adjunct faculty member in the department of English and comparative literature. Her memoir, The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, was published by Algonquin in March 2010. [see page 31.] • Inger Brodey Caroline Fish Chase Jones Randi Davenport Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 5 High Achievers H i g h A c h i e v e r s Wenbin Lin Chemist awarded polymer prize Chemist Michael Rubinstein was awarded the 2010 Polymer Prize from the American Physical Society. The award recognizes outstanding contributions in polymer physics research. Rubinstein, the John P. Barker Distinguished Professor, has been at UNC since 1995. Most of the materials around us (from plastics to tires) and inside us (DNA and proteins) are made of polymers — giant, chain-like molecules. The goal of Rubinstein’s research group is to understand how polymers move through a tangle formed by their molecule neighbors and how they are deformed if attached to each other in a network, then pulled apart (like stretching a rubber band). UNC researchers are modeling polymers in the lungs with the goal of developing treatments for diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Rubinstein received his bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Harvard University. Lin named to top 10 chemists list Chemist Wenbin Lin was named to a top 10 list by a British publication for the number of citations per article published. The London-based Times Higher Education, named Lin among the “Top Ten Chemists of the Decade.” From January 1999 through June 2009, Lin published 106 original research reports and review articles, which were cited a total of 6,685 times, averaging around 63 citations per paper. Lin’s research group works on a variety of interdisciplinary projects from catalysis to supramolecular materials to nanobiotechnology. His research efforts are relevant to important societal issues such as environment and sustainability, alternative renewable energy, biofuels and solar cells, and human health. Lin holds joint appointments in the College and UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is a lead investigator in the new Solar Energy Research Center, a project principal investigator of the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology. Computer graphics, robotics work honored Computer scientist Dinesh Manocha was honored by the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society for his contributions to geometric computing, computer graphics and robotics. Manocha, the Phi Delta Theta/Matthew Mason Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, was named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is an expert in computer graphics and geometric modeling. His research on mathematical foundations and applications has been used in scientific computations, robotics, 3-D computer graphics and virtual reality by the scientific community, the computer industry and the entertainment world. Biologists tapped for science association Biologists Joseph Kieber and Mark A. Peifer were named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The association honors fellows’ scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science. Kieber was recognized for his contributions to plant hormone biology. Hormones influence virtually every aspect of plant growth and development. He was also cited for his service to the international community of arabidopsis researchers. Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant, is widely used as a model organism in plant biology. Studying model species can help provide insight into the workings of a wide variety of other organisms. Peifer, the Hooker Distinguished Professor of Biology and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, was recognized for his contributions to the understanding of interactions between cells and of cell signaling during development. Disruptions in this cellular machinery contribute to various diseases, including cancer. His work, which explores how cells turn into tissues and organs, focuses on epithelial tissues such as skin, lung, colon and breast tissue. Graduate student wins Intel Fellowship To his adviser, Rahul Narain “is an exceptional student in every regard.” Narain, a UNC College graduate student in computer science, received an Intel Ph.D. Fellowship, the only recipient in North Carolina. The Intel PhD Fellowship Program selects students who are conducting leading-edge technology research. Students must focus on research in hardware systems technology and design, software technology and design, or semiconductor technology and manufacturing. Narain specializes in efficient animation of complex phenomena, such as human crowds, while also retaining small-scale detail. “Due to his rare combination of excellent analytical skills and unparalleled programming skills, Rahul is able to achieve impressive results that have never been seen before,” said his adviser Ming Lin, the Beverly W. Long Distin-guished Professor of Computer Science. • Michael Rubinstein Dinesh Manocha Mark Peifer Reaches PlayMakers PlayMakers 6 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences PlayMakers Steve Exum Out PlayMakersReaches Out Reaches Out Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 7 It’s 10 a.m. on a December morning and Jeff Meanza quickly heads backstage after greeting teachers and students in the lobby of UNC’s Center for Dramatic Art. He will make a fast change into costume for a performance of PlayMakers Repertory Company’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Talk about juggling multiple roles. Meanza (MFA ’04), PlayMakers’ director of education and outreach, also plays five characters ranging from a middle-aged womanizing dandy to a 14-year-old boy in the epic two-part production that casts 25 actors in 150 roles. Since their inception in 1984, these educational matinees have reached nearly 100,000 area youth. Sue Scarborough, who teaches acting and theater at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, has been bringing her students to PlayMakers’ weekday matinees for nearly 20 years. “PlayMakers is our closest and best theater that showcases outstanding acting and technical [work],” she said. “It’s important for me as a teacher to know that they create everything there, from the costumes to the sets.” “It lets me as a teacher show my students the possibilities.” Possibilities and partnerships The educational matinees are just part of the many partnerships PlayMakers is exploring in an increasing effort to reach out to the community. The company is bringing dramatic performances to a wider audience through cultural programming both inside and outside the theater’s walls. A couple of years ago, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) jump-started an initiative to take PlayMakers artists into the schools. Through its teaching artists program, PlayMakers offers two residencies per year to area schools at no cost. “We want to be as supportive as we theater is like,” he said. Meanza was 5 years old when a local theater production of Annie in his hometown of Modesto, Calif., first sparked his interest in dramatic art. He went to theater summer camps, studied the oboe for 14 years, played in bands and symphonies — but when he got to college at the University of California at Berkeley, he initially felt like he needed to pursue a more “secure” liberal arts degree. While in college, a trip to see an off- Broadway play re-lit the theater spark. He changed his undergraduate major to theater, then went on to pursue his MFA at UNC. Meanza is quick to point out that the skills learned in theater cross disciplines. “Having been a theater artist from a very The College’s professional theater opens its doors wide to the community c o n t i n u e d B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 can to keep the arts alive and well in their schools,” said Kathy Williams, a PlayMakers company member who heads the program. Joy Jones, an MFA candidate in the Professional Actor Training Program, led a workshop for the artists on creating lesson plans, warm-up activities and addressing different themes. A Google e-mail group allows the artists to continue to share ideas. The partnership with the schools — which has stretched from the Triangle to Fayetteville, Yanceyville and beyond — is one of the initiatives Meanza is most proud of since joining PlayMakers’ staff in 2007. “We’re there to help augment anything they need — whether it’s using the arts to teach English or history or science, or to help students understand what a professional Reaches ABOVE: Oliver! music director Ernie Scarborough rehearses with students. LEFT: Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04), director of education and outreach at PlayMakers, played multiple roles in the epic Nicholas Nickleby. Robert Breen Collaboration Expanding the 8 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences young age, after graduate school, I became the national director of graduate programs for the Princeton Review,” he said. “All of the skills I learned as an actor were completely applicable in that job.” A creative collaboration For the past three summers, Brian and Mary Stokes of Pittsboro have supported their 15-year-old son Henry’s participation in the Summer Youth Conservatory (SYC), a unique partnership between PlayMakers and The ArtsCenter of Carrboro. In an intensive, five-week experience, 40 children from elementary to high school learn from PlayMakers’ professional staff all the aspects of putting on a full-scale production — including training in acting, movement, voice and technical theater. And they perform it in the Center for Dramatic Art’s Paul Green Theatre, where PlayMakers puts on its main-stage shows. Students have to audition for a spot in the conservatory, which is tuition-based. Full and partial scholarships are available. “No matter what you end up doing … you learn to express yourself creatively and with confidence, and those are probably the most highly sought-after skills in any field.” — Brian Stokes “Henry will never forget some of these people,” Brian Stokes said. “No matter what you end up doing … you learn to express yourself creatively and with confidence, and those are probably the most highly sought-after skills in any field. … The kids are also learning how to work with deadlines and achieve certain milestones.” The SYC participants performed Oliver! and The Music Man their first two seasons. Last year, they took on Shakespeare. Henry Stokes played a major role — Lysander — in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In his first two seasons, he played ensemble roles, and he found those just as valuable. “Being in an ensemble role was amazing, because Tom [Quaintance, the director] really makes those roles special and uses them to develop the world of the play,” he said. The North Carolina Theatre Conference (NCTC), the statewide service organization for theater arts and artists, recently awarded the SYC its Constance Welsh Theatre for Youth Award. Angie Hayes, the executive director of NCTC, called the conservatory “a model program for youth theater in North Carolina.” Seventeen-year-old Allison Press of Chapel Hill has participated in SYC for two summers. She admits that at first it was intimidating to think about doing Shakespeare; now she loves it. She played Helena in Midsummer. “The experience just gets richer and richer and more fun every year,” she said. “Once Tom and [dramatic art professor] Julie Fishell helped us to unlock the language, it was fun to build a character off of that.” Last year for the first time, SYC offered an apprentice program called TheatreTech. Six students signed up for the program and learned about different technical aspects of theater, including set, costume and lighting design, and stage management. They could then focus on one area. “Everything in theater is one huge problem-solving exercise — even if the show goes off fairly smoothly,” said Kaitlyn Rogers, 18, of Chapel Hill, a TheatreTech apprentice. This summer, SYC will expand from a half-day to a full-day program, allowing for more in-depth classes. Participants will perform The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Jeri Lynn Schulke (MFA ’99), director of the Youth Performing Arts Conservatory at The ArtsCenter, said the partnership with PlayMakers has been very rewarding. “The staff at PlayMakers are inspiring people to work with,” she said. “Nobody’s in it for ego; we’re all focused on doing the best we can for these students.” Echoed Allison’s dad, Dennis Press, who is the controller at UNC, “The ArtsCenter and PlayMakers individually do great things, but collectively it proves the expression that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’” Fostering a love of Dickens With its production of Nicholas Nickleby, PlayMakers took the idea of engaging the community to a new level. An NEA grant helped the company to create “The Dickens Initiative” — expanded programming around the play that was offered in area bookstores, a library, schools, an art museum and more. Playwright David Edgar came to campus for a week in residence, a master class and public lecture. Marian Fragola, who got her master’s in information and library science from UNC in 2008, is the humanities coordinator at the Durham County Library. She has been involved with bringing PlayMakers’ artists to the library since The Glass Menagerie in 2008. With Nicholas Nickleby, she brought in directors, actors and designers to the library’s main branch and The Regulator Bookshop to talk about adapting, directing and designing an epic. “People are fascinated to get that behind the scenes [look],” she said. “One of the attendees said, ‘like the extras on a DVD, these lectures helped me to appreciate the massive undertaking of Nicholas Nickleby.’” Tom Quaintance, a Los Angeles-based director who has led each summer’s SYC performances and who co-directed Nicholas Nickleby with producing artistic director Joseph Haj (MFA ’88), enjoyed participating in the outreach events. “When we were producing the play, we wanted to peel away some of the layers, to show how we were doing this,” he said. “There was a joy in this process that had to do very specifically with the building of a community.” CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: (From left), SYC students Alexander Daly and Karl Kopcynski rehearse a scene from The Music Man. • (From left), Joy Jones and Jeff Meanza in Nicholas Nickleby. • SYC participants took on Shakespeare last summer. Reaches Robert Breen Collaboration Conversation Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 9 has collaborated with PlayMakers productions since 1980. The program’s 2009 Richard A. Soloway Seminar, supported by private funds, focused on “The Victorian World,” with UNC and Duke scholars discussing different aspects of Victorian life. Participants attended a performance of Nicholas Nickleby. For teachers, the tickets were free. “This collaboration brings the humanities to life in ways that we don’t often experience,” said Eve Duffy, director of the program. “It’s a conversation that just gets started in the theater, and then you keep it going.” Expanding the conversation Since Haj came on board as producing artistic director in July 2006, he has made it a key focus of PlayMakers’ strategy to extend that conversation with the community. He created the second-stage PRC² series where the company could explore socially and politically relevant work in a more intimate setting — shows are performed in the smaller Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre. And he added post-show discussions with the audience and the creative artists. With the main-stage season this year, PlayMakers introduced the free “Vision Series: Directors in Conversation.” A week before each show opens, the public is invited to the theater to learn about the production in process, meet the director and get a behind-the- scenes peek at the show. “If you ask a dozen different artistic directors, you’ll get different ideas about what’s important to them,” Haj said. “We just believe strongly at PlayMakers that this theater belongs to the community it is charged to serve. It’s not up to us to sit in an ivory tower and wave the artistic flag.” Tariq Nasir, a documentary filmmaker and a member of PlayMakers Advisory Council, has supported PRC² discussions from the beginning. In this day and age when it may be easier to turn on the TV than visit the theater, Nasir believes an educational mission is even more crucial. A study by the NEA found a noticeable decline in theater, museum and concert attendance between 2002 and 2008 for adults 18 and older. “When you learn how to appreciate [theater], you learn the subtleties and then you’re more likely to want to take part because you see the real value,” he said. “With the PRC² series, Joe is saying, ‘we’re going to entertain you, but we also want you to feel stretched beyond your comfort zone.’” “We just believe strongly at PlayMakers that this theater belongs to the community it is charged to serve.” — Joseph Haj The “Mindplay” discussions offer another avenue for community participation. While the program has existed for about a decade, attendance has been growing in recent years, according to Meanza. On select nights after each of the main-stage productions, a psychoanalyst leads a 50-minute discussion about characters and themes in the show. “Modern psychoanalysis is the deepest study and treatment of human character and emotion that we have, and so it’s a powerful lens for looking into a drama,” said Peter Perault, a Chapel Hill psychiatrist who has led several discussions over the years. “I think people find that the give-and-take with the audience after a performance always enriches their experience of the theater.” In the coming year, PlayMakers will explore new partnerships with the North Carolina Symphony, Kidzu Children’s Museum in Chapel Hill and UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, among others. Quaintance, the guest director, has known Haj for about 20 years. Haj has rallied his team around the idea of embracing the community, he said. “There’s a sense of shared purpose in that building,” he said. “Joe hasn’t just surrounded himself with people who agree with him; he’s surrounded himself with people who are willing to fight for what’s right and work for a higher purpose.” “That’s a recipe for success.” Online Extras: More on PlayMakers at www.playmakersrep.org and college.unc.edu. Out The Ackland Art Museum presented the original drawings, illustrations and prints of Dickens’ England. Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, the temporary installation in the new second floor study gallery included works by Dickens’ chief artistic collaborators. The exhibition featured one of artist George Cruikshank’s original 1838 drawings for Oliver Twist. English lecturer Marc Napolitano gave a lunch-time talk on Dickens’ art in the “Victorian popular consciousness.” A Wilson Library installation in the Rare Book Reading Room showcased the original serial editions of Nicholas Nickleby (1838- 1839) and two early theatrical adaptations of the novel. More about the installation and Napolitano’s talk were posted online on PlayMakers’ Web site. “It was very exciting working with PlayMakers, to use our collection to bring together faculty and resources from across campus to help extend the life of Nicholas Nickleby beyond the event itself,” said Rob Colby, coordinator of academic programs at the Ackland. The College of Arts and Sciences’ Program in Humanities and Human Values was founded in 1979; the program Jon Gardiner T 10 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences he 20 undergraduate students who headed to Rwanda last summer knew it would be a very different kind of study abroad experience. I felt a tinge of discomfort as we landed on the runway and pulled into the airport …my inability to grasp the atrocity that happened here. To me it is a scene from a horror movie, a page from a book … I surely could never imagine such hell. — Sarah Stoneking’s blog, May 21, Kigali Led by UNC political science senior lecturer Donna LeFebvre and Tessa Bialek, an alumna teaching assistant, the group returned to the scenes of a massive massacre that occurred 15 years ago. Nearly a million Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days in 1994, in a bloody ethnic clash when Hutus turned on their Tutsi neighbors. Hollywood brought the genocide to light in the 2004 award-winning film, Hotel Rwanda, the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered over a thousand Tutsi refugees. Required reading for the UNC students included New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch’s book, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Carolina students met survivors and perpetrators face to face; took classes on genocide, reconciliation and international law; taught children orphaned by the slaughter; visited churches and schools where people were slain; lived with Rwandan families and sat in on international criminal court proceedings. Through a Burch Field Research Seminar, they spent a few days in Arusha, Tanzania, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; four weeks in Kigali (including week-long home stays with Rwandan families); one week in Butare at the National ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited Undergraduates explore the aftermath of atrocity B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 c o n t i n u e d Bruce Siceloff Bruce Siceloff Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 11 Most of the students at College Doctrina Vitae (CDV), a secondary school near Kigali, are genocide orphans. (Left) The skulls of hundreds of genocide victims are stored in a church at Nyamata. 12 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences University of Rwanda and one week in The Hague at the International Criminal Court. In addition to academic coursework, they went on field trips and volunteered at various schools and nonprofits in Rwanda. “A lot of us couldn’t process what we had seen,” said Sarah Stoneking, a senior chemistry major from Greensboro, who is pursuing a double minor in anthropology and music. “In a lot of ways, I felt like I didn’t have the right to understand what I had seen, because there were stories that were being told that were not mine — and never will be mine.” The memorial gave me, and I believe others, truth. It not only gave me facts, it gave me the reality. It not only gave me the names, it gave me the faces. It not only gave me the written accounts, it told me the stories. It gave me the people. The women, the men and the children. — Menna Mburi’s blog, May 21, Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre For Menna Mburi, a senior political science major and journalism minor, it was a journey back to her family’s roots in neighboring Tanzania. She grew up in Raleigh, but lived for a couple of years in Tanzania when she was 5. She was there in 1994, at the time of the genocide in Rwanda, but wrote in her blog that she doesn’t remember hearing about it then. At the memorial center, the impact of the killings hit home for Mburi when she stumbled upon a glass case, illuminated by a single light bulb, that contained a piece of clothing worn by one of the victims. “It reminded me of something that my mom had worn [as a young adult],” Mburi said. “There’s this picture of my mom, my favorite from when she was younger. She has on this green fabric, and she’s at my grandmother’s house, kneeling on the ground with a cow. It triggered something in my mind, and I made the connection that this could have been my mom, my dad, my brother. It touched me in a way that I can’t even explain.” As I hope the people who read this understand, no part of Rwanda was left untouched by the genocide. The National University of Rwanda’s narrative is one of immense sadness: professors turned on professors, students against students, professors against students. Over five hundred people were killed on this campus, on a typical college day. When we sat in a lecture room, the only thing going through my head was: Who was sitting here, in this chair? — Matt Karkutt’s blog, June 14, Butare The university was one of many memorial sites the students visited. At two churches in the Kibuye district of Rwanda, students saw blood stains, holes left by bullets and grenades, piles of clothing worn by the victims and pews scattered with everyday objects they carried — toys, purses, hats, ballpoint pens, ethnic identity cards. Skulls and bones of the dead lined shelves of the sacred places, surrounded by the musky smell of earth, death and age. We went to Nyamata where 10,000 people were killed in a church. … I thought about everyone I knew, and how that would only be a drop in the bucket of even this one massacre. I thought about my hopes and dreams and how those of the victims were cut down, right then and there for no reason. — Thomas Ginn’s blog, May 30 Memorial in Butare, where the skeletons are preserved in limestone. This one brought me to tears, wondering why I had been born into such privilege, security and opportunity. — from Ginn’s Facebook album of the trip Thomas Ginn said it wasn’t just at memorial sites that the students felt the impact of the genocide. Because of the length of their stay, they were able to immerse themselves in the daily life of Rwanda. Everyone they met had a story to tell. “We were sitting in a restaurant one night and we started talking to a guy sitting by himself,” recalled Ginn, a senior math and economics major from Atlanta. “He talked to us for three hours about his life, how his entire family was killed in the genocide and how he was still trying to figure out a way to cope. … You couldn’t have learned this in a classroom.” During the genocide, bodies were dumped in the Akagera and Nyabarongo rivers — both tributaries of Lake Victoria. As per the custom, the UNC students wrote messages to the survivors and victims while walking across the river bridges. Matt Karkutt, a junior English and interdisciplinary studies major from Gray’s Creek, N.C., chose to offer up this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien while on the bridge of the Akagera: “Little by little Sarah Collman Bruce Siceloff Amber Clifford CLOCKWISE from top left: Kigali kids check out UNC student Doug Harris’ camera. • Sparsely equipped science lab at CDV. • Donna LeFebvre in Arusha National Park, Tanzania. Exploring global climate change in Iceland and more This summer UNC students will travel to Iceland and Alaska to study global climate change, thanks to a new Burch Field Research Seminar. The rotating roster of semester- and summer-long seminars allows UNC faculty to lead groups of undergraduates on extensive field research trips in the U.S. and around the world. The program is supported by Lucius E. Burch III, a 1963 Carolina graduate who wanted to encourage professors and students to engage their intellectual curiosity together beyond the classroom. The first seminar debuted in fall 1998. Burch also funded the Burch Fellows Program, which allows talented Carolina undergraduates to design and pursue individual independent study projects anywhere in the world. Burch Seminars, which typically have between 12 and 18 students, provide 12 hours of academic credit in a mix of independent study and formal course work. They are open to all UNC undergraduate students who are in good standing and have at least a 3.0 GPA. Financial aid can be applied to the program cost, and students can apply for additional need-based scholarships. Information online at www.burchseminars.unc.edu. — B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 one travels far.” Karkutt added in a blog entry: “I travel with the Rwandan people, always.” Karkutt, who is involved with an anti-genocide activist group on campus, had read “obsessively” about Rwanda before the trip. Still, he said the experience of actually being there was “intense — but that’s an understatement no matter what.” “At the memorials it was very raw,” he said. “It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t clean. It could be difficult sometimes, because we want to put barriers around ourselves with death, but there you couldn’t do that. You knew that wherever you stood, someone was probably murdered there.” “But what I would do is look around me, and I would see life continuing, kids playing and people moving on and trying to look forward to the future.” LeFebvre, who has a UNC law degree, got interested in international criminal law about 10 years ago. In the summer of 2006, she interviewed staff and attended hearings at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Rwandan genocide court in Arusha, Tanzania, and the new International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands. She decided to create a Burch seminar, an off-campus study program that showcases the relationship between UNC faculty research and undergraduate education by combining traditional coursework with experiential learning. The seminar program is supported by a gift from UNC alumnus Lucius E. Burch III. Each year between five and seven seminars are offered in both domestic and international locations. “Overall what I wanted them to get from the experience is that you can make a difference, that things like genocide don’t have to happen — and when they do happen, you can do something about it,” said LeFebvre, who has won 13 teaching awards at Carolina. “They have a duty to do something because they are global citizens.” Students found the voluntary service learning component of the Burch seminar most meaningful. Stoneking was among a group of students who volunteered to teach at College Doctrina Vitae (CDV), a secondary school in Kigali. “I felt some sort of visceral discomfort with the fact that I was in Rwanda and I was learning and talking and meeting people, but I wanted something else I couldn’t really articulate,” said Stoneking, who taught chemistry, drama and English. “Once we started work-ing at College Doctrina Vitae, it was amazing. … I ended up doing my research project on teaching science in developing countries.” Mburi worked at a local nonprofit, Mwana Ukundwa (“Beloved Child”), an organization started by genocide survivor Mukankaka Rose to provide orphans and widows with the knowledge and skills to re-integrate into society. On Mburi’s first day there, she helped plant, weed and hoe crops — pumpkins, squash and carrots. The weather was perfect. c o n t i n u e d Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 13 David Gilmore Bruce Siceloff Bruce Siceloff CLOCKWISE from top left: Brick wall with broken bottles in the Niboye neighborhood in Kigali. • Sorting coffee beans at a plantation near Butare. • Pink work suits identify convicted genocidaires. Thirteen’s a lucky number Political science senior lecturer Donna LeFebvre has won 13 teaching awards since becoming a UNC faculty member in 1984. That baker’s dozen includes two UNC Tanner Undergraduate Teaching Awards (in 1996 and 2004) and three Students’ Undergraduate Teaching Awards (in 1995, 2000 and 2006). She became the first person to win a second students’ teaching award, the only such honor directed and funded by Carolina students. Menna Mburi, a senior political science and journalism major who participated in last summer’s Rwanda Burch Seminar with LeFebvre, is not surprised by those accolades. She said in LeFebvre’s classroom, students are encouraged to voice their opinions and share their ideas. “Her instructional techniques go beyond the traditional lecture,” Mburi said. “Everything was about application and about putting ourselves in other people’s shoes and about being able to examine both sides of the [Rwandan] conflict. … She pushes you to think beyond the subject matter.” LeFebvre is also committed to service learning, something a student nominator noted in 1996 when recommending her for the Tanner Award: “Through her variety of experimental class methods and her dedication to organizations and committees on campus, Donna LeFebvre is working to expand the definition and goals of university education.” LeFebvre has taught criminal law in Eritrea and through Semester at Sea, a floating university ship that travels around the world. In fall 2004, she led the university’s Honors Program in London. In fall 2010, she will direct the Honors Program in Cape Town, South Africa. Friederike Seeger, director of Burch Programs and Honors Study Abroad, believes LeFebvre’s background in leading international programs will help another group of students create meaningful experiences in Cape Town. With an intense study abroad experience like a Burch Seminar, “faculty directors need to wear many hats: you have to be not only a professor, but also a parent and friend. Donna excels at that because she really cares about the students,” Seeger said. — B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 Although they did not speak the same language, the Rwandan women and UNC volunteers bonded through song. It was one of the moments she will never forget. “The sun had not risen yet; it was behind the mountain, and it was very cool. … I remember they were singing Christian songs, and they asked if we knew any Christian songs, and we started singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ … We started teaching them in English, and they started teaching us in Kinyarwanda. … It was our way we communicated with each other.” In addition to teaching at CDV, Karkutt took on an independent project of his own. A classically trained ballet dancer, he decided to teach ballet to students at a primary school. In turn, they showed him intore, a native Rwandan dance. Once they returned to Chapel Hill, the students wanted to continue their connection to Rwanda. They are forming an official student organization that will continue the partnership with College Doctrina Vitae. They are arranging for letter-writing exchanges between U.S. and Rwandan students. They want to provide supplies to the school. And they were awarded a Nourish International grant to send six UNC students back to CDV this summer. “I’ve never had a group of students like this — fearless, smart, adventurous,” said LeFebvre, who has hosted “reunions” of the group at her house. “They just leapt in … sometimes working 12 or 14 hours a day. … They were busy 24-7.” The students came back changed in different ways from the experience. Many of them hope to do further travel and studies abroad. Some say the trip either affirmed or changed their career paths. Karkutt hopes to find a way to continue his dance exchange. From LeFebvre he learned to ask the question: “What do I want to do next?” “When you open that book, you can’t realize what it’s like to step off a plane in Kigali, Rwanda, until you do it,” Karkutt said. “Studying abroad opens your eyes and makes you see a lot of things about your own country, and about yourself.” From Karkutt’s June 7 blog entry: It’s our last night of Kigali. I’m currently sitting at Bourbon Café, drinking a short latte, taking in the city atmosphere … one last time. I’ve made several decisions … and one is that I’m coming back. Online Extras: Listen to audio clips of LeFebvre and Stoneking talking about the Rwanda trip at college.unc.edu. ABOVE: Donna LeFebvre and UNC students with teachers and students at CDV. The Carolina students are forming an organization to support the Rwanda school. 14 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Bruce Siceloff Football Fallout Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 15 We are a sports-crazed nation. We love celebrating the success of athletes of all stripes — from the girl on the youth recreation team kicking her first goal to the professional football player scoring his umpteenth touchdown. We’re not so big on the injuries. We don’t necessarily ask to know more about the sprained ankles, torn menisci, busted vertebral discs, broken ribs or concussions that athletes suffer. But each year, in every sport, a steady stream of injured players trail off the football fields and ice-rinks, away from the track and soccer fields, and into the offices of athletic trainers and physicians. Of all the common impact injuries an athlete might incur, concussions are the hardest to detect. But we’d best figure it out, because a body of research is building that shows how athletes who suffer multiple concussions can expect a bevy of problems later in life: depression, cognitive troubles and dementia. When football players take to the field each fall, about 10 percent can expect to sustain at least one concussion that season. Of these, 15 to 20 percent are likely to have a second concussion in the same season. And the recurrent concussions may be the most costly to a player’s lifetime health. Kevin Guskiewicz’s UNC research on the long-term consequences of football concussions is gaining national attention and raising eyebrows across all levels of play, including the NCAA. Guskiewicz first became concerned about concussions when he was an athletic trainer with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early 1990s. He saw battered and bruised players in the NFL put back in games, and he questioned if their health was being properly considered. “What bothered me the most was the arbitrary nature in which return-to-play decisions were made after they’d taken a hard hit to their head,” says Guskiewicz, the Kenan Distinguished Professor who now chairs UNC’s department of exercise and sport science. “We needed a system to assess the damage.” So he set about creating one, based on careful measurements of an athlete’s postural stability, cognitive function and general symptoms. The research formed his dissertation at the University of Virginia where he earned a doctorate in sports medicine, but he did not stop there. • Decoding a concussion’s impact Over the past decade and a half, Guskiewicz has accrued a body of published studies that seeks to untangle both the short-and long-term health effects that concussions wreak on athletes. His work has been published in numerous scientific journals and cited in major news media, from CNN and continued UNC research increases concern about long-term concussion impacts B y D e L e n e B e e l a n d P h o t o s b y D o n n Y o u n g 16 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences HBO Sports to The New York Times and New Yorker magazine. After establishing criteria to assess an athlete’s concussion and monitor his recovery — he helped write guidelines that are now recommended by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the American College of Sports Medicine — Guskiewicz next wondered if he could use the magnitude of a hit to predict the degree of concussion an athlete might experience. In 2004, he connected with sports equipment company SIMBEX to measure the magnitude of head impacts football players experience when tackling and blocking by rigging up special helmets with a device called an accelerometer. The instrument fits snuggly within the helmet and measures both the direction and location of a hit, and the magnitude or g-force. In 2004, UNC football players started wearing the helmets and Guskiewicz’s team began collecting the data. When a player’s head was impacted, the accelerometers captured the hit and transmitted the information — tagged with a unique ID matched to each player — to a computer on the sidelines. Guskiewicz also used video footage to analyze the hits and match plays to the data. He thought they’d uncover a linear relationship between the highest g-forces and the worst concussions. But no such luck. “There was no relationship between the force and the severity of concussion,” Guskiewicz says. The seeming randomness told him two things: first, that as much attention should be paid to players who receive what might look like a minor hit as do those who receive a big hit; second, that the constellation of factors resulting in a concussion were a lot more nuanced than people had assumed. • The long reach of multiple concussions But what Guskiewicz found next was even more eye-popping. In 2001 he had helped found UNC’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes. One of the first things the center did was mail a health survey to 3,600 retired National Football League players. Little did Guskiewicz know, but he’d spend the next eight years mining data and publishing studies based on more than 2,500 returned surveys. One of the first trends he noticed was a disturbingly high correlation between retired NFL payers who had suffered four, five or more concussions during their careers and the onset of severe cognitive problems and depression later. In a 2005 paper, Guskiewicz and his team described links between recurrent concussions and mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, and Alzheimer’s disease. MCI is a pre-dementia state. Sufferers begin to slide into severe memory loss and lose their executive functioning skills, like problem-solving. It might sound like the normal dance of old age, but it’s far more troubling. Having MCI is like being in a holding room for Alzheimer’s: 30 to 40 percent of people diagnosed with MCI will develop Alzheimer’s. In a 2007 study, they also described links between the number of concussions suffered and the probability of developing depression later. But not everyone who sustains a concussion will develop mild cognitive impairment or depression. About 5 percent of people with a concussion will have symptoms that last beyond six weeks. When this happens, it’s called post-concussive syndrome. Mild cognitive impairment is a possibility if people are in this slim 5 percent. The NFL’s mild traumatic brain injury committee sniffed at Guskiewicz’s work. They attacked his sample size as too small. They decried that some of the survey respondents were self-reporting medical histories without medical records to back them up. “They tried to poke holes,” Guskiewicz says. “We were disappointed, but not surprised.” But then Boston University medical doctor Ann McKee began studying brain tissue of deceased NFL players who had, while living, pledged to donate their minds to a “brain bank” at BU’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. She found that players who suffered severe or repeated blows to their heads may develop a disease state known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, where tau proteins precipitate onto brain tissue. An excess of these deposits lead to brain dysfunction and dementia. Other studies have shown that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s have unusual deposits of beta-lipid proteins in deeper regions of their brains. Disturbingly, retired athletes who suffered four, five or more concussions during their careers appear to be more at risk for developing these excessive beta-lipid protein deposits. Guskiewicz’s current work delves further into questions about sports-induced brain injuries. He is the principal investigator on a clinical trial that seeks to uncover if an omega-3 fatty acid supplement has the nutritive power to break up beta-lipid proteins and prevent deposits from building up within the brains of at-risk individuals. The double-blind study (where the research team and the participants are both blinded to whether LEFT TO RIGHT: Kevin Guskiewicz’s research examines the long-term effects of concussions. • Accelerometers help researchers study head impacts. • Guskiewicz has worked with the UNC football team since 2004. LEFT: Fred Mueller heads the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research. ABOVE: Kevin Guskiewicz analyzes data from his research, which is gaining national attention. • Looking at HOCKEY Kevin Guskiewicz is working with UNC visiting assistant professor Jason Mihalik in the department of exercise and sport science to monitor the impact of collisions sustained by youth playing hockey for the Carolina Junior Hurricanes in Raleigh. About 30 young boys have had accelerometers installed in their helmets, and the researchers are studying two age-groups: 13- to 14-year-olds, and 15- to 16-year-olds. They are in the middle of their fourth season of data collection, and they’ve logged more than 20,000 head impacts between the two groups. “We have not formally analyzed the data, but so far the trends seem to be showing us that the youth are getting hit in the average range of 18 to 22 g’s,” Mihalik said. This puts the force of their impacts on par with collegiate football players. Mihalik said this is worrisome for several reasons. First, sustaining a concussion at a younger age widens the window of time when an athlete may sustain additional concussions. But in general, kids don’t tend to know as much about the dangers of concussions, so they may be less likely to report them. Also, youth league teams rarely have a physician or dedicated athletic trainer, making it more difficult to diagnose a brain injury. He hopes to expand the study to girls’ youth hockey because NCAA data indicate that female hockey players sustain concussions at nearly twice the rate of their male counterparts. the supplement or a placebo is being taken) consists of performing before-and-after brain scans and testing the cognitive skills of 40 retired athletes who participated in the 2001 health survey. He is also investigating whether some players may be hardwired to develop dementia or MCI. • The darker side of sports Unfortunately, the healthy pursuit of sports can lead to catastrophic injuries and death in athletes of all ages. Fred Mueller, professor and director of UNC’s National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research, has been tracking these trends in high school and collegiate athletics since 1980, though the center has been issuing the report since 1965. He retired last June, but still directs the center. Mueller’s center issues a report annually that parses incidences of catastrophic injury and death within different sports. They also record the circumstances of the event. The data go to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the American Football Coaches Association and the NCAA. Spikes of injury incidences within a cer-tain sport have led to changes in equipment or education to prevent future injuries. “We see fewer deaths now, fewer direct injuries, and more indirect injuries,” Mueller says, discussing data trends over three decades. He recently finished co-authoring a book to be published by Carolina Academic Press in Durham, titled A Comprehensive Study of Football Fatalities 1931-2008. Guskiewicz says that Mueller mentored him when he first started at UNC, when Mueller was the chair of the department of exercise and sport science. “My goal is that through our research and improving safety in sports, we’ll see fewer subjects showing up in Fred’s catastrophic injury database,” Guskiewicz says. • Moving forward, safely Guskiewicz has just begun untangling the web of events that enmesh athletes in recurrent concussions and their associated long-term health effects. He’s helping to found a new clinical research lab, called the UNC Sport Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, which reflects the trajectory of his studies. “It’s going to focus exclusively on brain injury research, but will allow us to connect the dots between prevention, injury mechanisms, interventions for recovery and late-life complications. So it’s a natural progression,” he says. But he wants to make it clear he’s not seeking to fundamentally change the sport of football. “I have three boys of my own who play football. I care very much about the sport of football continuing,” Guskiewicz says. “I just want to be sure that as researchers, we are contributing to making it safer.” • Online Extras: More on research by Guskiewicz and Mueller at college.unc.edu. Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 17 18 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences George Lensing Jr., the Mann Family Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, volunteers to teach early-morning classes. Amazingly, given the nocturnal nature of many college students, his classes fill up. Each morning, as the students shuffle in, he’s there to greet them, handouts at the ready, notes already written on the white board. He brings enough enthusiasm to stir sleepy minds into thought without crossing over into annoying perkiness. “Wherever they are coming from, four hours of sleep the previous night and other things on their minds, if I don’t project some energy, I’m not going to engage them,” said Lensing, who is in his 41st year of teaching at UNC. “I’m energized because I love it.�� Lensing has a deep well of energy and effort that he dips into to teach, to serve on an exhausting number of committees and, for the past seven years, to direct the Office of Distinguished Scholarships. (Psychology professor Linda Dykstra took over last September.) And then there’s the academic research he does on 20th-century poets and novelists, The Wallace Stevens Journal he edits, and the three books he has written on Stevens (the insurance executive cum poet). Lensing also works with students at the Catholic Newman Center and hosts an annual picnic at his house, serves as president of the Inter- Church Council Housing Corp. in Chapel Hill and devotes time to hospice visits. In 2005, he was awarded the “Building Bridges Award” given annually by the UNC/ Community MLK Jr. Planning Corp. Two recent awards underscore his achievements and the esteem he has earned from colleagues across the University com-munity. The Arts and Sciences Foundation gave him its inaugural William F. Little Distin-guished Service Award, recognizing Lensing’s extraordinary commitment to the College. The late Little was a chemistry professor and founder of the Foundation. And Lensing’s faculty peers at the University honored him with the 2009 Lensing Lessons Teaching, research and service are energizing By Nancy E. Oates • photos by Steve Exum Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 19 Thomas Jefferson Award, in recognition of his stellar teaching, scholarship and service. Faculty members nominate candidates for the annual award, created in 1961 to recognize the colleague who best exemplifies the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson. Bobbi Owen, senior associate dean of undergraduate education, said Lensing embodies the characteristics that the University wants to see in all faculty members. “He is a good scholar, a good teacher and a good citizen of the University,” she said. “He’s the quintessential well-rounded person.” Owen said Lensing’s success benefits the University as well. “As Carolina students have won these prestigious scholarships and been competitive with elite private schools,” she said, “it lets more people know about UNC-Chapel Hill.” Libby Longino and Henry Spelman, who both won Rhodes scholarships this year — spoke of Lensing’s commitment to helping students impress the scholarship committees, even though he no longer directs the office. [see related story on Longino and Spelman on page 2.] He critiqued their essays and conducted mock interviews with them so they could sharpen their answers. During Lensing’s tenure as director of distinguished scholarships and his unofficial role in helping students last fall, 10 UNC students were named Rhodes Scholars and more UNC students received Luce Scholarships than did students at Harvard. In 2009, UNC nominated five students for consideration as Rhodes Scholars; all five were named among the 236 finalists. “I don’t think I would have won the scholarship without Professor Lensing’s kindness, experience and humor,” Spelman said. “But even if I hadn’t won, it was worth applying just to have gotten to know him better.” Longino was most impressed by Lensing’s “dedication and willingness to share [his] thoughts and advice” in critiquing drafts of her personal statement that the scholarship requires. He continued to communicate with her throughout her summer in Cape Town, South Africa, until she was satisfied with her submission. “He’s an expert in helping you think about how to frame your work and experiences in a way that effectively communicates who you are and how you fit the criteria for this scholarship,” she said. Lensing, while directing distinguished scholarships, worked with students applying for scholarships such as the Luce, Udall, Truman, Marshall, Mitchell, Goldwater and Churchill. He often came in on weekends as deadlines approached. He videotaped mock interviews, not to criticize but to say, “Here’s how you answered this question; you critique it.” Students came back a week later prepared with much better answers. Lensing has spent his entire career at UNC. Originally from a little town in Louisiana called Lake Providence, he left home in high school for boarding school in Arkansas, followed by an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He returned to the South for a doctorate in English from Louisiana State University, then went to Brazil as a visiting professor of English for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. From there, he applied for teaching positions at universities in the U.S. UNC had an opening in its English department. He came in 1969 and never left. The list of administrative duties and committee involvements over the past four decades takes up three pages on Lensing’s curriculum vitae. He was selected as the December commencement speaker in 2004. As secretary of the faculty, he wrote and read a number of honorary degree citations for luminaries such as President Clinton, the Rev. Billy Graham and Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. For 26 years he served on the Committee on Student Conduct that oversees the UNC Honors System, and for 15 years he made presentations on the Honor Code to the men’s basketball team. But it is in teaching that he found his calling. He received the Tanner Distinguished Teaching Award in 1984 and the John Sanders Award for Teaching and Service in 2001, and he held the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professorship for Distinguished Teaching from 2002 to 2007. Even while director of distinguished scholarships, Lensing had only a one-course reduction in his teaching load. Lensing gets out from behind the lectern as he teaches and walks through the aisles of the classroom, creating an interactive classroom environment, said Joseph Flora, his colleague in the department of English and comparative literature. “Not every student loves poetry,” Flora said, “not even English majors. He gives students a sense of why a poem has endured; while even though it’s tough, it’s still worth their time.” On a December morning, in the last class before finals began, Lensing talked through a William Butler Yeats poem about aging with his students, nearly all barely out of their teens. “It’s not fair,” he said later. “I grow older, and they stay 20 years old every year.” Teaching keeps him young, he said. “I love the interaction with students. When I teach a class where their eyes are alert and they’re making responses and writing things down, I don’t know anything more satisfying. You feel like you’ve given them something.” One of his former students, novelist Sarah Dessen, gave back in the form of giving him a cameo in one of her teen novels. Ever modest, he didn’t let it go to his head. “I don’t think many of my colleagues have read Dreamland,” he said. Over the years, Lensing has taught everything from first-year English to graduate seminars. He plans to teach only for a few more years. He’ll continue to do his own research — he has written more about Wallace Stevens than any other critic — and look for other ways to stay connected to the University. “It’s been such a big part of my life,” he said. “I learn by teaching. A great poem is inexhaustible. There’s always something I can learn from it.” • ABOVE: George Lensing and students examine the works of Irish poet Seamus Heaney in the Rare Book Collection of Wilson Library. Erin Burns: Born to Teach By JB Shelton Teaching biology at West Charlotte High School is much more than a career in education for Erin Burns, who graduated from UNC in 2009 with a major in biology, a minor in entrepreneurship and N.C. teaching credentials. “Even as a little girl, I understood the power of an educated mind,” she says. “Teaching fulfills my lifetime obsession to change the world for the better.” The North Carolina Teaching Fellow graduated from High Point’s Southwest Guilford High School and began teaching at West Charlotte in August 2009. She is indefatigably passionate and has perfect timing, as one of the first graduates of the UNC-BEST (Baccalaureate Education in Science and Teaching) program, an innovative collaboration of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and School of Education that enables science and math majors to simultaneously obtain their N.C. teaching credentials and their undergraduate degrees. Burns origi-nally planned to be an inner-city biology teacher, becoming a missionary doctor by attend-ing medical night school. She admits to her naivete, “Little did I know there was no such thing as medical night school.” Instead, she’s creating a teaching career — in a school with a 99 percent minority population and a 75 percent poverty level — where the kids consult her daily about health and personal issues. “Teaching high-schoolers about their bodies, genetics and science is similar to working at a medical clinic,” says Burns. “Education is a powerful preventive medicine; students need to know about AIDS.” And they need to hear it from someone competent and comfortable in telling them. Rap music in the classroom CSI lab UNC-BEST trained her to break down complex concepts into terms students could relate to. A senior, who’d flunked biology twice, told her, “Man, Ms. Burns, you’re the only teacher that makes it so that I can understand.” (Yes, he passed.) Deoxyribonucleic acid is multi-syllabic genetic code mumbo-jumbo, but her students get her point that DNA is their bodies’ instruction manual. “We made and munched edible candy models of DNA and listened to ‘bio-rap’ — rap music with vocabulary about replicating DNA,” she says. “Their favorite lessons,” adds Burns, “take place in our classroom CSI crime lab.” (Most teachers don’t start a school term simulating a crime scene, complete with bloodied ketchup walls. Most teachers aren’t Erin Burns.) “Students gather evidence and predict which pretend suspect broke into my classroom. Every student is 100 percent engaged, realizing the importance of science, imagining career paths toward forensics.” Entrepreneur’s creative spirit During the biotech unit, Burns encourages students to think innovatively about creating solutions to world problems. “I love to give them confidence-building assignments where there are no ‘wrong answers,’” she says. Her students vouch that she makes them feel smart, developing enough self-confidence to think finding a cancer cure could be in their futures. Burns minored in entrepreneurship and participated in an internship in Beijing where she taught art to migrant children. “[The internship] gave her a whole new outlook on the world outside of North Carolina, with increased confidence in her talents and strengths,” says economics professor John F. Stewart, director of the entrepreneurship minor in the College. Her ultimate dream is “combining my passion for entrepreneurship with my teaching experience to create a nonprofit group or charter school where entrepreneurial spirit and creativity collide.” ‘Born teacher’ “From my first interaction with her, I knew Erin was a born teacher — unwavering, passionate, deeply committed to educating others and bringing about positive change through service,” says Ramona D. Cox, coordinator of teacher recruitment and retention licensure officer at UNC’s School of Education. Cox and Burns worked together on a two-year service-learning project for Durham Public Schools, where she, students and members of the UNC chapter of the Student N.C. Association of Educators refurbished a school’s exterior and built a new school store. “I know she will make a big difference in the lives of the students she encounters,” says Cox. Burns’ students are already living proof. • ABOVE: UNC-BEST graduate Erin Burns ’09 uses creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit in teaching biology to West Charlotte High School students. Profile P r of i l e 20 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences “Even as a little girl, I understood the power of an educated mind. Teaching fulfills my lifetime obsession to change the world for the better.” [ ] NEED TO CLEAN UP PHOTO High Note Colleagues and students celebrate tenor’s long career By Pamela Babcock Profile P r of i l e Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 21 32 years, Wing retired in June 2009. Over the years, his teaching and singing amassed a large and loyal following in Chapel Hill and beyond. His poignant Lieder recitals (art songs in German mainly from the 19th century), including Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Strauss and Mahler renditions, were highlights of the concert season. He also taught and mentored a wealth of successful graduates, not only performers, but also teachers, musical directors and others who have prospered through his leadership, performance, teaching and service. Terry Rhodes, UNC’s music department chair and director of opera, met Wing when she was an undergraduate in the 1970s. She has considered him a “dear colleague, incredible friend and mentor” throughout her 21 years on the Carolina faculty. Rhodes described Wing as a beacon who led the voice area through periods of feast and famine with his “buoyant spirit, generous nature, warm smile and unstinting wisdom and guidance.” Wing grew up in West Palm Beach, Fla., has degrees from Stetson and Louisiana State universities and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music. He came to UNC in 1969 from an illustrious career that embraced both classical and non-classical repertoire in concert, opera, musical theater, television, radio and recording. Wing has performed as a soloist in Europe, the U.S and Canada, and has recorded with the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Pro Musica Orchestra and with Armor Artis in New York. He toured with the Music Theater of Lincoln Center and performed Like many of the classic songs he sang and taught, Stafford Wing’s UNC career ended on a soaring note. Colleagues, former students, fellow performers and admirers closed out the music professor’s 40 years at Carolina with a musical tribute in Hill Hall. Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood ’83 was the headliner for the October celebration. Sharing the stage with her was a host of Wing’s former students from across the nation, from New York to California, and Florida to Alaska. For the finale of the show, all joined in singing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the musical Carousel: When you walk through a storm Hold your head up high And don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm Is a golden sky And the sweet silver song of a lark ... The song fit the occasion with a couple of caveats. At the end of Wing’s busy and fulfilling career, the sky glowed not golden, but Carolina blue. And the sound Rodgers and Hammerstein set at the end of the storm instead rang through all of Wing’s years on stage and in teaching — the “sweet silver song” of his lyric tenor voice. A well-loved voice professor who chaired the voice area in the music department for at Carnegie Hall in New York and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. In the early 1960s, as an ensemble singer, Wing pulled off nearly 1,000 performances as a member of the chorus at Radio City Music Hall — singing four and five shows daily. “I once did 22 straight weeks without a day off,” Wing recalled. He also performed in the ensemble for NBC-TV Opera productions, and with the New York Philharmonic in concerts and in recordings under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. At Carolina, Wing served as director of the UNC Chamber Singers in the 1970s, and in addition to teaching voice, taught general music appreciation, lyric dictions and the ever-popular opera appreciation. He received the Amoco Foundation Award for excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students. During his teaching career, he continued to perform in recital, oratorio and opera not only on campus, but also in Europe and New York. Nurtured by music every day, Wing said he owes a great deal of his success to the love and support of his wife of 54 years, Janice Tice Wing, who also was his first accompanist in high school. “The opportunity to teach while continuing to sing has been an incredible gift. The students have kept me young,” he said. “I will always be interested in students and colleagues, and I hope to remain in touch with them.” Online Extras: Read the program from Wing’s retirement celebration at college. unc.edu. • “The opportunity to teach while continuing to sing has been an incredible gift. The students have kept me young. I will always be interested in students and colleagues, and I hope to remain in touch with them.” ABOVE: UNC tenor Stafford Wing 22 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Highlights H i g h l i g h t s graduate student to help establish seven of the stations now in operation.” Drew Coleman, associate professor, concurs that Rogers’ gifts extend beyond the checkbook. “John has been a tremendous supporter of undergraduate and graduate research,” he said. “His interests are multidisciplinary in a climate that emphasizes specialization. He encourages a holistic view of science, mixing research approaches, research areas and even research disciplines.” Coleman said that Rogers has been a pioneer in encouraging geological techniques toward solving archaeological problems. “It is not unusual to begin working on a problem with a student and dig into the literature only to find a paper written by John decades ago.” Rogers, a native of Los Angeles, enrolled as a chemistry major at the venerated California Institute of Technology (because it was within driving distance of his hometown, he jokes), but switched after he took a required geology course and then his geology courses began to outnumber his chemistry classes. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota, returned to Cal Tech in 1952 and completed his Ph.D. there in 1954. His first job was to help create the geology department at Rice University in Houston. John Rogers has left the classroom — but not the students. And although the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of geology retired in 1997 after 22 years on the Carolina faculty, he remains engaged in research, both his own and that of other UNC geologists. His health prevents him from the physical challenges of geological field work, but his mind continues to explore with vigor. “The department has hired some remarkable faculty in the past few years,” said Rogers. “While I can’t work in the field, I can support faculty and students with dollars for equipment and research.” Through the John and Barbara Rogers Fund for Geochemical Excellence, Rogers directs his gifts to seed funding for faculty in the department. This money helps attract even larger private and federal grants and enables undergraduates and graduate students to conduct important research that otherwise would not have been possible. For example, a recent gift enabled a young faculty member to purchase a pellet press used to prepare rocks for analysis, which led to a National Science Foundation grant for a special X-ray machine to analyze geological elements in detail. Rogers also stepped in with critical funding for assistant professor Lara Wagner, whose research in seismology and tectonics focuses on how the Blue Ridge Mountains survive the ravages of time. “I had funds for 10 broadband seismic stations, but no money for expenses like fuel, food and lodging,” Wagner said. “John provided this funding and made it possible for four undergraduates and a In addition to Rogers’ abundant scientific accomplishments — seven books, fellow and past president of the International Division of the Geological Society of America, fellow of the Geological Society of India, and honorary fellow of the Geological Society of Africa — he is a gifted administrator. While at Rice, he served for five years as Master of Brown College, a women’s residential college. Today, Rogers lives in Durham with his wife Barbara. They have two children, Tim, a newspaper editor in Wilson, N.C., and Peter, who studies wildlife conservation in Africa and is on the faculty of Paul Smith’s College in New York. Rogers recently completed co-authoring a college textbook on how human history has been influenced by earth and its processes, including climate changes and Hurricane Katrina. Rogers even maintains a Facebook page. “John actively seeks and funds students for all of his research ideas. Part of this is practical. He no longer has the physical abilities to follow through on ideas,” said Coleman. “The other [factor] is passion. John gets immeasurable satisfaction from working with students and watching them succeed.” And thanks to Rogers, they can move mountains. • Online Extras: More on Lara Wagner’s research and John Rogers at college. unc.edu. Moving Mountains Gifts from retired geologist support faculty and student research By Del Helton ABOVE: John Rogers. LEFT: Lara Wagner (left) and students have benefited from John Rogers’ generosity. “The department has hired some remarkable faculty in the past few years. While I can’t work in the field, I can support faculty and students with dollars for equipment and research.” Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 23 Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Rachmaninoff and Ricky Nelson shared 12-year-old Linda Moore Pelletier’s hi-fi time, thanks to a supply of classical music albums from her beloved uncle “Ardrey Lee.” Long after the pop stars of the early 1960s fell from the charts, Pelletier’s interest in classical music and art flourished. “My uncle gave me culture,” said Pelletier, a 1970 UNC alumna of Van Wyck, S.C., and longtime teacher at Charlotte Country Day School. “He was marvelous, educated, witty, and to the end, his mind was as sharp as a tack.” Lucius Lee Ardrey Moore Jr. died in September 2007 at 84, leaving another legacy, one that will influence generations of Carolina students. Through his estate, he gave the College of Arts and Sciences $880,000 to establish the Jacques Hardré Distinguished Professorship in Romance Languages, the department’s first permanent professorship. The Hardré Professorship qualifies for another $334,000 from the state’s Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, making the total initial endowment $1,214,000. It will provide the department with annual income of more than $60,000 for salary and research funds. “Lee’s gift honors a professor who was departmental chair at a very significant time of expansion, and at the same time will add to our faculty a very distinguished scholar of romance languages,” said Larry King, department chair. “It couldn’t come at a more critical time as several longtime members of our faculty are retiring, and we will need A College First UNC alum creates first distinguished professorship in romance languages By Del Helton to recruit new faculty in a highly competitive environment.” Moore earned four Carolina degrees, including bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and medical technology in 1949, a master’s degree (1950) and a Ph.D. (1965) in public health. He was born in Davenport, Iowa, but grew up in Clinton, N.C., as the oldest of four children. After completing his Ph.D., Moore moved to Atlanta, beginning a 27-year career at the Centers for Disease Control as a consultant in parasitology and tropical medicine. He traveled often to the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean to train local health agencies on treatments to prevent and detect tropical diseases, including malaria. A passionate chorister of church music, he joined Atlanta’s Cathedral of St. Philip in 1968, where he met his partner of 39 years, John Wilkerson. Wilkerson died just two months prior to Moore’s death. Over the years, the two entertained numerous friends and family in their historic Ansley Park home, with annual mint julep parties, Easter champagne brunches and New Year’s Day dinners of traditional hog jowl, Hoppin’ John, collard greens and Moore’s infamous stewed tomato casserole. Moore had already named Carolina in his will, but a friend suggested designating the gift in honor of a Carolina faculty member whom he held in great esteem. That was Jacques Hardré, a French professor and mentor to Moore during his student years. “He literally turned my uncle’s life around and made him realize his self-worth,” said Pelletier, who coincidentally was a French major. Hardré began teaching at Carolina in 1945, was named a Kenan Professor in 1971, and retired in 1977. He died in 1983 at 68. A native of Dinan, France, Hardré became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1956. From 1942 until 1945, he served as a lieutenant with the legendary First Armored Division of the Free French, earning a number of military awards for his service. Hardré earned two degrees at Carolina, an M.A. in 1941 and a Ph.D. in 1948. For Pelletier, the gift is a lasting reminder of her uncle’s remarkable generosity and his devotion to a place he loved. “Ardrey Lee was so happy when he could help others. And he absolutely adored Chapel Hill — who doesn’t?” • Online Extras: Read the 1983 UNC Faculty Resolution memorializing Jacques Hardré at college.unc.edu. ABOVE: Lee Moore as a student at Carolina. Through his estate, Moore established a professorship in honor of a favorite French professor. “Ardrey Lee was so happy when he could help others. And he absolutely adored Chapel Hill — who doesn’t?” Highlights H i g h l i g h t s 24 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences as American studies, which has several other faculty who work with visual culture.” Barrett came to UNC following a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in American Art at the University of Chicago. Before that, he was a Wyeth Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Barrett earned master’s degrees in art history and museum studies from Syracuse University after completing his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. He received his Ph.D. in art history from Boston University. Barrett says his favorite part of being a professor is teaching college students. “I find the energy, enthusiasm and inquisitiveness of students exciting,” Barrett said. “It’s a wonderful time of life for people, a time of discovery. It’s exciting to be around students when they’re bringing this energy, spirit and enthusiasm to the classroom. It buoys you.” In addition to general survey courses on American art, Barrett currently teaches an advanced course on the Civil War in American art. He is also developing a graduate course in American landscape painting, which he will teach for the first time in fall 2010. In the classroom, Barrett works to help students understand the interconnection of art with other social forces and cultural activities. Ross Barrett remembers his first art exhibition. He was 7 years old when his parents took him to the Los Angeles County Museum to an exhibition featuring French Impressionist paintings. Barrett recalls being fascinated by the bright colors of the paintings, especially Monet’s “Garden at Sainte-Adresse,” with its colorful flags and flowers on a seaside terrace. It was the beginning of a lifelong passion for art. As the inaugural David G. Frey Distinguished Fellow of American Art, Barrett specializes in 19th and 20th century American painting. His interests include ideology, violence and power in American society and art. Barrett says that the focus of the Frey Fellowship played an important role in his decision to join Carolina’s faculty. “No other schools had this type of commitment to American art,” he said. “That was incredibly exciting and set Carolina apart from other schools.” Mary Sheriff, art department chair and W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Art History, said Barrett’s appointment comes at an important time for the department. “The addition of a specialist in American art was critical,” Sheriff said. “The area is not only one of the most popular with students but is also a strong component of departments such as music, history and English. With Barrett joining the faculty, we have increased our offerings in American art as well as our collaboration with units such “American society is increasingly visual,” he said. “I want students to engage with that landscape critically — to see art images as products of a deeper history, bound with social, economic and political structures and forces. The key is thinking of art as a lens on a moment, not a reflection. It gives us access to the way Americans thought of major developments and crises of their times.” Barrett works to bridge the gap between the art the students are studying and the world around them. He often shows ads, cartoons and popular prints from the eras they study to help provide them with a critical toolbox for viewing the world today. Barrett receives salary support and research funding from the David G. Frey Distinguished Professorship in American Art, one of three professorships established by David Frey (’64 BA English, ’67 JD.) A banker by trade, Frey created professorships in art, dramatic art and music because he views the liberal arts as the foundation of an undergraduate education. Frey said he selected American art, specifically the period from the 1820s to 1945, because of the recent growth in the field as well as his interest as a collector. “American art is an emerging discipline, from a teaching, as well as a collecting, standpoint. I’m excited that the university found a rising star in this area,” Frey said. “It’s gratifying that students, graduate students and others on campus will be able to have a higher and perhaps more thorough appreciation of the artists spanning the last two or three centuries of American art.” • Artistic Lens New Frey Fellow uses art as a critical toolbox for viewing the world By Joanna Worrell Cardwell (M.A. ’06) ABOVE: Ross Barrett is the first David G. Frey Distinguished Fellow of American Art. He specializes in 19th and 20th century American painting. “American society is increasingly visual. I want students to engage with that landscape critically — to see art images as products of a deeper history, bound with social, economic and political structures and forces. The key is thinking of art as a lens on a moment, not a reflection. It gives us access to the way Americans thought of major developments and crises of their times.” Joanna Worrell Cardwell their shells out of calcium carbonate) at various levels of CO2 predicted to occur over the next several centuries. When CO2 combines with water, it produces carbonic acid, raising the overall amount of carbon in seawater but reducing the amount of the carbonate ion used by organisms in their calcification. Seven species (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, red and green calcifying algae, limpets and temperate urchins) showed a positive response, meaning they calcified at a higher rate and increased in mass under elevated CO2. Ten types of organisms (including oysters, scallops, temperate corals and tube worms) had reduced calcification under elevated CO2, with several (hard and soft clams, conchs, periwinkles, whelks and tropical urchins) seeing their shells dissolve. One species (mussels) showed no response. Such changes could have serious ramifications for predator and prey relationships that have evolved over hundreds of millions of years, said Ries, assistant professor of marine sciences. “There is no magic formula to predict how different species will respond, but one thing you can be sure of is that ecosystems as a whole will change because of these varied individual responses,” he said. • As the world’s seawater becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, some shelled marine creatures may actually become bigger and stronger, according to a UNC study. The finding, based on research by UNC marine scientist Justin Ries, could have important implications for ocean food webs and the multi-billion dollar global market for shellfish and crustaceans. Previous research has shown that ocean acidification — the term for falling pH levels in the Earth’s oceans as they absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere — is likely to slow the growth or even dissolve the shells of such creatures. However, the new study, published in the December issue of the journal Geology, suggests that sediment-dwelling marine organisms may exhibit a wider range of responses to CO2-induced acidification than previously thought: some may get weaker while others become stronger. Researchers also found that creatures whose shells grew the most, such as crabs, tended to prey on those whose shells weakened the most, such as clams. Researchers grew 18 different species of economically and ecologically important marine calcifiers (creatures that make H i g h l i g h t s Highlights Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 25 Study reveals winners and losers of ocean acidification CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Blue crabs increased in mass under elevated CO2 levels. • Sea urchins showed dissolution of their spines under high CO2. • Lobsters followed a similar pattern as the blue crab. ABOVE: Justin Ries Justin Ries Justin Ries Justin Ries Highlights H i g h l i g h t s 26 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences politics in Latin America. For his doctoral dissertation in history at the University of California, San Diego, he focused on indigenous perceptions in Ayacucho, Peru, from 1940 to 1983, preceding the rise of the Shining Path guerilla insurgency. He is a postdoctoral fellow at UNC and will join the tenure-track faculty July 1. • Gabriela Valdivia, assistant professor of geography, studies human-environmental interactions in Latin America. For her interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota, she explored the political and environmental claims of Native Amazonians in the Ecuador who Editor’s Note: One of the top priorities of the College is to ensure that our students get a truly global education by studying with teachers and scholars who are experts in key regions of the world. That means maintaining our considerable faculty expertise in Latin America and Europe, while expanding the number of faculty who focus on Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Thanks to a combination of public and private support, and interdisciplinary partnerships, the following international scholars joined our faculty in the fall. Latin America • Zaragosa Vargas, a leading scholar in U.S. and Latino/a labor history, is the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History and Latino/a Studies. He grew up in Michigan “in the shadow of the auto industry,” he says, where family members worked for General Motors. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan focused on early Mexican factory workers in Detroit and the industrial Midwest. The author of five books and numerous articles and essays, he previously taught at Yale University and the University of California at Santa Barbara. At Carolina, he is collaborating with oral historian Jacquelyn Hall, the Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History, on the early civil rights movement. • Miguel La Serna, assistant professor of history, is interested in indigenous revolutionary movements and the connections between culture, violence and were affected by petroleum development. She is now studying how agrarian decisions in the lowlands of Bolivia are affected by changes in politics, institutions and production relations associated with land reform. Asia • Yong Cai, assistant professor of sociology and fellow of the Carolina Population Center, is an expert on the impact of China’s social and political changes on fertility, mortality and gender inequality. Now considered a rising star in his field, he grew up on a farm in rural China and graduated from Peking University in Beijing, where he was a student during the Tiananmen Square protests. He has a Ph.D. in sociology and an M.S. degree in statistics from the University of Washington. Before coming to Carolina, he taught at the University of Utah. He is supported in part by a Freeman Foundation grant to help the College expand faculty expertise in Asia. • Xi Chen, assistant professor of political science, is completing a groundbreaking book about the increasing level of social protests in China and the government’s response to them. As a former attorney in China, he had extraordinary access to internal reports from police and political party sources in his native Hunan Province and was able to conduct in-depth interviews with police as well as protestors petitioning Growing global expertise Zaragosa Vargas Anna Agbe-Davies Miguel La Serna Ahmed El Shamsy Dan Sears The College attracts scholars of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East H i g h l i g h t s Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 27 Highlights the government. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, had a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and previously taught at Louisiana State University. • Sara Smith, a feminist geographer, conducted a landmark study of the complex politics of marriage and fertility along the volatile India-Pakistan border for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona. During a year of intense fieldwork in the Ladakh region, she found that increasing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims have complicated reproductive decisions and choices regarding marriage, as individuals respond to pressures to enhance their population base for political purposes. Smith conducted 200 surveys, including in-depth interviews with members of Buddhist and Muslim households, and with political and religious leaders. Africa • Anna Agbe-Davies, assistant professor of anthropology, focuses on the historical archaeology of colonialism in Atlantic Africa and slavery in the Caribbean and southeastern United States. Her research and teaching span African, African-American and American/ Southern studies. She obtained a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, previously taught at DePaul University and served as an archaeologist for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. • Colin Thor West, assistant professor of anthropology, is engaged in innovative research on the human impacts of development and climate change in Africa and Alaska. He has studied Single atom controls motion needed for bacterial infection UNC researchers have discovered that a single atom — a calcium — can control how bacteria “walk.” The finding identifies a key step in the process by which bacteria infect their hosts, and could one day lead to new drug targets to prevent infection. Bacteria stroll along solid surfaces using tiny fibrous legs called pili. This motility enables some pathogenic bacteria to establish infections — such as meningitis — that can be lethal. By resolving the structure of a protein involved in the movement of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, scientists identified a spot on the bacteria, that when blocked, can stop it in its tracks. “When it comes down to it, a single atom makes all the difference,” said senior study author Matthew R. Redinbo, professor and chair of the department of chemistry in the College, and professor of biochemistry and biophysics. His findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Redinbo and his team have been collaborating with Matthew C. Wolfgang, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology and a member of the Cystic Fibrosis/Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center at UNC. They are trying to figure out how bacteria move with their legs. They noticed that Type IV pili are long, dense fibers. “These pili act as grappling hooks — the bacteria extend the fibers out, the fibers attach or stick to a surface, and then are retracted back into the bacteria, pulling it along,” said Wolfgang. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. • A single atom — calcium (shown in blue) — can control how bacteria walk. how environmental change affects household sustainability in Burkina Faso and how fluctuations in salmon harvests impact communities in the Arctic. He graduated from the University of Chicago, volunteered in Africa for the Peace Corps, earned a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Arizona, and served as a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Africa/Middle East: • Ahmed El Shamsy, assistant professor of history, is considered a “trail-blazing” scholar of pre-modern Islamic law and culture in north Africa and the Middle East. He is working on a book about the early evolution of Islamic law in Egypt. He grew up in Germany, received a B.A. with honors in Arabic and politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and earned a master���s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in history and Middle East studies from Harvard University. • — The College also recently hired a Chinese film expert as a lecturer-adviser in communication studies and five additional lecturers to expand our teaching in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean language and literature classes. This year we are seeking to recruit six tenure-track professors with expertise in areas such as British history, Brazil, Japan, sub-Saharan Africa, Korea, and peace, war and defense. We are also hiring a lecturer in international and area studies, and another in Arabic language and literature. 28 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Celebrating first-generation college students Ron Bilbao was born and raised in Miami to immigrant parents from Venezuela and Colombia. Now a senior at UNC, he is the first person in his family headed down the path to college graduation. “My father had to actually drop out of college when he was younger to go to work, but [my parents] knew the value of an education and wanted to pass that on to their kids,” said Bilbao. About 20 percent of undergradu-ates who entered Carolina in fall 2009 are first-generation college students like Bilbao. New initiatives — including a Web site, student organization and graduation recognition — are celebrating the success of these first-generation students. “Nationally, the number of first-generation college students attending universities is on the rise,” said Cynthia Demetriou, retention coordinator in the Office of Undergraduate Education in the College. “The goal of these new initiatives is to help retain first-generation students by further integrating them into the academic and social culture of the University.” The Web site (firstgeneration.unc. edu) features video interviews with first-generation students including Bilbao as well as alumni and faculty; information about the new Carolina Firsts student organization; a student blog; a photo gallery; tips for success; support services for students; and more. A new initiative beginning in May will recognize graduating first-generation college students with a pin that says “Carolina Firsts,” as well as a celebratory breakfast. In April, for the second year, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions will hold an event for first-generation students who have been admitted for fall 2010. • From professional athletes to weekend warriors, the condition known as “runner’s knee” is a painful and potentially debilitating injury suffered by millions of people. Until now, it has been unclear just what causes it. New UNC research has zeroed in on what appear to be the main culprits of the condition, formally known as patellofemoral pain syndrome. The study is believed to be the first large, long-term project to track athletes from before they developed runner’s knee, said study co-author Darin Padua, associate professor of exercise and sport science. The research appeared in the November issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Runner’s knee — the bane of many types of exercise, from running to basketball to dance — affects one in four physically active people. If unchecked, it can lead to more serious problems such as patellofemoral osteoarthristis. Padua and his colleagues studied almost 1,600 enrollees from the United States Naval Academy. Researchers analyzed participants’ biomechanics when they first enrolled at the academy, then followed them for several years to see if they developed the syndrome. A total of 40 participants developed the syndrome during the follow-up period. Pinpointing the cause of ‘runner’s knee’ The study found: • Participants with weaker hamstring muscles were 2.9 times more likely to develop the syndrome than those with the strongest hamstrings. • Those with weaker quadricep muscles were 5.5 times more likely. • Those with weak arches were 3.4 times more likely. • Participants with smaller knee flexion angle (those whose knees bent less on landing during a jump test) were 3.1 times more likely. The study appears to confirm that if people can change the way they move and improve their leg strength, they can prevent or correct the problem, Padua said. Everyday athletes can also spot for themselves whether they are at risk. For example, if their knee crosses over the big toe when squatting, if the arches of their feet collapse when landing from a jump, and if they do not bend their knees much when they land, they stand a greater chance of developing the syndrome, Padua said. The researchers are now looking into which exercises are best for improving the biomechanics involved. The study’s lead author was Michelle C. Boling, a UNC doctoral student at the time of the study, now an assistant professor at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville. • Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 29 H i g h l i g h t s Highlights Displaying works of heart About 100 pieces from 20 artists were showcased at the November opening of The Artery, a new student-run gallery providing an opportunity for student artists to display their work. The Artery is located in the Bank of America Center at 137 E. Rosemary St. in Chapel Hill. Founders of the gallery include Hallie Ringle, a senior art history major; Natalia Davila, a junior art major and chemistry minor; and Gavin Hackeling, a senior double major in art and political science. Ringle and Davila are president and vice president, respectively, of Kappa Pi, the art and art history honors fraternity. When trying to find potential build-ings to house the gallery, the trio sent letters to those that had vacancy signs. Soon after, the Bank of America Center agreed to let them use the space for free. The idea came as an inspiration from Jeff Whetstone, director of undergraduate art studies and an assistant professor in the art department. Whetstone told the students about a student-run art gallery that opened in 2003. Although that gallery survived for only a few months, the organizers of the new gallery see The Artery as a long-term project. The organizers hope that the gallery will also interest those not normally involved in art and those interested in art history and curating exhibits. • Report identifies strategies to head off ’home-grown’ terrorism The shootings at Fort Hood, the recent arrests of five young men in Pakistan and last summer’s arrests of terrorism suspects in North Carolina mark a troubling increase in terrorism-related activity by Muslim-Americans. But a new report by scholars at UNC and Duke University, which analyzes the extent of terrorist violence by Muslim-Americans since 9/11 and identifies strategies to head off “home-grown” terrorism, says the number of radicalized Muslim-Americans is still small. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, 139 Muslim-Americans have committed violent terrorist acts, been convicted on terrorism charges involving violence or been arrested with charges pending. Of that number, fewer than a third successfully executed their violent plots, and most of those were overseas. The report recommends that policymakers reinforce successful anti-radicalization activities now under way in Muslim-American communities to address this low — but not insignificant — level of terrorist activity. “Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends,” said co-author David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. The report, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-American Communities,” was co-authored by Schanzer, associate professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and adjunct associate professor of public policy at UNC; Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at UNC; and Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of religion at Duke. It summarizes two years of research in Muslim-American communities in Seattle, Houston, Buffalo and Raleigh-Durham. “Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends.” ”Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization,” said Kurzman. “This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11.” The research shows that denunciations of terrorism, internal self-policing, community building, government-funded support services and political engagement can all reduce risks of radicalization. The authors noted that Muslim-Americans “are feeling the strain of living in America during the post-9/11 era” and policies that alienate Muslim-American communities in an effort to crack down on terrorism are likely to exacerbate, not reduce, the threat of homegrown terrorism. • LEFT: Charles Kurzman co-authored a report on “home-grown” terrorism. RIGHT: Students (from left) Natalia Davila, Hallie Ringle and Gavin Hackeling co-founded The Artery. Jason Smith H i g h l i g h t s Progress made in turning methane gas into liquid fuel Researchers at UNC and the University of Washington have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a clean fuel and as a source for making other chemicals. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is plentiful and is an attractive fuel and raw material because it is more efficient than oil, produces less pollution and could serve as a practical substitute for petroleum-based fuels until renewable fuels are widely useable and available. However, methane is difficult and While some students may have spent last summer relaxing at the beach, UNC senior Maggie West created a microfinance program to help the homeless in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. West, a public policy and Latin American studies major from Raleigh, led the pilot launch, working with the Community Empowerment Fund (CEF). The student-run organization, affiliated with the Campus Y and the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, gives loans to those who are already homeless or at risk of being in that situation and helps them build their financial assets. West was inspired to help from her involvement with HOPE (Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication), a Campus Y group, which gave her the chance to form relationships with the homeless. She received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the Office for Undergraduate Research in the College to fund the Senior creates microfinance program for homeless program and evaluate the results. “I will always be driven to this kind of work by the strength of the community itself and the courage and con-viction I have witnessed in this community to overcome challenge after challenge,” West said. “I am driven to delve this deep and work for systemic change because I have been so humbled by all that I have learned from those whom I have met in the shelter and on the streets. I believe we all deserve a better system.” Volunteers and students served as loan officers for the new project. The funds were primarily used for housing deposits, starting a small business, buying cell phones or paying for bus passes for work. Last summer, CEF received 18 applications for the program, and approved five of them. Those five borrowers were eligible to receive initial loans from $100 to $300. When those were paid off, they would be able to receive loans from $600 to $1,000. If borrowers had to defer their payment, they were able to work it off for a few hours as “sweat equity” through the Campus Y’s HOPE Gardens. The homeless plant and harvest their own crops, which are then sold at farmers markets and on the UNC campus. Applicants who were not eligible for loans were not denied assistance. CEF provided them with a connection to other services, such as food pantries, housing assistance programs, health care providers, as well as skill development such as resume-building, job-searching and computer literacy. Durham County is interested in replicating the idea. CEF is working with Duke University, the Durham Rotary Club and Durham County Department of Social Services to introduce a new pilot for the homeless there. • — By Kristen Chavez ’13 costly to transport because it remains a gas at temperatures and pressures typical on the Earth’s surface. Now UNC and UW scientists have moved closer to devising a way to convert methane to methanol or other liquids which can easily be transported, especially from “remote” sites where meth-ane is
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Title | Carolina arts & sciences |
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Full Text | PlayMakers Reaches Out Acting, Teaching and Engaging the Community A l s o ins ide • Football Fallout • Lensing Lessons • ’Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited S p r i ng • 2 0 1 0 a r t s & s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l College of Arts & Sciences • Karen M. Gil, Dean • William Andrews ’70 MA, ’73 PhD Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities • Michael Crimmins Senior Associate Dean, Natural Sciences • Jonathan Hartlyn Senior Associate Dean, Social Sciences, International Programs • Tammy McHale Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Operations • James W. May Senior Associate Dean, Program Development; Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation • Bobbi Owen Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors • James L. Alexandre ’79, Haverford, PA, Chair • Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Riverside, CT, Vice Chair • Karen M. Gil, Chapel Hill, NC, President • William L. Andrews, ‘70 MA, ‘73 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President • Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer • James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary • D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC • Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC • R. Frank Andrews ’90, ’95 MBA, Washington, DC • Valerie Ashby ’88, ’94 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC • Constance Y. Battle ’77, Raleigh, NC • Laura Hobby Beckworth ’80, Houston, TX • William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY • Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA • R. Duke Buchan III ’85, Amenia, NY • Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88, ’93 MBA, New York, NY • Sunny H. Burrows ’84, Atlanta, GA • G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC • Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92, ’98 MBA, Los Angeles, CA • Steven M. Cumbie ’70, ’73 MBA, McLean, VA • Jaroslav T. Folda III, Chapel Hill, NC • Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA • Emmett Boney Haywood ’77, ���82 JD, Raleigh, NC • Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD • Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC • William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX • Edwin A. Poston ’89, Chapel Hill, NC • John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA • Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL • Alex T. Robertson ’01, New York, NY • H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC • Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88, ’94 MBA, Greenwich, CT • Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK • Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA, London, UK • Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH From the dean F r om t h e D e a n Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 Opening doors through learning, discovery and outreach Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04) must be a master multi-tasker. As the director of education and outreach for PlayMakers Repertory Company, our professional theater company in residence, he juggles multiple roles. As an actor, he played five characters in the ambitious production of Nicholas Nickleby. And as an educator, he has helped PlayMakers open its doors wide to the community in new and exciting ways — including teacher artists in the schools, open discussions with artists in public venues like the library or local bookstore, and the Summer Youth Conservatory. Through the SYC, young actors train with professionals and put on a full-scale production; my son Elliot is one of many local students who have participated in this amazing opportunity. In the College, part of our ongoing goal is to reach out to the community, the state and the world through learning and discovery. These are not separate objectives, but rather an interconnected part of our mission, which is illustrated in several stories in our spring ’10 issue of Carolina Arts & Sciences: • Twenty undergraduate students, led by political science faculty member Donna LeFebvre, went on a Burch Field Research Seminar to study and volunteer in Rwanda last summer and had a life-changing experience. They came back to UNC committed to forming an organization to support the Rwanda school where they had learned about that nation’s tragic past while serving its survivors. • Exercise and sport science researchers Kevin Guskiewicz and Fred Mueller are studying the long-term impacts of football players who suffer multiple concussions. Their work is gaining national attention and raising awareness across all levels of play, including the NCAA. • English professor George Lensing is living proof that teaching, research and service are energizing. As the former head of the Office of Distinguished Scholarships, he has helped many UNC students to land Rhodes and other prestigious scholarships. These bright students leave Carolina with bold ideas that will change the world. • We profile Erin Burns, one of the first graduates of UNC-BEST, our partnership with the UNC School of Education that enables science and math majors to simultaneously earn N.C. teaching credentials with their undergraduate degrees. Burns is now teaching biology at an inner-city Charlotte high school. • You’ll read about beloved music professor and tenor Stafford Wing, who retired after 40 years in the College. His many former students — including performers, teachers, musical directors and others — have benefited from his leadership, teaching and service. We appreciate the support of our alumni and friends more than ever before as we continue to face ongoing economic challenges in the year ahead. Many of our learning, discovery and outreach initiatives would simply not be possible without their commitment. Our door is always open to you — come see us and find out about all of the exciting things going on in the College of Arts and Sciences. — Karen M. Gil, Dean Karen M. Gil Steve Exum F e a t u r e s 6 • PlayMakers Reaches Out The College’s professional theater opens its doors wide to the community 10 • ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited Undergraduates explore the aftermath of atrocity 15 • Football Fallout UNC research examines the long-term effects of concussion impacts 18 • Lensing Lessons Teaching, research and service are energizing Cover photo: PlayMakers Repertory Company’s Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04) poses with Allison Press of Chapel Hill High School, who portrayed Helena in the Summer Youth Conservatory’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Photo by Steve Exum) Table of Contents T a b l e of Co n t e n t s Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 D e p a r t m e n t s inside front cover From the Dean Opening doors through learning, discovery and outreach 2 High Achievers Two Rhodes Scholars, literary prize for Asian studies professor, kudos for teaching, chemist wins polymer prize, biologists tapped for science association, computer graphics work honored, and more 20 Profiles UNC-BEST graduate Erin Burns is born to teach; Beloved music professor Stafford Wing leaves UNC on a high note. 22 Highlights New international experts join the College, gifts from retired geologist move mountains, pinpointing the causes of “runner’s knee,” celebrating first-generation college students, heading off “home-grown terrorism,” single atom controls how bacteria “walk,” and more 31 College Bookshelf Fiction exploring the segregated past, an international adoption and celebrity encounters with animals; reflections on secret interviews with President Clinton, growing up Jewish in N.C., raising a child with autism and why Muhammad matters; and more inside back cover Final Point Lady Mechanic, a poem by senior English major Michelle Hicks of Lafayette, La. Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 1 15 18 10 Steve Exum Donn Young Bruce Siceloff Two for the Rhodes In Taiwan, she taught English and computer skills at a shelter for Vietnamese victims of human trafficking. In Israel and Turkey, she conducted interviews and attended conferences to research tensions that arise between religious minority groups and their governments. As part of a fall 2008 study abroad in Switzerland, Longino traveled to Bosnia- Herzegovina to research human trafficking after the country’s civil war. At UNC, Longino is president of the Carolina chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student think tank. This year, Carolina’s was named the most outstanding chapter among 75 nationwide. Spelman has worked in refugee camps in Tanzania, tutored underprivileged high school students and trekked more than 125 miles in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. He is proficient in conversation in Swahili and in conversation and reading in German. He has won five competitive academic prizes from the classics department since 2007, including the Herington Scholarship twice. In addition to that scholarship, his classics awards include The Eben Alexander Prize in Greek, The Epps Prize in Greek Studies and The Albert Suskin Prize in Latin. Working to help Burundian refugees in Tanzania last summer — Spelman’s second time there with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees on a Morehead-Cain summer experience — he read himself to sleep at night with the ancient Greek poetry of Pindar. Spelman edits the Cellar Door, UNC’s undergraduate literary magazine, and has written a poem accepted by the internationally circulated Southern Poetry Review. He won the prize for the best poet in the junior class from UNC’s creative writing program. With Amnesty International, Spelman has participated in national planning sessions and a steering committee, coordinated activism by about 30 high school students in the Triangle and led the UNC chapter. • High Achievers 2 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences H i g h A c h i e v e r s UNC seniors Elizabeth Blair “Libby” Longino and Henry Lawlor Spelman have won prestigious Rhodes Scholarships for graduate study at Oxford University in England. They were among 32 American college students selected Nov. 21 for the prestigious honor, perhaps the world’s most competitive in higher education. Longino of Dallas is double-majoring in English and public policy analysis. Spelman of Swarthmore, Pa., is majoring in classical languages with a minor in creative writing. Longino will pursue master’s degrees in forced migration and comparative social policy at Oxford. She plans a career in human rights advocacy. Spelman will pursue a master’s degree in Greek and Latin languages and literature. His ambition is to become a professor. Both students came to Carolina on the Morehead-Cain Scholarship — a full, four-year merit award that includes four summer enrichment experiences. That’s not the only thing they have in common. They met during their first year at Carolina, reconnected about two years later on a research trip to Turkey, and then later started dating. They are looking forward to exploring Oxford together. Longino has interned with a microcredit program in Vietnam, helped start a group combating child prostitution in Cambodia and completed an Outward Bound Wilderness Expedition in the Pacific Northwest. Longino spent one of her Morehead- Cain summers in Vietnam, interviewing clients of a small microcredit project. One day, she heard a Vietnamese mother’s pleas for a heart treatment for her daughter. The experience resulted in an invitation later from Vietnamese colleagues to help start a foundation in Cambodia addressing child prostitution in Phnom Penh’s Vietnamese community. Asian studies scholar wins literary prize Sahar Amer, a professor of Asian studies, won a top prize from the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). Amer received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies for her book, Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). The award is presented annually for outstanding scholarly work that involves at least two literatures. Amer is a member of the MLA, the largest and one of the oldest American societies in the humanities. At Carolina, she is also an adjunct professor of French and international studies. She focuses her research on cross-cultural relations between the Arab world and Europe throughout the centuries; Arabs and Muslims in France and in America today; and cross-cultural constructions of gender and sexualities. • Sahar Amer Steve Exum Libby Longino Henry Spelman High Achievers Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 3 H i g h A c h i e v e r s Kudos for teaching Sixteen College faculty and graduate teaching assistants were recognized with 2010 University Teaching Awards, the highest campuswide honors for instructional excellence. This year’s nominee for the UNC System Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching is Rachel Willis, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor in the department of American studies. One recipient is selected each year by each of the 16 institutions in the UNC system. The UNC-Chapel Hill recipient is also the University’s nominee for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year competition, a national award for outstanding undergraduate teaching. Winners of Tanner Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching are: • Claudio Battaglini, assistant professor of exercise and sport science; • Robert Cantwell, Townsend Ludington Professor of American Studies; • Brian Hogan, assistant professor of chemistry; • Elizabeth Jordan, lecturer and associate director of undergraduate studies, psychology; • Greg Gangi, assistant professor, curriculum for the environment and ecology. Winners of Johnston Teaching Excellence Awards for undergraduate teaching are: • Daniel Wallace, J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor, English and comparative literature; • Albert K. Harris, professor of biology. Winners of Distinguished Teaching Awards for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction are: • Thomas Hill, Kenan Professor of Philosophy; • Robert MacCallum, professor of psychology. Winners of Tanner Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants are: • Stacey Treat, communication studies; • Ben White, religious studies; • Pablo Maurette, Spanish; • Andrew Pennock, political science. In addition, religious studies professor Omid Safi won the J. Carlyle Sitterson Fresh-man Teaching Award, awarded to a professor teaching first-year students, and political science professor Michael Lienesch won the University Professor of Distinguished Teach-ing Award. This three-year term professor-ship was established to recognize career-long excellence in teaching. • Simpson lauded for literature contributions Bland Simpson, a creative writing professor, author, composer and lyricist, was recognized for his significant contributions to North Carolina literature. Simpson, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor, received the R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. Simpson has taught in the College since 1982 and directed the creative writing program from 2002 to 2008. He is the author of numerous books about North Carolina, including The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey: A Nonfiction Novel, Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering and The Inner Islands: A Carolinian’s Sound Country Chronicle. He has been a member of the Tony Award-winning string band, The Red Clay Ramblers, since 1986. He has collaborated on or contributed to almost a dozen musicals, including Diamond Studs, King Mackerel, Kudzu and the Tony winner Fool Moon. • Bland Simpson Steve Exum Brian Hogan Michael Lienesch Lars Sahl Daniel Wallace Steve Exum Brodey wins language association book award Inger Brodey received the 2009 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Studies Book Award. Brodey is associate professor of English and comparative literature and Asian studies. Brodey won the award for her 2008 book, Ruined by Design: Shaping Novels and Gardens in the Culture of Sensibility. The book on landscape gardening and the history of the novel features the work of Laurence Sterne, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Jane Austen. “Inger Brodey has written a book of remarkable vitality about the fascination with ruins across eighteenth-century Europe,” said Wu Hung, a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago. Brodey has won national awards for her scholarship, including a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. She was recently awarded an Earhart Foundation Research Grant to complete a book-length comparison of cowboys and samurai in film. She also is working on a study of representations of Jane Austen in Asia. She won a 2006 UNC Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. • High Achievers H i g h A c h i e v e r s 4 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Two juniors receive Carson Scholarships Juniors Caroline Fish and Chase Jones have been named Eve Carson Scholars at UNC. The scholarship will provide half the cost of their senior year studies, plus $5,000 each for a summer enrichment experience. Fish, of Raleigh, is double-majoring in psychology and English, with a minor in creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences. Jones, of Greensboro, is majoring in business administration at Kenan-Flagler Business School, with a minor in exercise and sport science in the College. Carson, a senior from Athens, Ga., and UNC’s 2007-2008 student body president, was killed in March 2008. One of what she called her “Big Ideas” as president was to create a merit-based scholarship for UNC juniors. The scholarship was established in her memory to honor balanced, ambitious students who have shown strong involvement in leadership roles at Carolina and have at least a 3.0 grade-point average in their first three undergraduate years. Fish is a 2007 graduate of Ravenscroft School in Raleigh. She has worked toward solving the problems of sexual assault and domestic violence. She is working with campus colleagues to produce a documentary to raise awareness about sexual violence. She also has studied abroad in France, where she worked to help victims of sexual assault. “Caroline is an incredibly motivated person and inspired the committee with her drive to bring about positive change in this area,” said Thomas Edwards, a senior biology major who directed the scholarship program this year. Jones graduated from Ragsdale High School in Jamestown, N.C., in 2006. He has worked with patients at the N.C. Children’s Hospital and next year will lead the Carolina Dreams Program, which connects athletes to children in the hospital. A varsity baseball player, he overcame brain cancer during his first year at Carolina. “He took this devastating event and turned it into both a positive personal experience and motivation to work diligently to ease the burden of children in similar situations at the N.C. Children’s Hospital,” Edwards said. • Davenport wins award for Cobb program Randi Davenport, executive director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, received a statewide award for her leadership in the Connected Learning Program (CLP) in Cobb residence hall. The North Carolina Housing Officers Organization (NCHO) tapped Davenport for its Faculty Partnership Award. The new award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an academic faculty member to the housing and residence life department at their institution. The Connected Learning Program in Cobb, a joint project of the Johnston Center and Housing and Residential Education at UNC, was created in 2004. The program offers students the chance to shape their own learning experiences outside the traditional classroom. During the academic year, CLP students work in teams to develop projects of their own design — ranging from research trips and lecture series to music performances and film-making workshops. The participants live together in Cobb hall. Davenport is an adjunct faculty member in the department of English and comparative literature. Her memoir, The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, was published by Algonquin in March 2010. [see page 31.] • Inger Brodey Caroline Fish Chase Jones Randi Davenport Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 5 High Achievers H i g h A c h i e v e r s Wenbin Lin Chemist awarded polymer prize Chemist Michael Rubinstein was awarded the 2010 Polymer Prize from the American Physical Society. The award recognizes outstanding contributions in polymer physics research. Rubinstein, the John P. Barker Distinguished Professor, has been at UNC since 1995. Most of the materials around us (from plastics to tires) and inside us (DNA and proteins) are made of polymers — giant, chain-like molecules. The goal of Rubinstein’s research group is to understand how polymers move through a tangle formed by their molecule neighbors and how they are deformed if attached to each other in a network, then pulled apart (like stretching a rubber band). UNC researchers are modeling polymers in the lungs with the goal of developing treatments for diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Rubinstein received his bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Harvard University. Lin named to top 10 chemists list Chemist Wenbin Lin was named to a top 10 list by a British publication for the number of citations per article published. The London-based Times Higher Education, named Lin among the “Top Ten Chemists of the Decade.” From January 1999 through June 2009, Lin published 106 original research reports and review articles, which were cited a total of 6,685 times, averaging around 63 citations per paper. Lin’s research group works on a variety of interdisciplinary projects from catalysis to supramolecular materials to nanobiotechnology. His research efforts are relevant to important societal issues such as environment and sustainability, alternative renewable energy, biofuels and solar cells, and human health. Lin holds joint appointments in the College and UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is a lead investigator in the new Solar Energy Research Center, a project principal investigator of the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology. Computer graphics, robotics work honored Computer scientist Dinesh Manocha was honored by the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society for his contributions to geometric computing, computer graphics and robotics. Manocha, the Phi Delta Theta/Matthew Mason Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, was named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is an expert in computer graphics and geometric modeling. His research on mathematical foundations and applications has been used in scientific computations, robotics, 3-D computer graphics and virtual reality by the scientific community, the computer industry and the entertainment world. Biologists tapped for science association Biologists Joseph Kieber and Mark A. Peifer were named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The association honors fellows’ scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science. Kieber was recognized for his contributions to plant hormone biology. Hormones influence virtually every aspect of plant growth and development. He was also cited for his service to the international community of arabidopsis researchers. Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant, is widely used as a model organism in plant biology. Studying model species can help provide insight into the workings of a wide variety of other organisms. Peifer, the Hooker Distinguished Professor of Biology and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, was recognized for his contributions to the understanding of interactions between cells and of cell signaling during development. Disruptions in this cellular machinery contribute to various diseases, including cancer. His work, which explores how cells turn into tissues and organs, focuses on epithelial tissues such as skin, lung, colon and breast tissue. Graduate student wins Intel Fellowship To his adviser, Rahul Narain “is an exceptional student in every regard.” Narain, a UNC College graduate student in computer science, received an Intel Ph.D. Fellowship, the only recipient in North Carolina. The Intel PhD Fellowship Program selects students who are conducting leading-edge technology research. Students must focus on research in hardware systems technology and design, software technology and design, or semiconductor technology and manufacturing. Narain specializes in efficient animation of complex phenomena, such as human crowds, while also retaining small-scale detail. “Due to his rare combination of excellent analytical skills and unparalleled programming skills, Rahul is able to achieve impressive results that have never been seen before,” said his adviser Ming Lin, the Beverly W. Long Distin-guished Professor of Computer Science. • Michael Rubinstein Dinesh Manocha Mark Peifer Reaches PlayMakers PlayMakers 6 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences PlayMakers Steve Exum Out PlayMakersReaches Out Reaches Out Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 7 It’s 10 a.m. on a December morning and Jeff Meanza quickly heads backstage after greeting teachers and students in the lobby of UNC’s Center for Dramatic Art. He will make a fast change into costume for a performance of PlayMakers Repertory Company’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Talk about juggling multiple roles. Meanza (MFA ’04), PlayMakers’ director of education and outreach, also plays five characters ranging from a middle-aged womanizing dandy to a 14-year-old boy in the epic two-part production that casts 25 actors in 150 roles. Since their inception in 1984, these educational matinees have reached nearly 100,000 area youth. Sue Scarborough, who teaches acting and theater at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, has been bringing her students to PlayMakers’ weekday matinees for nearly 20 years. “PlayMakers is our closest and best theater that showcases outstanding acting and technical [work],” she said. “It’s important for me as a teacher to know that they create everything there, from the costumes to the sets.” “It lets me as a teacher show my students the possibilities.” Possibilities and partnerships The educational matinees are just part of the many partnerships PlayMakers is exploring in an increasing effort to reach out to the community. The company is bringing dramatic performances to a wider audience through cultural programming both inside and outside the theater’s walls. A couple of years ago, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) jump-started an initiative to take PlayMakers artists into the schools. Through its teaching artists program, PlayMakers offers two residencies per year to area schools at no cost. “We want to be as supportive as we theater is like,” he said. Meanza was 5 years old when a local theater production of Annie in his hometown of Modesto, Calif., first sparked his interest in dramatic art. He went to theater summer camps, studied the oboe for 14 years, played in bands and symphonies — but when he got to college at the University of California at Berkeley, he initially felt like he needed to pursue a more “secure” liberal arts degree. While in college, a trip to see an off- Broadway play re-lit the theater spark. He changed his undergraduate major to theater, then went on to pursue his MFA at UNC. Meanza is quick to point out that the skills learned in theater cross disciplines. “Having been a theater artist from a very The College’s professional theater opens its doors wide to the community c o n t i n u e d B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 can to keep the arts alive and well in their schools,” said Kathy Williams, a PlayMakers company member who heads the program. Joy Jones, an MFA candidate in the Professional Actor Training Program, led a workshop for the artists on creating lesson plans, warm-up activities and addressing different themes. A Google e-mail group allows the artists to continue to share ideas. The partnership with the schools — which has stretched from the Triangle to Fayetteville, Yanceyville and beyond — is one of the initiatives Meanza is most proud of since joining PlayMakers’ staff in 2007. “We’re there to help augment anything they need — whether it’s using the arts to teach English or history or science, or to help students understand what a professional Reaches ABOVE: Oliver! music director Ernie Scarborough rehearses with students. LEFT: Jeff Meanza (MFA ’04), director of education and outreach at PlayMakers, played multiple roles in the epic Nicholas Nickleby. Robert Breen Collaboration Expanding the 8 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences young age, after graduate school, I became the national director of graduate programs for the Princeton Review,” he said. “All of the skills I learned as an actor were completely applicable in that job.” A creative collaboration For the past three summers, Brian and Mary Stokes of Pittsboro have supported their 15-year-old son Henry’s participation in the Summer Youth Conservatory (SYC), a unique partnership between PlayMakers and The ArtsCenter of Carrboro. In an intensive, five-week experience, 40 children from elementary to high school learn from PlayMakers’ professional staff all the aspects of putting on a full-scale production — including training in acting, movement, voice and technical theater. And they perform it in the Center for Dramatic Art’s Paul Green Theatre, where PlayMakers puts on its main-stage shows. Students have to audition for a spot in the conservatory, which is tuition-based. Full and partial scholarships are available. “No matter what you end up doing … you learn to express yourself creatively and with confidence, and those are probably the most highly sought-after skills in any field.” — Brian Stokes “Henry will never forget some of these people,” Brian Stokes said. “No matter what you end up doing … you learn to express yourself creatively and with confidence, and those are probably the most highly sought-after skills in any field. … The kids are also learning how to work with deadlines and achieve certain milestones.” The SYC participants performed Oliver! and The Music Man their first two seasons. Last year, they took on Shakespeare. Henry Stokes played a major role — Lysander — in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In his first two seasons, he played ensemble roles, and he found those just as valuable. “Being in an ensemble role was amazing, because Tom [Quaintance, the director] really makes those roles special and uses them to develop the world of the play,” he said. The North Carolina Theatre Conference (NCTC), the statewide service organization for theater arts and artists, recently awarded the SYC its Constance Welsh Theatre for Youth Award. Angie Hayes, the executive director of NCTC, called the conservatory “a model program for youth theater in North Carolina.” Seventeen-year-old Allison Press of Chapel Hill has participated in SYC for two summers. She admits that at first it was intimidating to think about doing Shakespeare; now she loves it. She played Helena in Midsummer. “The experience just gets richer and richer and more fun every year,” she said. “Once Tom and [dramatic art professor] Julie Fishell helped us to unlock the language, it was fun to build a character off of that.” Last year for the first time, SYC offered an apprentice program called TheatreTech. Six students signed up for the program and learned about different technical aspects of theater, including set, costume and lighting design, and stage management. They could then focus on one area. “Everything in theater is one huge problem-solving exercise — even if the show goes off fairly smoothly,” said Kaitlyn Rogers, 18, of Chapel Hill, a TheatreTech apprentice. This summer, SYC will expand from a half-day to a full-day program, allowing for more in-depth classes. Participants will perform The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Jeri Lynn Schulke (MFA ’99), director of the Youth Performing Arts Conservatory at The ArtsCenter, said the partnership with PlayMakers has been very rewarding. “The staff at PlayMakers are inspiring people to work with,” she said. “Nobody’s in it for ego; we’re all focused on doing the best we can for these students.” Echoed Allison’s dad, Dennis Press, who is the controller at UNC, “The ArtsCenter and PlayMakers individually do great things, but collectively it proves the expression that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’” Fostering a love of Dickens With its production of Nicholas Nickleby, PlayMakers took the idea of engaging the community to a new level. An NEA grant helped the company to create “The Dickens Initiative” — expanded programming around the play that was offered in area bookstores, a library, schools, an art museum and more. Playwright David Edgar came to campus for a week in residence, a master class and public lecture. Marian Fragola, who got her master’s in information and library science from UNC in 2008, is the humanities coordinator at the Durham County Library. She has been involved with bringing PlayMakers’ artists to the library since The Glass Menagerie in 2008. With Nicholas Nickleby, she brought in directors, actors and designers to the library’s main branch and The Regulator Bookshop to talk about adapting, directing and designing an epic. “People are fascinated to get that behind the scenes [look],” she said. “One of the attendees said, ‘like the extras on a DVD, these lectures helped me to appreciate the massive undertaking of Nicholas Nickleby.’” Tom Quaintance, a Los Angeles-based director who has led each summer’s SYC performances and who co-directed Nicholas Nickleby with producing artistic director Joseph Haj (MFA ’88), enjoyed participating in the outreach events. “When we were producing the play, we wanted to peel away some of the layers, to show how we were doing this,” he said. “There was a joy in this process that had to do very specifically with the building of a community.” CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: (From left), SYC students Alexander Daly and Karl Kopcynski rehearse a scene from The Music Man. • (From left), Joy Jones and Jeff Meanza in Nicholas Nickleby. • SYC participants took on Shakespeare last summer. Reaches Robert Breen Collaboration Conversation Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 9 has collaborated with PlayMakers productions since 1980. The program’s 2009 Richard A. Soloway Seminar, supported by private funds, focused on “The Victorian World,” with UNC and Duke scholars discussing different aspects of Victorian life. Participants attended a performance of Nicholas Nickleby. For teachers, the tickets were free. “This collaboration brings the humanities to life in ways that we don’t often experience,” said Eve Duffy, director of the program. “It’s a conversation that just gets started in the theater, and then you keep it going.” Expanding the conversation Since Haj came on board as producing artistic director in July 2006, he has made it a key focus of PlayMakers’ strategy to extend that conversation with the community. He created the second-stage PRC² series where the company could explore socially and politically relevant work in a more intimate setting — shows are performed in the smaller Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre. And he added post-show discussions with the audience and the creative artists. With the main-stage season this year, PlayMakers introduced the free “Vision Series: Directors in Conversation.” A week before each show opens, the public is invited to the theater to learn about the production in process, meet the director and get a behind-the- scenes peek at the show. “If you ask a dozen different artistic directors, you’ll get different ideas about what’s important to them,” Haj said. “We just believe strongly at PlayMakers that this theater belongs to the community it is charged to serve. It’s not up to us to sit in an ivory tower and wave the artistic flag.” Tariq Nasir, a documentary filmmaker and a member of PlayMakers Advisory Council, has supported PRC² discussions from the beginning. In this day and age when it may be easier to turn on the TV than visit the theater, Nasir believes an educational mission is even more crucial. A study by the NEA found a noticeable decline in theater, museum and concert attendance between 2002 and 2008 for adults 18 and older. “When you learn how to appreciate [theater], you learn the subtleties and then you’re more likely to want to take part because you see the real value,” he said. “With the PRC² series, Joe is saying, ‘we’re going to entertain you, but we also want you to feel stretched beyond your comfort zone.’” “We just believe strongly at PlayMakers that this theater belongs to the community it is charged to serve.” — Joseph Haj The “Mindplay” discussions offer another avenue for community participation. While the program has existed for about a decade, attendance has been growing in recent years, according to Meanza. On select nights after each of the main-stage productions, a psychoanalyst leads a 50-minute discussion about characters and themes in the show. “Modern psychoanalysis is the deepest study and treatment of human character and emotion that we have, and so it’s a powerful lens for looking into a drama,” said Peter Perault, a Chapel Hill psychiatrist who has led several discussions over the years. “I think people find that the give-and-take with the audience after a performance always enriches their experience of the theater.” In the coming year, PlayMakers will explore new partnerships with the North Carolina Symphony, Kidzu Children’s Museum in Chapel Hill and UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, among others. Quaintance, the guest director, has known Haj for about 20 years. Haj has rallied his team around the idea of embracing the community, he said. “There’s a sense of shared purpose in that building,” he said. “Joe hasn’t just surrounded himself with people who agree with him; he’s surrounded himself with people who are willing to fight for what’s right and work for a higher purpose.” “That’s a recipe for success.” Online Extras: More on PlayMakers at www.playmakersrep.org and college.unc.edu. Out The Ackland Art Museum presented the original drawings, illustrations and prints of Dickens’ England. Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, the temporary installation in the new second floor study gallery included works by Dickens’ chief artistic collaborators. The exhibition featured one of artist George Cruikshank’s original 1838 drawings for Oliver Twist. English lecturer Marc Napolitano gave a lunch-time talk on Dickens’ art in the “Victorian popular consciousness.” A Wilson Library installation in the Rare Book Reading Room showcased the original serial editions of Nicholas Nickleby (1838- 1839) and two early theatrical adaptations of the novel. More about the installation and Napolitano’s talk were posted online on PlayMakers’ Web site. “It was very exciting working with PlayMakers, to use our collection to bring together faculty and resources from across campus to help extend the life of Nicholas Nickleby beyond the event itself,” said Rob Colby, coordinator of academic programs at the Ackland. The College of Arts and Sciences’ Program in Humanities and Human Values was founded in 1979; the program Jon Gardiner T 10 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences he 20 undergraduate students who headed to Rwanda last summer knew it would be a very different kind of study abroad experience. I felt a tinge of discomfort as we landed on the runway and pulled into the airport …my inability to grasp the atrocity that happened here. To me it is a scene from a horror movie, a page from a book … I surely could never imagine such hell. — Sarah Stoneking’s blog, May 21, Kigali Led by UNC political science senior lecturer Donna LeFebvre and Tessa Bialek, an alumna teaching assistant, the group returned to the scenes of a massive massacre that occurred 15 years ago. Nearly a million Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days in 1994, in a bloody ethnic clash when Hutus turned on their Tutsi neighbors. Hollywood brought the genocide to light in the 2004 award-winning film, Hotel Rwanda, the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered over a thousand Tutsi refugees. Required reading for the UNC students included New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch’s book, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Carolina students met survivors and perpetrators face to face; took classes on genocide, reconciliation and international law; taught children orphaned by the slaughter; visited churches and schools where people were slain; lived with Rwandan families and sat in on international criminal court proceedings. Through a Burch Field Research Seminar, they spent a few days in Arusha, Tanzania, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; four weeks in Kigali (including week-long home stays with Rwandan families); one week in Butare at the National ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Revisited Undergraduates explore the aftermath of atrocity B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 c o n t i n u e d Bruce Siceloff Bruce Siceloff Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 11 Most of the students at College Doctrina Vitae (CDV), a secondary school near Kigali, are genocide orphans. (Left) The skulls of hundreds of genocide victims are stored in a church at Nyamata. 12 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences University of Rwanda and one week in The Hague at the International Criminal Court. In addition to academic coursework, they went on field trips and volunteered at various schools and nonprofits in Rwanda. “A lot of us couldn’t process what we had seen,” said Sarah Stoneking, a senior chemistry major from Greensboro, who is pursuing a double minor in anthropology and music. “In a lot of ways, I felt like I didn’t have the right to understand what I had seen, because there were stories that were being told that were not mine — and never will be mine.” The memorial gave me, and I believe others, truth. It not only gave me facts, it gave me the reality. It not only gave me the names, it gave me the faces. It not only gave me the written accounts, it told me the stories. It gave me the people. The women, the men and the children. — Menna Mburi’s blog, May 21, Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre For Menna Mburi, a senior political science major and journalism minor, it was a journey back to her family’s roots in neighboring Tanzania. She grew up in Raleigh, but lived for a couple of years in Tanzania when she was 5. She was there in 1994, at the time of the genocide in Rwanda, but wrote in her blog that she doesn’t remember hearing about it then. At the memorial center, the impact of the killings hit home for Mburi when she stumbled upon a glass case, illuminated by a single light bulb, that contained a piece of clothing worn by one of the victims. “It reminded me of something that my mom had worn [as a young adult],” Mburi said. “There’s this picture of my mom, my favorite from when she was younger. She has on this green fabric, and she’s at my grandmother’s house, kneeling on the ground with a cow. It triggered something in my mind, and I made the connection that this could have been my mom, my dad, my brother. It touched me in a way that I can’t even explain.” As I hope the people who read this understand, no part of Rwanda was left untouched by the genocide. The National University of Rwanda’s narrative is one of immense sadness: professors turned on professors, students against students, professors against students. Over five hundred people were killed on this campus, on a typical college day. When we sat in a lecture room, the only thing going through my head was: Who was sitting here, in this chair? — Matt Karkutt’s blog, June 14, Butare The university was one of many memorial sites the students visited. At two churches in the Kibuye district of Rwanda, students saw blood stains, holes left by bullets and grenades, piles of clothing worn by the victims and pews scattered with everyday objects they carried — toys, purses, hats, ballpoint pens, ethnic identity cards. Skulls and bones of the dead lined shelves of the sacred places, surrounded by the musky smell of earth, death and age. We went to Nyamata where 10,000 people were killed in a church. … I thought about everyone I knew, and how that would only be a drop in the bucket of even this one massacre. I thought about my hopes and dreams and how those of the victims were cut down, right then and there for no reason. — Thomas Ginn’s blog, May 30 Memorial in Butare, where the skeletons are preserved in limestone. This one brought me to tears, wondering why I had been born into such privilege, security and opportunity. — from Ginn’s Facebook album of the trip Thomas Ginn said it wasn’t just at memorial sites that the students felt the impact of the genocide. Because of the length of their stay, they were able to immerse themselves in the daily life of Rwanda. Everyone they met had a story to tell. “We were sitting in a restaurant one night and we started talking to a guy sitting by himself,” recalled Ginn, a senior math and economics major from Atlanta. “He talked to us for three hours about his life, how his entire family was killed in the genocide and how he was still trying to figure out a way to cope. … You couldn’t have learned this in a classroom.” During the genocide, bodies were dumped in the Akagera and Nyabarongo rivers — both tributaries of Lake Victoria. As per the custom, the UNC students wrote messages to the survivors and victims while walking across the river bridges. Matt Karkutt, a junior English and interdisciplinary studies major from Gray’s Creek, N.C., chose to offer up this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien while on the bridge of the Akagera: “Little by little Sarah Collman Bruce Siceloff Amber Clifford CLOCKWISE from top left: Kigali kids check out UNC student Doug Harris’ camera. • Sparsely equipped science lab at CDV. • Donna LeFebvre in Arusha National Park, Tanzania. Exploring global climate change in Iceland and more This summer UNC students will travel to Iceland and Alaska to study global climate change, thanks to a new Burch Field Research Seminar. The rotating roster of semester- and summer-long seminars allows UNC faculty to lead groups of undergraduates on extensive field research trips in the U.S. and around the world. The program is supported by Lucius E. Burch III, a 1963 Carolina graduate who wanted to encourage professors and students to engage their intellectual curiosity together beyond the classroom. The first seminar debuted in fall 1998. Burch also funded the Burch Fellows Program, which allows talented Carolina undergraduates to design and pursue individual independent study projects anywhere in the world. Burch Seminars, which typically have between 12 and 18 students, provide 12 hours of academic credit in a mix of independent study and formal course work. They are open to all UNC undergraduate students who are in good standing and have at least a 3.0 GPA. Financial aid can be applied to the program cost, and students can apply for additional need-based scholarships. Information online at www.burchseminars.unc.edu. — B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 one travels far.” Karkutt added in a blog entry: “I travel with the Rwandan people, always.” Karkutt, who is involved with an anti-genocide activist group on campus, had read “obsessively” about Rwanda before the trip. Still, he said the experience of actually being there was “intense — but that’s an understatement no matter what.” “At the memorials it was very raw,” he said. “It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t clean. It could be difficult sometimes, because we want to put barriers around ourselves with death, but there you couldn’t do that. You knew that wherever you stood, someone was probably murdered there.” “But what I would do is look around me, and I would see life continuing, kids playing and people moving on and trying to look forward to the future.” LeFebvre, who has a UNC law degree, got interested in international criminal law about 10 years ago. In the summer of 2006, she interviewed staff and attended hearings at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Rwandan genocide court in Arusha, Tanzania, and the new International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands. She decided to create a Burch seminar, an off-campus study program that showcases the relationship between UNC faculty research and undergraduate education by combining traditional coursework with experiential learning. The seminar program is supported by a gift from UNC alumnus Lucius E. Burch III. Each year between five and seven seminars are offered in both domestic and international locations. “Overall what I wanted them to get from the experience is that you can make a difference, that things like genocide don’t have to happen — and when they do happen, you can do something about it,” said LeFebvre, who has won 13 teaching awards at Carolina. “They have a duty to do something because they are global citizens.” Students found the voluntary service learning component of the Burch seminar most meaningful. Stoneking was among a group of students who volunteered to teach at College Doctrina Vitae (CDV), a secondary school in Kigali. “I felt some sort of visceral discomfort with the fact that I was in Rwanda and I was learning and talking and meeting people, but I wanted something else I couldn’t really articulate,” said Stoneking, who taught chemistry, drama and English. “Once we started work-ing at College Doctrina Vitae, it was amazing. … I ended up doing my research project on teaching science in developing countries.” Mburi worked at a local nonprofit, Mwana Ukundwa (“Beloved Child”), an organization started by genocide survivor Mukankaka Rose to provide orphans and widows with the knowledge and skills to re-integrate into society. On Mburi’s first day there, she helped plant, weed and hoe crops — pumpkins, squash and carrots. The weather was perfect. c o n t i n u e d Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 13 David Gilmore Bruce Siceloff Bruce Siceloff CLOCKWISE from top left: Brick wall with broken bottles in the Niboye neighborhood in Kigali. • Sorting coffee beans at a plantation near Butare. • Pink work suits identify convicted genocidaires. Thirteen’s a lucky number Political science senior lecturer Donna LeFebvre has won 13 teaching awards since becoming a UNC faculty member in 1984. That baker’s dozen includes two UNC Tanner Undergraduate Teaching Awards (in 1996 and 2004) and three Students’ Undergraduate Teaching Awards (in 1995, 2000 and 2006). She became the first person to win a second students’ teaching award, the only such honor directed and funded by Carolina students. Menna Mburi, a senior political science and journalism major who participated in last summer’s Rwanda Burch Seminar with LeFebvre, is not surprised by those accolades. She said in LeFebvre’s classroom, students are encouraged to voice their opinions and share their ideas. “Her instructional techniques go beyond the traditional lecture,” Mburi said. “Everything was about application and about putting ourselves in other people’s shoes and about being able to examine both sides of the [Rwandan] conflict. … She pushes you to think beyond the subject matter.” LeFebvre is also committed to service learning, something a student nominator noted in 1996 when recommending her for the Tanner Award: “Through her variety of experimental class methods and her dedication to organizations and committees on campus, Donna LeFebvre is working to expand the definition and goals of university education.” LeFebvre has taught criminal law in Eritrea and through Semester at Sea, a floating university ship that travels around the world. In fall 2004, she led the university’s Honors Program in London. In fall 2010, she will direct the Honors Program in Cape Town, South Africa. Friederike Seeger, director of Burch Programs and Honors Study Abroad, believes LeFebvre’s background in leading international programs will help another group of students create meaningful experiences in Cape Town. With an intense study abroad experience like a Burch Seminar, “faculty directors need to wear many hats: you have to be not only a professor, but also a parent and friend. Donna excels at that because she really cares about the students,” Seeger said. — B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8 Although they did not speak the same language, the Rwandan women and UNC volunteers bonded through song. It was one of the moments she will never forget. “The sun had not risen yet; it was behind the mountain, and it was very cool. … I remember they were singing Christian songs, and they asked if we knew any Christian songs, and we started singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ … We started teaching them in English, and they started teaching us in Kinyarwanda. … It was our way we communicated with each other.” In addition to teaching at CDV, Karkutt took on an independent project of his own. A classically trained ballet dancer, he decided to teach ballet to students at a primary school. In turn, they showed him intore, a native Rwandan dance. Once they returned to Chapel Hill, the students wanted to continue their connection to Rwanda. They are forming an official student organization that will continue the partnership with College Doctrina Vitae. They are arranging for letter-writing exchanges between U.S. and Rwandan students. They want to provide supplies to the school. And they were awarded a Nourish International grant to send six UNC students back to CDV this summer. “I’ve never had a group of students like this — fearless, smart, adventurous,” said LeFebvre, who has hosted “reunions” of the group at her house. “They just leapt in … sometimes working 12 or 14 hours a day. … They were busy 24-7.” The students came back changed in different ways from the experience. Many of them hope to do further travel and studies abroad. Some say the trip either affirmed or changed their career paths. Karkutt hopes to find a way to continue his dance exchange. From LeFebvre he learned to ask the question: “What do I want to do next?” “When you open that book, you can’t realize what it’s like to step off a plane in Kigali, Rwanda, until you do it,” Karkutt said. “Studying abroad opens your eyes and makes you see a lot of things about your own country, and about yourself.” From Karkutt’s June 7 blog entry: It’s our last night of Kigali. I’m currently sitting at Bourbon Café, drinking a short latte, taking in the city atmosphere … one last time. I’ve made several decisions … and one is that I’m coming back. Online Extras: Listen to audio clips of LeFebvre and Stoneking talking about the Rwanda trip at college.unc.edu. ABOVE: Donna LeFebvre and UNC students with teachers and students at CDV. The Carolina students are forming an organization to support the Rwanda school. 14 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Bruce Siceloff Football Fallout Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 15 We are a sports-crazed nation. We love celebrating the success of athletes of all stripes — from the girl on the youth recreation team kicking her first goal to the professional football player scoring his umpteenth touchdown. We’re not so big on the injuries. We don’t necessarily ask to know more about the sprained ankles, torn menisci, busted vertebral discs, broken ribs or concussions that athletes suffer. But each year, in every sport, a steady stream of injured players trail off the football fields and ice-rinks, away from the track and soccer fields, and into the offices of athletic trainers and physicians. Of all the common impact injuries an athlete might incur, concussions are the hardest to detect. But we’d best figure it out, because a body of research is building that shows how athletes who suffer multiple concussions can expect a bevy of problems later in life: depression, cognitive troubles and dementia. When football players take to the field each fall, about 10 percent can expect to sustain at least one concussion that season. Of these, 15 to 20 percent are likely to have a second concussion in the same season. And the recurrent concussions may be the most costly to a player’s lifetime health. Kevin Guskiewicz’s UNC research on the long-term consequences of football concussions is gaining national attention and raising eyebrows across all levels of play, including the NCAA. Guskiewicz first became concerned about concussions when he was an athletic trainer with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early 1990s. He saw battered and bruised players in the NFL put back in games, and he questioned if their health was being properly considered. “What bothered me the most was the arbitrary nature in which return-to-play decisions were made after they’d taken a hard hit to their head,” says Guskiewicz, the Kenan Distinguished Professor who now chairs UNC’s department of exercise and sport science. “We needed a system to assess the damage.” So he set about creating one, based on careful measurements of an athlete’s postural stability, cognitive function and general symptoms. The research formed his dissertation at the University of Virginia where he earned a doctorate in sports medicine, but he did not stop there. • Decoding a concussion’s impact Over the past decade and a half, Guskiewicz has accrued a body of published studies that seeks to untangle both the short-and long-term health effects that concussions wreak on athletes. His work has been published in numerous scientific journals and cited in major news media, from CNN and continued UNC research increases concern about long-term concussion impacts B y D e L e n e B e e l a n d P h o t o s b y D o n n Y o u n g 16 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences HBO Sports to The New York Times and New Yorker magazine. After establishing criteria to assess an athlete’s concussion and monitor his recovery — he helped write guidelines that are now recommended by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the American College of Sports Medicine — Guskiewicz next wondered if he could use the magnitude of a hit to predict the degree of concussion an athlete might experience. In 2004, he connected with sports equipment company SIMBEX to measure the magnitude of head impacts football players experience when tackling and blocking by rigging up special helmets with a device called an accelerometer. The instrument fits snuggly within the helmet and measures both the direction and location of a hit, and the magnitude or g-force. In 2004, UNC football players started wearing the helmets and Guskiewicz’s team began collecting the data. When a player’s head was impacted, the accelerometers captured the hit and transmitted the information — tagged with a unique ID matched to each player — to a computer on the sidelines. Guskiewicz also used video footage to analyze the hits and match plays to the data. He thought they’d uncover a linear relationship between the highest g-forces and the worst concussions. But no such luck. “There was no relationship between the force and the severity of concussion,” Guskiewicz says. The seeming randomness told him two things: first, that as much attention should be paid to players who receive what might look like a minor hit as do those who receive a big hit; second, that the constellation of factors resulting in a concussion were a lot more nuanced than people had assumed. • The long reach of multiple concussions But what Guskiewicz found next was even more eye-popping. In 2001 he had helped found UNC’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes. One of the first things the center did was mail a health survey to 3,600 retired National Football League players. Little did Guskiewicz know, but he’d spend the next eight years mining data and publishing studies based on more than 2,500 returned surveys. One of the first trends he noticed was a disturbingly high correlation between retired NFL payers who had suffered four, five or more concussions during their careers and the onset of severe cognitive problems and depression later. In a 2005 paper, Guskiewicz and his team described links between recurrent concussions and mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, and Alzheimer’s disease. MCI is a pre-dementia state. Sufferers begin to slide into severe memory loss and lose their executive functioning skills, like problem-solving. It might sound like the normal dance of old age, but it’s far more troubling. Having MCI is like being in a holding room for Alzheimer’s: 30 to 40 percent of people diagnosed with MCI will develop Alzheimer’s. In a 2007 study, they also described links between the number of concussions suffered and the probability of developing depression later. But not everyone who sustains a concussion will develop mild cognitive impairment or depression. About 5 percent of people with a concussion will have symptoms that last beyond six weeks. When this happens, it’s called post-concussive syndrome. Mild cognitive impairment is a possibility if people are in this slim 5 percent. The NFL’s mild traumatic brain injury committee sniffed at Guskiewicz’s work. They attacked his sample size as too small. They decried that some of the survey respondents were self-reporting medical histories without medical records to back them up. “They tried to poke holes,” Guskiewicz says. “We were disappointed, but not surprised.” But then Boston University medical doctor Ann McKee began studying brain tissue of deceased NFL players who had, while living, pledged to donate their minds to a “brain bank” at BU’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. She found that players who suffered severe or repeated blows to their heads may develop a disease state known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, where tau proteins precipitate onto brain tissue. An excess of these deposits lead to brain dysfunction and dementia. Other studies have shown that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s have unusual deposits of beta-lipid proteins in deeper regions of their brains. Disturbingly, retired athletes who suffered four, five or more concussions during their careers appear to be more at risk for developing these excessive beta-lipid protein deposits. Guskiewicz’s current work delves further into questions about sports-induced brain injuries. He is the principal investigator on a clinical trial that seeks to uncover if an omega-3 fatty acid supplement has the nutritive power to break up beta-lipid proteins and prevent deposits from building up within the brains of at-risk individuals. The double-blind study (where the research team and the participants are both blinded to whether LEFT TO RIGHT: Kevin Guskiewicz’s research examines the long-term effects of concussions. • Accelerometers help researchers study head impacts. • Guskiewicz has worked with the UNC football team since 2004. LEFT: Fred Mueller heads the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research. ABOVE: Kevin Guskiewicz analyzes data from his research, which is gaining national attention. • Looking at HOCKEY Kevin Guskiewicz is working with UNC visiting assistant professor Jason Mihalik in the department of exercise and sport science to monitor the impact of collisions sustained by youth playing hockey for the Carolina Junior Hurricanes in Raleigh. About 30 young boys have had accelerometers installed in their helmets, and the researchers are studying two age-groups: 13- to 14-year-olds, and 15- to 16-year-olds. They are in the middle of their fourth season of data collection, and they’ve logged more than 20,000 head impacts between the two groups. “We have not formally analyzed the data, but so far the trends seem to be showing us that the youth are getting hit in the average range of 18 to 22 g’s,” Mihalik said. This puts the force of their impacts on par with collegiate football players. Mihalik said this is worrisome for several reasons. First, sustaining a concussion at a younger age widens the window of time when an athlete may sustain additional concussions. But in general, kids don’t tend to know as much about the dangers of concussions, so they may be less likely to report them. Also, youth league teams rarely have a physician or dedicated athletic trainer, making it more difficult to diagnose a brain injury. He hopes to expand the study to girls’ youth hockey because NCAA data indicate that female hockey players sustain concussions at nearly twice the rate of their male counterparts. the supplement or a placebo is being taken) consists of performing before-and-after brain scans and testing the cognitive skills of 40 retired athletes who participated in the 2001 health survey. He is also investigating whether some players may be hardwired to develop dementia or MCI. • The darker side of sports Unfortunately, the healthy pursuit of sports can lead to catastrophic injuries and death in athletes of all ages. Fred Mueller, professor and director of UNC’s National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research, has been tracking these trends in high school and collegiate athletics since 1980, though the center has been issuing the report since 1965. He retired last June, but still directs the center. Mueller’s center issues a report annually that parses incidences of catastrophic injury and death within different sports. They also record the circumstances of the event. The data go to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the American Football Coaches Association and the NCAA. Spikes of injury incidences within a cer-tain sport have led to changes in equipment or education to prevent future injuries. “We see fewer deaths now, fewer direct injuries, and more indirect injuries,” Mueller says, discussing data trends over three decades. He recently finished co-authoring a book to be published by Carolina Academic Press in Durham, titled A Comprehensive Study of Football Fatalities 1931-2008. Guskiewicz says that Mueller mentored him when he first started at UNC, when Mueller was the chair of the department of exercise and sport science. “My goal is that through our research and improving safety in sports, we’ll see fewer subjects showing up in Fred’s catastrophic injury database,” Guskiewicz says. • Moving forward, safely Guskiewicz has just begun untangling the web of events that enmesh athletes in recurrent concussions and their associated long-term health effects. He’s helping to found a new clinical research lab, called the UNC Sport Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, which reflects the trajectory of his studies. “It’s going to focus exclusively on brain injury research, but will allow us to connect the dots between prevention, injury mechanisms, interventions for recovery and late-life complications. So it’s a natural progression,” he says. But he wants to make it clear he’s not seeking to fundamentally change the sport of football. “I have three boys of my own who play football. I care very much about the sport of football continuing,” Guskiewicz says. “I just want to be sure that as researchers, we are contributing to making it safer.” • Online Extras: More on research by Guskiewicz and Mueller at college.unc.edu. Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 17 18 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences George Lensing Jr., the Mann Family Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, volunteers to teach early-morning classes. Amazingly, given the nocturnal nature of many college students, his classes fill up. Each morning, as the students shuffle in, he’s there to greet them, handouts at the ready, notes already written on the white board. He brings enough enthusiasm to stir sleepy minds into thought without crossing over into annoying perkiness. “Wherever they are coming from, four hours of sleep the previous night and other things on their minds, if I don’t project some energy, I’m not going to engage them,” said Lensing, who is in his 41st year of teaching at UNC. “I’m energized because I love it.�� Lensing has a deep well of energy and effort that he dips into to teach, to serve on an exhausting number of committees and, for the past seven years, to direct the Office of Distinguished Scholarships. (Psychology professor Linda Dykstra took over last September.) And then there’s the academic research he does on 20th-century poets and novelists, The Wallace Stevens Journal he edits, and the three books he has written on Stevens (the insurance executive cum poet). Lensing also works with students at the Catholic Newman Center and hosts an annual picnic at his house, serves as president of the Inter- Church Council Housing Corp. in Chapel Hill and devotes time to hospice visits. In 2005, he was awarded the “Building Bridges Award” given annually by the UNC/ Community MLK Jr. Planning Corp. Two recent awards underscore his achievements and the esteem he has earned from colleagues across the University com-munity. The Arts and Sciences Foundation gave him its inaugural William F. Little Distin-guished Service Award, recognizing Lensing’s extraordinary commitment to the College. The late Little was a chemistry professor and founder of the Foundation. And Lensing’s faculty peers at the University honored him with the 2009 Lensing Lessons Teaching, research and service are energizing By Nancy E. Oates • photos by Steve Exum Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 19 Thomas Jefferson Award, in recognition of his stellar teaching, scholarship and service. Faculty members nominate candidates for the annual award, created in 1961 to recognize the colleague who best exemplifies the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson. Bobbi Owen, senior associate dean of undergraduate education, said Lensing embodies the characteristics that the University wants to see in all faculty members. “He is a good scholar, a good teacher and a good citizen of the University,” she said. “He’s the quintessential well-rounded person.” Owen said Lensing’s success benefits the University as well. “As Carolina students have won these prestigious scholarships and been competitive with elite private schools,” she said, “it lets more people know about UNC-Chapel Hill.” Libby Longino and Henry Spelman, who both won Rhodes scholarships this year — spoke of Lensing’s commitment to helping students impress the scholarship committees, even though he no longer directs the office. [see related story on Longino and Spelman on page 2.] He critiqued their essays and conducted mock interviews with them so they could sharpen their answers. During Lensing’s tenure as director of distinguished scholarships and his unofficial role in helping students last fall, 10 UNC students were named Rhodes Scholars and more UNC students received Luce Scholarships than did students at Harvard. In 2009, UNC nominated five students for consideration as Rhodes Scholars; all five were named among the 236 finalists. “I don’t think I would have won the scholarship without Professor Lensing’s kindness, experience and humor,” Spelman said. “But even if I hadn’t won, it was worth applying just to have gotten to know him better.” Longino was most impressed by Lensing’s “dedication and willingness to share [his] thoughts and advice” in critiquing drafts of her personal statement that the scholarship requires. He continued to communicate with her throughout her summer in Cape Town, South Africa, until she was satisfied with her submission. “He’s an expert in helping you think about how to frame your work and experiences in a way that effectively communicates who you are and how you fit the criteria for this scholarship,” she said. Lensing, while directing distinguished scholarships, worked with students applying for scholarships such as the Luce, Udall, Truman, Marshall, Mitchell, Goldwater and Churchill. He often came in on weekends as deadlines approached. He videotaped mock interviews, not to criticize but to say, “Here’s how you answered this question; you critique it.” Students came back a week later prepared with much better answers. Lensing has spent his entire career at UNC. Originally from a little town in Louisiana called Lake Providence, he left home in high school for boarding school in Arkansas, followed by an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He returned to the South for a doctorate in English from Louisiana State University, then went to Brazil as a visiting professor of English for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. From there, he applied for teaching positions at universities in the U.S. UNC had an opening in its English department. He came in 1969 and never left. The list of administrative duties and committee involvements over the past four decades takes up three pages on Lensing’s curriculum vitae. He was selected as the December commencement speaker in 2004. As secretary of the faculty, he wrote and read a number of honorary degree citations for luminaries such as President Clinton, the Rev. Billy Graham and Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. For 26 years he served on the Committee on Student Conduct that oversees the UNC Honors System, and for 15 years he made presentations on the Honor Code to the men’s basketball team. But it is in teaching that he found his calling. He received the Tanner Distinguished Teaching Award in 1984 and the John Sanders Award for Teaching and Service in 2001, and he held the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professorship for Distinguished Teaching from 2002 to 2007. Even while director of distinguished scholarships, Lensing had only a one-course reduction in his teaching load. Lensing gets out from behind the lectern as he teaches and walks through the aisles of the classroom, creating an interactive classroom environment, said Joseph Flora, his colleague in the department of English and comparative literature. “Not every student loves poetry,” Flora said, “not even English majors. He gives students a sense of why a poem has endured; while even though it’s tough, it’s still worth their time.” On a December morning, in the last class before finals began, Lensing talked through a William Butler Yeats poem about aging with his students, nearly all barely out of their teens. “It’s not fair,” he said later. “I grow older, and they stay 20 years old every year.” Teaching keeps him young, he said. “I love the interaction with students. When I teach a class where their eyes are alert and they’re making responses and writing things down, I don’t know anything more satisfying. You feel like you’ve given them something.” One of his former students, novelist Sarah Dessen, gave back in the form of giving him a cameo in one of her teen novels. Ever modest, he didn’t let it go to his head. “I don’t think many of my colleagues have read Dreamland,” he said. Over the years, Lensing has taught everything from first-year English to graduate seminars. He plans to teach only for a few more years. He’ll continue to do his own research — he has written more about Wallace Stevens than any other critic — and look for other ways to stay connected to the University. “It’s been such a big part of my life,” he said. “I learn by teaching. A great poem is inexhaustible. There’s always something I can learn from it.” • ABOVE: George Lensing and students examine the works of Irish poet Seamus Heaney in the Rare Book Collection of Wilson Library. Erin Burns: Born to Teach By JB Shelton Teaching biology at West Charlotte High School is much more than a career in education for Erin Burns, who graduated from UNC in 2009 with a major in biology, a minor in entrepreneurship and N.C. teaching credentials. “Even as a little girl, I understood the power of an educated mind,” she says. “Teaching fulfills my lifetime obsession to change the world for the better.” The North Carolina Teaching Fellow graduated from High Point’s Southwest Guilford High School and began teaching at West Charlotte in August 2009. She is indefatigably passionate and has perfect timing, as one of the first graduates of the UNC-BEST (Baccalaureate Education in Science and Teaching) program, an innovative collaboration of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and School of Education that enables science and math majors to simultaneously obtain their N.C. teaching credentials and their undergraduate degrees. Burns origi-nally planned to be an inner-city biology teacher, becoming a missionary doctor by attend-ing medical night school. She admits to her naivete, “Little did I know there was no such thing as medical night school.” Instead, she’s creating a teaching career — in a school with a 99 percent minority population and a 75 percent poverty level — where the kids consult her daily about health and personal issues. “Teaching high-schoolers about their bodies, genetics and science is similar to working at a medical clinic,” says Burns. “Education is a powerful preventive medicine; students need to know about AIDS.” And they need to hear it from someone competent and comfortable in telling them. Rap music in the classroom CSI lab UNC-BEST trained her to break down complex concepts into terms students could relate to. A senior, who’d flunked biology twice, told her, “Man, Ms. Burns, you’re the only teacher that makes it so that I can understand.” (Yes, he passed.) Deoxyribonucleic acid is multi-syllabic genetic code mumbo-jumbo, but her students get her point that DNA is their bodies’ instruction manual. “We made and munched edible candy models of DNA and listened to ‘bio-rap’ — rap music with vocabulary about replicating DNA,” she says. “Their favorite lessons,” adds Burns, “take place in our classroom CSI crime lab.” (Most teachers don’t start a school term simulating a crime scene, complete with bloodied ketchup walls. Most teachers aren’t Erin Burns.) “Students gather evidence and predict which pretend suspect broke into my classroom. Every student is 100 percent engaged, realizing the importance of science, imagining career paths toward forensics.” Entrepreneur’s creative spirit During the biotech unit, Burns encourages students to think innovatively about creating solutions to world problems. “I love to give them confidence-building assignments where there are no ‘wrong answers,’” she says. Her students vouch that she makes them feel smart, developing enough self-confidence to think finding a cancer cure could be in their futures. Burns minored in entrepreneurship and participated in an internship in Beijing where she taught art to migrant children. “[The internship] gave her a whole new outlook on the world outside of North Carolina, with increased confidence in her talents and strengths,” says economics professor John F. Stewart, director of the entrepreneurship minor in the College. Her ultimate dream is “combining my passion for entrepreneurship with my teaching experience to create a nonprofit group or charter school where entrepreneurial spirit and creativity collide.” ‘Born teacher’ “From my first interaction with her, I knew Erin was a born teacher — unwavering, passionate, deeply committed to educating others and bringing about positive change through service,” says Ramona D. Cox, coordinator of teacher recruitment and retention licensure officer at UNC’s School of Education. Cox and Burns worked together on a two-year service-learning project for Durham Public Schools, where she, students and members of the UNC chapter of the Student N.C. Association of Educators refurbished a school’s exterior and built a new school store. “I know she will make a big difference in the lives of the students she encounters,” says Cox. Burns’ students are already living proof. • ABOVE: UNC-BEST graduate Erin Burns ’09 uses creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit in teaching biology to West Charlotte High School students. Profile P r of i l e 20 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences “Even as a little girl, I understood the power of an educated mind. Teaching fulfills my lifetime obsession to change the world for the better.” [ ] NEED TO CLEAN UP PHOTO High Note Colleagues and students celebrate tenor’s long career By Pamela Babcock Profile P r of i l e Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 21 32 years, Wing retired in June 2009. Over the years, his teaching and singing amassed a large and loyal following in Chapel Hill and beyond. His poignant Lieder recitals (art songs in German mainly from the 19th century), including Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Strauss and Mahler renditions, were highlights of the concert season. He also taught and mentored a wealth of successful graduates, not only performers, but also teachers, musical directors and others who have prospered through his leadership, performance, teaching and service. Terry Rhodes, UNC’s music department chair and director of opera, met Wing when she was an undergraduate in the 1970s. She has considered him a “dear colleague, incredible friend and mentor” throughout her 21 years on the Carolina faculty. Rhodes described Wing as a beacon who led the voice area through periods of feast and famine with his “buoyant spirit, generous nature, warm smile and unstinting wisdom and guidance.” Wing grew up in West Palm Beach, Fla., has degrees from Stetson and Louisiana State universities and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music. He came to UNC in 1969 from an illustrious career that embraced both classical and non-classical repertoire in concert, opera, musical theater, television, radio and recording. Wing has performed as a soloist in Europe, the U.S and Canada, and has recorded with the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Pro Musica Orchestra and with Armor Artis in New York. He toured with the Music Theater of Lincoln Center and performed Like many of the classic songs he sang and taught, Stafford Wing’s UNC career ended on a soaring note. Colleagues, former students, fellow performers and admirers closed out the music professor’s 40 years at Carolina with a musical tribute in Hill Hall. Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood ’83 was the headliner for the October celebration. Sharing the stage with her was a host of Wing’s former students from across the nation, from New York to California, and Florida to Alaska. For the finale of the show, all joined in singing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the musical Carousel: When you walk through a storm Hold your head up high And don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm Is a golden sky And the sweet silver song of a lark ... The song fit the occasion with a couple of caveats. At the end of Wing’s busy and fulfilling career, the sky glowed not golden, but Carolina blue. And the sound Rodgers and Hammerstein set at the end of the storm instead rang through all of Wing’s years on stage and in teaching — the “sweet silver song” of his lyric tenor voice. A well-loved voice professor who chaired the voice area in the music department for at Carnegie Hall in New York and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. In the early 1960s, as an ensemble singer, Wing pulled off nearly 1,000 performances as a member of the chorus at Radio City Music Hall — singing four and five shows daily. “I once did 22 straight weeks without a day off,” Wing recalled. He also performed in the ensemble for NBC-TV Opera productions, and with the New York Philharmonic in concerts and in recordings under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. At Carolina, Wing served as director of the UNC Chamber Singers in the 1970s, and in addition to teaching voice, taught general music appreciation, lyric dictions and the ever-popular opera appreciation. He received the Amoco Foundation Award for excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students. During his teaching career, he continued to perform in recital, oratorio and opera not only on campus, but also in Europe and New York. Nurtured by music every day, Wing said he owes a great deal of his success to the love and support of his wife of 54 years, Janice Tice Wing, who also was his first accompanist in high school. “The opportunity to teach while continuing to sing has been an incredible gift. The students have kept me young,” he said. “I will always be interested in students and colleagues, and I hope to remain in touch with them.” Online Extras: Read the program from Wing’s retirement celebration at college. unc.edu. • “The opportunity to teach while continuing to sing has been an incredible gift. The students have kept me young. I will always be interested in students and colleagues, and I hope to remain in touch with them.” ABOVE: UNC tenor Stafford Wing 22 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Highlights H i g h l i g h t s graduate student to help establish seven of the stations now in operation.” Drew Coleman, associate professor, concurs that Rogers’ gifts extend beyond the checkbook. “John has been a tremendous supporter of undergraduate and graduate research,” he said. “His interests are multidisciplinary in a climate that emphasizes specialization. He encourages a holistic view of science, mixing research approaches, research areas and even research disciplines.” Coleman said that Rogers has been a pioneer in encouraging geological techniques toward solving archaeological problems. “It is not unusual to begin working on a problem with a student and dig into the literature only to find a paper written by John decades ago.” Rogers, a native of Los Angeles, enrolled as a chemistry major at the venerated California Institute of Technology (because it was within driving distance of his hometown, he jokes), but switched after he took a required geology course and then his geology courses began to outnumber his chemistry classes. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota, returned to Cal Tech in 1952 and completed his Ph.D. there in 1954. His first job was to help create the geology department at Rice University in Houston. John Rogers has left the classroom — but not the students. And although the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of geology retired in 1997 after 22 years on the Carolina faculty, he remains engaged in research, both his own and that of other UNC geologists. His health prevents him from the physical challenges of geological field work, but his mind continues to explore with vigor. “The department has hired some remarkable faculty in the past few years,” said Rogers. “While I can’t work in the field, I can support faculty and students with dollars for equipment and research.” Through the John and Barbara Rogers Fund for Geochemical Excellence, Rogers directs his gifts to seed funding for faculty in the department. This money helps attract even larger private and federal grants and enables undergraduates and graduate students to conduct important research that otherwise would not have been possible. For example, a recent gift enabled a young faculty member to purchase a pellet press used to prepare rocks for analysis, which led to a National Science Foundation grant for a special X-ray machine to analyze geological elements in detail. Rogers also stepped in with critical funding for assistant professor Lara Wagner, whose research in seismology and tectonics focuses on how the Blue Ridge Mountains survive the ravages of time. “I had funds for 10 broadband seismic stations, but no money for expenses like fuel, food and lodging,” Wagner said. “John provided this funding and made it possible for four undergraduates and a In addition to Rogers’ abundant scientific accomplishments — seven books, fellow and past president of the International Division of the Geological Society of America, fellow of the Geological Society of India, and honorary fellow of the Geological Society of Africa — he is a gifted administrator. While at Rice, he served for five years as Master of Brown College, a women’s residential college. Today, Rogers lives in Durham with his wife Barbara. They have two children, Tim, a newspaper editor in Wilson, N.C., and Peter, who studies wildlife conservation in Africa and is on the faculty of Paul Smith’s College in New York. Rogers recently completed co-authoring a college textbook on how human history has been influenced by earth and its processes, including climate changes and Hurricane Katrina. Rogers even maintains a Facebook page. “John actively seeks and funds students for all of his research ideas. Part of this is practical. He no longer has the physical abilities to follow through on ideas,” said Coleman. “The other [factor] is passion. John gets immeasurable satisfaction from working with students and watching them succeed.” And thanks to Rogers, they can move mountains. • Online Extras: More on Lara Wagner’s research and John Rogers at college. unc.edu. Moving Mountains Gifts from retired geologist support faculty and student research By Del Helton ABOVE: John Rogers. LEFT: Lara Wagner (left) and students have benefited from John Rogers’ generosity. “The department has hired some remarkable faculty in the past few years. While I can’t work in the field, I can support faculty and students with dollars for equipment and research.” Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 23 Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Rachmaninoff and Ricky Nelson shared 12-year-old Linda Moore Pelletier’s hi-fi time, thanks to a supply of classical music albums from her beloved uncle “Ardrey Lee.” Long after the pop stars of the early 1960s fell from the charts, Pelletier’s interest in classical music and art flourished. “My uncle gave me culture,” said Pelletier, a 1970 UNC alumna of Van Wyck, S.C., and longtime teacher at Charlotte Country Day School. “He was marvelous, educated, witty, and to the end, his mind was as sharp as a tack.” Lucius Lee Ardrey Moore Jr. died in September 2007 at 84, leaving another legacy, one that will influence generations of Carolina students. Through his estate, he gave the College of Arts and Sciences $880,000 to establish the Jacques Hardré Distinguished Professorship in Romance Languages, the department’s first permanent professorship. The Hardré Professorship qualifies for another $334,000 from the state’s Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, making the total initial endowment $1,214,000. It will provide the department with annual income of more than $60,000 for salary and research funds. “Lee’s gift honors a professor who was departmental chair at a very significant time of expansion, and at the same time will add to our faculty a very distinguished scholar of romance languages,” said Larry King, department chair. “It couldn’t come at a more critical time as several longtime members of our faculty are retiring, and we will need A College First UNC alum creates first distinguished professorship in romance languages By Del Helton to recruit new faculty in a highly competitive environment.” Moore earned four Carolina degrees, including bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and medical technology in 1949, a master’s degree (1950) and a Ph.D. (1965) in public health. He was born in Davenport, Iowa, but grew up in Clinton, N.C., as the oldest of four children. After completing his Ph.D., Moore moved to Atlanta, beginning a 27-year career at the Centers for Disease Control as a consultant in parasitology and tropical medicine. He traveled often to the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean to train local health agencies on treatments to prevent and detect tropical diseases, including malaria. A passionate chorister of church music, he joined Atlanta’s Cathedral of St. Philip in 1968, where he met his partner of 39 years, John Wilkerson. Wilkerson died just two months prior to Moore’s death. Over the years, the two entertained numerous friends and family in their historic Ansley Park home, with annual mint julep parties, Easter champagne brunches and New Year’s Day dinners of traditional hog jowl, Hoppin’ John, collard greens and Moore’s infamous stewed tomato casserole. Moore had already named Carolina in his will, but a friend suggested designating the gift in honor of a Carolina faculty member whom he held in great esteem. That was Jacques Hardré, a French professor and mentor to Moore during his student years. “He literally turned my uncle’s life around and made him realize his self-worth,” said Pelletier, who coincidentally was a French major. Hardré began teaching at Carolina in 1945, was named a Kenan Professor in 1971, and retired in 1977. He died in 1983 at 68. A native of Dinan, France, Hardré became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1956. From 1942 until 1945, he served as a lieutenant with the legendary First Armored Division of the Free French, earning a number of military awards for his service. Hardré earned two degrees at Carolina, an M.A. in 1941 and a Ph.D. in 1948. For Pelletier, the gift is a lasting reminder of her uncle’s remarkable generosity and his devotion to a place he loved. “Ardrey Lee was so happy when he could help others. And he absolutely adored Chapel Hill — who doesn’t?” • Online Extras: Read the 1983 UNC Faculty Resolution memorializing Jacques Hardré at college.unc.edu. ABOVE: Lee Moore as a student at Carolina. Through his estate, Moore established a professorship in honor of a favorite French professor. “Ardrey Lee was so happy when he could help others. And he absolutely adored Chapel Hill — who doesn’t?” Highlights H i g h l i g h t s 24 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences as American studies, which has several other faculty who work with visual culture.” Barrett came to UNC following a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in American Art at the University of Chicago. Before that, he was a Wyeth Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Barrett earned master’s degrees in art history and museum studies from Syracuse University after completing his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. He received his Ph.D. in art history from Boston University. Barrett says his favorite part of being a professor is teaching college students. “I find the energy, enthusiasm and inquisitiveness of students exciting,” Barrett said. “It’s a wonderful time of life for people, a time of discovery. It’s exciting to be around students when they’re bringing this energy, spirit and enthusiasm to the classroom. It buoys you.” In addition to general survey courses on American art, Barrett currently teaches an advanced course on the Civil War in American art. He is also developing a graduate course in American landscape painting, which he will teach for the first time in fall 2010. In the classroom, Barrett works to help students understand the interconnection of art with other social forces and cultural activities. Ross Barrett remembers his first art exhibition. He was 7 years old when his parents took him to the Los Angeles County Museum to an exhibition featuring French Impressionist paintings. Barrett recalls being fascinated by the bright colors of the paintings, especially Monet’s “Garden at Sainte-Adresse,” with its colorful flags and flowers on a seaside terrace. It was the beginning of a lifelong passion for art. As the inaugural David G. Frey Distinguished Fellow of American Art, Barrett specializes in 19th and 20th century American painting. His interests include ideology, violence and power in American society and art. Barrett says that the focus of the Frey Fellowship played an important role in his decision to join Carolina’s faculty. “No other schools had this type of commitment to American art,” he said. “That was incredibly exciting and set Carolina apart from other schools.” Mary Sheriff, art department chair and W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Art History, said Barrett’s appointment comes at an important time for the department. “The addition of a specialist in American art was critical,” Sheriff said. “The area is not only one of the most popular with students but is also a strong component of departments such as music, history and English. With Barrett joining the faculty, we have increased our offerings in American art as well as our collaboration with units such “American society is increasingly visual,” he said. “I want students to engage with that landscape critically — to see art images as products of a deeper history, bound with social, economic and political structures and forces. The key is thinking of art as a lens on a moment, not a reflection. It gives us access to the way Americans thought of major developments and crises of their times.” Barrett works to bridge the gap between the art the students are studying and the world around them. He often shows ads, cartoons and popular prints from the eras they study to help provide them with a critical toolbox for viewing the world today. Barrett receives salary support and research funding from the David G. Frey Distinguished Professorship in American Art, one of three professorships established by David Frey (’64 BA English, ’67 JD.) A banker by trade, Frey created professorships in art, dramatic art and music because he views the liberal arts as the foundation of an undergraduate education. Frey said he selected American art, specifically the period from the 1820s to 1945, because of the recent growth in the field as well as his interest as a collector. “American art is an emerging discipline, from a teaching, as well as a collecting, standpoint. I’m excited that the university found a rising star in this area,” Frey said. “It’s gratifying that students, graduate students and others on campus will be able to have a higher and perhaps more thorough appreciation of the artists spanning the last two or three centuries of American art.” • Artistic Lens New Frey Fellow uses art as a critical toolbox for viewing the world By Joanna Worrell Cardwell (M.A. ’06) ABOVE: Ross Barrett is the first David G. Frey Distinguished Fellow of American Art. He specializes in 19th and 20th century American painting. “American society is increasingly visual. I want students to engage with that landscape critically — to see art images as products of a deeper history, bound with social, economic and political structures and forces. The key is thinking of art as a lens on a moment, not a reflection. It gives us access to the way Americans thought of major developments and crises of their times.” Joanna Worrell Cardwell their shells out of calcium carbonate) at various levels of CO2 predicted to occur over the next several centuries. When CO2 combines with water, it produces carbonic acid, raising the overall amount of carbon in seawater but reducing the amount of the carbonate ion used by organisms in their calcification. Seven species (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, red and green calcifying algae, limpets and temperate urchins) showed a positive response, meaning they calcified at a higher rate and increased in mass under elevated CO2. Ten types of organisms (including oysters, scallops, temperate corals and tube worms) had reduced calcification under elevated CO2, with several (hard and soft clams, conchs, periwinkles, whelks and tropical urchins) seeing their shells dissolve. One species (mussels) showed no response. Such changes could have serious ramifications for predator and prey relationships that have evolved over hundreds of millions of years, said Ries, assistant professor of marine sciences. “There is no magic formula to predict how different species will respond, but one thing you can be sure of is that ecosystems as a whole will change because of these varied individual responses,” he said. • As the world’s seawater becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, some shelled marine creatures may actually become bigger and stronger, according to a UNC study. The finding, based on research by UNC marine scientist Justin Ries, could have important implications for ocean food webs and the multi-billion dollar global market for shellfish and crustaceans. Previous research has shown that ocean acidification — the term for falling pH levels in the Earth’s oceans as they absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere — is likely to slow the growth or even dissolve the shells of such creatures. However, the new study, published in the December issue of the journal Geology, suggests that sediment-dwelling marine organisms may exhibit a wider range of responses to CO2-induced acidification than previously thought: some may get weaker while others become stronger. Researchers also found that creatures whose shells grew the most, such as crabs, tended to prey on those whose shells weakened the most, such as clams. Researchers grew 18 different species of economically and ecologically important marine calcifiers (creatures that make H i g h l i g h t s Highlights Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 25 Study reveals winners and losers of ocean acidification CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Blue crabs increased in mass under elevated CO2 levels. • Sea urchins showed dissolution of their spines under high CO2. • Lobsters followed a similar pattern as the blue crab. ABOVE: Justin Ries Justin Ries Justin Ries Justin Ries Highlights H i g h l i g h t s 26 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences politics in Latin America. For his doctoral dissertation in history at the University of California, San Diego, he focused on indigenous perceptions in Ayacucho, Peru, from 1940 to 1983, preceding the rise of the Shining Path guerilla insurgency. He is a postdoctoral fellow at UNC and will join the tenure-track faculty July 1. • Gabriela Valdivia, assistant professor of geography, studies human-environmental interactions in Latin America. For her interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota, she explored the political and environmental claims of Native Amazonians in the Ecuador who Editor’s Note: One of the top priorities of the College is to ensure that our students get a truly global education by studying with teachers and scholars who are experts in key regions of the world. That means maintaining our considerable faculty expertise in Latin America and Europe, while expanding the number of faculty who focus on Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Thanks to a combination of public and private support, and interdisciplinary partnerships, the following international scholars joined our faculty in the fall. Latin America • Zaragosa Vargas, a leading scholar in U.S. and Latino/a labor history, is the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History and Latino/a Studies. He grew up in Michigan “in the shadow of the auto industry,” he says, where family members worked for General Motors. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan focused on early Mexican factory workers in Detroit and the industrial Midwest. The author of five books and numerous articles and essays, he previously taught at Yale University and the University of California at Santa Barbara. At Carolina, he is collaborating with oral historian Jacquelyn Hall, the Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History, on the early civil rights movement. • Miguel La Serna, assistant professor of history, is interested in indigenous revolutionary movements and the connections between culture, violence and were affected by petroleum development. She is now studying how agrarian decisions in the lowlands of Bolivia are affected by changes in politics, institutions and production relations associated with land reform. Asia • Yong Cai, assistant professor of sociology and fellow of the Carolina Population Center, is an expert on the impact of China’s social and political changes on fertility, mortality and gender inequality. Now considered a rising star in his field, he grew up on a farm in rural China and graduated from Peking University in Beijing, where he was a student during the Tiananmen Square protests. He has a Ph.D. in sociology and an M.S. degree in statistics from the University of Washington. Before coming to Carolina, he taught at the University of Utah. He is supported in part by a Freeman Foundation grant to help the College expand faculty expertise in Asia. • Xi Chen, assistant professor of political science, is completing a groundbreaking book about the increasing level of social protests in China and the government’s response to them. As a former attorney in China, he had extraordinary access to internal reports from police and political party sources in his native Hunan Province and was able to conduct in-depth interviews with police as well as protestors petitioning Growing global expertise Zaragosa Vargas Anna Agbe-Davies Miguel La Serna Ahmed El Shamsy Dan Sears The College attracts scholars of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East H i g h l i g h t s Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 27 Highlights the government. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, had a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and previously taught at Louisiana State University. • Sara Smith, a feminist geographer, conducted a landmark study of the complex politics of marriage and fertility along the volatile India-Pakistan border for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona. During a year of intense fieldwork in the Ladakh region, she found that increasing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims have complicated reproductive decisions and choices regarding marriage, as individuals respond to pressures to enhance their population base for political purposes. Smith conducted 200 surveys, including in-depth interviews with members of Buddhist and Muslim households, and with political and religious leaders. Africa • Anna Agbe-Davies, assistant professor of anthropology, focuses on the historical archaeology of colonialism in Atlantic Africa and slavery in the Caribbean and southeastern United States. Her research and teaching span African, African-American and American/ Southern studies. She obtained a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, previously taught at DePaul University and served as an archaeologist for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. • Colin Thor West, assistant professor of anthropology, is engaged in innovative research on the human impacts of development and climate change in Africa and Alaska. He has studied Single atom controls motion needed for bacterial infection UNC researchers have discovered that a single atom — a calcium — can control how bacteria “walk.” The finding identifies a key step in the process by which bacteria infect their hosts, and could one day lead to new drug targets to prevent infection. Bacteria stroll along solid surfaces using tiny fibrous legs called pili. This motility enables some pathogenic bacteria to establish infections — such as meningitis — that can be lethal. By resolving the structure of a protein involved in the movement of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, scientists identified a spot on the bacteria, that when blocked, can stop it in its tracks. “When it comes down to it, a single atom makes all the difference,” said senior study author Matthew R. Redinbo, professor and chair of the department of chemistry in the College, and professor of biochemistry and biophysics. His findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Redinbo and his team have been collaborating with Matthew C. Wolfgang, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology and a member of the Cystic Fibrosis/Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center at UNC. They are trying to figure out how bacteria move with their legs. They noticed that Type IV pili are long, dense fibers. “These pili act as grappling hooks — the bacteria extend the fibers out, the fibers attach or stick to a surface, and then are retracted back into the bacteria, pulling it along,” said Wolfgang. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. • A single atom — calcium (shown in blue) — can control how bacteria walk. how environmental change affects household sustainability in Burkina Faso and how fluctuations in salmon harvests impact communities in the Arctic. He graduated from the University of Chicago, volunteered in Africa for the Peace Corps, earned a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Arizona, and served as a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Africa/Middle East: • Ahmed El Shamsy, assistant professor of history, is considered a “trail-blazing” scholar of pre-modern Islamic law and culture in north Africa and the Middle East. He is working on a book about the early evolution of Islamic law in Egypt. He grew up in Germany, received a B.A. with honors in Arabic and politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and earned a master���s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in history and Middle East studies from Harvard University. • — The College also recently hired a Chinese film expert as a lecturer-adviser in communication studies and five additional lecturers to expand our teaching in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean language and literature classes. This year we are seeking to recruit six tenure-track professors with expertise in areas such as British history, Brazil, Japan, sub-Saharan Africa, Korea, and peace, war and defense. We are also hiring a lecturer in international and area studies, and another in Arabic language and literature. 28 • college.unc.edu • Spring 2010 • Carolina Arts & Sciences Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Celebrating first-generation college students Ron Bilbao was born and raised in Miami to immigrant parents from Venezuela and Colombia. Now a senior at UNC, he is the first person in his family headed down the path to college graduation. “My father had to actually drop out of college when he was younger to go to work, but [my parents] knew the value of an education and wanted to pass that on to their kids,” said Bilbao. About 20 percent of undergradu-ates who entered Carolina in fall 2009 are first-generation college students like Bilbao. New initiatives — including a Web site, student organization and graduation recognition — are celebrating the success of these first-generation students. “Nationally, the number of first-generation college students attending universities is on the rise,” said Cynthia Demetriou, retention coordinator in the Office of Undergraduate Education in the College. “The goal of these new initiatives is to help retain first-generation students by further integrating them into the academic and social culture of the University.” The Web site (firstgeneration.unc. edu) features video interviews with first-generation students including Bilbao as well as alumni and faculty; information about the new Carolina Firsts student organization; a student blog; a photo gallery; tips for success; support services for students; and more. A new initiative beginning in May will recognize graduating first-generation college students with a pin that says “Carolina Firsts,” as well as a celebratory breakfast. In April, for the second year, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions will hold an event for first-generation students who have been admitted for fall 2010. • From professional athletes to weekend warriors, the condition known as “runner’s knee” is a painful and potentially debilitating injury suffered by millions of people. Until now, it has been unclear just what causes it. New UNC research has zeroed in on what appear to be the main culprits of the condition, formally known as patellofemoral pain syndrome. The study is believed to be the first large, long-term project to track athletes from before they developed runner’s knee, said study co-author Darin Padua, associate professor of exercise and sport science. The research appeared in the November issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Runner’s knee — the bane of many types of exercise, from running to basketball to dance — affects one in four physically active people. If unchecked, it can lead to more serious problems such as patellofemoral osteoarthristis. Padua and his colleagues studied almost 1,600 enrollees from the United States Naval Academy. Researchers analyzed participants’ biomechanics when they first enrolled at the academy, then followed them for several years to see if they developed the syndrome. A total of 40 participants developed the syndrome during the follow-up period. Pinpointing the cause of ‘runner’s knee’ The study found: • Participants with weaker hamstring muscles were 2.9 times more likely to develop the syndrome than those with the strongest hamstrings. • Those with weaker quadricep muscles were 5.5 times more likely. • Those with weak arches were 3.4 times more likely. • Participants with smaller knee flexion angle (those whose knees bent less on landing during a jump test) were 3.1 times more likely. The study appears to confirm that if people can change the way they move and improve their leg strength, they can prevent or correct the problem, Padua said. Everyday athletes can also spot for themselves whether they are at risk. For example, if their knee crosses over the big toe when squatting, if the arches of their feet collapse when landing from a jump, and if they do not bend their knees much when they land, they stand a greater chance of developing the syndrome, Padua said. The researchers are now looking into which exercises are best for improving the biomechanics involved. The study’s lead author was Michelle C. Boling, a UNC doctoral student at the time of the study, now an assistant professor at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville. • Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2010 • college.unc.edu • 29 H i g h l i g h t s Highlights Displaying works of heart About 100 pieces from 20 artists were showcased at the November opening of The Artery, a new student-run gallery providing an opportunity for student artists to display their work. The Artery is located in the Bank of America Center at 137 E. Rosemary St. in Chapel Hill. Founders of the gallery include Hallie Ringle, a senior art history major; Natalia Davila, a junior art major and chemistry minor; and Gavin Hackeling, a senior double major in art and political science. Ringle and Davila are president and vice president, respectively, of Kappa Pi, the art and art history honors fraternity. When trying to find potential build-ings to house the gallery, the trio sent letters to those that had vacancy signs. Soon after, the Bank of America Center agreed to let them use the space for free. The idea came as an inspiration from Jeff Whetstone, director of undergraduate art studies and an assistant professor in the art department. Whetstone told the students about a student-run art gallery that opened in 2003. Although that gallery survived for only a few months, the organizers of the new gallery see The Artery as a long-term project. The organizers hope that the gallery will also interest those not normally involved in art and those interested in art history and curating exhibits. • Report identifies strategies to head off ’home-grown’ terrorism The shootings at Fort Hood, the recent arrests of five young men in Pakistan and last summer’s arrests of terrorism suspects in North Carolina mark a troubling increase in terrorism-related activity by Muslim-Americans. But a new report by scholars at UNC and Duke University, which analyzes the extent of terrorist violence by Muslim-Americans since 9/11 and identifies strategies to head off “home-grown” terrorism, says the number of radicalized Muslim-Americans is still small. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, 139 Muslim-Americans have committed violent terrorist acts, been convicted on terrorism charges involving violence or been arrested with charges pending. Of that number, fewer than a third successfully executed their violent plots, and most of those were overseas. The report recommends that policymakers reinforce successful anti-radicalization activities now under way in Muslim-American communities to address this low — but not insignificant — level of terrorist activity. “Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends,” said co-author David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. The report, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-American Communities,” was co-authored by Schanzer, associate professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and adjunct associate professor of public policy at UNC; Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at UNC; and Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of religion at Duke. It summarizes two years of research in Muslim-American communities in Seattle, Houston, Buffalo and Raleigh-Durham. “Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends.” ”Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization,” said Kurzman. “This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11.” The research shows that denunciations of terrorism, internal self-policing, community building, government-funded support services and political engagement can all reduce risks of radicalization. The authors noted that Muslim-Americans “are feeling the strain of living in America during the post-9/11 era” and policies that alienate Muslim-American communities in an effort to crack down on terrorism are likely to exacerbate, not reduce, the threat of homegrown terrorism. • LEFT: Charles Kurzman co-authored a report on “home-grown” terrorism. RIGHT: Students (from left) Natalia Davila, Hallie Ringle and Gavin Hackeling co-founded The Artery. Jason Smith H i g h l i g h t s Progress made in turning methane gas into liquid fuel Researchers at UNC and the University of Washington have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a clean fuel and as a source for making other chemicals. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is plentiful and is an attractive fuel and raw material because it is more efficient than oil, produces less pollution and could serve as a practical substitute for petroleum-based fuels until renewable fuels are widely useable and available. However, methane is difficult and While some students may have spent last summer relaxing at the beach, UNC senior Maggie West created a microfinance program to help the homeless in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. West, a public policy and Latin American studies major from Raleigh, led the pilot launch, working with the Community Empowerment Fund (CEF). The student-run organization, affiliated with the Campus Y and the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, gives loans to those who are already homeless or at risk of being in that situation and helps them build their financial assets. West was inspired to help from her involvement with HOPE (Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication), a Campus Y group, which gave her the chance to form relationships with the homeless. She received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the Office for Undergraduate Research in the College to fund the Senior creates microfinance program for homeless program and evaluate the results. “I will always be driven to this kind of work by the strength of the community itself and the courage and con-viction I have witnessed in this community to overcome challenge after challenge,” West said. “I am driven to delve this deep and work for systemic change because I have been so humbled by all that I have learned from those whom I have met in the shelter and on the streets. I believe we all deserve a better system.” Volunteers and students served as loan officers for the new project. The funds were primarily used for housing deposits, starting a small business, buying cell phones or paying for bus passes for work. Last summer, CEF received 18 applications for the program, and approved five of them. Those five borrowers were eligible to receive initial loans from $100 to $300. When those were paid off, they would be able to receive loans from $600 to $1,000. If borrowers had to defer their payment, they were able to work it off for a few hours as “sweat equity” through the Campus Y’s HOPE Gardens. The homeless plant and harvest their own crops, which are then sold at farmers markets and on the UNC campus. Applicants who were not eligible for loans were not denied assistance. CEF provided them with a connection to other services, such as food pantries, housing assistance programs, health care providers, as well as skill development such as resume-building, job-searching and computer literacy. Durham County is interested in replicating the idea. CEF is working with Duke University, the Durham Rotary Club and Durham County Department of Social Services to introduce a new pilot for the homeless there. • — By Kristen Chavez ’13 costly to transport because it remains a gas at temperatures and pressures typical on the Earth’s surface. Now UNC and UW scientists have moved closer to devising a way to convert methane to methanol or other liquids which can easily be transported, especially from “remote” sites where meth-ane is |
OCLC number | 65216324 |