CAROLINA arts& sciences S P R I N G • 2 0 0 9

Toad Tracker ALSO INSIDE: • Student superstars • talks • Top-notch teachers • Inside the White House

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 From The dean FromCarolina Arts & Sciences The • Spring 2009 dean

How learning and discovery College of Arts & Sciences can change the world • Bruce W. Carney Interim Dean Spring is in the air in Chapel Hill, which means the • William Andrews ’70 MA, ’73 PhD Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities azaleas will soon be blooming around the and • Thomas Clegg another crop of Carolina seniors will leave to make their Interim Senior Associate Dean, Sciences mark on the world. • Karen Gil Senior Associate Dean, In the pages of this magazine, you will read about Social Sciences, International Programs five stellar students, who already have tackled infectious • Tammy McHale Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Planning diseases, environmental challenges, human rights • James W. May violations and quantum field theory — and that’s just Senior Associate Dean, Program Development; Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation Bruce W. Carney for starters. Two of the students will head to Oxford • Bobbi Owen University on Rhodes Scholarships. Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education You’ll also see how faculty and other students are changing their campus, their state and Arts & Sciences Foundation their world through learning and discovery. Board of Directors

Biologist Karin Pfennig received a $1.5 million “new innovator” award from the National • Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC, Chair Institutes of Health to support her research on the mate selection practices of spadefoot toads. • James L. Alexandre ’79, Haverford, PA, Vice-Chair Her findings shed light on how an organism’s genes interact with the environment to affect • Bruce W. Carney, Chapel Hill, NC, President species diversification, a central element of evolution. • William L. Andrews, ’70 MA, ’73 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President Psychologist Abigail Panter and sociologist Ted Mouw have recently been named • Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer Bowman and Gordon Gray Professors in honor of their extraordinary undergraduate • James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary • D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC teaching. Mouw believes most students crave engagement in the classroom, and he expects • R. Frank Andrews, ’90, ’95 MBA, Washington, DC every student to actively participate. In Panter’s advanced undergraduate research methods • Valerie Ashby, ’88, ’94 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC • Constance Y. Battle. ’77, Raleigh, NC course, she “gets into the trenches” with her students to show them how the research process • Laura Hobby Beckworth, ‘80, , TX works from start to finish. • William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY We also profile singer/songwriter Tift Merritt, now based in New York City, who recalls • Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA • Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88, ’93 MBA, how Carolina helped her to become an artist; and graduate student Jason Sewall, who is New York, NY studying the power of high-speed computers. • G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC • Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92, ’98 MBA, Los Angeles, CA With a new president in the White House, the air is also filled with politics. You can • Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Cos Cob, CT read about two alumni who have been tapped for high-level posts in the Obama • Steven M. Cumbie ’70, ’73 MBA, McLean, VA • Jaroslav T. Folda, III, Chapel Hill, NC administration, or get an insider’s view from presidential transition expert Terry Sullivan about • Mary Dewar Froelich ’83, Charlotte, NC who gets to spend the most time with the commander-in-chief. • Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA • Emmett Boney Haywood ’77, ’82 JD, Raleigh, NC The air is also pungent with dire economic news. Eminent presidential historian William • William T. Hobbs, II ’85, Charlotte, NC Leuchtenburg looks back at Herbert Hoover’s struggle with an even greater economic • Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD • Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC meltdown, in a timely new biography noted on our books page. • William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX We also share exciting news about new gifts to support American studies, and physics • Paula R. Newsome ’77, Charlotte, NC • John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA and astronomy. As always — and now more than ever before during these challenging • Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL economic times — we are grateful to our donors and friends for the private funds that make • H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC • Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88, ’94 MBA, many of our academic opportunities possible. With your help, our students and faculty Greenwich, CT will continue to show how the seeds of learning and discovery in Chapel Hill can bear fruit • Thomas M. Uhlman ’71, MS, ’75 PhD, Madison, NJ beyond our campus. • Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK • Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA, London, UK Bruce W. Carney, Interim Dean • Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH T a B l e o F TaBle oF conTenTsconTenTs Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2009

deparTmenTs

inside front cover FROM THE DEAN How learning and discovery can change the world

2 HIGH ACHIEVERS Awards, Heels in the White House, Tar Heel of the Year, NEH music fellowships, and more

21 PROFILE Graduate student Jason Sewall 18 is harnessing the power of high-speed computers.

22 HIGHLIGHTS FeaTures New gifts to American studies and physics, UNC mentor takes teen group 6 • 2GTBT? to inauguration, improving prostate (Too Good to Be True?) cancer treatment, helping sea turtles Nope, the Carolina seniors we find their way home, new center studies profile in these pages are the real thing. natural disasters, and more

12 • Evolutionary 30 INSIDER VIEW Revelations A UNC political scientist gives the “New innovator” Karin Pfennig inside scoop on who spends the wins major award to support her most time with the president. research on spadefoot toads. 6 31 COLLEGE BOOKSHELF Eminent presidential historian William 15 • Top Notch Leuchtenburg on Hoover and FDR, Abigail Panter and Ted Mouw plus Tar Heel voices from the past, (pictured at right inside the and faculty revelations on obesity, Cuba, UNC Bell Tower) earn high marks Hemingway, democratic revolutions, for great teaching. the Drug War, the power of positivity, the writing life, African-American 18 • A New Chapter perspectives on the South, and more. for Tift Merritt It’s been an exciting year for the inside back cover Carolina-bred singer/songwriter Music hits the right note with the now based in the Big Apple. 15 opening of the Kenan Music Building.

Cover photo: UNC biologist Karin Pfennig studies the mating habits of spadefoot toads. (Photo by Steve Exum)

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀1 highhigh achieversachievers

Two win top N.C. TOP LEFT AND RIGHT: Michael Chitwood and Daniel Wallace won N.C. Book Awards for poetry Book Awards and fiction. BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: Philip Gura was named a distinguished scholar by the Modern Language Association. Michael Chitwood and Daniel Maurice Brookhart and Charles Wallace, members of UNC’s creative writing Frazier won the state’s highest

faculty, have won the top awards for poetry civilian honor. Steve Exum and fiction from the N.C. Literary and Historical Association. Chitwood, a lecturer in the English department, received the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for Spill (Tupelo Press, 2007), his sixth collection of poems. Carolina faculty have won the Roanoke- Chowan award six times out of the past nine years. It’s the second The William Roanoke-Chowan Award for Chitwood; he S. Newman won in 2003 for Gospel Road Going (Tryon Distinguished Publishing, 2002). Professor of Wallace, the J. Ross Macdonald Professor American Literature of English and Creative Writing, received the and Culture, Gura Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction for Mr. has been teaching Sebastian and The Negro Magician (Doubleday, at UNC since 2007). 1987. He holds Chitwood’s Spill was also named as a appointments in 2008 finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s poetry English, American book of the year. In addition to his six books of studies and religious studies. winning teacher and mentor. His advances in poetry, Chitwood is the author of a collection In 2007, he was a nonfiction finalist for organometallic chemistry and polymerization of essays and a book of essays and short stories. a National Book Critics Circle Award for his have provided practical solutions to complex Wallace is the author of four novels and book, American Transcendentalism: A History. problems, with commercial applications. For one children’s book. His 1998 book Big Fish He is also a fellow of the Society of American example, he discovered one of the building was made into a movie of the same name in Historians. • blocks of Nylon-66, a thermoplastic resin 2003 by Tim Burton; in the film Wallace plays with wide use in automotive, electronic and the part of a professor at Auburn University. Winning state’s highest industrial components. Brookhart is an elected He was featured in the fall 2008 issue of honor member of the National Academy of Sciences, Carolina Arts & Sciences. • among the highest honors accorded to UNC chemist Maurice Brookhart and American scientists. Language Association 1973 English alum and best-selling author Frazier looked to what he knew best — recognizes Gura Charles Frazier won 2008 North Carolina the mountains of North Carolina — to write Awards, the highest civilian honor the state can his first novel, Cold Mountain, a National UNC American literature scholar Philip bestow. Brookhart won the award for science; Book Award winner later adapted for a major F. Gura received the 2008 Distinguished Frazier shared the honor for literature with motion picture in 2003. The epic masterfully Scholar Award from the Modern Language author Margaret Maron. evokes the Appalachians of the 19th century. Association (MLA).The division on American Brookhart, the William Rand Kenan His second novel, Thirteen Moons, highlighted literature to 1800 honored Gura for career- Professor of Chemistry, is a nationally the intertwining of Appalachian and Cherokee long distinction in his field. recognized researcher and an award- Indian heritage. •

2 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • SPRING 2009 • CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highhigh achieversachievers MURRAY RECEIVES TAR HEEL OF THE YEAR SOUTHERN CHEMIST AWARD Chemist Joe DeSimone was named the 2008 Tar Heel of the Year by The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & oyce W. Murray, UNC Kenan Observer. R Professor of Chemistry, received the 2008

News & Observer DeSimone is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences Southern Chemist Award. and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Sponsored by the Memphis, Shawn Rocco/ Chemical Engineering at N.C. State University. Tenn., section, the award acknowledges Since arriving at UNC in 1990, DeSimone has outstanding achievement in chemistry and become one of the nation’s premier scientists — contributions to the field that have brought the youngest member of the National Academy of recognition to the South. Engineering and winner of the Lemelson-MIT Prize, awarded for his Murray’s research has innovations in polymer chemistry. impacted fields ranging He has founded companies, from renewable energy received more than 100 U.S. and Joe DeSimone to medical sensing international patents, pulled in technology. millions of dollars in federal grants He is recognized and led the University into entrepreneurial ventures. The News & Observer wrote: “Friends and colleagues say DeSimone’s internationally for genius lies in applying complex science to solve everyday problems. It’s what his advances in caught the attention of the Lemelson-MIT Prize committee, which cited electrochemistry. He Royce DeSimone for the breadth of his innovations, from green manufacturing to Lars Sahl Murray introduced the concept medical devices to nanomedicine …” • of chemically modified electrodes, tools that are AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY important as chemical RECOGNIZES PARR sensors, fuel cells and in solar energy conversion. Robert G. Parr, UNC professor In 1988, Parr and Murray came to UNC in 1960 as an emeritus of chemistry, received the 2009 colleagues published an instructor just weeks award in theoretical chemistry from the improved method of after earning his Ph.D. American Chemical Society, in recognition approximating correlation in chemistry from Robert

Lars Sahl Northwestern University for his widely cited innovative research. energy (a mathematical Parr in only three years. Parr has been a pioneer in the field expression that accounts He is a member of of quantum chemistry since the 1950s. for how electrons in a many-electron system the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow He has influenced how thousands of interact with one another). The Lee-Yang-Parr of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and editor-in-chief of the journal chemists, physicists and other scientists use (LYP) method, the most widely used in the Analytical Chemistry. quantum chemistry in their work. His book, field, has been cited more than 22,000 times, During his 48-year career at Carolina, Quantum Theory of Molecular Electronic making it one of the most highly cited papers Murray has mentored about 140 graduate and postgraduate students, published more Structure (1963), was one of the first to in chemistry. LYP has been used in research than 450 research articles, nearly 200 apply quantum theory to a broad range of ranging from nanotechnology developments editorials and four books, and holds four chemical systems. to the synthesis of antibiotics. • patents. •

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • SPRING 2009 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 3 highhigh achieversachievers HEELS IN THE WHITE HOUSE Two music scholars win President competitive NEH fellowships has tapped Two scholars in UNC’s music department, Annegret Fauser and Mark two UNC Evan Bonds, have won highly competitive fellowships from the National College of Arts Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). and Sciences “It is rare enough for a single colleague in a department to receive one of alumni for these,” said Tim Carter, chair and David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music. high-level “For two to do so in the same year is truly remarkable.” Melody Barnes posts in his Fauser also received a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Studies in administration. Berlin, Germany, for 2009-2010. Both awards support the final steps of writing Melody C. Barnes, who received a B.A. with and research for Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War honors in history from UNC in 1986, is heading the II, a book that explores the interface of music and American life during the war. White House Domestic Policy Council, and Rob Fauser’s research was designated an NEH “We the People” project, and she Nabors , who received an M.A. in political science in recently gave a lecture at the Library of Congress about her new work. 1996, has been designated deputy director of the Office Musicians, like other Americans, volunteered for service during the war, of Management and Budget. Fauser said. American composer Marc Blitzstein signed up for the U.S Air Force, Barnes is the president’s top adviser on a range and he was even given a year off of active duty to compose the “Airborne of issues. “We know that rebuilding our economy Symphony,” which he wrote during 1943-44. American composer Samuel Barber will require action on a wide array of policy matters also created a number of works while in the Air Force, including his “Commando — education and health care to energy and Social Security,” Obama said in announcing the appointment. March.” Barnes, a native of Richmond, Va., served as co- Other musicians, such as Henry Cowell and Kurt Weill, used their musical director of the Agency Review Working Group for the skills in the propaganda missions of the Offices of War Information. Many classical Obama transition team, and she was a senior policy composers became involved in promoting America through their art. Aaron adviser during the presidential campaign. Before that Copland composed “Lincoln Portrait,” “Appalachian Spring” and “Fanfare for the she was executive vice president for policy at the Center Common Man,” among other works. for American Progress, and she spent eight years as chief “Americans were very much responding to and involved in a culture war,” counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate she said. “I have discovered how music and politics were intertwined in an Judiciary Committee. She earned a law degree at the international context.” University of Michigan. Bonds, the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Music, will use his Obama said that Nabors, who was staff director NEH fellowship for his book project, The Myth of Absolute Music. of the House Appropriations Committee, has the ideal The term “absolute music” was coined by Richard Wagner in 1846 as a combination of professional and political experience pejorative to characterize instrumental music “as pure abstraction, cut off from to help lead the OMB. “Rob will bring to this post the broader realms of life,” Bonds said. The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick experience in the executive branch, at the OMB, where embraced the term in 1854, instead celebrating instrumental music’s qualities of he helped the Clinton administration achieve balanced abstraction that had been so distasteful to Wagner. budgets, as well as in the legislative branch, where he “Hanslick argued that form was the essence of all beauty in music, and that led the appropriations committee staff.” As a graduate student at UNC, Nabors co- music’s freedom from representational content set it apart from (and above) all authored a paper with political scientist Thomas Oatley. other arts,” Bonds said. “Redistributive cooperation: Market failure, wealth Bonds’ book will trace the origins and changing perceptions of the idea of transfers and the Basle Accord,” was published in the “absolute music.” journal International Organization in 1996. • ONLINE EXTRA: Listen to a Webcast of Annegret Fauser’s Library of Congress talk at college.unc.edu. •

4 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • SPRING 2009 • CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highhigh achieversachievers STUDENT RECORD PRODUCER ROCKS UNC Davie Award honors five NATIONAL CONTEST College alumni and friends

Five UNC College of Arts and Sciences alumni and friends received the Award for extraordinary service, the top honor conferred by the University’s Board of Trustees. • Peter Grauer, English ’68, has spent his career in the financial industry, most recently as chairman of the board for Bloomberg LP, the Peter Grauer worldwide media company. At UNC, he chairs the external advisory board for the Honors Program, and a new endowed faculty chair in the College has been named for him. Grauer and his wife, Laurie, have supported the Carolina Excellence Fund and the College’s European Study Center at Winston House and James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence. • Six generations of James “Jim” Winston’s family have been ABOVE: Students Tripp Gobble (left) and Allen Carolina students and leaders. Winston, business ’55, provided the Mask created a new record label to promote leadership gift to name the College’s European Study Center in London, campus music. which serves faculty, students and alumni from across the University. He chairs LPMC Inc., a real estate investment firm in Jacksonville, Fla., Jim Winston UNC student entrepreneur Tripp and is president of White Oak Land and Development Co. and Omega Gobble won the national “Race To BE. The Insurance Co. Sound” music competition in Austin, Texas. • Vaughn and Nancy Bryson, pharmacy ’60, served on the Carolina First Campaign Gobble, the co-founder of Vinyl Steering Committee and made the first major gift to support the new Kenan Music Building. Records, a nonprofit student-run record Vaughn Bryson served as president and CEO of Eli Lilly & Co. Nancy has served on the Arts and label and music incubator, won a $5,000 Sciences Foundation Board and the UNC Board of Visitors. cash prize and rang the bell at the New York • C. Knox Massey Jr., business ’59, is a retired advertising executive who has long Stock Exchange with hip-hop pioneer Russell supported UNC and the College. He led C. Knox Massey & Associates, the Durham advertising Simmons and winners in the film and fashion firm founded by his father (a 1925 UNC alumnus and supporter), which merged with the categories of the contest. Atlanta firm Tucker Wayne & Co. Massey served as president, chair and CEO of the merged Gobble is a Morehead-Cain Scholar company, which became the largest advertising firm in the Southeast. At Carolina, Massey has pursuing a major in environmental studies served on numerous boards, including the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee, the and a minor in city and regional planning in UNC Board of Visitors, the Arts and Sciences Foundation Board and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities External Advisory Board. • the College of Arts and Sciences. The Race to BE. is the signature U.S. event of Global Entrepreneurship Week, a worldwide initiative focused on inspiring the Sociologist elected national science fellow next generation of entrepreneurs. In August 2008, Gobble and Allen Mask, ociologist Kenneth Bollen was named a fellow of the American Association for the a junior journalism and mass communications S major, formed Vinyl Records with assistance Advancement of Science for his distinguished contributions to social science research. from the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative, Bollen is the H.R. Immerwahr Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the which includes an academic minor in entrepreneurship studies in the College. Vinyl Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. The association cited him for his “important Records provides student musicians with work on latent variable structural equation models and major contributions to liberal opportunities to perform, record and produce their own music, ultimately preparing them democracy studies and to social science measurement.” for the professional music industry. • Bollen has helped develop statistical models for analyzing difficult-to-measure social ONLINE EXTRA: Check out Vinyl science concepts such as socioeconomic status. He also researched the determinants and Records’ My Space page and watch an infor- mational YouTube video at college.unc.edu. measurement of political democracy. •

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • SPRING 2009 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 5 (TOO GOOD2 TO BE TRUE?) TG Nope, these Carolina seniors are theB real thing

There’s no way to capture the amazing achievements of Carolina undergrads in the simple text message Tabove, so we decided to introduce just a few of our College seniors in these pages ...

Their academic and service accomplishments would ma?ke any parent proud. They are definitely superstars by our standards. These amazing students have tackled infectious diseases, environmental challenges, human rights and quantum field theory — and that’s just for starters. And as they wrap up their final semester, they are already making a difference in their campus community, the state of North Carolina and the world. ★6฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES ★ Barack Obama made becoming a NICK ANDERSON community organizer cool. At 21, UNC Seeing the world senior Nick Anderson shares that passion, and he already has a world of experience through green-colored glasses in student activism — with a particular BY JB SHELTON focus on energy and the environment. The Robertson Scholars Program UNC chapter president of the Roosevelt has allowed the Institution, the nation’s first student think public policy major N tank focused on advancing pragmatic (who’s pursuing policies and fostering public debate. He an environmental also founded its Center on Energy and concentration) to Environmental Policy. explore that focus His journalistic ambitions originated in and to make a his hometown of Weston, Conn., where difference. he started his high school newspaper. He The full four- moved on to work for UNC’s Daily Tar year merit scholarship Heel, launched Rival Magazine (between provides students Duke and UNC) with four friends, at rivals UNC and and reached an international readership Duke with the with a Christian Science Monitor essay on resources to take CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: mountaintop-removal coal mining. classes at both schools Nick Anderson at Bolivia’s The mining essay resulted from and to participate in Laguna Verde; at Machu Picchu summer 2006 work with a community summer community projects in the U.S. and in Peru; with an indigenous chief and friends after organizing group in rural Kentucky, where abroad. The program was created in 2000 spending a week in a Mapuche village in Chile. “the violations of nature and human dignity” through a gift from 1955 UNC graduate awakened Anderson’s environmentalism. Julian Robertson and his wife, Josie. “The design of incentives for tropical He hopes to go to law school to pursue a “As a Robertson Scholar, I attended forest conservation to reduce greenhouse focus on environmental law. classes about renewable energy and public gas emissions is one of the most important “The design and impact of well- policies to facilitate the transition to a low- and as yet unresolved issues of global climate targeted environmental laws are crucial carbon economy,” says Anderson, a UNC change policy, and I am hopeful that Nick’s policy questions for my generation,” says Honors Program student who is fluent thesis will make a valuable contribution to Anderson. in Spanish and conversationally adept in this,” said Richard “Pete” Andrews, chair “My energy comes from identifying Portuguese. and Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished problems, bringing people together and Fascinated by the challenging issue Professor of Public Policy. generating entrepreneurial, policy-oriented of global warming and the link between In summer 2007, Anderson fused solutions.” tropical forests and climate change, he his environmental and educational ideals A crystal ball reveals Anderson’s future traveled to Brazil’s four largest cities in at a remote school in Argentina, and he as a rosy shade of green. • summer 2008 (Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, returned there again in August 2008. Salvador and Sao Paulo), interviewed “I lived at a small rural school and More on Nick Anderson: scholars and business executives, and installed solar equipment for heating •฀ Co-founder of nonprofit Crayons2Calculators bunked with an indigenous tribe in the rain water,” says Anderson. in Durham, N.C., a store where teachers can forest of Rondonia, Brazil. Studying abroad with the School for select free school supplies The trip was research for his International Training in Chile in fall 2007, •฀ Co-founder of Coalition for Community Honors thesis, which will focus on the Anderson investigated the copper mining Access (advances college access for implications for indigenous tribes in Brazil sector’s impact on the Chilean economy and disenfranchised and undocumented students) of incorporating deforestation into the prepared a 30-page policy report in Spanish. •฀ Campaign adviser for UNC student body international climate treaty. Closer to home, Anderson serves as president campaigns ★★CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀7 AISHA SAAD and Spanish major will head off on another Carolina helped her adventure. As a Rhodes Scholar, she’ll pursue a master’s in nature, society and become a global mediator environmental policy at Oxford University. BY KIM WEAVER SPURR ’88 She is interested in environmental law. A summer 2006 study abroad project volunteering in the Senior Aisha blood diseases ward Saad has been living of a Cairo hospital her own National A was an eye-opening Geographic adventures experience; it taught since her family Saad that education moved from Egypt alone is not a cure- to North Carolina all to global health when she was 6 years problems. old. The hundreds “It can pave of yellow magazines the road toward lining the walls of answers, but her Cairo home knowledge is not were a glimpse into power without her future. voice or money Growing up as ABOVE: Aisha Saad (second from right) at a community to give it value,” a Muslim woman in center in Delhi, India. TOP LEFT: Saad (center) leads a she wrote in an Greenville, N.C., thrust Saad into the role of summer enrichment program in Aloor, India. BOTTOM LEFT: Saad (center) article in the policy mediator early. It is a skill she has embraced preparing meals for a childcare program in Arequipa, Peru. journal, Health passionately. It has thrived at Carolina in her Affairs. “I realized roles as president of the Interfaith Alliance Raleigh, N.C., a leader in redevelopment that the drive to educate others had to and as outreach committee chair for the of contaminated land. Cherokee had give way to my own perceiving and Muslim Student Association. offered to clean up the Union Carbide understanding.” She has moderated a campus forum site in Bhopal, the location of a disastrous Biology lecturer Jean DeSaix, a health on “Jihad in America,” co-chaired a chemical leak 24 years ago. After repeated professions adviser, said she has seen Saad Jewish-Muslim Arts Festival and helped to e-mails and phone calls brought no grow in her ability to understand global organize a winter break relief trip to New resolution, Saad stuffed her blue backpack challenges and how to create solutions. Orleans. and headed to India, where she was able to “Aisha is one of the most remarkable “We have the critical mass of diversity bridge the perspectives of Cherokee’s team women I have met in my three and on this campus, but from my experience with that of the cynical activists in Bhopal. a half decades teaching at Carolina,” that’s not enough to bridge these really “Many of the slum-inhabited, DeSaix wrote in a Rhodes letter of isolated spheres that coexist,” Saad said. marginalized communities in Bhopal were recommendation. “She will, I believe, be “My tagline this year has been moving Muslim, [yet] I was also an American that an instrument of powerful change in this from coexistence to community … could connect to them,” she said. “I rode world, not just because she wants to, but ★integrating these very rich and diverse on the back of a motorcycle through these because she is so well equipped to.” • heritages toward collective goals.” slums, climbed the actual location of the In summer 2008, the Morehead-Cain disaster and met with women activists.” More on Aisha Saad: Scholar and Honors Program student Saad returned to the United States •฀ More UNC study abroad: climbing a volcano traveled to Bhopal, India, where she came to present a comprehensive report of her in Peru, trekking the Amazon, volunteering face-to-face with an opportunity to use her recommendations on the Bhopal cleanup in hospital labor rooms in Hyderabad, India ability to mediate across cultural chasms. to Cherokee executives. •฀ Public Service Scholar Saad was working as an intern When she graduates from Carolina •฀ Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge-Builders with Cherokee Investment Partners in in May, the environmental health science Award ★8฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES UNC senior David Sneed begins a DAVID SNEED law-school application quoting theologian Speaking up for others, John Piper: “I don’t want to waste my life.” no time to waste Not to worry. With a Robertson BY DEE REID Scholarship, admission to UNC’s Honors Program, and responsibilities as deputy student attorney general, and president of a also visited Soweto where Nelson Christian fraternity and a campus ministry, Mandela had lived. Sneed has no time to waste. D “It was mind boggling ... I To what end does he direct such saw the connections between the ambition? The deeply religious son of struggles the people of South Africa a pastor finds the answer in Proverbs: had been through and the history “Speak up for those who cannot speak for of my own culture in the United themselves.” States,” said Sneed, a political science Sneed knows it takes both hard work major, with minors in African and and opportunity to succeed in life. When Afro-American studies and religious he was in middle school in Burke, studies. Va., his mother made him enroll in It was his third summer an academic enrichment program for experience that cemented Sneed’s desire minority students. That meant extra to “speak up” for others. He served as an classes on Saturdays and during the intern for a human rights organization in summer. Accra, Ghana, where he learned of a man The academic overtime paid who had been in prison for two years off: He was admitted to Thomas without access to an attorney. Jefferson High School for Science “After considerable effort, I found and Technology, a magnet school in myself inside a Ghanaian jail, on a bench Alexandria, Va., where he would be next to two handcuffed men, interviewing one of three African Americans in the our client through the bars of a common 2005 graduating class. cell holding about 20 other inmates,” Soon after Sneed got to Jefferson, Sneed wrote. he started reaching out to others. He learned that the man’s court date He tutored middle-school students was set for the following day. Despite the through the same program that had short notice, Sneed helped the lawyers prepared him for high school. And gather information to protect the man’s as soon as he arrived at Carolina, TOP: David Sneed advises a child in a Mississippi right to a fair hearing. he continued helping others through library. BOTTOM: Giving a presentation at a “I started seeing on a practical elementary school tutoring and counseling freedom of information conference in Accra, Ghana. level how law really in essence can help in the student Honor System. people,” he said. This inspired him to Sneed says Carolina was always at the recorded the stories of community leaders pursue a legal career, “to advocate for my ★top of his college wish list. But the clincher for the local library’s archives. understanding of justice.” • was the Robertson Scholarship, supporting Sneed also traveled to Memphis to see four years of study at UNC and Duke, and the National Civil Rights Museum, located More on David Sneed: support for three summer field experiences. at the site where Martin Luther King, Jr. •฀ Honors Semester in London The program is funded by a gift from Julian had been assassinated. •฀ Campus Alcohol Task Force Policy ’55 and Josie Robertson. The next summer, Sneed traveled Committee After Sneed’s first year at Carolina, abroad for the first time. He worked in •฀ Order of Omega Honor Society he spent the summer in Indianola, Miss. Durban, South Africa, where he taught •฀ Umoja Award He taught computer skills to children and computer skills to blind children. He for service to Freshman Class Council CAROLINA ARTS★ & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀9 JONATHAN TOLEDO Toledo grew up in Sylva, N.C., west Studying the hidden beauty of Asheville, and as a child he spent many days “just running around in the woods.” behind ordinary things As a college student, he’s run a marathon BY ANGELA SPIVEY ’90 and is training for another. How does he have time for that while also doing his class work and research, tutoring high school In the “office” of the Society students in math and science, co-teaching a of Physics Students (translate: slightly sophomore class with physics professor Sean dingy spare room in the basement J Washburn and serving as president of the of Phillips Hall), senior Jonathan student physics society? Toledo picks up a mechanical “If I go out and just run for an pencil and draws the carbon atoms hour, when I come back, my head feels of graphene, the molecule he’s completely cleared out, and I feel ready to been studying. Graphene may have think,” he says. applications in electronics and is a And, by the way, when he graduates form of graphite, which makes up with a B.S. in spring 2009 he’ll have also the lead in pencils. finished all the course- “These are the carbon atoms; work for a master’s in they’ve all bonded together in this physics. honeycomb structure,” he says, sketching. In summer 2008, a Then his pencil point breaks. He stops. Burch Fellowship enabled “Actually what I’m writing with here is Toledo to travel to Spain what happens when you take this sheet of to study quantum field atoms and put many more on top of it,” theory at the Madrid he says. “They are just sitting on top of Institute of Materials each other; there is some attraction, but it’s Science. In addition to not a chemical bond. That’s actually why being his first trip outside graphite writes so well; because the sheets the United States, the just flake off onto the paper.” experience humbled He makes a mark on his notebook’s him academically. green graph paper. A typical pencil mark “It taught me that contains graphene sheets of many different I need a lot more school thicknesses. “Like here, maybe 10 sheets ABOVE: In summer 2008, Jonathan Toledo before I’m ready to dive flaked off.” Another mark. “And then over received a Burch Fellowship to study quantum into the really hard problems in research. here, maybe only one layer flaked off.” field theory at the Institute of Materials Science in Everyone that I worked with in Spain was Toledo plans to make a career out Madrid, Spain. so highly trained,” he says. “It’s exciting of figuring out the hidden world behind because it’s good to know that there’s so ordinary things like pencil marks. He got commitment to careers in mathematics, much more to learn.” • hooked on theoretical physics in high natural sciences or engineering. school at the N.C. School of Science and “Things behave a lot differently when More on Jonathan Toledo: Mathematics, when he first learned about they travel near the speed of light. And that •฀ UNC Shelton Award for outstanding Einstein’s theory of special relativity — that really made me realize that behind the things research in physics time and space are not absolute concepts around us that we can see, like behind the •฀ William P. Smallwood Undergraduate but must be different for observers in light that’s coming from the bulbs there,” he Research Fellowship relative motion. In 2007, Toledo won a says, pointing to the ceiling, “there’s actually •฀ Attorney general staff, UNC Honor System Goldwater Scholarship, a distinguished very fundamental, beautiful processes going Office national scholarship awarded to college on. That’s when I started to realize that I •฀ Published work in journals Molecular students who demonstrate a strong could spend a life studying this.” Physics and Physical Review E 10฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU★฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES ★ A relationship with a young HIV- LISETTE YORKE infected Rwandan girl who had lost both of Her Rwandan summer her parents to the disease transformed Lisette Yorke’s dreams and aspirations. She wanted inspired a commitment to AIDS research to do more to help her new friend and BY KIM WEAVER SPURR ’88 other HIV-positive children in their fight for survival. The Morehead-Cain Scholar counts In summer 2008, Yorke her summer 2006 experience as a volunteer headed to Thailand and Cambodia, at Shyira Hospital in a remote region of L where she worked for the American northern Rwanda as among her most Foundation for AIDS Research. memorable Carolina experiences. Her voyager spirit has been a “Sometimes I close my eyes and try thread throughout her life. She has to remember that overwhelming breath I climbed the Yukon Mountains, took when I first arrived, with a cocktail founded an International Student of smells, like rich earth, coffee plants and Ambassadors Program at UNC and banana trees,” she wrote in a UNC student been a volunteer firefighter in her magazine. hometown of Cape Breton Island, While there, Yorke helped the doctors Nova Scotia. and nurses, collected information from Organic chemistry professor HIV patients, taught English lessons and Bessie Mbadugha said Yorke “has conducted surveys in the malnutrition the brightest future ahead.” center. She also organized donations of “Lisette’s analytical and academically goats and watering cans to families. inquisitive nature leads me to borrow a “With something as tragic as cliché,” Mbadugha wrote in a Rhodes genocide and war, you look at the lives recommendation letter. “The sky is the of the young generations in Rwanda limit for this exceptionally talented and and what they’ve had to go through intelligent individual.” and you’d think these people would be There also seem to be no boundaries bitter,” she said. “But I was inspired to for Yorke’s athletic pursuits. She’d never see the hope and the work they were done rowing before, but made the doing in their own lives to rebuild and women’s varsity rowing team her first year. to carry on.” TOP: Lisette Yorke (far left) participated in a When she found out there was no women’s Now Yorke, a senior biology major variety of hospital duties while at Shyira Hospital ice hockey team at UNC, she joined the and chemistry minor, can add this to her list in Rwanda, here assisting in the operating room. men’s team, and later founded a club for of accomplishments: She was one of two BOTTOM: Yorke plays with children in the women. The women’s team is growing UNC students chosen last fall for prestigious hospital’s malnutrition center. strong in its second year. Rhodes Scholarships. As a Canadian Rhodes “If you have the passion and the drive Scholar, she’ll pursue a master’s degree in Center also has a connection to her HIV and the opportunities we have at Carolina, immunology at Oxford University. She also research. there’s really nothing that’s going to hold hopes to earn a medical degree. “One of the direct similarities between you back,” she said. • Yorke returned to UNC from her HIV patients and burn patients is that both Rwandan summer with a passion for have suppressed immune systems,” she said. More on Lisette Yorke: learning everything she could about HIV “They are both susceptible to opportunistic •฀ N.C. Fellows Leadership Program, four-year research. She took a graduate-level course diseases and infections. [In my honors thesis leadership development program at UNC on the biology of blood diseases and is work] through the Burn Center lab at the •฀ Student Advisory Committee to the pursuing an honors thesis in molecular UNC School of Medicine, I’m looking Chancellor biology and immunology. Her volunteer at cytomegalovirus, which is one of these •฀ Volunteer, Interfaith Council Homeless work at UNC Hospitals’ Jaycee Burn opportunistic infections.” Shelter ★★CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀11 unc biologist Karin Pfennig rapidly and hop the banks of their watery nursery was watching the news and checking her e-mail at home have a clear survival edge over those with longer one evening when a single in-box message got her undivided development periods, who risk being left high and dry. attention. Someone at the National Institutes of Health was Pfennig found that whom the adult toads mate seeking more details on the grant proposal Pfennig had with may make a difference in how the species submitted for a $1.5 million award. She knew what this evolves. She discovered that S. bombifrons toads favor meant. cuddling up to S. multiplicata when the two species “I jumped up yelling, ‘I made the short list! I made the use the same habitat and water levels are low. Why? short list!’,” Pfennig recalled. Her excitement spread to her Because the first species — which typically produce husband, David, a distinguished professor of biology at slower developing tadpoles — capitalize on the second UNC, and their 3- and 5-year-old girls. species’ genetic bent toward more rapid development. A few weeks later, Pfennig got the big news. She was But that’s not all. Pfennig’s experimental laboratory one of 31 winners of the NIH 2008 New Innovator Award, manipulations of this scenario revealed a second, given to early-career scientists “to nurture out-of-the-box very important, key element: Only the less fit ideas,” according to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. S. bombifrons females consistently chose to She knew the recognition and financial support would hybridize with S. multiplicata males. not only bolster her research, but make it possible for her to “Their behavior was not random,” collaborate more with peers on and off campus. Pfennig said. “The same individual female “I don’t see these funds as coming just to me,” she said. toads, the ones who were less fit, “I want to initiate a lot of collaboration, and this provides the repeatedly favored hybridization.” resources to build bridges to other people in my department Somehow the animals were and in the Triangle.” acting on two cues — one from the The prestigious award could ratchet up Pfennig’s harsh environmental conditions, research on the subtle dance of interactions between genes, and one from their own health environment and behavior. Up to this point, she has focused status — leading them to change on how behaviors in two closely related species of spadefoot their mating behavior to favor S. toads affect mate selection, and how these behaviors multiplicata in order to increase are impacted by cues from both the environment and an their own offsprings’ chances individual toad’s health. Her findings shed light on how an of survival. organism’s genes interact with the environment to affect “What we found is species diversification, a central element of evolution. an example of a behavior Consider hybridization, or how mating affects species that changes based upon development and diversification. The two spadefoot species an individual’s health that Pfennig studies (Spea bombifrons and S. multiplicata) status,” Pfennig said. are found in southwestern Arizona, where the edges of “And our next step, the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts intermingle. Rain is under the NIH grant, unpredictable, and tadpoles need ephemeral ponds to grow. is to begin trying to Water in a roadside ditch will do, if it stays wet for long isolate the genetic enough. In this arid landscape, tadpoles that can develop continued on page 14 Evolutionary“New Innovator” wins $1.5 million award Rev el

12 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • SPRING 2009 • CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES The prestigious award could ratchet up Pfennig’s research on the subtle dance of interactions between genes, environment and behavior. Her findings shed light on how an organism’s genes interact with the environment to affect species diversification, a central element of evolution. Evolutionary Rev elations By DeLene Beeland • Photos by Steve Exum

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • SPRING 2009 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 13 and neural pathways that are activated when professor. She was always drawn to science, the toads are processing these cues, and to she said, confessing that she watched endless look at how brain functions that are involved nature shows when she was young, and in processing stimuli may change depending dreamt of becoming “the dashing biologist, upon the toad’s health status or their running across adventurous places, studying environmental conditions.” big cats in Africa.” Pfennig cautioned that future findings Pfennig has had plenty of adventure in her spadefoot toad research will not studying small tadpoles instead of big cats. After translate directly to humans, but she said earning a B.S. degree in ecology, behavior and that developing a model for how the toads evolution from the University of California at process cues from both the environment and San Diego in 1990 and a Ph.D. in biology from their own health status could help biomedical the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers look for a similar system in in 1999, she did postdoctoral work at the humans. University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. “What I’m hoping to do is pinpoint the She then did postdoctoral research in processes and how it works in this system, bioinformatics at the University of Texas at which can then serve as a model for how Austin until 2002, when she came to UNC the environment and genes interact, and to participate in SPIRE (Seeding Postdoctoral maybe it’s a similar process for humans,” she Innovators in Research and Education). In said. “Because one of the things we don’t 2004, she became an assistant professor of understand about behaviors, in animals or biology in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. humans, is how behavior changes depending Pfennig said one of the true surprises was upon health and disease.” discovering how much she loved to teach. Being able to tease apart the different “I love the one-on-one interactions,” she brain processes has many implications for said. “I love when a student asks a question humans in terms of developing appropriate and you can see that not only have they medical or behavioral interventions, Pfennig ‘gotten’ a new concept, but they’re applying it said. to creative inquiry or problem solving.” “So what I want to do next is start Pfennig said she enjoys getting asking, ‘How are our behaviors dependent TOP: Preparing a toad for behavioral observation. undergraduates involved in lab work and upon environmental sensitivity? And how BOTTOM: Karin Pfennig studies the interactions mentoring graduate students who are do individuals take in information from their between genes, environment and behavior. enthusiastic about their research. environment, and how does that affect their Elizabeth Wojtowicz, one of the four behavior? And how does their health affect her work ethic and her ability to identify graduate students Pfennig oversees, said that their behavior?’” important problems in evolutionary biology she sought out Pfennig as an adviser because Pfennig is also interested in probing the set her apart from others in her field. “I was of her prominence in the field. effects of environment upon the toads during absolutely delighted to hear she had won the “I could tell when I met her that she different life phases, to determine if there is award,” said Matson, who is now dean of the would be a good mentor,” Wojtowicz said a certain point when they are more sensitive Graduate School. “There is no greater reward “Not just a boss or a friend, but someone who to its influences, or if there is a point at which for a department chair than to see a young could guide me along that path the whole time their behaviors may become fixed. She also faculty member succeed.” — which she has done. She’s also very good plans to span her research parameters across William Kier, the current biology chair, at pulling us back to look at the big picture and generations to find out if environmental said that Pfennig’s NIH award brings to light where our research fits in, so we don’t get too effects upon a toad can be passed down the “absolutely crucial and central nature” of boxed into looking at just our little corner of to its offspring. For example, if a certain basic scientific research. the problem.” S. bombifrons female experiences a series of “The vast majority of significant For Pfennig, the pleasure of scientific harsh droughts or food shortages while she’s breakthroughs in science do not come from research is apparent: “coming up with cool undergoing sexual development, or even applied research efforts,” Kier said. “Instead, questions and trying to figure out how to gestation — might her poor physical condition they are the result of the curiosity of scientists answer them.” result in behavioral changes in her offspring? who are attempting to answer basic questions “It’s like this fun puzzle,” she said, “where “We’re going to try to tease all of that that often appear to lack ‘relevance’ to the more you discover, the more interesting it apart,” Pfennig paused, then laughed. “It’s society. But it is invariably these basic research gets.” • going to be a lot of teasing things apart.” efforts that produce the most significant When he was chair of the biology insights.” ONLINE EXTRA department, Steve Matson encouraged It was Pfennig’s passion for basic More on Karin Pfennig’s research at Pfennig to be bold in her research. He said research that led her to become a biology college.unc.edu.

14฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES Top noTch abigail panter and Ted mouw earn high grades for great teaching By lisa h. Towle • phoTos By sTeve exum

For teaching to take hold, it takes a mysterious combination of intellect, intensity and joy. Ted Mouw and Abigail Panter (pictured on top of the UNC Bell Tower) have a combined 30 years of inspiring students. These Bowman and Gordon Gray Professors for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching have clearly mastered the art.

conTinued Top noTch

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • SPRING 2009 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 15 For teaching to take hold, it requires a mysterious combination of intellect, intensity and joy

To understand Ted Mouw the He also respects them. “I’m always integrated classroom discussions of war teacher, it’s helpful to observe Ted Mouw impressed by how smart students are, but with the beliefs of pacifists. the athlete. On the soccer field, it’s all-out. you don’t always get that first in class,” Mouw learned another important He plays with passion and skill, taking Mouw said. “You have to talk to them pedagogy lesson at Oberlin College, obvious pleasure at being in the game. one-on-one during office hours or over where as an English literature major So too in the classrooms of the associate coffee. That’s when they show you who he was at first “terrified to speak out professor of sociology, where a premium they really are, and how you as a teacher in class.” This convinced him of the is put on thought and action. Every become approachable.” necessity of cultivating an atmosphere student is expected to actively participate. Mouw was born in Ann Arbor, where every student is encouraged to In exchange, he vows they will never Mich., to two lifelong learners. His father participate. be made to feel they’ve offered a dumb taught physiology at the University of Mouw joined UNC’s sociology answer. Michigan, and his mother taught German faculty in 1999, after earning a master’s Consider the First Year Seminar at a local high school. The family’s travels, degree in economics and a Ph.D. in designed by Mouw, “Globalization, most especially a year spent in the Pacific sociology at the University of Michigan. Work and Inequality.” Discussions he Rim, opened the young Mouw’s eyes Howard Aldrich, chair of UNC’s leads are alternately thought-provoking to cultural and societal differences, laying department of sociology, has enjoyed and humorous, veering seamlessly from the foundation for a lifelong interest in watching Mouw evolve as a teacher and the theories of Nobel Prize-winning the social sciences. And his parents’ mid- a researcher studying human migration economist Joseph Stiglitz to sweatshops, career moves (father to medical doctor, patterns. tariffs, pizza pies, free-trade protests, catfish mother to Methodist minister) illustrated “When you talk about Ted, from Vietnam and manhole covers made the value of risk and reward. you’re talking about a whole scholar,” in India. High school experiences helped Aldrich said. “He is universally praised Reflection follows in a logical and Mouw appreciate the importance of for his research. He’s a rising star in the dynamic progression, with every student examining all sides of an issue. An profession, but I’m delighted he continues called on to answer a question or express Advanced Placement history teacher to think of himself first as a teacher.” an opinion whether their hand is raised or not. Mouw’s creed: “The learning process Below: Ted mouw believes most students crave engagement in the classroom. should be stimulating and challenging, but never humiliating.” Mouw believes most students crave engagement in the classroom. Student testimonials written in support of Mouw’s successful nomination in 2007 for the university’s Tanner Award for undergraduate teaching excellence, confirm his theory. “Amazing.” “Engaging.” “Ted Mouw rocks!” In searching for words to describe her experience in Sociology 58, Carolyn Treasure, who’s majoring in biology and economics, said Mouw’s active learning style “really changed my perspective in a way that no other class has. We discuss issues that are extremely relevant to today, [and] he has high standards for participation, yet his class is so intellectually stimulating that participation is not a problem.” She added, “Dr. Mouw seems to genuinely care about all his students.”

16฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES 17 ฀฀฀•฀฀฀ COLLEGE.UNC.EDU ฀฀฀•฀฀฀ • Panter’s advanced Dr.“The first day of class, analyzing and presenting data.” analyzing and presenting methods research undergraduate first, at daunting be can course majors psychology senior for even Cerina and Bailey Nick as such Buchanan. we werePanter went over what going to cover over the semester and what was expected of us,” “Everything Bailey. recalled more and harder much sounded done had I anything than depth in There classes. psychology in before [our] that possibility the even was SPRING 2009 Buchanan, who is planning a career being research anticipate not did “I of support in co-wrote he letter a In affirmation, such by flattered While ฀฀฀•฀฀฀ Top noTcha in published be could … experiments be would this thought I journal. scholarly and been, has it than difficult more much to what us shown has she because is that do each step of the way.” her of result a as believes optometry, in skills the has she that Panter with time experiment an “conduct to necessary my to prior impairment vision to related acceptance into optometry school.” so interesting, but it was,” Buchanan said. always Panter Professor because “That’s gets She engaged. are students sure makes keeps that and subject, the about excited attentive.” students distinguished the for nomination Panter’s of chair Lysle, Donald professorship, noted, psychology, of department the excelled has Panter Professor “although components traditional the of each in service, research, — life academic of and devotion her is it — teaching and accomplishments in undergraduate remarkable.” truly are that teaching really “is does she what insisted Panter here. about we’re what of part a just pieces the all getting of matter a just It’s involved everyone so synch in working can thrive.” CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES ARTS CAROLINA Panter earned her doctoral degree at at degree doctoral her earned Panter research and quantitative teaches She with trenches the into get to like “I New York University, where she studied a with psychology social/personality sparked who mentor” gifted and “kind psychology, quantitative in interest her In psychometrics. and design research UNC the joined she 25, age at 1989, L. department’s psychology the in faculty Laboratory, Psychometric Thurstone L. range wide a with continued she where of research interests including: developing new measures and designs in social/ personality psychology, testing the effects the evaluating diversity, educational of and treatment HIV/AIDS of effectiveness issues exploring and programs, educational related to the status of women. graduate and undergraduate to methods students asks Panter classes, her In a students. gain to role researcher the into step to apply to and process the of view clearer the learned concepts and skills in settings beyond her courses. my students and show them how the finish,” to start from works process research they support the them gives “It said. she need to do their work, and it tends to about have might they fears any alleviate or research conducting ideas, generating

a colleague called abigail panter’s devotion to undergraduate teaching “truly remarkable.” devotion to undergraduate a colleague called abigail panter’s hanks in large measure to attentive attentive to measure large in hanks

Panter grew up in Rockland County, County, Rockland in up grew Panter As an undergraduate at Wellesley T N.Y., north of New York City. She said mother, her and physician, a father, her instilled writer, and pianist professional a arts, the for appreciation deep a her in concern for others and enthusiasm forin played Panter cellist, talented A life. age early an from orchestras and ensembles seventh the in Starting college. through grade, she traveled to Manhattan everyunder Juilliard at classes music for Saturday teacher.” “incredible an of tutelage the psychology, studied Panter College, French and music. “It was class after class willing were who professors accessible of to mentor me, who were caring yet rigorous with the academics, who had a doing,” were they what for passion true remembers especially She recalled. she whom with professors psychology two she learned lifelong lessons about the — approach collaborative a of importance outside and inside occurs teaching how and classroom. the educators, Abigail Panter’s life has been been has life Panter’s Abigail educators, the Now, moments. “aha!” by shaped of UNC psychology professor is giving her clarity for opportunities similar students purpose. and thought aBove: For teaching to take hold, it requires a mysterious combinationmysterious a it requires hold, of take to teaching intellect,For intensity and joy Tift Merritt in front of The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, N.Y., once frequented by Jack Kerouac and Dylan Thomas. newA new chapter chapter for Tif

18฀฀฀• COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • SPRING 2009 • CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — want on the Internet,” Merritt laughed copies of a new live CD she recorded on a A postcard from singer/songwriter Tift while sipping a cup of lemon ginger tea in grand piano last fall at the Radcliffe Centre, Merritt might read like this: Released her spartan third-floor walkup in the West an old converted church in Buckingham, a new album to rave reviews. Found a Village. Her guitar, piano and 15 pounds of England. new home in New York City. Sang at audio equipment for her radio show sit in the Grand Ole Opry and on Letterman a corner by the window, which is cracked CAROLI N A H E L P S H E R and Leno. Launched a public radio show. open on this unseasonably warm December BECOME AN ARTIST Getting hitched. afternoon. A drawing of the Eiffel Tower Merritt has come a long way from At press time, Merritt was planning hangs above her couch. “I felt completely her days at Carolina, playing gigs, taking to marry longtime boyfriend, drummer, burned out, directionless, aimless and lost. poetry and songwriting classes, waiting business partner and UNC alumnus Zeke All of a sudden I just started to write, and tables. She insists on coming clean right off the bat about something she regrets — not finishing her degree. She left UNC in 2000, in the middle of a “rebellious phase,” when her career was A new chapter for Tift Merritt taking off and “the engine had started,” she said, as a taxi horn blared outside her New BY KIM WEAVER SPURR ’88 • PHOTOS BY ISAAC SANDLIN York apartment window. She finished all the requirements for an American studies Hutchins ’00 in March in a simple family I remember calling home and saying, major, focusing heavily on creative writing chapterceremony. They met in an American ‘There’s nothing on the books. I’m just courses. One thing still hanging over her studies class at Carolina, where Merritt going to stay.’ I was taking pictures and head — a dreaded General College biology studied in the 1990s. He graduated with a writing fiction and writing songs … and course and lab. degree in elementary education, and she left there was no thought about, ‘This will have In fact, she has recurring nightmares school as her music career began heating a marketing plan.’” about it, joking that “science hurts.” up with only nine credits left to fulfill her The songs in her notebook became “Stay in school!” she yelled playfully. degree. the inspiration for her third album, “I love school, especially now that I’ve After her second album “Tambourine” “Another Country,” which was released been working for 10 years. There will be a was nominated for a Grammy in 2004, life in February 2008 on Fantasy Records to time when I go back, and I’m going to take became anything but simple for Merritt, critical acclaim. Paste magazine wrote “Sit French classes and literature classes … I’m who was born in Texas but grew up in down in your living room and listen closely looking forward to when I can do it, but it’s Raleigh. The album was an artistic but — as uncommon as that may be in this fast- really hard to find a pocket of time where not a commercial success. Critics said she paced, music-saturated world — and you’ll that’s possible right now.” was too rock for country, too country likely be amazed.” It was also praised in the “My mother wants to kill me! But for rock. Merritt had been on tour for a Jan. 9 ’09 issue of Entertainment Weekly. I’ve never done things by the book,” added long time. Life on the road — filled with “I guess sometimes you do have to Merritt, who is part Southern rebel, part dirty laundry, suitcases, hours in a van and go very far from home and get very lost steel magnolia. airplane ticket stubs — was wearing very to realize that life is all around you and She counts creative writing professors thin. shouting at you to take its many good Michael McFee, Bland Simpson and Doris She wasn’t even sure that she wanted things with you …” Merritt sums it up in Betts, and American studies professor to stay in the music business. the liner notes of “Another Country.” Towny Ludington among her Carolina One day while sipping a glass of wine Merritt will return to North Carolina mentors. at her computer, she Googled “Paris, April 23-26 for Doc Watson’s MerleFest “I never thought someone could teach apartment, piano.” Three places popped music festival in Wilkesboro. Then on April you how to be an artist, but I ended up up, and after consulting a friend who lived 30, she will debut about 20 black-and-white learning a whole heck of a lot about how to in the French capital about which flat to photographs of her time in Paris at Mahler be an artist from the people at Chapel Hill,” choose, she decided to take herself there. Gallery in downtown Raleigh, followed by she said. The initial plan was to stay for two weeks. a May 1 concert at Fletcher Opera Theater “I found a way to fit in, in my She ended up staying four months. in Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the own way, and to really be a part of this “You can really find anything you Performing Arts. She will have on hand continued

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀19 community, to be a free spirit and to belong an artistic history. Photographer Annie at the same time, and that’s such a gift,” she Liebovitz is Merritt’s next-door neighbor. added. The White Horse Tavern is right down the McFee and Merritt used to have street, where Welsh poet Dylan Thomas breakfast once a week at Ye Olde Waffle drank himself to death, Jack Kerouac was a Shop on Franklin Street, where he would regular, and the Village Voice was born. torment the health-conscious, farmer’s “I don’t know that I’m going to be a market-loving Merritt with a fatty side New Yorker forever,” said Merritt, who order of bacon. confesses that she misses “green, her mom “What I admire most about Tift is and dad, and her tomato plants.” “But how she has a vision of what she wants to we’ve always been of a mind that it’s really do and how she wants to do it, and she important to be growing, and this was how doesn’t like to compromise,” said McFee, we saw it necessary to take things to the the poet, essayist and director of the creative next level. … There will be a time in our writing program in UNC’s College of Arts lives when we don’t think it’s great to live and Sciences. in 250 square feet, but [right now], we think No “real artist” compromises, noted it’s cool.” Robert Smith, senior vice president at ABOVE: In her West Village apartment. Concord Records, the parent company of W H A T S H E ’ S Merrit’s label, Fantasy. She calls Smith her further. She has interviewed pianists, poets, L O O K I N G F O R N O W mentor in the music business. The two share journalists and photographers about their Merritt, who considers herself a an appreciation for writer Eudora Welty. work, opening each show with the phrase: “writer first, a musician by good luck and a “Eudora Welty’s writing allows for “where you meet the real people behind performer way down at the end,” will spend an intimacy with the reader that is so often great works of art.” Ludington helped to the first part of 2009 on the road again. She missing from the craft of writing. Tift’s connect her with painter Wolf Kahn, and hopes to avoid getting burned out like she songs have a similar quality: She doesn’t McFee suggested she contact poet and did on the “Tambourine” tour. mask herself through artifice or simply good fellow Paris resident C.K. Williams. “I think I’m still at this point in my craft,” Smith said. “There is an openness “I don’t pretend be a journalist,” career where I do have to push myself to the and honesty; there is no defensive barrier said Merritt, who edits the show herself. limits. I just think everybody’s eye is on the tifbetween her art and her audience.” t“I’m an artist talking to another artist; it’s a same ball now, and that really helps,” she “She could be cranking out songs with conversation.” said. “Experience is a great teacher.” the sheen and polish of the hit factories, but “C.K. Williams said, ‘There is this One of the songs on “Another she has something to say that sets her apart. moment sometimes … when you think, Country” is “I Know What I’m Looking And in the end, that kind of artistic integrity there’s no path; I’m lost. And it’s really not For Now:” and determination has a better chance of about looking up and doubting yourself. It’s All of these miles I’ve come, succeeding.” about keeping your head down and finding All of these dreams I’ve chased in my mind, the path.’” All for something small and simple to find... I G N I T I N G T H E S P A R K So does she know what she’s looking Merritt calls “The Spark,” her public LIFE IN THE BIG APPLE for now? radio show, “American studies at work.” Merritt moved to New York City in “What I’m looking for is trying to The program was launched in January 2008 October 2007, to be closer to the heart of build a place where I can really live in the on a Marfa, Texas, station and online at her business. She has already interviewed heart of my work as much as possible … www.marfaspark.com. some of her Greenwich Village neighbors where everyday life is filled with lots of She got the idea for the show when for her radio show. surprises and adventures, and the small things she fell in love with the work of painter Cy She spent much of 2008 on the road, are really a joy,” Merritt said. Twombly at an art museum in Paris. “What’s but when she is home she enjoys playing “It’s not about the big things. It’s about his favorite color?” she wondered. “How tourist — visiting art galleries in Chelsea, living in that good place where you really much time does he spend at his studio?” taking a carriage ride through Central Park, are enjoying every moment.” • Merritt met American studies professor shopping at the Union Square Market, Ludington for coffee and told him she having dinner at a good local restaurant like O N L I N E E X T R A S really wanted to have a conversation with Blue Hill on Washington Place. Listen to highlights of our interview with Tift Twombly, to find out what makes him tick. The area’s twisting streets, cozy cafés Merritt, see her perform on Letterman, visit her Ludington pushed her to pursue the idea and high-rent townhouses are filled with Web site and more at college.unc.edu.

20฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES proFile proFile Dan Sears

Powerful Processors Harnessing high-speed computers By Angela Spivey ’90 ABOVE: Jason Sewall is finding new ways to harness the power of high-speed computers.

As long as my laptop doesn’t take too of computers that are rendering these the speed offered by multiple processors. long to load Facebook, I don’t give its “dual animations,” Sewall says. “The amount He has also begun using the same principles cores” too much thought. But computer of computing power they get per electric to model how traffic moves on a highway. science Ph.D. student Jason Sewall ponders bill is really a bottom line for them. If you “There’s actually some pretty surprising but processing power every day. On a white have four processors in your computer useful similarities between the way that gas board in Sitterson Hall, he tweaks equations, and you’re only using one of them, you’re flows in a pipe and the way that traffic flows finding new ways to write programs still running the other three, and they’re on a highway,” he says. “You can think of that harness the power of “many-core” using power.” stopped traffic as being like a shockwave; as computers — those with multiple processors Many-core systems will require a one car pulls in and stops, another car comes on a single chip. complete revolution in and has to stop. So this wave of stopping is Computers with as “People that are trying to in programming and moving backwards.” many as 16 processors algorithm design, Sewall talks fast, jumping from the speed render, say, a Pixar movie, have are around now, and says Sewall’s adviser, at which waves travel to the compressibility as they become more thousands and thousands of Ming Lin. “Jason’s of fluids to the reason why the term “dual commonplace, you work is important core” processor is confusing (a core is really computers that are rendering can have significant because it’s looking just a small processor). He double-majored computing power at these animations. The amount toward the future in math and computer science as an your desktop. But all and contributing to undergraduate at the University of Maine, of computing power they get those processors won’t this new paradigm in and Lin says he understands the math behind do you any good if your per electric bill is really a bottom computing,” explains the shockwaves he is modeling at a depth software can’t recognize Lin, Beverly W. that’s impressive for a computer scientist. line for them. If you have four and use them. That’s Long Distinguished His facility with all kinds of ideas translates what Sewall, who is processors in your computer and Professor of Computer to an interest in research other than his scheduled to graduate Science. own. For instance, he helped with graphical you’re only using one of them, in 2009, will figure Sewall worked as rendering and animation for postdoctoral out for his dissertation. you’re still running the other a research intern for fellow Jur van den Berg’s study of crowd “I think there’s really Microsoft in summer movement and traffic reconstruction. three, and they’re using power.” fertile ground here,” 2008 and Intel in “He’s a good team player who’s he says. “How can summer 2006 and willing to contribute to our research group you slightly modify the way you’re handling 2007. He writes prototype programs for in more ways than just conducting his these algorithms to take advantage of these animations that simulate things that happen own research. That’s rare among graduate multiple cores?” in the real world, such as fluid simulation students and really puts him in a different Animators, especially, seek the and shockwave propagation during an league,” Lin says. • maximum “flops per watt”— the most explosion. He says that the algorithms computing bang for their electricity buck. currently used in programs that model ONLINE EXTRA “People that are trying to render, say, a gases such as air, for example, work just More on the research of graduate Pixar movie, have thousands and thousands fine, but they don’t fully take advantage of student Jason Sewall at college.unc.edu.

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • SPRING 2009 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 21 highlighTshighlighTs A passion for archaeology and ancient art Honoring a beloved professor By Joanna Worrell ’06

For decades in Room 111 of Murphey Hall, the seats were too close together, the lighting and acoustics were terrible, and the steeply banked rows of seats were a hazard for anyone ABOVE: J.P. Harland’s lectures were laced with walking among them. But that didn’t illustrated slides and witty comments. LEFT: The stop thousands of students from crowding Harland Fund supports graduate students. in the lecture hall over the years to take courses in archaeology, mythology and Harland was internationally known ancient art with Professor James Penrose for his archaeological explorations in Harland. Greece and the Middle East. It is fitting, While his classroom may have been then, that the fund in his name supports stuffy and dark, J.P. Harland, who died field experiences abroad for graduate in 1973, was anything but. Armed with students in the department of classics. a legendary combination of wit and Donald Haggis, professor of classical knowledge of classical archaeology, he archaeology and the Nicholas A. Cassas was one of the most popular and well- Term Professor of Greek Studies, said loved professors at UNC for many years. the Harland Fund supports one classical Harland, who taught UNC’s first archaeology graduate student each course in classical archaeology, served graduate students — the next generation of summer. He wishes to expand the fund to on the classics faculty continuously from professors — participate in archaeological support more student field experiences. 1927 to 1963, teaching an estimated fieldwork throughout the world. “The Harland Fund has been 25,000 students over his 36 years in the “Through my gifts to the Harland essential in supporting the teaching of classroom. Among those students were Fund, I hope to ensure that the students in the field, and providing them North Carolina icons such as Terry experience I had as a student is available with experiences that are not only critical Sanford and Andy Griffith. to future generations of UNC students,” to their practical training, but also vital Bill Williamson ’53 of Charlotte Williamson said. for their ultimate professional success says that although he majored in business In the classroom, Harland’s lectures and impact in the discipline of classical administration, his best memories of his were laced with illustrated slides and archaeology,” Haggis said. education were the liberal arts courses he witty comments. By all accounts he was Professor Harland wouldn’t took, especially Harland’s class. engaging, lively, funny and genuinely recognize the highly polished classrooms “Through his course in classical interested in his students. of Murphey Hall today, thanks to archaeology, Professor Harland instilled Georgia Carroll Kyser ’70 of Chapel a massive and historically sensitive in me a love of art and material culture Hill, widow of big band leader Kay Kyser, renovation, made possible by revenues that I have been able to enjoy throughout took several classes with Harland. She from the N.C. State Bond Referendum. my life,” Williamson said. “It was one of was so inspired by Harland’s classes that But he would recognize the need to the greatest and most valuable lessons I she later traveled to the Greek Islands do more to support future classical learned from my liberal arts education at to see firsthand what she learned in the archaeologists. • Carolina.” classroom. Harland made such an impact on his “I looked forward to his class because To support the Harland Fund, life that in 1993 Williamson memorialized his sense of humor was a relief from the contact Margaret Costley, Arts and Sciences the legendary professor by establishing heaviness of some of the other classes,” Foundation, (919) 843-0345, or margaret. the J.P. Harland Endowment Fund in Kyser said. “People enjoyed his class [email protected]. Give online at college. Classical Archaeology. The fund supports because instead of just learning, he made unc.edu/foundation/makeagift and note classical archaeology at UNC by helping everybody laugh.” “Harland Fund” in the designation box.

22฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highlighTshighlighTs American studies at home and abroad By Pamela Babcock

LEFT: Professor Bernie Herman with Gee’s Bend quilter Mary Lee Bendolph. For 40 years, American studies in engagement RIGHT: From left, Towny Ludington, Joy Kasson, Chris Chirdon (Julia Preston UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences has in ways which Brumley Travel Scholarship winner) and Jane Ludington. enhanced understanding of U.S. art, culture, are truly geography, history, religion, literature, wonderful,” said Herman, who previously Her parents, Edwin T. and Nancy folklore and more through interdisciplinary chaired the department of art history at the Sims Preston of Chapel Hill, wanted study. University of Delaware. more American studies students to have New gifts have brought to UNC Herman received a B.A. in English opportunities to broaden their perspective. a world-renowned expert in Southern from the College of William and Mary in They completed the fund with a planned material culture and provided opportunities 1973 and a Ph.D. in folklore and folklife gift via an IRA rollover provision that for more undergraduates to travel abroad to from the University of Pennsylvania in allows donors starting at age 70½ to make learn how others perceive the United States. 1978. tax-free charitable gifts totaling up to Herman has taught courses in material $100,000 per year from their IRAs directly • Honoring one giant, attracting another culture, vernacular architecture, visual to eligible charities, including universities. The George B. Tindall Distinguished culture, folk and ethnic arts, historic Julia’s former teacher, American studies Professorship in American Studies honors preservation, art of the quilt, and critical professor emeritus Towny Ludington, the renowned Carolina scholar and alumnus approaches to the history and interpretation who proposed the creation of the fund to who died in 2006. Tindall ’48 (M.A., Ph.D. of objects. A forthcoming book from honor Julia, made the initial gift, followed ’51) was a leading expert on the American UNC Press focuses on a group of women by many gifts from family and friends. South. who create bold and dynamic quilts in the The fund ensures that each year John A. Powell (A.B. ’77) of San isolated African-American hamlet of Gee’s one or more American studies majors Francisco established the professorship, Bend, Ala. can study abroad. Chirdon was the first which is augmented by the C.D. recipient. He explored American Spangler Foundation Challenge studies at King’s College in London Grant Initiative and the North For 40 years, American studies in UNC’s last fall. Carolina Distinguished Professors College of Arts and Sciences has enhanced Among his many classes, Endowment Trust Fund. Powell Chirdon took one on the also created the John Shelton Reed understanding of U.S. art, culture, geography, development of New York and Distinguished Professorship and the history, religion, literature, folklore and more Los Angeles as major metropolitan Joel R. Williamson Distinguished centers. He said it was enlightening Professorship, two funds that support [ through interdisciplinary study. ] to learn about these American cities Southern studies. “through a different lens.” Following a national search, After graduation, Chirdon plans to Bernard L. Herman, a leading expert • Seeing America from abroad head to New York to pursue writing, on Southern material culture, became Chris Chirdon ’10, a double major acting and directing. He says his UNC the first Tindall Professor in January. in American studies and drama from degree will be “invaluable.” “The Tindall Professorship brings Charlotte, N.C., traveled abroad to learn “The American studies program has to campus an outstanding specialist in more about the U.S. Julia Preston Brumley taught me to connect critically with the Southern material culture, which will ’83 would have understood. world, and specifically with the problem make Carolina the premier place in the The Julia Preston Brumley Travel of being an American in an increasingly Southeast for the study of material culture, Scholarship honors the memory of the globalized world,” Chirdon said. “This architecture, craft, folk art and food ways,” American studies graduate who died in a connection is the basis for my artistic life said Joy Kasson, chair of the American plane crash near Nairobi, Kenya, in 2003, — as a writer and actor, I’m increasingly studies department. with her husband, two of their children, dealing with the problems and promises “UNC is an extraordinary university and eight other family members. They of being an American, and as I head out that has long ago figured out the dynamics were on a trip organized by her father-in- of college and into the ‘real world,’ it’s of interdisciplinary study and public law George Brumley Jr., a retired physician. important to be aware of these issues.” •

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀23 highlighTshighlighTs “Striving Sisters” and UNC adviser invited to inauguration By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88

LEFT: UNC professor Pat Parker. BELOW: Tiara Denning of Chapel Hill enjoys the view of the inaugural parade from the 12th floor terrace of the Marriott Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“My goal was to bring together youth in vulnerable communities with the idea of creating a different model of adult-youth interaction,” said Parker, who spent time volunteering and getting to know

Steve Exum youth at the Trinity Court and Pritchard Park public housing neighborhoods in Chapel Hill, The e-mail Patricia Parker not far from campus. “This is not received shortly after New Year’s providing services to the youth, Day seemed like a dream. She and but creating a collaborative members of the Chapel Hill youth partnership, encouraging self- action group that she founded were invited Striving Sisters community organizers empowerment.” to celebrate the presidential inauguration of Cassandra Lloyd, 18; Bianca Webb, 14; Weaver, a ninth-grader at East Barack Obama on Jan. 20 — for free. Ashley Webb, 16; Tiara Denning, 15; Chapel Hill High School, was excited Parker, an associate professor of and Kendall Weaver, 14. Volunteers about the inauguration. communication studies in UNC’s College with UNC connections included senior “I helped to organize a community of Arts and Sciences, founded the Ella Alysa Campbell, a public policy major festival encouraging youth activism in my Baker Women’s Center for Leadership from Lithonia, Ga.; and UNC alumna neighborhood,” she said. “I am proud and Community Activism. The nonprofit Stacey Ellen Craig of Durham, N.C., to say that, like the president, I am a center’s flagship project is Striving community organizer.” Sisters Speak!!! (S³), a group of The inauguration trip “I helped to organize a community festival young minority women in low- was also supported by William encouraging youth activism in my income neighborhoods who are Keyes, founder of the Institute neighborhood. I am proud to say that, working to create coalitions of for Responsible Citizenship in like the president, I am a community organizer,” social justice in their communities. D.C. and a member of the UNC { said Kendall Weaver, 14 } Five teenagers and several Board of Visitors. Support was volunteers and chaperones with also provided by the College of the group attended the inauguration who graduated in 2006 with a degree in Arts and Sciences, the communication celebration in Washington, D.C., thanks international studies. studies department and the Office of to The Stafford Foundation’s People’s Parker won a competitive Kauffman the Vice Chancellor for Public Service Inauguration Project and other UNC Fellowship from the Carolina Entrepre- and Engagement at UNC. Community donors and friends. The group attended neurial Initiative to create the model cen- sponsors included Dillard’s Inc., the a prayer breakfast, a luncheon featuring ter. This spring, through a grant from the department store, and Strowd Roses Inc., Martin Luther King III and an inaugural Robertson Scholars Collaboration Fund at a Chapel-Hill based foundation. • ball, among other festivities. UNC and Duke University, Parker will The foundation was started by Earl partner with Duke colleagues to convene ONLINE EXTRAS W. Stafford, founder of a Centreville, Va., a conference on “Sharing the Mantle: More on Pat Parker, The Stafford technology company. Strategies for Creating Youth and Adult Foundation and the Institute for Responsible Parker was joined on the trip by Partnerships.” Citizenship at college.unc.edu.

24฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highlighTshighlighTs $1.5 Million Physics Professorship Melchors have been helping others for 50 years By Del Helton

High-tech pioneer Jack Melchor ’48 science. He credits Paul Huffman, (M.S. ’50) and his wife Norma, a former his high school science teacher, nurse, have spent the past 50 years helping who inspired him with an early ABOVE: Norma and Jack Melchor others live in good health — and still more love of physics and scientific inquiry. live their dreams. Melchor’s potential was recognized with science research,” said McNeil. They’ve made gifts to construct, an invitation to Carolina’s Navy V-12 “Private support makes the difference then expand, El Camino Hospital in program in 1943, which prepared military between hiring people whom we hope their beloved hometown of Los Altos, officers for service during World War II. will become excellent and those whom we Calif., where Norma began volunteering While on leave from military duty know already are.” • in 1957 before there was even a hospital in late 1944, Melchor met Norma at building. Supporting a range of needs, a USO event in South Bend, Ind. In • THE V-12 PROGRAM from education and conservation to human 1946, they married and moved to Chapel Jack Melchor was among more than services, the Melchors have been generous Hill — living in a 14-foot-wide trailer in 20,000 men who attended special naval with their time and money. Jack Melchor, a Carolina’s famed Victory Village — so training programs at Carolina during prolific entrepreneur with six patents and a Jack could complete his bachelor’s and World War II. long career with Hewlett-Packard, aided in master’s degrees in physics, and Norma Early in the war, the U.S. Navy the start-up of more than 100 companies as could work at Duke University Hospital. scheduled a massive shipbuilding program a venture capitalist, many in the Bay Area. After earning his Ph.D. in physics in that would extend over a number of years. Their latest gift for the Melchor 1953 at Notre Dame (the Melchors also The Navy knew it would need college- Distinguished Professorship in Physics in the created a professorship there), the couple educated junior officers to help man these College of Arts and Sciences continues that moved to California where Melchor had ships. Through nationwide testing and tradition of service — this time benefiting a job at Sylvania Electronic Defense Labs. from enlisted applicants already serving on Jack’s alma mater and future generations Within three years, he’d started his own active duty, 120,000 men were selected of physics scholars and teachers. The $1.5 company, Melabs, and by 1959, with for the V-12 Navy College Training million endowment will include $500,000 six patents in microwave technology, he Program, and 131 colleges and universities from the N.C. Distinguished Professors “retired” — the first of four times. Until — Carolina among them — hosted the Trust Fund supported by the state General he retired for good in 1990, Melchor’s program. The sailors took regular college Assembly. talent for business development kept him courses, with an emphasis on math and When a letter from physics and in demand as a consultant worldwide. science. astronomy chair Laurie McNeil arrived in Today, the couple enjoys keeping up with The Chapel Hill campus also aided his mailbox in 2006, Jack was impressed their four children, seven grandchildren war efforts with a preflight center for that Carolina named a woman to chair the and one great-grandchild. training navy pilots and a Reserve Officers department. They can also look forward to news Training Corps (ROTC). Along with the “There was only one girl in my physics from Chapel Hill when the first Melchor V-12, these programs required “an armory, program in the 1940s,” Melchor said. Distinguished Professor is named, and a an infirmary and extensive barracks,” wrote And though he estimates it’s been 30 top physics scholar and teacher inspires William Snider in Light on the Hill. “The years since he was in Chapel Hill, his Tar future scientists. U.S. Navy brought the war to Chapel Hill Heel connections remained strong. “The Melchors are giving us the in a sizable wave of expansion.” A native of Mooresville, N.C., just opportunity to attract an outstanding For more history on the V-12 north of Charlotte, Melchor was raised by scientist and educator at the most exciting program, visit www.navymemorial.org. family in the nearby mill town of China stage in her or his career, when the early Grove after his mother died when he promise has borne fruit but there are still ONLINE EXTRA was 6 months old. An excellent student, many exciting discoveries to come. Their To read more about the Melchors, named Melchor focused on schoolwork and gift will also help us attract excellent Los Altans of the Year in 2007 by the Los developed a special interest in math and graduate students, the lifeblood of all Altos Town Crier, visit college.unc.edu.

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀25 highlighTshighlighTs ENZYMES ARE Celebrating ESSENTIAL the Eizenstat TO LIFE Professorship All biological in Jewish Studies reactions within human cells depend on enzymes. Their power as catalysts enables Among the dignitaries and essential reactions to occur friends at a fall dinner in Washington, in milliseconds, instead of millions or billions of years. D.C., celebrating the campaign for the One scientist who has been studying enzymes for new Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat years is Richard Wolfenden, Distinguished Professorship in Jewish Alumni Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry History and Culture were: co-host and Biophysics and Chemistry in UNC’s David M. Rubinstein, co-founder and College of Arts and Sciences managing director of The Carlyle Group, and the School of Medicine. In 1995 Wolfenden pictured with Eizenstat (bottom), and discovered that without a particular enzyme, a Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor with biological transformation Eizenstat (top). Other co-hosts were: he deemed “absolutely essential” in creating the UNC President Erskine Bowles, UNC building blocks of DNA and RNA would take 78 College of Arts and Sciences Interim million years. Dean Bruce Carney and Eizenstat’s law Now he’s discovered that without the enzyme called firm of Covington & Burling LLP, represented by Timothy C. Hester, who chairs its uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase, a reaction essential for the production management and executive committees. of hemoglobin and chlorophyll in Rubinstein pledged a $500,000 lead gift to help establish the $2 million professorship cells would take 2.3 billion years, equivalent to about half the age of in honor of his longtime friend and former Carter White House colleague. Eizenstat, who the Earth, Wolfenden said. “This enzyme is essential for graduated from UNC with a degree in political science in 1964, served as chief domestic both plant and animal life on the policy advisor and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff during planet,” Wolfenden said. “What we’re defining here is what evolution the Carter years, and as under secretary of commerce, under secretary of state and deputy had to overcome, that the enzyme is surmounting a tremendous obstacle, a secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Under Clinton, Eizenstat was reaction half-life of 2.3 billion years.” also a special representative of the president and secretary of state on Holocaust-era issues “Without catalysts, there would be no life at all, from microbes to and successfully negotiated major reparations agreements with Austria, France, Germany humans,” he added. Wolfenden and co-author Charles Switzerland and other European countries. • A. Lewis, a postdoctoral fellow at For additional information on the Eizenstat Professorship, please contact Rob Parker, associate UNC, published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of director of the Arts & Sciences Foundation, at (919) 962-6182 or [email protected]. Sciences. •

26฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highlighTshighlighTs Enhancing Environmental Grants give Asian studies Education a $513,000 boost Asian studies at UNC received two Environmental studies and environmental new grants totaling $513,000. sciences courses are increasingly popular research and Grants to the Carolina Asia Center at Carolina as students seek to be engagement, from the Freeman Foundation and the David Moreau involved in finding “green” solutions and partner with Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs will to global warming, fossil fuel depletion, the College in further increase faculty, graduate and freshwater availability, environmental undergraduate and graduate education undergraduate student opportunities for pollution and economic challenges. by providing field study and research engagement in Asia. In response, the University experiences, internships, and other The Center in the College of Arts and has re-organized the environmental experiential learning opportunities. Sciences promotes cutting-edge research, educational landscape (previously called The Institute is directed by enhances teaching and learning, and facilitates the Carolina Environmental Program) Lawrence Band, the Voit Gilmore strategic partnerships. The Center also works to strengthen both teaching and Distinguished Professor of Geography in with organizations to coordinate Carolina’s research. One result is that the College the College of Arts and Sciences. He is an broad Asian studies agenda — facilitating of Arts and Sciences is now responsible expert on the hydrology and ecology of multidisciplinary approaches to Asian studies, for administering undergraduate degree watersheds. He has recently completed embedding Asian languages and area studies programs in environmental sciences service on two National Academy of in the curriculum, and enhancing Carolina (B.S.) and environmental studies (B.A.). Sciences’ National Research Council students’ experience of Asia. These undergraduate programs committees on the national capacity for and the graduate curriculum in ecology hydrologic observations, and on urban A $400,000 grant from the Freeman are part of a new academic unit in the stormwater components of the Clean Foundation will help to increase the number College called the Curriculum in the Water Act, and on committees reviewing of undergraduates taking Asian studies courses. Environment and Ecology. restoration planning in the Everglades and In support of the 175th anniversary of The curriculum is chaired by the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Thai/U.S. diplomatic relations, the Center David H. Moreau, a professor of city “We’re excited that the College also received a $113,000 grant from Thailand’s and regional planning and an expert and our faculty will be even more Ministry of Foreign Affairs, provided through on water resources and environmental involved now in teaching and the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, D.C. management. He recently completed conducting research on vital issues that The Ministry grant will enable the Center work on a peer review committee affect our environment,” said Karen Gil, to enhance course offerings on Thailand and that examined an assessment by federal senior associate dean for social sciences Southeast Asia through curriculum and course agencies on performance of the levees and international programs. “David development grants, expand library holdings, around New Orleans during Hurricane Moreau and Larry Band have the support study abroad, host a visiting Thai Katrina. vision and experience to help Carolina scholar and coordinate a public workshop on Moreau also serves on two continue to lead in this critical area for contemporary Thailand. • committees of the National Academies’ North Carolina, National Research Council: the the nation and the Committee on Independent Scientific world.” Review of Progress Toward Restoration The UNC

of the Everglades, and the Committee Gillings School Andrew Chen on the Mississippi River and the Clean of Global Public Water Act. Moreau is former director Health will of the Water Resources Research continue to oversee Institute of the University of North undergraduate Carolina system, and a member and (B.S.) and graduate former chair of the N.C. Environmental (M.S.) degree Management Commission. programs in The new Institute for the environmental Environment, a separate academic sciences and unit outside of the College, will foster engineering. •

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀27 highlighTshighlighTs IMPROVING PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT

A UNC spin-off company has been awarded a $2 million grant to commercialize a new technology designed to improve radiation treatment of prostate cancer. The grant from the National Cancer Institute will enable Morphor- mics Inc. to market its proprietary technology for constructing anatomical “roadmaps” of individual patients. The roadmaps are critical navigational aids Steve Exum that help physicians keep a radiation beam focused on the tumor, while at FRED BROOKS’ LEGACY the same time avoiding nearby parts of the body that could be harmed by Family and friends celebrated the dedication of the Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Computer Science Building on campus in October. The state-of-the-art facility, part of the new science complex built radiation exposure. with a combination of public and private funds, is named for the architect of IBM’s supercomputers in the 1950s, who founded the computer science program in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and chaired it for 20 years. Pictured, back row, from left: Jan Prins, chair of computer science; Chancellor A 3-D image of the Holden Thorp; Fred Brooks; Roger Perry, chair, UNC Board of Trustees. Grandchildren, front pelvis can help row, from left: Marie Brooks (15), Phil Brooks (12), Henry Brooks (11), Annie Brooks (6), Roger in treating Brooks Jr. (3) — all from East Irvington, N.Y.; and Jeffrey La Dine, Jr., (8); Anna La Dine (10); prostate and Arwen La Dine (13) — all from Little Eriswell, Suffolk, England. • cancer. Don’t blame the borrowers Risky credit products, not risky borrowers, are the root cause of the mortgage default crisis. That’s the conclusion of research by the Center for Community Capital in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences that attracted widespread media attention as the national credit crisis worsened. An editorial in The New York Times cited the research to refute critics of the Community Reinvestment Act, designed to help low-income families own their own Morphormics, also known as homes. Mx, was co-founded in 2001 by The UNC researchers studied default rates of two similar groups of low-income borrowers: those who received sub-prime mortgages and UNC radiation oncologist Edward others who received loans through an affordable home mortgage program L. Chaney, with Stephen M. Pizer, called the Community Advantage Program. The borrowers with sub-prime UNC Kenan Professor of computer mortgages defaulted at much higher rates. science and radiation oncology, and “These results show clearly that mortgages made using traditional Sarang Joshi, then assistant professor at affordable housing guidelines are holding up much better than subprime UNC (now at University of Utah). mortgages,” said center director Roberto Quercia, professor of city and regional planning. “Homeownership can remain an important and primary ABOVE: All of the intellectual property path to financial security for Americans, even among those of modest means, Roberto Quercia on which the Morphormics system is as long as home buyers have access to safe-and-sound mortgage products.” • based was developed at UNC and is licensed to Morphormics. • ONLINE EXTRA: Read the study and more about the center at college.unc.edu.

28฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES highlighTshighlighTs How salmon and sea turtles find their way home

How marine animals find themselves began life, a process their way back to their birthplace scientists refer to as natal homing. to reproduce after migrating across “What we are proposing Lohmann Ken thousands of miles of open ocean is that natal homing can be has mystified scientists for more explained in terms of animals than a century. But UNC marine learning the unique magnetic biologists think they might have signature of their home area William Irwin unraveled the secret. early in life and then retaining

At the beginning of their lives, ABOVE: New UNC research could benefit sea turtles. that information,” said Kenneth salmon and sea turtles may “read” Lohmann, professor of biology the magnetic field of their home area and return years later, researchers believe. and first author of the study. “imprint” it on their memory, according to Previous studies have shown that If the new theory is correct, he a new theory in the journal Proceedings of the young salmon and sea turtles can detect added, it could lead to new ways of National Academy of Sciences. the Earth’s magnetic field and use it to helping save sea turtles and salmon. The Earth’s magnetic field varies sense direction during their first migration UNC researchers Catherine predictably across the globe, with every away from their birthplace to the far-flung Lohmann, lecturer of biology, and Nathan oceanic region having a slightly different regions where they spend the initial years Putman, a graduate student, co-authored magnetic signature. By noting the unique of their lives. the paper. “magnetic address” of their birthplace and The new study seeks to explain remembering it, animals may be able to the more difficult navigational task ONLINE EXTRA distinguish this location from all others accomplished by adult animals that return More on Kenneth Lohmann’s sea turtle

when they are fully grown and ready to to reproduce in the same area where they research at college.unc.edu. •

New center Emergency Management will be led by the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, studies natural executive director Gavin Smith, former based in Morehead City. Luettich, also disasters director of the Office of Recovery a professor of marine sciences in the and Renewal in Mississippi. A research College, is internationally recognized for Carolina received professor in the department of city and his work in storm surge and other coastal a multimillion-dollar regional planning in UNC’s College of monitoring. Homeland Security Arts and Sciences, Smith was instrumental “Scientists have learned a great deal grant to establish a new in Mississippi’s Hurricane Katrina from recent natural disasters, including ABOVE: center focused on natural recovery program and also worked Hurricane Katrina,” Luettich said. “While Rick Luettich disasters. in the N.C. Division of Emergency we’ve made a lot of progress modeling The Center of Management. these extreme events, this grant will allow Excellence for the Study of Natural Principal investigator in charge of our national team of experts to take our Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and research is Rick Luettich, director of work to a much higher level.” •

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀29 insiderinsider view view BookshelF The Anatomy of a Presidency By Terry Sullivan

In 1991, a reporter for the Wall Street of the presidency Journal called looking for comment as to turn those individual whether then President George H. W. Bush choices into similar spent more time on foreign policy than any work patterns. previous president. Like so many questions Presidential having to do with the American presidency, workdays differ this had only one real answer: “We have no very little from one LEFT: Terry Sullivan. ABOVE: Former White House earthly idea.” another. Modern Chiefs of Staff Howard Baker (left) and That moment launched a research presidents (after James A. Baker III (right) with Terry Sullivan. program and eventually a multi-institutional Lyndon Johnson) project that came to fruition when I published average within 30 minutes of each other the phone but they see only a few people — the first-ever research on what presidents around a 14-hour work day. except their immediate family — on a regular actually do all day. This report is part basis. The number of people a president of the project I co-founded in 1997, officially encounters at least once a day Presidents encounter anywhere from a multi-institutional consortium called on average, invariably includes only five 450 to 1,900 people a day in meetings the White House Transition Project people: the Vice President, the Secretary and on the phone but they see (WHTP), which lends technical of State, the White House Chief of only a few people — except their support to presidential campaigns, Staff, the National Security Advisor and { immediate family — on a regular basis. } to presidents-elect and to sitting either the Domestic Policy Advisor or presidents and their staffs to properly the Press Secretary. Hence, deciding organize the presidential transition and carry • Presidents in the modern era work on a Secretary of State turns out to shape out White House work. We have now directly just as long on the weekends as they do administrations as much as picking a Chief of assisted two presidential transitions (those of during the week. Staff or Vice President. So, Hillary Clinton is George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama), the • The time commitment of individual as central as Rahm Emanuel or Joe Biden. two smoothest and most effective transitions presidents to specific responsibilities also • No one person officially sees the in our history. In the most recent transition, becomes virtually identical. The more central a president very much. White House Chiefs of I and my WHTP partner, Towson University presidential responsibility, like commander-in- Staff see the president during an average 6 political scientist Martha Kumar, sat as invited chief, the more time presidents spend on it. percent of the president’s day. And everyone consultants on the President’s Transition • Though we see them the most in else’s average time with the president is Coordinating Council — which coordinated their role as communicators, presidents much less. the activities of the outgoing and incoming spend almost no time (5 percent or less) • All presidents become isolated. The administrations. communicating. Thus, parsing presidential average amount of time a president spends This one project transformed the paper speeches and responses to press inquiries during the first hundred days with outsiders is records kept in the presidential libraries of the tells one almost nothing about presidential 1 percent of the day. The most over the past National Archives system into detailed, minute- decision-making or leadership. 50 years was 3 percent. by-minute data accounting the activities of • Presidents’ workdays get longer as But, more importantly, because of this eight presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower their 100 days progress, mostly because their isolation, presidents must become their own through George H.W. Bush — all of the staffs don’t properly anticipate demands on best advisors. • evidence of this sort currently available. Over presidential time. the last 10 years, I have produced descriptive • The president’s time is too valuable Terry Sullivan has been on the political information for some 67,000 activities and an asset to allow the president to control; science faculty in UNC’s College of Arts and programmed some 8 million calculations thus, the importance of having a Chief of Staff. Sciences since 1988. An expert on mathematical just to create the data necessary to answer • Presidents with Chiefs of Staff have theories of governing and leadership, he is questions about how the president works more efficient meetings, see more people, executive director of the White House Transition during the first hundred days. and over time undergo less lengthening of Project, which has also assisted the transitions Here are a few lessons from the data: their work days. of nine emerging democracies, including those • Presidents try hard to be different from • Presidents encounter anywhere from in Mexico, Argentina, East Timor and Poland. one another. But, in the end, the requirements 450 to 1,900 people a day in meetings and on More at whitehousetransitionproject.org.

30฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES BookshelFcollege BookshelF Back to the present?

From a recent account of the president’s response to the monumental economic crisis: “[He] summoned … leaders of industry, finance, construction, public utilities, agriculture, labor, and the Federal Reserve system…. he implored manufacturers to maintain wage rates…. He asked unions to … withdraw pending demands for wage increases. ‘The fundamental business of the country … is on a sound and prosperous basis,’ he declared. ‘Any lack of confidence in the economic future … is foolish.’ …. He [contacted] governors to encourage states and counties to accelerate construction. He urged Congress to appropriate $150 million for public works and to approve a tax cut. He coaxed the Federal Reserve Board to expand the money supply and to make more credit available; for the first time in the history of the republic, discount rates fell to under 2 percent.” — Excerpted from Herbert Hoover by William E. Leuchtenburg. Andy’s record

“I had a wonderful time — and a horrible time — in Chapel Hill. I went through every day hoping, just hoping, they wouldn’t find out how little I knew, but sometimes they did. I failed Political Science 41 twice. My counselor … said: ‘Andy, very few people fail political science once, but nobody fails it twice.’ I guess that was the only record I ever broke at Chapel Hill.” — Andy Griffith ’49, in of Tar Heel Voices, edited by Dan Bare.

• Herbert Hoover: The 31st President globe in the decade before World War I (in • The Summer the Archduke Died (University 1929-33 (Henry Holt & Co.) by William E. Russia, Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, of Missouri Press), by Louis Rubin. The Leuchtenburg. The eminent presidential Mexico and China) ultimately failed when distinguished publisher and UNC English historian helps us recall the other president democratic rights were not upheld. Kurzman, professor emeritus shares erudite essays on who baffled Congress as the economy UNC professor of sociology and an expert the First World War and its impact. tanked big-time. on political movements, discusses why. • The Scary Mason-Dixon Line (Louisiana • Franklin D. Roosevelt and • If Beale Street Could Talk State University Press) by Trudier Harris, the the New Deal (HarperCollins) (University of Illinois Press) J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English. The by William E. Leuchtenburg. by Robert Cantwell. The Southern-born writer and UNC scholar This timely classic has Townsend Ludington of African American literature explores been re-issued as America Professor of why black writers, no seeks lessons from the American matter where they were president who turned an Studies explores raised, have a love-hate unprecedented economic the vernacular relationship with the South. debacle into an opportunity culture of She considers native-born for positive change. everyday black southerners such as Leuchtenburg is UNC objects — a Edward P. Jones, Yusef professor of history emeritus. photograph, a Komunyakaa and UNC’s poem, a blues recording — to Randall Kenan, as well • Democracy Denied (Harvard University draw intimate connections as non-southerners James Press) by Charles Kurzman. The wave among our public, political Baldwin and Octavia E. of democratic revolutions that swept the and personal lives. Butler.

CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀31 BookshelFcollege BookshelF

• Jewishness and the Human Dimension • Dancing with the Dead • The World Is Fat (Fordham University Press) by Jonathan (Duke University Press), by (Avery) by Barry Boyarin. Thoughtful reflections on the Chrisopher Nelson. The UNC Popkin. The UNC connections and tensions between what anthropologist examines how professor of nutrition it means to be a Jew and what it means contemporary residents of and economics to be a human in perilous times. Boyarin Okinawa use various forms of exposes the fads, is the UNC Leonard and Tobee Kaplan storytelling to come to grips with trends, policies, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Thought. the legacies of the brutal Japanese and products that colonial era, the have caused a global • Adventures in Penland: devastation of obesity epidemic One Writer’s Journey World War II (notably sodas, from Inklings to Ink and the long U.S. burgers, super-sized (University of Missouri Press) occupation. fries and other sugar-rich processed food. by Marianne Gingher. So many empty calories and so little time In a characteristically wry • Hark the Sound of Tar for exercise. disquisition on her uphill Heel Voices (John F. Blair) slog to artistic respectability, edited by Dan Bare. The • Reading Hemingway’s ‘Men the UNC creative writing UNC political science and without Women’ (Kent State University professor intersperses law alumnus, a former state Press) by Joseph Flora. The UNC tales of soul-sucking day legislator, chronicles 220 American literary scholar analyzes how jobs, ’60s pop culture and years of University lore Hemingway’s short stories test old ideas blasphemous reading preferences with through the personal stories of Tar Heels, of family, gender, race, ethnicity and insights on southern literature and the from James Hinton and Thomas Wolfe to manhood. writing life. Frank Porter Graham, Andy Griffith, Dean Smith, William Friday and many more. • Drugs: America’s Holy War (Routledge, • Territories of Difference (Duke University Taylor & Francis) by Arthur Benavie. Press) by Arturo Escobar. The Kenan • That Infernal The UNC economics professor Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Little Cuban emeritus provocatively suggests that offers a detailed account of the visions, Republic (UNC criminalization of drugs has increased strategies and practices of a group of Press) by Lars violent crime and the spread of Afro-Colombian activists in the Pacific Schoultz. A AIDS while wasting tax dollars that rainforest region as they struggle for leading Latin could be more effectively spent autonomy, territory, justice and cultural American on prevention and treatment of recognition. studies expert addiction. ponders the • Crusader Art (Lund Humphries) by failed attempts • Positivity (Crown) by Barbara Jaroslav Folda. One of the least known by 10 U.S. Fredrickson. A leading expert aspects of the so-called Holy War was administrations on positive psychology reveals the art commissioned by the Crusaders to end the Cuban Revolution. the scientific evidence showing that in the Holy Land. Folda, UNC professor (Remember the plot to assassinate Castro positive thinking leads people to achieve emeritus and a leader in the field, examines using a rigged ballpoint pen?) Schoultz what they once could only imagine. manuscript illuminations, frescoes, mosaics is the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Fredrickson is Kenan Distinguished and icons of the period. Professor of Political Science. Professor of Psychology. •

32฀฀฀•฀฀฀COLLEGE.UNC.EDU฀฀฀•฀฀฀SPRING 2009฀฀฀•฀฀฀CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES CAROLINA Final poinT arTs& sciences Final poinT Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2009

Director of Communications • Dee Reid

Editor • Kim Weaver Spurr ’88 Assistant Director of Communications

Graphic Designer • Linda Noble

Contributing Writers • Pamela Babcock • DeLene Beeland • Del Helton • JB Shelton • Angela Spivey ’90 • Terry Sullivan • Lisa Towle • Joanna Worrell ’06

Contributing Photographers Dan Sears • Steve Exum ’92 • William Irwin • Ken Lohmann • Shawn Rocco • Lars Sahl • Isaac Sandlin ’06 • Dan Sears ’74, UNC News Services Photographer

Carolina Arts & Sciences is published semi- annually by the College of Arts & Sciences at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and made possible with the support of private funds. Copyright 2009.

If you wish to receive Carolina Arts & Sciences News, our periodic e-mail bulletin, please send us a note with your name, mailing address and e-mail address to: • [email protected].

Online Extras Dan Sears For more news, features, media highlights, interviews, videos, slideshows and more, see our Web site at: • college.unc.edu MUSIC’S NEW DIGS Check out our College blog: • unccollege.wordpress.com TOP: The UNC Wind Ensemble, directed by assistant music professor Evan Feldman, rehearses in the And our new page on Facebook. large rehearsal hall in the new Kenan Music Building. The hall is large enough to accommodate practice by the Marching Tar Heels. The new building is set to be officially dedicated on April 1. The William R. The College of Arts & Sciences The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust gave $4 million to complete funding for the building. BOTTOM: Sophomore Campus Box 3100 music major David Davis plays the euphonium. Chapel Hill, N.C. 27599-3100 (919) 962-1165 NONPROFIT ORG US POSTAGE P A I D COLLEGE OF CHAPEL HILL NC ARTS & SCIENCES PERMIT 177

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL CAMPUS BOX 3100 205 SOUTH BUILDING CHAPEL HILL, NC 27599-3100

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