Lauren Ratcliffe

Recent articles

UNC basketball ticket sign-ups altered

The days of signing up for an entire month’s worth of basketball tickets are over.
Instead of signing up during the last 10 days of a month for the following month’s games, students will sign up for each game individually next year under the new ticket policy. Students will have a 72-hour window, beginning 10 days before each game, to sign up. “I think it will put more responsibility on the students to register during that 72 hours,” said Caitlin Goforth, president of the Carolina Athletic Association. MAY 11

UNC’s basketball ticket policy to change little

By the time incoming freshmen step foot on campus for orientation, any changes to the basketball ticket policy should be set in stone. But students hoping for big changes to the ticket policy are likely to be disappointed. Caitlin Goforth, president of the Carolina Athletic Association, said her objective is to set up next year’s policy early so that the CAA can better communicate with students “My goal is to get this policy fast tracked so that we have it done by C-TOPS,” Goforth said. APR 13

UNC librarians among “movers and shakers” in library science field

Librarians Chad Haefele and Emily King insist libraries are more than buildings with books. And last year they set out to show it with a single game. In January 2010, they combined gaming and education when they created and held a one-time, two-week long alternate reality game called “Should Brandon and Nicole get Engaged,” or ShBANGE. Because of their efforts, Library Journal named them two of 50 “movers and shakers” in the field of library science for 2011, bringing recognition to the innovative ways UNC Libraries are connecting people to information. “The original idea came from a couple of alternate reality games I’d played in a having fun kind of way,” said Haefele, the emerging technologies librarian for Davis Library in the research and instructional services department. “And being that I think of information management so often, I began to think that maybe there could be an education component to this,” he said. Rather than focusing on topics traditionally included in lectures or seminars, Haefele and King, the coordinator for eLearning services for University libraries, explored ways to teach topics that classrooms don’t address. After consulting with Counseling and Wellness Services, the Campus Y and the Residence Hall Association, they said they realized relationship issues would make a good focus. “When you go to class, you learn about things like biology, history or English, but you’re having to learn on the fly how to negotiate relationships,” said Laura Christopherson, a doctoral student in the School of Information and Library Science and project manager for ShBANGE. The volunteer group Haefele and King assembled to run the game kick-started it with an elaborate marriage proposal in the Pit. Volunteers then passed out fortune cookies with websites students could visit if they wished to get involved. MAR 30

UNC’s Innovate@Carolina sees funds trickle in

Five months after its launch, Innovate@Carolina is not quite a fifth of the way to its fundraising goal for the year. Since its launch in October, the program has raised $23.3 million, about 18.6 percent of its goal of $125 million for this year. MAR 22

Carter wins prestigious Rhodes scholarship

This May, Carter will become the first in his family to graduate from college. His scholarship will allow him to pursue a fully-funded master’s degree in Latin American studies at Cambridge University. MAR 15

Students get fewer tickets to UNC basketball games

Citing chronically low student attendance, the athletic department has reduced the number of student tickets by 34 percent from last year. Though rate of attendance has been low for decades, athletic department officials said they decided to reduce the amount of student tickets after particularly poor attendance last year. The office distributes an average of 2,798 tickets per game this year. FEB 28

Friday Night Friends provides childcare to special needs children

Friday Night Friends is a respite care program for families with a special needs child at Newhope Church in Durham. Parents said it gives them a blessing — a night without worry. FEB 15

Marion Jones shares life lessons with athletes

When former women’s basketball player Tonya Cooper Williams introduced Marion Jones to student athletes Tuesday, she didn’t mention any of her accomplishments on the court or track. FEB 10

University considers remedial course plan

With more students placing out of entry-level English courses, the University is looking to restructure a bedrock of its general requirements: 101 and 102 classes. FEB 7

Parking services fees to increase

Parking and transportation costs affecting the University are set to rise by $6.1 million by the 2015 academic year and to account for that increase, the University is looking to its students and faculty regardless of whether they own a vehicle. FEB 7

Breland hopes ACC play will promote fund

A year after cancer sidelined Jessica Breland from competition, she’s looking to the start of ACC competition as a chance for the hospital fund in her name to become widely known. JAN 9

Transfer students struggle to graduate in 8 semesters

After transferring to UNC her junior year and taking at least 15 hours each semester, senior Jacqueline Scott is looking forward to graduating in May with her friends. But with barely enough hours to graduate on schedule, Scott said she looks back at her time at UNC and wishes she had more help. NOV 17

UNC program will help new companies get off the ground, encourage innovation

With an emphasis on innovation, the University has launched a new program to help new companies get off the ground. Their creativity earned them a $100,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to bolster the technical side of the project. NOV 1

Protein immunity linked to muscular dystrophy

An unintended result of a small study into muscular dystrophy has opened up a new frontier for national gene therapy research. As part of the first clinical trial addressing gene therapy, researchers studying muscular dystrophy were attempting to use a virus to safely provide patients with the disease a genetic protein that could treat them. OCT 11

Eve Carson Scholarship helps scholars Fish, Chase to carry on leader's legacy

The Eve Carson Scholarship was created in 2008 in honor of Eve Carson, the 2007-08 student body president who was murdered during her term in office. The scholarship aims to help student leaders commit to their positions by helping pay tuition costs. MAR 10

Carolina Population Center funded $48 million for research

With nearly $50 million in research funding, the Carolina Population Center established itself at the end of the 2010 fiscal year as a leading research entity at the University. MAR 16

UNC Student shares photos of trip to migrant village

The bright lights and bustling streets of Beijing, China are often photographed. But rarely do images of migrant children running barefoot down dirt roads on the city outskirts make it into the glossy spreads of travel magazines. SEP 8

Pi Kapa Phi Fraternity finds home

A two-year journey ended at 216 E.
For the brothers of Pi Kappa Phi, moving into their house was the tangible result of a painstaking effort to return to UNC. MAR 9

UNC trying to quit coal

Twenty tons of wood pellets arriving next week will signify the beginning of the end for on-campus coal. At the University’s Energy Task Force’s meeting Thursday, members said those shipments will mark the first tangible step in fulfilling Chancellor Holden Thorp’s promise to make UNC coal-free by 2020. AUG 30

Dorm leads in green contest

UNC might soon have another national title, but this one won’t be for sports — or even academics. Morrison Residence Hall is in first place in a national competition for energy efficiency, sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, after reducing its energy use intensity by 19.2 percent in six months. AUG 27

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