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(04/28/06 4:00am)
While some students might spend Saturday night celebrating the end of classes, others will spend the night on McCorkle Place in hopes of making a difference in the lives of Ugandan children.
The quad will host participants for the first Global Night Commute, a grassroots event encompassing more than 130 cities and almost 50,000 expected participants worldwide.
The listserv for participants coming to Chapel Hill has grown to about 100 recipients, including students from Duke and Elon universities, said Graham White, who has helped organize the commute on campus.
The event is designed to raise local and national awareness about the thousands of "night commuter" children in the Gulu district of northern Uganda.
"I hope that people will do this with the mentality of 'This is not about me,'" White said.
The event will imitate the children's nightly search for refuge in town, where they hope to avoid abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army, which has been fighting for almost 20 years to displace Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
The rebel army maintains its ranks by abducting children and training them as soldiers or holding them as sex slaves.
In 2003 three filmmakers set out to tell the night commuter's story in a documentary called "Invisible Children." The film helped foster the movement that led to Saturday's event.
According to the film, it is unknown exactly how many child soldiers and commuters there are because of a lack of statistics from rural villages. However, many believe it to be in the thousands and possibly the tens of thousands.
One scene documents the children's nightly routine and the crowded sleeping spaces in a hospital - one of the safe havens in Gulu.
A GuluWalk was held in Chapel Hill Saturday to raise awareness about Ugandan child soldiering. A native of Gulu, Okot Nyormoi, spoke at the event.
"The first thing to do is learn about the situation, read as broadly as possible so you can see what seems to be true," he said. "Then talk to your congressman, churches. Write to the president."
White said the main purpose of the GNC is letter-writing - each participant will be encouraged to write to both President Bush and one state senator.
"I think we're really sold on the idea that this can really change history," White said.
About 600 people in Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Charlotte, Wilmington and Boone were committed to commute as of Thursday, according to the "Invisible Children" Web site, invisiblechildren.com.
You can sign up to participate on the site.
Rain or shine, the night's events will occur, said White and UNC student Evelyn Dickmann, who will participate in the commute.
"I'm gonna be there no matter what, because the children have to commute no matter what the weather does," Dickmann said.
White said he hopes the possibility of rain will not deter anyone from participating.
"This night isn't about us, so if we have to settle for a little bit of discomfort, what's that compared to so many years of civil war?"
Contact the News Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(04/24/06 4:00am)
A chant resounded throughout Chapel Hill and Carrboro on Saturday afternoon, sung by about 30 walkers wearing orange shirts:
"G-U-L-U, we walk so they don't have to!"
The group, which included students and community members, was participating in Chapel Hill's second GuluWalk - an event designed to raise awareness for the "night commuter" children in the Gulu district of northern Uganda.
The 7-mile trek represented the distance thousands of unaccompanied children walk into Gulu to sleep every night. They seek refuge from the Lord's Resistance Army, which kidnaps children and trains them as soldiers.
Lauren Gebhard, a sophomore who helped organize the event within the Campus Y special project Student Movement to End Child Soldiering, said the event is aimed at raising awareness about an issue that is largely unreported.
"It's been going on since I was born, and I'd never heard of it," she said, adding that she got involved in the movement last year after viewing "Invisible Children," a documentary about the child night commuters.
The walk is a microcosm of a Canadian-born worldwide movement to raise awareness about the Ugandan civil war and its negative effects on children. The first walk in Chapel Hill took place Dec. 3.
"On campus, people want to get involved in causes like these, but it can be hard to know what's going on," Gebhard said.
The LRA, which is based in the rural areas of Gulu, has been fighting for almost 20 years to displace Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
The rebel army has abducted thousands of children in northern Uganda, forcing them to become rebel soldiers and sex slaves, according to the GuluWalk Web site, www.guluwalk.com.
Guest speaker Okot Nyormoi, a professor at N.C. Central University who hails from the Gulu district, said the world knows little about what is really going on in Uganda due to Museveni's effective public relations.
"I think that's beginning to change," he said before the walk.
"But still the story is not being told objectively - the focus has always been on the rebels, not what the government is doing. But in any community the government has responsibility to protect all its citizens."
Nyormoi compared the government to a mother hen that must protect her baby chicks.
"The government is saying, 'Ah, today they only took one chick, so it's not so bad,'" he said. "But each of those chicks matters."
Nyormoi said the first thing students should do is learn about the situation, then tell others and put pressure on their government to do something about the situation.
Keith Seymour, a sophomore who participated in the GuluWalk, said students need to get involved in knowing what's going on.
"I just feel like we as citizens of the world need to take notice of (the situation in Uganda) and not let it go. It's more than past time for us to do something about it."
For more information, visit guluwalk.com and ugandacan.org.
While it did not rain on the walkers, Gebhard said that storms early Saturday probably affected turnout. But she added that any number of supporters is considered a success.
Sophie Nachman, a 7-year-old who walked Saturday with her mother Deedee Nachman, handed out informational papers and bracelets to bystanders in town as the walkers passed by chanting.
"I wouldn't want to do it, I would want to stay with my parents," she said, comparing herself to the night commuting children.
"I'm not old enough to sleep without my parents."
Contact the News Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(04/10/06 4:00am)
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Silhouetted on stage, drummers pounded out an infectious rhythm. Suddenly, the crowd was blinded by white light, and the aisles of Memorial Hall came alive with flag-waving dancers dressed in the vibrant attire of South Asia.
(02/20/06 5:00am)
One of the campus's oldest and largest student organizations elected new leadership Friday.
Kheang Lim and Mona Soni were elected co-presidents of the Campus Y, the University's largest service organization, and they will take their positions after Spring Break.
"I'm really excited about bringing both of our ideas together, staying on track with what we've been doing but also bringing some improvements," Lim said. "I think both of our experiences in the Y will be really helpful."
Lim, who ran unopposed, is Campus Y technology director, and Soni, who beat out Anne Phillips, is committee director and the former co-chairwoman of Helping Paws.
The election was open to all Campus Y members and also boosted Katie Macpherson to minister of information and Jane Hauser to external treasurer.
Kamal Menghrajani, departing co-president, said she and her co-president, Stephen Lassiter, will begin meeting with Lim and Soni immediately to help them choose officers.
"We're going to sit down with them and go through and explain what the role entails on a day-to-day basis," she said.
The role of the co-president is to provide training and resources for the co-chairmen of the special projects and 17 committees of Campus Y, she added.
Lim said he hopes to increase awareness of the Campus Y at UNC, especially while the office is located in the Student Union while renovations continue to the group's permanent home.
"We want to make people aware that we are in a more high-traffic area of campus," he said. "We'll work on finding a way to get wider numbers and members of the community involved in the projects that the Y does."
Lim said he hopes more people will get involved in tangible ways - by joining committees or participating in forums and panels.
His platform included practical ways to increase awareness of the organization on campus - such as advertising on SLICE, student government's online events calendar, and making templates and stencils of the Campus Y logo to make it easier to replicate.
Soni said she is excited about creating co-chairman training sessions to teach skills such as recruiting members, delegating tasks, finding corporate sponsors and fundraising.
Lassiter said the next couple of weeks will be important because the application process for other offices will be opened.
The positions include the director of outreach, membership coordinator, technology director and four committee directors.
Members can go to the group's Web site, campus-y.unc.edu, to access applications once they are posted in the coming weeks.
Once selected the new officers will begin recruiting students to work as co-chairmen - from both inside and outside the organization, Lassiter said. "Our positions are open up to all students. It's a mix of old and new talent."
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(02/15/06 5:00am)
The campus leader to follow in Mike Brady's administrative footsteps will come from within the Graduate and Professional Student Federation.
Lauren Anderson, a fourth-year neurobiology student, defeated P.J. Lusk by almost 200 votes Tuesday to succeed Brady as the next president of the GPSF.
"I'm so excited," Anderson said soon after hearing the results. "I feel like I can start doing stuff now."
Anderson garnered 348 votes, while Lusk earned 159.
Immediately after the results were announced, Lusk said he will have to think about whether he will work with the GPSF next year.
"I really hope that she takes the GPSF in a new direction, that she brings in the new blood. But we'll see," he said.
Anderson said she would call Brady today to get the ball rolling.
"We're going to start the transition process tomorrow," she said Tuesday night. "See what his meetings and plans are for the rest of the week."
Anderson is treasurer of the GPSF and was endorsed by the group. This is her second year of involvement.
She said she hopes her new role will place her in a more prominent role on campus.
"I'll definitely be more visible on campus, for better or for worse," she said. "I'll probably start working nights in the (neurobiology) labs."
Anderson said that she had trouble logging in to Student Central to cast her own vote while the polls were open - and that she hoped no one was deterred from voting by any technical difficulties.
Her campaign focused on making graduate and professional students a stronger voice on campus.
"It's interesting for me to see that the students here have such a voice, and it's underutilized," she said last week.
One way she plans to make that voice louder is by reissuing the comprehensive survey of graduate and professional students - a task last completed 20 years ago.
The survey would produce figures the GPSF could use to confront the University about graduate and professional student issues, she said.
"I'm really most excited about the survey," she said Tuesday night. "The results from that are going to provide a lot of leverage, but we're not going to wait for those results. We're going to move on graduate issues now."
Her platform included plans to increase communications between the graduate and professional student body and the GPSF so that it can better fulfill its role.
She promised that the GPSF will become more active and identifiable next year.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(02/10/06 5:00am)
Science majors, want a taste of life outside the laboratory?
Try a high school classroom.
Arts and sciences students who decide late in their college careers that they want to teach soon might be able to enter the classroom within months of graduation.
Thomas James, dean of the School of Education, said he is in the process of implementing an accelerated education program for last-year students. James' vision is for students to be licensed to teach by the August after graduation.
"There is, of course, a dire shortage of science and math teachers," James said. "We've had students who expressed interest too late to enroll in our full education program, so we're trying to figure out ways that we can accelerate their entry into teaching."
According to a state survey, last year a majority of the 115 N.C. school systems said upper-level math and science teachers were most needed.
"The shortage is so intense that we have to be creative," James said.
The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia experienced a similar call for innovation in attracting science and math students several years ago, said UVa. professors Sandy Cohen and Randy Bell.
The two were key players in starting a "late-deciders" program there.
The Curry program for teacher education is a five-year track, from which students graduate with a master's degree in teaching and a bachelor's degree in their area of study.
Typically, Cohen said, second-year students request permission to enter Curry - it takes three more years to graduate with both degrees. With the program, arts and sciences students can apply one year late and still graduate after their fifth year.
Bell said that since the application waiver began about four years ago, the number of students focusing on secondary education has grown from about six students to about 20 - a "good number" of which are the late-deciders.
"Someone who is devoted to science and decides later that they want to be a teacher, they can be a really strong teacher," Bell said. "You're getting folks who are really high-quality folks who have worked hard and who often have research experience."
Another part of the Curry program is "Students Exploring Teaching," which offers a set of up to five courses for arts and sciences students to learn about teaching. After graduation it is up to students to pursue a teaching license.
Cohen said many SET students pursue a higher teaching degree after obtaining their undergraduate degree, while others apply for their licenses right away. Only about 15 percent, she said, decide not to go into education at all.
Candace Turk, the human resources director for Duplin County Schools in southeastern North Carolina, said the county is one of many that is in need of such teachers.
"You want to have the best already trained," she said. "It would be even greater if we had people coming right out of school."
Laurie McNeil, chairwoman of the UNC physics department, said it would be favorable to work with the School of Education to create a fast-track program.
"We certainly have students who have gone out and become schoolteachers," she said. "And we've had others who have decided around the time of completion (of their degrees) that they wanted to teach and have gone on to graduate school."
Although a new teacher education program has been discussed, McNeil said, there has been no further action to move forward with the idea.
James said his next step is to recommend to administrators that implementation of a fast-track program be prioritized.
"I think we can do it - my dream would be to even help the next batch."
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(01/20/06 5:00am)
On an overcast December day, Javier Perez-Albert ducked under the wing of a Cessna 152, climbed into the cockpit of the small trainer plane and got his wings.
The University junior successfully completed his first solo flight as a student and is now on his way to fulfilling his dream of becoming a career pilot.
"You're giddy and nervous, but mostly it's just really cool," he says, remembering that first solo.
Perez-Albert comes from a family familiar with aviation - his father and grandfather were both pilots - but his own journey to the sky began his sophomore year when he enrolled in flight lessons with the Wings of Carolina Flying Club.
The 254-member club has been flying since 1961, landing at the Sanford-Lee County Regional Airport - a 35-minute country drive south of campus - for three years since its move from Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport.
Though the move to Sanford-Lee initially decreased student and general membership, club leaders view it positively.
"This is a truly superior airport," says chief flight instructor George Scheer, citing some of Sanford-Lee's advantages, among them a longer runway, parallel taxiway, maintenance facilities on the field and approach lighting.
"To UNC students, Sanford seems like the end of the earth," Scheer says. "But it's still the most convenient and best place for someone from UNC to come learn how to fly."
The main difference is that students no longer can stop by the club just to say hello and chat like they used to, he says.
Scheer, who has been associated with Wings of Carolina since he learned to fly in the 1970s, says he can relate to students who have little time and money to invest in earning their wings.
After initially earning his pilot's license, he had to take a several-year flying hiatus because he couldn't afford it.
"I know what it's like to count every penny," Scheer says. "But flight instruction is too important to choose simply on the basis of cost."
Because much of the maintenance and other costs are taken care of by member volunteers, Scheer says the club is a cheap option for students.
When University freshman Hayley Thompson turned 16, she didn't ask her parents for a car - she told them she wanted to fly.
"It was quite exhilarating being up there," she says of the one-hour birthday lesson aloft.
"I always used to be the 6-year-old who wanted to sneak into the cockpit to see the pilot."
Thompson, who hails from Bristol, England, originally had planned to join the Royal Air Force but changed her plans when she became a Morehead Scholar.
"Why should America stop me from learning how to fly?"
At the beginning of the fall semester, Thompson contacted John Hunter, ground school instructor at the club.
Hunter says the Wings of Carolina ground school stresses safety and professional courtesy in contrast to the "stick-and-rudder" approach often found at other ground schools.
"It was pretty awesome," Thompson says of her ground school experience.
"John Hunter brought a lot of his own experiences into the course and emphasized safety."
President Paul Wilder says the continuing flight instruction that he receives at the club far outranks his own introductory training.
"My experience is similar to other people's in the club who have flown other places," he says.
"The instruction at the club is just unbelievably better - George Scheer is there just because he loves flying and loves instructing."
"It's an ideal way to get an exposure (to flying) and learn if it's really something that interests you and what's really involved," Scheer says of the weekly three-hour course, which is held every Wednesday night for 14 weeks.
Anyone interested in learning how to fly can call 776-2003 for more information.
As a freshman international student adjusting to American culture and college classes, Thompson says she found flight school more of a challenge than she expected.
With a job as an office assistant to pay for the lessons and with no driver's license, she had to catch a lift to Sanford-Lee every week.
Though Thompson and Perez-Albert are at different levels of training, both say they plan to continue pursuing their wings.
Perez-Albert, who will study in New Zealand this semester, says he hopes to continue practicing there the skills he needs to get his pilot's license.
Thompson is taking an Air Force class to keep her interests flying high and gain a different perspective above American soil - and until she begins flight lessons, she'll keep dreaming of the sky.
Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.
(01/19/06 5:00am)
In a closed Honor Court hearing Monday night, UNC's Beta Theta Pi fraternity pled guilty to charges that it violated the Honor Code's hazing policy.
Adrian Broome, deputy student attorney general, said the fraternity has been placed under "group probation of an indefinite duration," effective from today until at least the end of the 2006-07 school year.
The Code offenses originally were reported in an anonymous e-mail sent Sept. 21 to Jay Anhorn, assistant dean of students and director of Greek Affairs. He could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the results of the hearing.
The probation restricts the fraternity from holding any organized social event until the sanction is lifted.
But Broome said there is an exception: Each semester the fraternity is allowed to hold one event, which must include either parents, alumni or both, and which must be approved by the Office of the Dean of Students.
John Deans, chairman of the Undergraduate Honor Court and chairman for the hearing, said the Court decided not to restrict the fraternity from adding new members in the fall.
"They'll still be able to rush and have new members; they just won't be able to hold an official event," he said.
The defense has the opportunity to appeal the decision on two grounds: severity of sanctions and violation of basic rights, Broome said. If granted an appeal, it would be heard before the University Hearings Board.
Kenny Thompson, acting president of the fraternity at the time of the incident, declined to say whether it will use the option.
"I thought it went well," said Thompson, who represented the defense at the hearing, which lasted 4 1/2 hours. "The sanctions were fair."
"The Court took a good amount of time to consider the sanctions," Deans said.
While the specific charges were not released to the public, the Code defines hazing as any initiation activity that carries with it "risks of physical injury, mental distress or personal indignities of a highly offensive nature."
Thompson, a junior, said it is too early to tell how the fraternity will conduct its rush in the fall while accommodating the social restrictions. He said the fraternity will cooperate with the dean of students in such planning.
There were eight participants in the hearing: five court members, an investigative counsel, a defense counsel and Thompson, who served as the defendant.
One other member of the fraternity acted as a witness. Deans said the hearing was closed to protect individual student rights in keeping with protections provided by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Broome said there was an additional requirement the fraternity must fulfill before applying in spring 2007 to have the sanction lifted.
"They also have to create and present a hazing-awareness program to the Greek community, through the honor system outreach coordinator's office, before the probation can be lifted," she said.
Thompson said he has ideas for the presentation and will begin planning soon. He declined to comment further on the results of the hearing or the investigation.
Broome said the Court recommended that the group's charter be revoked if any of the conditions are not met.
The fraternity was investigated Oct. 3 by the Greek Judicial Board for the same incident and was placed under social probation for violations of the Interfraternity Council's Code of Conduct.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(01/17/06 5:00am)
Chapel Hill, a town that was honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a holiday before the federal government followed suit, paused Monday to observe the legacy of the civil rights hero.
A variety of events throughout the Triangle allowed a diverse cross section of community members to embody King's message.
The Daily Tar Heel caught up with participants on their varying journeys to honor King.
From the University
(10/12/05 4:00am)
Maintaining a healthy political community in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area depends upon the involvement of graduate students, local leaders say.
(09/30/05 4:00am)
The term "racism" has been trivialized, said Lawrence Blum on Thursday in a speech for the Parr Center for Ethics.