CROSS COUNTRY

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Junior Biology Major Dipa Desai sifts through books in the stacks in the SILS Library in Manning Hall. The School of Information and Library Science just announced that it is offering a 5-year masters program. SILS is the number one information and library science school in the country.

Unsustainable scholarship: How private companies control research in higher education

By Preston Lennon

Academic research is a staple of university libraries. Faculty depend on it for their own research, and students need it for their studies. But because of private publishing companies, who play a confusing and controlling role in the process of research creation, UNC Libraries is sounding alarms about the system's flaws.  The publishing companies make money by selling research journal access to university libraries in confidential deals. UNC Libraries said there's an imbalance in the process, because tax payers subsidize research authoring, then subsequently have to pay again for research access.  Rebels against the publishing giants advocate for open access — publishing online for free without paywalls — and say that continuing to buy into publishers' demands will impair scientific progress.

9/18/2019 6:55am

Community leader Robert Campbell at the RENA Community Center in Chapel Hill, NC on Tuesday September 17, 2019. Campbell, president of the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association, believes community building depends on youth. Government officials face criticism amid concerns from the Rogers-Eubanks area residents over the government building in the historically black neighborhood. 

A community persists through decades of environmental injustice: the story of Rogers Road.

By Alice Bennett

“It was awful. I wouldn’t want to live like this — nobody should.” The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood traces its roots back over 150 years as Black farmers settled in the area after emancipation. For decades, the area was rural, but the landscape changed in 1972 when the Town of Chapel Hill selected Eubanks Road as the site for Orange County’s new landfill, right next door to the community. Since that decision, environmental justice advocates have been criticizing government officials for building in the historically Black neighborhood.

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9/16/2019 10:43pm

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Local schools face measles threat, even with high vaccination rates

By Elizabeth Holmes

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report last month confirming over 1,200 individual cases of measles in 31 different states since the beginning of the year, the highest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1992. And the effects are being felt all over the country, including in Chapel Hill. Tracy Sanders, lead nurse for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, said despite the district’s history of high vaccination rates, health officials are monitoring measles closely to prevent outbreaks and potential quarantines of affected students.  State law requires that every child be vaccinated against several diseases, including measles whooping cough, but there are a number of exemptions available. Although personal or philosophical beliefs against vaccinations do not qualify as legal exemptions, there is no formal process of verifying whether a religious statement is truly applicable to a student.