Amid the drunken yelling, waving dollar bills and throngs of partygoers, Chapel Hill’s bartenders keep the customers happy and the alcohol flowing, working their way through the town’s booming night life. “Our job is to be nice — to make people feel good and comfortable,” said Chad Lloyd, Top of the Hill’s bar manager. “That’s why the bartender is usually everyone’s favorite person.”
BYNUM - Just a few miles south of Carrboro, a yellow road sign saying "Critter Crossing" marks the home of Clyde Jones, a world-renowned artist who takes wasted wood, a chain saw and his imagination and creates masterpieces. For more than 20 years, Jones has been making critters from old wood, plastic and whatever else he might have lying around. Pink elephants, grinning alligators and flower-eyed giraffes litter the front yard of his tiny house. In the back, a gigantic pile of wood sits awaiting inspiration.
As potential candidates for student government began collecting signatures Wednesday, several said the new rules of this year's election will lead to a more serious and inclusive campaign season. Student body president campaigns are being affected most heavily by the changes. Under the Larson-Daum Campaign Reform Act of 2002, campaigns now are financed by Student Congress, the number of signatures required on petitions has increased and the length of the campaign period has decreased.
Survey results presented Wednesday showed that graduate students strongly prefer to keep their grading system despite a proposal for change. The Graduate and Professional Student Federation recently surveyed graduate students about a proposal to change the graduate grading system from "high pass," "pass," "low pass," "fail" to a letter-grade scale. About 22 percent of all graduate students participated in the survey, which concluded Monday. Results were compiled, then presented at Wednesday's meeting of the Faculty Council's Educational Policy Committee.
Two members of Student Congress resigned Tuesday, making it possible for one member who stepped down recently to run for election. Congress members Kristin Taylor, District 16, and Ben Davidson, District 19, both announced their resignations. Taylor said she had to resign because she recently moved out of her district and into District 18. She said she hopes to return to Congress in the future.
The one-stop voting station at Morehead Planetarium closed Friday after a two-week run that brought 1,828 voters to the polls. Although there was no way to know what percentage of voters were students, officials said they had hoped for higher overall turnout. "I think it was reasonable to say that if we provided open voting, we should have had at least 4,000 voters," said Associate Provost Steve Allred.
A seminar course designed to review and explore changes to UNC's general education curriculum met for the first time Tuesday. The seminar, designed to give students insight into the process of designing and revising a college's curriculum, counts as a one-hour pass/D/fail course. Originally about 15 students showed interest in the class, but as of Tuesday only five students were enrolled.
UNC's Department of Psychiatry recently was awarded a federal grant of more than $9.3 million to conduct an extensive five-year study on schizophrenia. The grant establishes a research center, the Conte Center, which will facilitate a collaborative effort between four major universities to research brain development from the prenatal stage through early adulthood. The center is the 20th nationally to be established in memory of former U.S. Congressman Silvio Conte who was an advocate of research for brain disease.
UNC Learning from Experience, a mentoring program created to improve the intellectual climate on campus, kicked off Wednesday night with a seminar at Carroll Hall. UNCLE, one of UNC's newest campus organizations, was created last February by a board of seven students, said Chairman Alistair Cooper, a senior political science major. "We wanted a way to make intellectual resources more readily available to freshmen on campus, to give them more options," Cooper said. "Too many people when they come in are arbitrarily attracted to the first thing they find just so they can be involved.
The Morehead Planetarium parking lot now is functioning as a gated pay lot as part of an ongoing effort to curb illegal parking on campus. Gating projects begun on many campus parking lots during the summer are nearing completion, said Cheryl Stout, assistant director of parking services. "So far, the (Department of Public Safety) and Morehead lots are the only ones that have been gated," Stout said. "But the others are all in progress and nearing completion." A list of lots to be gated was generated last February by Derek Poarch, director of DPS.
