There’s so much really great about UNC-Chapel Hill!

More than basketball

Basketball is great, and I will be pulling for our men’s and women’s teams in the NCAA competition. We’re also great in a lot of other sports, and a recent meeting at our School with athletic director Bubba Cunningham makes me very optimistic that our athletics programs are on the right path. But Chapel Hill is a lot more than sports. Sunday night, my husband and I finally got to Memorial Hall for the first time in a few years (for me) and heard the fabulous Cleveland Orchestra right here in Chapel Hill, playing Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. (FYI, student tickets are a deal!) It was wonderful and reminded me that in Chapel Hill, most people don’t have to drive the kind of distances we drove up north to get to outstanding cultural events. Former Chancellor James Moeser introduced the evening with some highlights of recent positive press coverage of music and dance in Chapel Hill. And kudos to the former Chancellor for all he has done for the campus and the arts here. Of course, there are lots of other music and arts events here besides Stravinsky. I found this wonderful reminiscence from a man who was here in 1975 and fondly remembered the music scene.

HPM case competition winners Mr. Ransom, Ms. Lamb and Ms. Wigfall with Dr. Will Ferniany, CEO, UAB Health System

Each day, our students, staff and faculty are responsible for fabulous accomplishments. Check out today’s UNC and SPH homepages for a sampling.

• Health Policy and Management students took home first prize in the University of Alabama Birmingham’s annual health care case competition. Kudos to Kelley Lamb, Cayla Wigfall and Eric Ransom!
• Assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering, Rose Cory, PhD, published new findings about the effect of sunlight in the Arctic—a new look at something we take for granted.
• Yesterday, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg announced new guidelines for the placement and sale of cigarettes, a policy informed by the research of our own Kurt Ribisl, PhD, professor of health behavior. (See his NC REACH Research profile.)
  

  Kurt Ribisl, PhD

• In the last couple weeks, epidemiology student Amy Lowman was first author on a paper titled “Land Application of Treated Sewage Sludge: Community Health and Environmental Justice” in Environmental Health Perspectives. In the U.S., a majority of treated sewage sludge (biosolids) is applied to farmland as a soil amendment. Using qualitative data, Lowman and colleagues painted an in-depth picture of how people living near these areas experience them, and it’s not pretty. Noxious sludge odors caused physical symptoms and reduced quality of life.
• Researchers in our School, including Amy Lowman and her co-authors, are documenting the ways people in communities, often low-income populations, experience the impact of their environments.

A person could get an amazing education just by reading the articles UNC-Chapel Hill faculty and students publish every day. This is a great place. Even when I am working really late, as I often do, I am so glad to be right here, right now in Chapel Hill! It’s a wonderful place. And I don’t mind that it is 67 beautiful degrees today. Happy Tuesday! (I’m a little behind.) Barbara