Engineering student Lauren Bridgers

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Everywhere Gordon Beverly III goes, he sees things that could be improved through engineering: the unorganized flow of checkout lines at some fast food restaurants or buses taking numerous left turns when right turns are more efficient.

That is part of the reason Beverly, 27, returned to East Carolina University this fall to begin pursuing a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Engineering. He already holds degrees in mathematics and mathematics secondary education from the university, and left a teaching job at D.H. Conley High School to come back to school.

Beverly is one of a handful of students studying engineering at ECU after first earning other degrees or embarking on unrelated careers. Hayden Griffin, chair of the Department of Engineering, noticed the trend this fall.

“I think the national attention to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and STEM careers has a lot to do with it,” Griffin said. “There was a piece on the local TV news recently about how engineering salaries are high and there are plenty of jobs.

“One other attraction may be that the second-degree students I know all live around here, so proximity and our willingness to work with them, to allow the credits from their previous degree to count toward their engineering degree, are probably factors.”

That was the case for Lauren Bridgers, an alumna of Colorado State University who moved to North Carolina with her husband in 2007. After three years teaching second and third grade, Bridgers realized the career path she had chosen was not for her after all.

“While I loved teaching … I felt like that was 10 percent of my job and the rest was paperwork, counseling and working with parents,” she said.

“I’m passionate about the environment and the root cause of a lot of environmental problems are machines. I want to use engineering to save the world.”

Bridgers, also 27, said she considered attending N.C. State University, but chose ECU because “it’s a smaller program so I knew I would get more of a personalized education.”

She is scheduled to graduate this May.

Not all second-degree students are former teachers. The department includes a student with a bachelor’s degree in music, and recent graduates entered the program with prior degrees ranging from accounting to athletic training.

Barbara Sage, 24, graduated from ECU in May 2010 with a degree in exercise physiology. Originally planning to continue her education in a physical therapy program, she was disappointed by the job she saw in field observations her junior and senior years.

“Everybody has a niche and that just wasn’t mine,” Sage said.

She considered medical school and started a graduate degree in biology before bailing out and starting over — again — in biomedical engineering. It proved a good fit.

“Engineering is a lifelong learning degree,” Sage said. “I’m really excited about working in industry.”

Second-degree students are excelling in the program, Griffin said, and often outpace traditional undergraduates. The students agree that it has a lot to do with maturity.

“If I’d gone into engineering right away, I wouldn’t have stuck with it,” Bridgers said. “It’s a lot of work for a first-time college student. If I have one day not doing homework, it’s amazing.”

“People who have already (completed) a degree know how to study, know what helps them learn,” Sage said.

“When I know I’m going back to school and (know) what I’m going to get out of it,” Beverly said, “the motivation is already there.”

More information about ECU’s Department of Engineering is available online at www.ecu.edu/engineering.

Former Disney exec to speak at ECU

Lee Cockerell, former executive vice president of operations for the Walt Disney World Resort, will speak at 3:30 p.m. on Monday in Wright Auditorium as part of the Cunanan Leadership Speaker Series hosted by the College of Business.

The public is invited to attend this free event.

As the senior operating executive for 10 years, Cockerell led a team of 40,000 employees and was responsible for the operations of 20 resort hotels, four theme parks, two water parks, a shopping and entertainment village, and a sports and recreation complex — in addition to the ancillary operations that supported the number one vacation destination in the world.

Cockerell also held various executive positions in the hospitality and entertainment business, spending eight years with Hilton Hotels and 17 years with the Marriott Corporation before joining Disney in 1990 to open the Disneyland Paris project.

He retired in 2006 and authored a book on leadership, management, and service excellence. The title of his presentation is “Lessons in Leadership…YOU Too Can Create Disney Magic.”

For more information, contact the College of Business Professional Programs, cobprofpro@ecu.edu or 328-6377.

Upcoming events

• Thursday: The History, Legacy and Celebration of Desegregation in Higher Education: A keynote address from Justice Henry E. Frye and panel discussion kicks off a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of desegregation at ECU; 7-8:30 p.m., Hendrix Theatre. A reception will follow in Cynthia’s Lounge, Mendenhall Student Center. Free and open to the public.
• Friday: Wild Kingdom Starring Peter Gros: Part of the Family Fare series, Gros — the former co-host of “Wild Kingdom” now featured in a new series on Animal Planet — will introduce friendly exotic animals to audience members and tell inspirational stories about conservation, travel, and wildlife filming. The event is 7-8:30 p.m. in Wright Auditorium. Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 students/youth. Call 1-800-ECU-ARTS or visit www.ecu.edu/familyfare.
• Friday: First Lt. Nathan Rimpf Benefit Art Exhibition: ECU English faculty member and woodworker Andy Bates will donate the proceeds from a sale of his works to First Lt. Nathan Rimpf’s Support Fund. Rimpf is an ECU graduate who was injured in Afghanistan this summer. The event is 6-9 p.m. at Pitt County Arts Council at Emerge, 404 S. Evans Street. The reception is open to the public.
• Friday: Eighth annual Pediatric Healthy Weight Summit: “Movement Matters: Physical Activity for the Prevention and Treatment of Childhood Obesity and Its Co-Morbidities,” will feature Shellie Pfohl, executive director of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. The event is from 7:45 a.m to 4:30 p.m. at East Carolina Heart Institute, 115 Heart Drive. For more information or to register, call 744-5061 or email crawfordy@ecu.edu.

via The Daily Reflector.

US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey discusses a poem about her mother while speaking to a group at the Greenville Museum of Art on Thursday afternoon. (Rhett Butler/The Daily Reflector)

By Katherine Ayers

Monday, October 29, 2012

The role of the national poet laureate should be to raise awareness of the art form, Natasha Trethewey said, and she enthusiastically performed that task in Greenville last week with a group of East Carolina University students.

Tretheway, named poet laureate on June 7, said during a visit to ECU as part of the university’s Contemporary Writers Series that one of her jobs is to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of poetry.

“I think there are a lot of ways you can do it — presentations like this, meeting people one on one,” she said during a question-and-answer session at the Greenville Museum of Art prior to a public reading held later in the day.

“I want to imagine something larger than that, a (national) project a poet might undertake,” she said.

Tretheway also emphasized that someone does not have to be a poet laureate to bring attention to poetry.

“When you just say to a friend in a poetry class, ‘You’ve got to come read this,’ you’re doing the work of trying to bring poetry to a larger audience,” she said.

Tretheway, a professor at Emory University, originally wanted to be a fiction writer.

“My poetry path was based on a dare from another graduate student,” she said. “So I thought, ‘I’m going to show you how bad it can be,’ and I wrote a poem — and it actually wasn’t that bad.”

Tretheway said she left her work in her fiction professor’s mailbox. The next day, the professor came running up to her saying, “Oh Natasha, you’re a poet!”

“And I’m certain that’s because she was trying to say, ‘That’s because you’re not much of a fiction writer,’” she said amid laughter from the audience. “From then on, I became a poet.”

While many poets choose either to write only free verse or to follow formal tradition like sonnets or haikus, Tretheway intentionally tries to do both.

“I like what defies categorization,” she said. “I think it has to do with the dictates of the poem.”

She said that if she is writing about difficult subjects, sometimes the material can “get away from you” in free verse, so it is easier for her to stay within the confines of a traditional form.

Tretheway is the 19th poet laureate and the first one from the South since 1986. She was appointed to the position by Librarian of Congress James Billington and has published four books of poetry and one work on non-fiction.

She received a Pulitzer Prize for “Native Guard,” a collection of poems dedicated to her mother’s memory.

via The Daily Reflector.

Aileen Devlin/The Daily Reflecto / The Daily Reflector

Dr. Harold Baumgarten, a veteran of D-Day, shares his experiences having stormed the beaches of Normandy with student veterans on Friday, Oct. 26, 2012.

The university officially celebrated its annual Military Appreciation Weekend during Saturday’s football game with Navy, but the days leading up to the game also were filled with events recognizing the contributions of veterans on and off campus.

A number of events centered around Dr. Hal Baumgarten, 87, a retired Jacksonville, Fla., physician who landed on Omaha Beach during D-Day. There were 30 men in his landing craft and he was one of only two who survived, despite suffering five separate injuries during the invasion.

Baumgarten spent Thursday and Friday presenting lectures, meeting with ECU ROTC students and student veterans.

Baumgarten was an adviser for director Steven Spielberg’s film “Saving Private Ryan.”

Just before shipping out from England, Baumgarten drew a Star of David on his field jacket along with the words, “Bronx, N.Y.”

No one knew about the atrocities the Germans were committing against Jews in the concentration camps, he said, but he had seen the news reel footage of “Kristallnacht,” the night in 1938 were Germans attacked synagogues and Jewish-owned stores and buildings. He also had seen that when Germany invaded Denmark, Poland and other countries they made Jews wear the Star of David.

Baumgarten said he wanted the Germans to see he was a Jew, “but I had a M-1 rifle.”

Baumgarten’s unit was off loaded too soon and he found himself neck deep in bloody water.

He made it to the beach and German machine gunners and snipers kept picking off men to the left and right of him. He lost his upper jaw, he had a hole in the roof of his mouth and shrapnel in his head, but he kept shooting and advancing.

He then stepped on a mine-like device that left him with a wound to his left foot. That injury slowed him down and he was straggling behind when machine gunners killed almost every person in the unit he had joined.

By then he was nearly unconscious from blood loss so he gave himself a morphine injection. He woke up hours later, on a pile of dead soldiers. Using a machine gun, he caught the attention of an ambulance crew which transported him back to the beach for evacuation.

It was there that German snipers started killing the wounded and Baumgarten suffered his fifth injury, a bullet to his right knee.

“That wasn’t a serious wound,” he said.

Baumgarten was evacuated back to England on June 11. He made it back to the United States in August. Eventually he underwent 23 surgeries to repair his wounds.

Baumgarten went to college and earned a master’s degree. He also met his wife. They moved to Jacksonville, Fla., and he taught high school biology and chemistry.

The D-Day veteran rarely spoke about his war experiences. Because of his scarring and the subsequent surgeries, he told his wife that he was wounded during combat. When they settled into their beachside home in Florida, his wife noticed he did not like to spend time on the beach.

“I would just see blood in the water,” he said. He woudl not tell her that.

Smelling the fumes of a diesel engine would trigger flashback of being on the landing craft. He had nightmares.

Baumgarten said he now knows he was suffering classic post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. You did not talk about it, he said, because while he was in Army hospitals he saw how soldiers with recognizable symptoms would be escorted by armed guards and locked away like prisoners.

It was during a 1988 trip to the American cemetery in Normandy that Baumgarten started asking himself why he survived when so many did not. He then began to think about the men, their stories.

“I said to my wife that nobody will know who they are and what they did,” he said. He then realized he had to tell their stories. He wrote several books and began speaking to groups across the country.

Baumgarten realized he was especially suited to telling his comrades’ stories because he has a photographic memory. He can recall the name and hometown of every man he served with and during a one-hour meeting with ECU student veterans he shared the names of nearly a dozen soldiers who died on Omaha Beach.

Baumgarten was the keynote speaker at Friday’s fifth annual East Carolina University’s Distinguished Military Service Society induction dinner.

The society was launched four years ago and its fifth class was inducted this weekend, bringing its membership to 30, said Steven Duncan, assistant vice chancellor for administration and finance and director of military programs.

“It honors two things, the belief that the country has advanced itself because people have had the safety and security to pursue their dreams in a secured America,” Duncan said. “It also honors the people who have served to make that happen and the people who have served the educational system that has allowed those people to achieve their dreams.”

This year’s service honorees are James Bearden, Sheldon Downes, Steve Duncan, Kirk Little, Mike Myrick, Richard Neubauer and Walter Pories. Fred Irons and John Reynolds Sr. were honored posthumously. These individuals also were recognized during Saturday’s half-time show, along with representatives from North Carolina’s military bases.

Saturday’s game featured a fly-over by a KC-135R mid-air refueler piloted by Lt. Col. Andy Croom, a 1989 ECU graduate and member of the U.S. Air Force Reserves based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

A Lenoir County native, Croom joined the university’s ROTC program, with the hope of becoming a pilot. When he graduated, he became a navigator and served 10 years before joining the reserves and earning his pilot’s wings.

“I’ve been a season ticket holder for (ECU) football for the past 10, 11 years so I thought (the fly-over) would be fun,” he said.

This devoted ECU fan will not let the fly-over interfere with the game. After landing at Seymour Johnson, Croom plans to jump in his car and return to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.

“I’m supposed to be lifting the fourth quarter, “no quarter” flag. That will be exciting, I’m looking forward to that,” he said.

Also this week, Food Lion employees presented the university with a $100,000 donation to establish doctoral fellowships for Operation Re-Entry North Carolina, an initiative centered on research and projects that help veterans return to civilian life.

It also was announced that a $10,000 donation was given to a military scholarship in College of Allied Health Sciences. The donation by the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association is the second largest the scholarship has received. The scholarship has been awarded to two students so far.

Contact Ginger Livingston at glivingston@reflector.com or 252-32-9570.

via The Daily Reflector.

Monday, October 29, 2012

The thousands of young people expected to descend on downtown Greenville this week reminds the community how the Halloween festivities serve as both blessing and curse. While the city’s status as a destination for the holiday draws valuable commerce to the downtown district and elsewhere, filling the coffers of entertainment entrepreneurs, it comes with a security obligation that challenges to law enforcement annually.

The task of ensuring that the celebration is both safe and free of incidents for both party-goers and officers is made more difficult this year with Oct. 31 falling on a Wednesday, making spillover to the weekend possible. It is incumbent upon all attending to take responsibility for one another and for Greenville police to execute the security plan in the professional manner the city has come to expect.

While it would be difficult to pinpoint the reasons why Greenville became a destination point for Halloween revelry, the tradition stretches back decades. East Carolina University once had a reputation as a party school despite the excellence of its academic programming. Students hosting house parties and gathering in the downtown bar and restaurant district for the holiday lured a larger number of visitors, causing the occasion to be a prominent one each year.

With the growth of the party came problems, however, none greater than the 1975 riot that resulted in several injuries and dozens of arrests. Though both students and law enforcement traded charges over who started the altercation, it would eventually result in action by the city to end the celebration. That backfired as it pushed the festivities into surrounding neighborhoods. Soon the city relented and a reasonable, measured and planned approach resulted, the modern manifestation of which will be on display Wednesday.

That afternoon, police will erect barricades to impede traffic slow into downtown and establish entry points for revelers. As the costumed masses arrive, they will be searched for alcohol, drugs and weapons to ensure a safe and law-abiding celebration within the security cordon. There will be medical stations at the ready and police will clear the area shortly after the bars close at 2 a.m.

That plan has worked well for Greenville in years past and should serve the community well again. However, its execution depends in part on the responsibility of those in attendance. They should strive to be safe, travel with friends and to look out for one another so that all have a good night.

via The Daily Reflector.

Published: October 29, 2012

Rob Taylor – AP
East Carolina’s Vintavious Cooper (21) evades a Navy defender during an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, in Greenville, N.C. Navy won 56-28. (AP Photo/The Daily Reflector, Rob Taylor)

Late Hits: ECU punched on, off the field

By Joe Giglio – jgiglio@newsobserver.com

Up

UNC: Three letters will suffice: G-I-O.

Notre Dame: Brian Kelly’s team is legit. That much is clear after Saturday’s 30-13 pasting of Oklahoma on the road.

Notre Dame’s just four wins away from playing for the national title for the first time since 1988.

Published: October 29, 2012

UNC-CH student found dead in Carrboro

By Elisabeth Arriero – earriero@charlotteobserver.com

CHARLOTTE — Carrboro Police are investigating the death of a former Myers Park graduate who was in his first year at UNC-Chapel Hill.

David Palmer Shannon’s body was found late Saturday night near Brewer Lane in Carrboro.

Police have not determined a cause of death. But in a statement early Sunday, Chancellor Holden Thorp said law enforcement do not believe anyone else in the community is in danger.

Published: October 27, 2012

UNC tried to reduce NCAA penalty

New documents show lighter rap sought for football star

By J. Andrew Curliss – acurliss@newsobserver.com

By the fall of 2010, officials at UNC-Chapel Hill and the NCAA had made startling discoveries about benefits provided to a range of football players, including defensive star Robert Quinn.

A jeweler had given Quinn $5,000 worth of diamond watches and earrings. A mysterious man only known as Willie, who had met Quinn after a spring football game, booked a room in Miami Beach for Quinn and a friend and provided them a car while they vacationed there a month later. A sports agent, through a teammate, got Quinn access to a pool party at the famed Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel. The wristband granting access was worth $199.

It eventually added up to $5,642 in what the NCAA called “impermissible benefits” provided to an athlete who, under NCAA rules, must be an amateur in order to play in college.

The Wilmington Star News

Published: Friday, October 26, 2012

UNCW to discuss tuition, fee increase

Trustees reviewed process at Friday’s board meeting

By Pressley Baird, Pressley.Baird@StarNewsOnline.com

Trustees at the University of North Carolina Wilmington have a little more than a month to decide whether they’ll increase the cost of students’ tuition and fees next year. At Friday’s trustees meeting, they got a refresher on how the process works.

When Chancellor Gary Miller took the school’s top job in July 2011, he started reshaping the way tuition information and requests are delivered to trustees. He reminded them about that process, which happens in the month leading up to December’s tuition-focused trustees meeting, and updated them on tuition changes both from the UNC-system Board of Governors and specific to the university.

Trustees will receive recommendations for tuition and fee increases in the next two weeks, Miller said. Each trustee will be mailed a packet to consider, and Miller will also meet with each trustee individually to hear any concerns about his proposal.

Miller said his plan is to structure the tuition and fee process so changes are directly tied to the university’s goals.

“We’re getting to the point where the recommendations you get from us are not just the filtering of a large wish list, but in fact are directly related to elements of our strategy,” he said.

Last year, UNCW raised tuition by 9.3 percent, or about $527, for in-state undergraduates. Out-of-state students saw a 4.6 percent increase, about $810.

Specifics about increases for the 2013-14 school year are still being hammered out among Miller and his senior staff, he told trustees. But he did note a few changes to this year’s tuition packet.

One of the biggest – “fairly dramatic,” in Miller’s words – is a provision from the UNC-system Board of Governors that allows individual campuses to use any portion of its tuition for financial aid purposes. Before, campuses had to set aside 25 percent of tuition for financial aid purposes. Miller said UNCW’s percentage hadn’t been determined yet.

The Board of Governors also approved a $283 tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students as part of a “catch up” process to help alleviate budget cuts in recent years, Miller said. Every school in the UNC-system has a similar increase.

Trustees will also review a recommendation to reduce student fees, Miller said. That reduction, which is specific to UNCW, came about when the school’s business affairs department refinanced the debt service on student housing funds. Miller said he couldn’t discuss the details of the decrease because it hadn’t been finalized yet, but told trustees he was “pretty excited about that one.”

Trustees will hold the meeting on tuition and fees on Dec. 14, where they’ll approve a recommendation to send to the UNC-system Board of Governors. The Board of Governors will likely make final decisions about tuition increases in February.

Pressley Baird: 343-2328  On Twitter: @PressleyBaird

Published: October 29, 2012

NCSU will close Dan Allen Drive gates in January

By Bruce Siceloff – bsiceloff@newsobserver.com

RALEIGH — N.C. State University has postponed its plan to restrict automobile traffic on Dan Allen Drive, with the new access gates now expected to begin operation when the spring semester starts on Jan. 7.

The gates, to be installed in December beneath a railroad overpass on the busy campus road, will be closed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays when university classes are in session. Through traffic will not be impeded at other times.

The gates will open automatically for campus transit buses, service vehicles and emergency responders. But other drivers will no longer be able to travel the length of Dan Allen between Hillsborough Street and Western Boulevard when class is in session.

Published: October 26, 2012

Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times
A former student’s account of rape, published in the campus newspaper drew international attention.

Student’s Account Has Rape in Spotlight

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

AMHERST, Mass. — This year has brought news of student athletes charged with sex crimes at Boston University and at Temple, along with countless other less publicized cases. There have been claims that Wesleyan University tolerated a fraternity house where the abuse of women was common. A gang rape at the University of Massachusetts was reported just this week.

But none has generated more soul searching, or scrutiny from beyond, than a woman’s wrenching account, published in a campus newspaper last week, of being raped in May 2011 by a fellow student at Amherst College and then being treated callously by college administrators.

“Eventually I reached a dangerously low point, and, in my despondency, began going to the campus’ sexual assault counselor,” the woman wrote in The Amherst Student. “In short I was told: No you can’t change dorms, there are too many students right now. Pressing charges would be useless, he’s about to graduate, there’s not much we can do. Are you SURE it was rape?”

Within hours, the story of the woman, Angie Epifano, became the most-examined episode in memory on this campus of 1,800 students, the subject of online commentary from around the world. It prompted other Amherst students, past and present, to step forward publicly and say that they, too, had been sexually assaulted here, treated poorly afterward, and in many cases had left campus rather than be around assailants who were allowed to remain.

Tension around the issue of sexual misconduct had been simmering for a long time here, escalating in the past year as a group of student activists helped persuade a new college president to make it a priority.

“It was being talked about before, but there’s a big difference between people being willing to talk and other people being willing to hear it and join in,” said Emma Saltzberg, a senior and volunteer advocate for people who have been abused. “It’s amazing to see this campus so worked up.”

The college president, Carolyn A. Martin, who arrived in September last year, said that in her previous jobs, as a top administrator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University, she had dealt only in passing with the question of sexual violence. But in her first year here, after hearing from students, she made several changes, like having trained investigators look into those cases, revising the student handbook, and hiring a nationally known consultant, Gina M. Smith, to review and revise Amherst’s approach.

After Ms. Epifano’s story was published, Dr. Martin, who is known as Biddy, released a statement that had neither the defensiveness nor the bland wait-and-see that are common to institutional responses, declaring that things “must change, and change immediately.” She made more administrative changes, and said in an interview in her office on Thursday that she is inclined to make more still, like having experts — rather than shifting panels of professors and students — adjudicate complaints.

She added to Ms. Smith’s portfolio an investigation of Ms. Epifano’s case, including a review of the conduct of Amherst administrators. On Friday, the school’s sexual assault counselor — who was portrayed negatively, though not by name, in Ms. Epifano’s article — resigned.

Among those who kept the issue alive last year, a soft-spoken but persistent student from St. Louis, Dana Bolger, played a pivotal role. Ms. Bolger, now a second-semester junior, said that after being raped, she left the school for a semester.

Last spring, she and a few other women created It Happens Here, a Web site about sexual violence at Amherst, and this month she drew a wide audience for two items she published on a student-run blog. In the first item, she wrote that last spring a fraternity printed T-shirts showing a woman being roasted like a pig on a spit but that those responsible were not disciplined. The second featured a photo essay of current and former Amherst students who said they had been sexually assaulted there, holding signs with insensitive comments they had heard from students and administrators.

“I’m glad the administration is taking this more seriously, and students are talking about it, but I’m not convinced it will last,” Ms. Bolger said on Thursday.

The allegations of misconduct and the response to Ms. Epifano’s essay have raised pointed questions on this campus and elsewhere: Are sex crimes more surprising at a school thought of as elite and supportive of women’s rights, or less surprising at the kind of place often labeled as having a culture of entitlement? Or are they just part of the stew of negligent attitudes, criminal conduct and tension between the sexes that can be found almost anywhere?

It was the blog item about the T-shirt that prompted Ms. Epifano to write her story, published on Oct. 17 by The Amherst Student, the campus newspaper, said Brianda Reyes, the editor. She said the previous record for online page views for an article was 17,000; Ms. Epifano’s essay drew more than 100,000 views on the first day, crashing the server. By Friday it had nearly 400,000.

Ms. Epifano withdrew from Amherst this summer, and is now in Europe, friends say. She could not be reached for comment.

Experts on sex crimes, and Dr. Martin, say Amherst does not need to just improve its procedures to encourage victims to report assaults quickly, provide counseling and support, investigate thoroughly and discipline the guilty. At least as important, they say, is preventing attacks through education. They argue that students need to be reminded, repeatedly, of the boundary between right and wrong, of the definitions of rape and consent, and of the duty of bystanders.

Many schools handle things badly after an assault, but even more get it wrong before, said Colby Bruno, managing attorney at the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston, who has worked with Ms. Epifano and other college students. “Changing the culture is much harder than changing the rules,” she said.

As to the idea that there is something uniquely bad here, experts like Ms. Bruno and S. Daniel Carter, who has worked with multiple campus violence prevention groups, say probably not. “The only thing that’s unique about Amherst has been the president’s response,” said Mr. Carter, now with VTV Family Outreach Foundation, formed in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.

Student opinion here on the matter is divided. On campus, some men, in particular, say they fear that such a suggestion tars all Amherst men — or those in certain groups, like fraternity members or athletes — with the same brush. Others question whether details in Ms. Epifano’s story, especially the harsh comments she attributes to college administrators, are accurate.

Statistics are of no help in telling where Amherst stands, though federal law requires schools to report campus crime data. Studies show that most rape victims never report the assaults, and an increase in reports could mean the school is doing a better job of encouraging women to step forward. Few who do report pursue a complaint, and few complaints result in a finding of guilt.

In the last three years, Amherst reported an annual average of 12 “forcible sex offenses,” a broad category that includes rape, attempted rape, lesser forms of sexual contact, and possibly sexual coercion. A 2000 study by the Department of Justice, based on a survey of college students, found that for a school Amhert’s size, the expected average would be more than 100 such offenses each year, including about 18 rapes.

“People’s bubbles are getting popped by real-world problems being exposed here, even though they were always here,” said Alexa Hettwer, a senior. “I hope people don’t just rebuild the bubbles.”

Lt. D.C. Ivey talks about some of the precautions Greenville Police Department will be taking for the upcoming downtown Halloween scene during a meeting at City Council Chambers on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012. (Aileen Devlin/The Daily Reflector)

By Jane Dail

Friday, October 26, 2012

Adding manpower, controlling access and searching partygoers will help police handle the ‘hurricane’ that is Halloween in Greenville, the interim chief said this week.

“Whether we like it or not, Halloween happens in Greenville,” Joe Bartlett said during a Wednesday session on the department’s plans for the annual celebration downtown.

“It’s kind of like a hurricane: We know it’s coming, we can see its coming, we know when it’s going to hit, but we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen when it gets here,” said Bartlett, who is retiring on Wednesday after 30 years with the department.”
“We’re trying to prepare for the worst and hope and prepare for the best.”

Thousands are expected downtown on Halloween and perhaps this weekend if rains from an actual hurricane, Sandy, do not dampen celebrations that coincide with Saturday’s home football game between East Carolina and Navy.

The department will increase staffing through Nov. 4 to handle crowds and on Wednesday will cordon off a “celebration area” in the blocks surrounding the intersection of Cotanche and Fifth streets. Starting at 4:30 p.m., vehicle traffic will not be allowed through until after 2 a.m.

Each entry point will have an inspection station, where police will search and use metal detectors on people going into the secured area. They will be looking for illegal substances, alcohol, weapons and anything that can be perceived as a weapon.

Bartlett said the voluntary inspections keep the event safer.

“If you don’t want to be inspected, that’s fine,” he said. “You can turn around and leave, but you can’t go into the secured area. That’s the philosophy we’ve had for several years and we’ve been very fortunate.”

Bartlett said problems in the past have included fights, alcohol violations, inappropriate touching and flashing.

Last year’s crowd was relatively small due to rain. This year police expect 7-8,000 people.

A proactive approach has helped police control what goes on, Bartlett said. “We’ve done that by establishing some perimeters, closing some streets early before the crowd gets there and controlling access, and we’ve been successful with that.”

Mutual aid agreements with other departments help keep costs as low as possible, Bartlett said.

“As far as Halloween (downtown), there’s no set figure, but it will cost above and beyond normal payroll because there will be some incurred overtime,” he said. “We try to minimize that through flexing schedules and rearranging assignments. … It’s hard to tell in the course of a two-week pay period how much is directly related to Halloween, but we do try to minimize that.”

About 100 law enforcement officers will work during trick-or-treating hours on Wednesday and then report to the downtown area, Lt. Chris Ivey said.

Personnel from will assist from several agencies including the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office, the ECU Police Department, N.C. Probation and Parole and police departments in Ayden, Jacksonville, Washington and Winterville, Ivey said.

“There will be some extra magistrates on duty down at the detention center if we need to make any more arrests,” Ivey said. “This event, as any other, we’re seeking voluntary compliance.

“We want everybody to have a good time and be safe.”

Contact Jane Dail at jdail@reflector.com or 252-329-9585.

via The Daily Reflector.

Ashley “Ash” Smith

Obituary

One of the brightest points of my life has joined the stars he loved so much to look at. “Ash” Ashley Smith, 32, lost his life on the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012 in a car wreck in Greenville, when he was rear ended. He was a beloved husband and a soul mate to Rebecca Smith; precious son of Larry Douglas Smith and Sonja Kay Ragan; dearest brother to Aleania Smith; uncle to nephews and nieces, including Riley Smith to whom he was a mentor, hero and father figure. He has many uncles, aunts and cousins that shall grieve his loss deeply and painfully.

Ash was a double major in Engineering and Physics at East Carolina University. It was his dream to be an engineer. While he had many struggles through his life, including Dyslexia with a specific spelling disorder and ADD, he was the most brilliant person any of us have ever met with a genius IQ and humble to the core. He could do high math in his head and understand the intricacies of how the world works at an atomic level. Ash should and would have been a great contributor to the world of physics and engineering had his life not been taken. He was a lover of math and the stars and of how things work. Forever taking things apart and rebuilding them. He could fix anything with parts or programming as he was also a genius with computers. He has built his own telescopes from scratch to view the universe and all its greatness and mysteries. His family is devastated at the loss of their loved golden child, husband, brother, son, and uncle. Your leaving this plane of existence shall bring you peace.

Memorial service will be held in the Wilkerson Funeral Chapel, 2100 E. 5th Street, Greenville on Sunday at 1 p.m. A second service will be held in East Tennessee at the home of his sister. Please feel free to come and share your stories of his life.

In lieu of flowers we have set up a memorial fund at East Carolina Bank, 2400 Stantonsburg Rd., Greenville, NC 27834 for the benefit of his wife. The world has lost a very fine young man.

Arrangements by Wilkerson Funeral Home & Crematory, Greenville.

On line condolences at www.wilkersonfuneralhome.com.

via Ashley “Ash” Smith Obituary: View Ashley Smith’s Obituary by The Daily Reflector.

 

“All the players want to be on camera, especially since it’s going to ESPN. It’s going pretty good, letting the world know what’s inside Pirate football.”
Leonard Paulk ECU cornerback

By Nathan Summers

Friday, October 26, 2012

Someday, some lucky elementary school kids are going to walk into their school gym and find out Leonard Paulk is going to be their gym teacher.

“I’m actually substituting now,” said Paulk, a senior at East Carolina University who is subbing at Farmville’s H.B. Sugg Elementary. “I did my internship out there during the spring so all the kids know me out there, and I’m bringing something back to the community.”

Until he fulfills his plan of becoming a full-time physical education teacher, though, Paulk has plenty else keeping him busy.

He’s already earned a degree in physical education, and while he pursues a second degree in health education and promotion, he devotes every other waking minute to being a starting cornerback on the ECU football team.

Even with all that going on, the Columbia, S.C., native has recently found a way to be even busier.

The photography enthusiast is spending his final football season chronicling the life of himself and his teammates through the art of pictures for ESPN The Magazine.

The apparent plan for the network is to compile the best photographs taken by Paulk and a handful of other college players throughout the country into a book. For now, however, the senior corner and substitute gym teacher is relishing the chance to snap photos in airports, on planes and even coming out of the tunnel in opposing stadiums.

“I always had an inspiration to take pictures, action pictures. I used to do it for my little brother in high school,” Paulk said. “I was presented an opportunity to actually do it for ESPN, so I took that opportunity and ran with it.”

Eight games into the season with the 5-3 Pirates, Paulk has submitted loads of images for the project, and word has long since gotten out about what he’s doing with that camera in his hands all the time.

“Everybody knows I’m doing it, everybody wants that picture moment, that glamour shot,” Paulk said. “All the players want to be on camera, especially since it’s going to ESPN. It’s going pretty good, letting the world know what’s inside Pirate football.”

The man who’s also got a penchant for drawing — usually pictures of ECU’s Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, he says — wants to paint a complete picture of the Pirates, not just the moments in and around the stadiums.

“I’m trying to integrate a little schoolwork into it as well, us in study hall, seeing us around campus,” said Paulk, who’s battled back into his starting position after being limited in August camp and the early part of the season with a knee injury. “I like the shots from the airplane, looking down to people on the ground.”

It’s only a shame he can’t take pictures of himself recently.

In his last three games, Paulk has 15 tackles, 10 of them solo stops, and a sack to go along with four pass breakups.

“It feels good to be back. I’m at 100 percent right now,” Paulk said. “It’s good to be out there to help my team get victories, and hopefully a conference championship.”

One of the elders in the ECU defensive backfield, Paulk has witnessed the remarkable growth of the unit around him since it switched from a 4-3 front seven to a 3-4 for the start of the 2011 season.

The better part of two seasons later, Paulk is coming in on blitzes while still making plays on passes, evidence of the overall versatility of the scheme.

“There’s a lot of variability to it,” Paulk said. “You get to roll each side, and there are different disguises you give the offense to confuse them, and it’s working right now. It’s helping us win games.”

Contact Nathan Summers at nsummers@reflector.com or 252-329-9595.

via The Daily Reflector.

Brenton O’Hara playing Andrew Borden and Cera Finney as Lizzie Borden in the upcoming ECU Opera “Lizzie Borden” at the Fletcher Music Center on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012. (Aileen Devlin/The Daily Reflector)

By NATALIE SAYEWICH

Friday, October 26, 2012

More than a century after the trial of Lizzie Borden, the spirit of the woman accused of murdering her father and stepmother lives on, tormenting a select few East Carolina University students as they try to master the opera based on her story.

The production of “Lizzie Borden,” which opens Thursday at the A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall, could be the most ambitious task the ECU Opera Theater has taken on, and everyone involved is feeling at least a little pressure.

Director John Kramer didn’t set out to find the most challenging opera for this season’s performance, it just sort of happened that way.

“I always start first with the students at hand and who the strong soloists are and then I go from there,” he said. “This year, we had a really talented mezzo, bass-baritone, tenor and two sopranos and a baritone.”

What he came up with was the little-known opera by Jack Beeson about the murders that happened in 1892.

“To me it’s something I grew up with,” said Kramer of the Lizzie Borden story. “There was an Elizabeth Montgomery TV movie that was about Lizzie Borden. My parents took us on vacation to Massachusetts and we went to the Lizzie Borden house. It was the first American trial scandal. It was the O.J. Simpson trial of its time.”

The musical intricacies of the opera have proven to be as complex and stupefying as Borden’s life.

“Every time somebody at school asks, ‘how’s it going?’” Kramer said, “It’s like, ‘It’s killing all of us.’ It’s so hard for everybody.”

“I told the singers, ‘When you finish this project, you’ll know you can sing anything because there is nothing written on earth that is any harder than this. Everything else is going to be smooth sailing.’”

Two of the characters are double-cast. Lizzie Borden will be played by Cera Finney on Thursday and the following Sunday, Nov. 4, and Madeline Beitel will play the lead role on Nov. 2.

Anna-Parsons Charles plays Lizzie’s stepmother, Abigail, on Thursday and Nov. 4, while Kimberly Watson takes on the role Nov. 2. Brenton O’Hara plays Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s father; Jordan Winslow plays Lizzie’s sister, Margaret Borden; Scott Willis plays sea captain Jason MacFarlane; and Todd Barnhill plays Reverend Harrington.

Kramer raved about Finney’s rehearsals so far.

“It’s fiendishly difficult and Cera is perfect,” he said. “She’s this rock; this musical piece of granite. From the first rehearsal, she’s never made a mistake. The more we rehearse, the more she gets into the character and she keeps it together. It’s a miracle.”

But even Finney admits its not an easy task.

“This one is definitely harder than any other one I’ve done,” said the senior who is performing in her fifth opera at ECU. “I think Lizzie, herself, is very complex because she’s having to be the person that her family wants her to be, but she’s struggling inside with the things that she wants to be. I think that’s what ultimately drives her over the edge.”

The students, Kramer said, have been working on the piece since he cast the opera at the beginning of May. There have been a lot of struggles since then, but Kramer is confident that all of the hard work will be worth it.

“The students always pull it together and surprise you at the last moment,” said Kramer, now in his 14th year at ECU. “As stressful as the next two weeks are going to be for me, I always have to remind myself of that.

“They will be great, and I’ll consider it one of our biggest triumphs if this is successful.”

Contact Natalie Sayewich at 252-329-9596 or nsayewich@reflector.com. Follow her on Twitter @natsaye.

via The Daily Reflector.

By Josh Sanburn

Oct. 25, 2001

Did your parents constantly argue over money when you were growing up? If so, it may have something to do with all that credit card debt you’ve racked up.

A new study by researchers from East Carolina University surveyed more than 400 college students about their finances. While gender and class year were the top predictors of the number of credit cards they owned, the next was whether their parents argued about money.

According to the study, published online in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, upperclassmen were almost four times as likely to have two or more credit cards than freshmen and sophomores, and females were more than twice as likely as males to have at least two cards. Those findings may not be terribly surprising. But the study’s authors also surveyed college students about whether their parents regularly argued over money, and that revealed some interesting results.

Students who specifically responded that “my parents usually argued about finances” were twice as likely to have more than two credit cards than those who said their parents didn’t argue over money, and three times as likely to have a large amount of debt.

You might suspect that a lack of funds contributed to both the fighting and debt levels, but when the study’s authors controlled for income, the results were the same. Even relatively wealthy kids of parents who fought over money had higher debt levels.

While the authors didn’t come to any definite conclusions about why quarrelsome parents have such a negative impact on their children’s borrowing patterns, they suspect the kids are unintentionally copying their parents’ actions. ”Kids growing up in that sort of atmosphere may be witnessing some unhealthy financial decisions,” says Adam Hancock, co-author of the study. “And they tend to act out those same behaviors.”

The findings are consistent with a long line of studies that show children who come from households with substance abuse often end up being adicted in adulthood. Similarly, those who have been abused as a child often abuse their own children.

Hancock also suggested that college students whose parents argued over money may have a hard time communicating with their parents when they run into financial problems themselves — further perpetuating their own debt and credit card issues.

“If they grew up like that and they’re now in college making their own financial decisions, chances are higher for them to to have multiple credit cards and higher debt,” says Hancock. “Parents are the number one way they’re going to learn about finances, and if they can just talk about them in a healthy way, it’s going to help.”

Josh Sanburn @joshsanburn

Josh Sanburn is a Time.com reporter and producer.

via Parents Who Argue Over Money Connected To Overspending By Kids | TIME.com.

By Jane Dail

Thursday, October 25, 2012

East Carolina University on Wednesday announced that a teenager who admitted to vandalizing the field and other property at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium no longer is enrolled at the school.

Jeannine Hutson with ECU News Services said William Banks, 18, no longer is a student at the university.

“East Carolina University has completed its review and announced today that William James Banks is no longer enrolled at the university,” she said on Wednesday.

Banks also no longer is a resident on campus, according to university officials.

Banks admitted to stealing Kubota utility vehicles early Sunday morning and vandalizing the football field, water fountains, concession stands and eventually the vehicles.

He was caught by ECU police officers processing the damage while climbing over the fence at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to retrieve his cellphone. Police found his phone on the field and arrested the freshman.

Three people climbed a wall at the stadium between 3 a.m. and 6:20 a.m. Sunday and drove three unsecured Kubota utility vehicles with keys in them in circles around the field and underneath the stands, Lt. Chris Sutton with the ECU police said Monday.

The two other suspects are at-large. ECU police are asking anyone with information about the suspects to call 327-6787 or visit www.ecu.edu/cs-studentlife/police/report_crime.cfm to leave a tip. Tips can be anonymous.

Contact Jane Dail at 252-329-9585 or jdail@reflector.com.

via The Daily Reflector.