Sunday, May 19, 2013

I think I may have made a really bad mistake. I was very impressed with N.C. Rep. Brian Brown when I met him as he campaigned for office. He seemed like a good future for citizens of this state. And I voted for him. And now I see that he attached his name to a bill that will make guns more available on college campuses.

Rep. Brown, have you lost your mind? Did you not think about the consequences of that idea? I am a retired federal agent, a Vietnam War veteran with three years combat experience, and an attorney here in Pitt County. I have been a member of the National Rifle Association longer than you have been alive.

I believe in the right to bear arms, but on college campuses? Do you not know that most of those young people are for the first time in their lives finding themselves in an unsupervised environment, making stupid mistakes and learning from those mistakes in a safe environment where they don’t destroy their futures and those of others. Are you proposing to allow these kids to have easier access to firearms on campus? Do you really not trust law enforcement to be much more able to handle issues in which children might be more inclined to grab a gun and shoot someone?

Most college students have absolutely no experience with violence, firearms and making right decisions. Are you going to add firearms to that environment?

Yes, I made a really bad mistake. But I won’t make it again. I will support your opponent in the next election and pray that individual has the maturity and wisdom not to place our children in harm’s way. Rep. Brown, have you lost your mind?

FREDERIC WHITEHURST,

J.D., Ph.D.

Bethel

via The Daily Reflector.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

A victim of an attempted robbery near ECU early Wednesday was able to fend off two suspects, a campus alert said. No one was injured and nothing was taken.

The incident was reported at 2:24 a.m. at the Sheetz gas station and convenience store, off of Charles Boulevard and East 10th Street.

Two suspects are described as black men, one wearing a red shirt and white hat, the other wearing a black shirt and black jeans, according to the alert. They last were seen headed on foot toward the Province apartment complex.

East Carolina University sent an alert email at 2:54 a.m., and a text message followed one minute later, making students and staff aware of the danger. Further information about the incident was not immediately available.

Students, faculty, staff and community members are encouraged by the university not to walk alone at night, to be aware of their surroundings at all times and to report suspicious activity.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Greenville police at 252-329-4315 or Pitt-Greenville CrimeStoppers at 252-758-7777.

via The Daily Reflector.

Published: May 19, 2013

By Jane Stancill — jstancill@newsobserver.com

CHAPEL HILL — Holden Thorp seems to be enjoying his farewell tour.

He played keyboard with a student band at Cat’s Cradle, the Carrboro rock club. He was given lifetime delegate status by the university’s employee association. He came up with a David Letterman-style top 10 list for his successor, Carol Folt, in which he offered this advice: “Eat at the K&W at least once a semester. Get the fried okra.”

Another tip to Folt was to watch “Friday Night Lights,” a TV drama that revolves around a football team. “As soon as possible,” he advised her.

Thorp is winding down his time as chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill, the university where he arrived as a freshman in 1982 after applying to only one school.

It wasn’t supposed to end this soon for the talented chemist and entrepreneur who rapidly ascended from professor to department chairman to dean and, in 2008, chancellor – at the tender age of 43.

In a recent interview, Thorp said he wished he had watched “Friday Night Lights” five years ago. An education about athletics would’ve come in handy.

After being consumed for more than two years with an athletic scandal that led to the revelation of a major academic scandal, Thorp is giving up his beloved Carolina. He is resigning at the end of June to become provost – second-in-command – at Washington University in St. Louis.

Last month, he convened a panel of experts to come up with better ways to balance academics and athletics at the university. And at a recent faculty meeting, Thorp told professors he wouldn’t weigh in on the debate about a Thursday night football game this fall in Chapel Hill.

“There’s probably something from Shakespeare or classical Greek that describes what I’ve done by doing this panel and then leaving,” he said with a laugh. “It’s sort of like Obi-Wan Kenobi dying at the end of Star Wars and leaving Luke Skywalker to fight the rebellion by himself.”

Some critics, too

Thorp may be leaving the battlefield to others, but he’s also not afraid to lob a few grenades as he departs. He created a stir last month when he said college presidents have pressing demands and therefore should leave sports to athletic directors.

That was sacrilege to college athletics reformers who have said the only way to assure integrity is to have college presidents in charge.

Hodding Carter III, a UNC professor of leadership and public policy and former Knight Foundation president, said Thorp knows as well as anyone that big-time college sports can take a leader down fast. “This booger is not an 800-pound gorilla; it is a Godzilla and if you don’t shoot the bastard right away, it will eat you alive,” he said.

But, he said, Thorp’s proposal is way off base. “You really have got to get control of it, but you don’t get control of it by letting the guy who raised Godzilla become the person who now is supposed to supervise Godzilla, and that’s what the athletic directors are, and the conference guys.”

Thorp knows his suggestion was, to say the least, provocative.

“Bill Friday’s ghost and Hodding Carter and all those people are ready to kill me,” he said, mentioning the late UNC president and current faculty member, both of whom worked on reforms for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. “They don’t admit that their presidential control idea didn’t work.”

It didn’t work in the case of Thorp, who said he took the job with no inkling about the athletics minefield ahead. Early in his tenure, he was worried about student safety after the murder of student body president Eve Carson and the mass shooting at Virginia Tech.

During his five years on the job, he would wrestle successfully with state budget cuts, town politics and issues for the university’s lowest-paid workers. He repeatedly mentions what he says are the central indicators of the university’s health: UNC-CH has climbed from 16th to ninth nationally in federal research dollars, and undergraduate applications for admission jumped 43 percent. At the same time, private giving has been steady, even during a recession.

Still, Thorp was dogged by scandals, some with seeds planted before he took over as chancellor. The trouble came in waves: improper benefits for football players, academic misconduct involving a tutor, academic fraud in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. The revelations came as a shock to the Tar Heel faithful, who liked to think they did things the right way, “the Carolina Way.”

He fired football coach Butch Davis, prompting anger from some fans and derision from others who said the action came too late.

Layers of investigations were launched, by the NCAA, the State Bureau of Investigation, a Board of Governors panel, a review by former Gov. Jim Martin and more recently, the university’s accrediting body.

Lessons in PR

There were other problems, too. The university’s top fundraiser resigned after spending university money on trips with his girlfriend, the mother of a former UNC basketball star, in some cases to see her sons play. Thorp had approved an arrangement where the office of the fundraiser, Matt Kupec, was paying for Tami Hansbrough’s job, even though she was working in a different department. Thorp announced his resignation soon after the news broke.

This year, several women filed a federal complaint accusing the university of mishandling sexual assault cases. That has led to campus protests, the hiring of a consultant and two federal investigations.

Too often, Thorp said, he found himself in front of microphones trying to explain the problems and pledging to fix them.

Looking back, he said he would have done some things differently when it came to public communication and crisis management.

“But it’s always easy to see those things at the end,” he said. “It’s really hard when you’re going through it. It’s real easy to look at somebody else’s crisis and know what to do. It’s a whole different deal when you have a big bureaucratic organization, trying to make quick decisions and getting people on board.”

The academic scandal in the African studies department was perhaps the most embarrassing blow, with no-show classes, poorly supervised independent study courses and unauthorized grade changes. Martin’s probe found more than 200 irregular courses going back to the mid-1990s.

The blame was pinned on a former department chairman, Julius Nyang’oro and a manager, Debbie Crowder, who had close personal ties to the athletics department. Neither works at the university now.

One good result, Thorp said, is that a myth has been deconstructed.

“It was a failure of lots of people over a lot of years to detect it,” he said of the academic scandal. “I think that was fueled by this notion that these kinds of things didn’t happen here.”

Still, though, he resists the notion that the African studies scandal originated with athletics.

“I don’t think we have any evidence to suggest that this whole scheme was devised specifically for athletes,” he said. “But I don’t want to be the slightest bit defensive about the fact that student-athletes certainly took advantage of it and they had lots of ways to know about it.

“The personal relationships that Debbie Crowder had were very conspicuous ways in which they would have (known about it). Does that make it an athletic scandal or an academic scandal? I don’t know.”

The intense public interest surely revolved around athletics. If no athletes had been enrolled in the fake classes, he asserted, no one would have taken much notice.

“And that part is sad,” he said, “because it would have been just as bad a thing.”

Support from students, staff

Thorp said the panel he appointed will come out with recommendations sometime this fall. Meanwhile, dozens of policies and procedures are in place on both the academic and athletic sides of the university to prevent a recurrence.

There have been numerous personnel changes, too, and Thorp said he has faith in Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director, and Larry Fedora, the football coach.

“We didn’t have an elegant way of getting there, but it’s all pretty good now,” he said. “I’m proud of all that, and it was an honor to do it, but I’m ready to take a break.”

When Thorp decided in September to step down, he said he had done a lot of thinking about whether he was the right kind of leader for that moment in the university’s history. In July, he had been to the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, where he learned about his strengths and weaknesses.

Thorp said those who chose him to be chancellor obviously couldn’t have foreseen that the young leader would have to deal with an athletics meltdown. They had no way of knowing “that we were going to need somebody who had a full tank of gas for going on TV and talking to the media and dealing with a crisis.”

He really didn’t want to be a politician or a public figure. He was more focused on the internal workings of the university.

When public scrutiny and criticism were at a fever pitch last fall, faculty, staff and students were at rallies begging Thorp to stay. In the central quad, they rolled out long scrolls, where they wrote messages of praise.

James Holman, on the housekeeping staff, sent a letter thanking Thorp for working to solve the staff’s long-standing issues and working conditions. Thorp was credited with raising minimum salaries and starting a community garden for workers.

“It has been decades since the university has had a chancellor with the gift of being able to listen and to hear, as well as the determination to act,” Holman wrote.

Working the inside

Thorp said he hopes history will judge him as someone who did his best to take care of the people in the university community.

“There’s a lot of commentary about whether I should have done things differently when it comes to taking care of the outside,” he said. “But I know how to take care of the inside of a university.”

Many say Thorp did well at building good relationships with faculty, employees and students, keeping an open door to people.

“On those people and caring issues, he really gave more time than most chancellors,” said Dan Gitterman, a professor of public policy. At the same time, Gitterman said, Thorp did not have an adequate support system of senior advisers who could help with some of the big issues that became overwhelming – athletics and the recent investigation into the university’s handling of sexual assault cases.

“Those are things you need people right in your office who can help give you advice on,” Gitterman said. “Those are big, big operations and he was home alone.”

In St. Louis, where Thorp jokes the winters are colder and the summers are hotter, he won’t have to deal with big-time athletics and its pitfalls at the NCAA Division III school.

As provost, he will oversee the academic enterprise, while his new boss, Chancellor Mark Wrighton, will be in the spotlight. Thorp said he looks forward to putting more emphasis on graduate students at WashU, a respected research university that has built strong undergraduate programs.

At 48, he has time to settle into the second-in-command role. He said he had two other job opportunities, but he won’t discuss them.

Though he had announced his intention to stay on the chemistry faculty at UNC-CH, it seemed a good time to make a change, he said. Both of the Thorp children are leaving home in the fall – daughter Emma to a boarding school in Virginia, and son John to UNC-CH.

So Thorp won’t be away from Chapel Hill for long. He’ll be back in late summer as a Carolina parent when his son goes through freshman orientation.

In the Midwest, he and his wife, Patti – known as an exuberant basketball fan – will root for the Bears. And, Thorp said, they might squeeze in a road trip or two to catch another team.

“I can’t wait to go to Louisville and South Bend and watch the Tar Heels play. That’ll be great.”

Stancill: 919-829-4559

via CHAPEL HILL: UNC’s Holden Thorp steps out of the spotlight | Education | NewsObserver.com.

Published: May 20, 2013 Updated 15 hours ago

By Dan Kane — dkane@newsobserver.com

In an interview with a local magazine published last week, former UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser complained that media coverage of an academic scandal that involved many UNC athletes was more about taking down championship banners than getting at what went wrong.

“I’m really angry about [the media],” Moeser told the Chapel Hill Magazine, a lifestyle publication. “I think they target people, and they take pleasure in bringing people down. I think their real goal here was to remove banners from the Smith Center.”

The remarks were part of a short article in which Moeser defended “The Carolina Way.” That’s the title of a book written by revered men’s basketball coach Dean Smith, who retired in 1997, in which he offers his lessons for achieving success through hard work and strong ethics. It’s become a motto for the university, and it has taken a beating amid the academic and athletic scandals at the university over the past three years.

Those scandals include an NCAA investigation into the football team that found improper financial benefits for top players and improper academic and financial help from a tutor, and an academic fraud scandal that involves more than 200 lecture-style classes that never met and were heavily populated by athletes.

UNC’s football team has never won a national championship, but its men’s basketball team, which plays in the Smith Center, won two championships during the roughly 14 years of no-show classes within the African and Afro-American studies department. Records show men’s basketball players were enrolled in the classes, including two that had one basketball player as the sole enrollee.

The university has not given a full accounting of football and men’s basketball enrollments in all the classes, but has insisted it was not an athletic scandal because nonathletes were enrolled and received the same good-to-excellent grades.

“I think [the media] has really put a target on the university,” Moeser told the magazine, “and they’ve treated The Carolina Way in a very cynical fashion, trashing it, really, and indicating The Carolina Way was always just a fiction, a façade we put in front of misbehavior. I really resent that. I think The Carolina Way is genuine, I think it’s real.”

Moeser, who was chancellor from 2000 to 2008, could not be reached for comment.

John Drescher, executive editor of The News & Observer and a UNC-CH alumnus, disputed Moeser’s take on the media coverage.

“We weren’t trying to get anybody,” Drescher said, “but we were trying to get to the bottom of what happened at UNC. Most of our readers understood that and appreciate the digging we did.”

Moeser’s comments drew national attention when they were picked up by Deadspin, an irreverent online sports publication best known for exposing Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o’s fictious girlfriend. But the magazine criticized Moeser for “shooting the messenger.”

Closer to home, John Robinson, the former editor of The (Greensboro) News & Record, wrote in his blog, “Media disrupted,” that Moeser doesn’t understand the media’s job in an open society.

“What actually has happened is that the N&O discovered some rot in the internal workings at UNC in athletics and academia and, like an infection in the body, you have to keep going after it to get rid of it all,” Robinson wrote. “That’s what the N&O has done and is still doing.”

Some faculty at the university said Moeser’s remarks were misguided. Michael Hunt, a history professor emeritus, said Moeser may be reacting to the criticism leveled by rival fans.

“He may be reflecting the embattled feeling that the administrators are feeling,” Hunt said. “The problem is they are dragging this out, and I don’t think anybody is saying — I haven’t heard a word saying — ‘Oh, the N&O’s persecuting Chapel Hill.’ Nobody is saying that except for the people who are trying to keep the lid on.”

Kane: : 919-829-4861

via Ex-chancellor Moeser criticizes coverage of UNC scandal | UNC scandal | NewsObserver.com.

Published: May 21, 2013

James Moeser, the chancellor emeritus and a professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a master at playing the organ, but now he has taken up percussion with an instrument usually preferred by losing politicians.

Instead of striking drums or cymbals, he’s banging on the media. His tune is that old favorite of the beleaguered: “They’re out to get us.”

Moeser, who led UNC-CH from 2000 to 2008, told Chapel Hill Magazine last week, “I’m really angry [about the media]. I think they target people and take pleasure in bringing people down. I think their real goal here was to remove banners from the Smith Center.”

Moeser’s wrong, obviously. If the media were any good at targeting people, they would have targeted him. His successor, Holden Thorp, took over before the scandals broke and ended up taking the heat (and the fall) for problems that festered under his predecessor. Moeser was the one who fired the likeable but underperforming alum John Bunting as football coach and decided instead to take the football program big time with the 2006 hiring of Butch Davis, a former coach at the University of Miami and of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.

Davis brought in an assistant coach who ran afoul of the NCAA for linking players to agents. That brought more scrutiny that uncovered sham classes in the African studies department favored by the university’s football and basketball players. Smoke is still billowing from this situation. The Orange County district attorney is soon to report on any criminal wrongdoing, and the Secretary of State’s investigators are looking into payments to athletes.

UNC’s reputation for academic quality and aboveboard athletics has taken a hard hit. The damage has been made far worse by the failure of university leaders to admit problems and search relentlessly for where the trouble began and where it spread.

But what is Moeser angry about? Not about what happened or how it has been handled. He’s angry about what got reported. He thinks reporting that seeks to find the extent of the problems is a mean-spirited effort to strip a proud university of its greatest athletic laurels, the banners from its national men’s basketball titles.

No, it’s an attempt to do what universities also should do: Seek the truth. We appreciate Moeser’s freedom to play his own tune, but he’s hit the wrong note.

via Moeser is wrong to blame media for UNC scandals | Editorials | NewsObserver.com.

Published: May 18, 2013

By Dan Kane — dkane@newsobserver.com

Last July, a special faculty report into the academic fraud at UNC-Chapel Hill made waves by raising the possibility that athletes’ academic counselors steered them to bogus classes in the African Studies Department.

But cut from the report, days before its release, was a potential explanation of why a manager within that department would be involved.

“Although we may never know for certain, the involvement of Debbie Crowder seems to have been that of an athletics supporter who managed to use the system to ‘help’ players; she was extremely close to personnel in athletics,” earlier drafts of the report state.

The final version, released July 26, dropped that language for this: “Although we may never know for certain, it was our impression from multiple interviews that a department staff member managed to use the system to help players by directing them to enroll in courses in the African and Afro-American Studies Department that turned out to be aberrant or irregularly taught.”

At first, the authors, professors Steven Bachenheimer, Laurie Maffly-Kipp and Michael Gerhardt, couldn’t explain the change. But a request for emails and other correspondence related to the report showed when it happened and why: Faculty chairwoman Jan Boxill wanted it cut because it amounted to hearsay. She told the authors that other professors, whom she did not identify, raised that concern.

Boxill, a former academic counselor for athletes, sent an email to Chancellor Holden Thorp and others as the report was released. It mentioned “some slight edits on page 6,” which is where Crowder’s athletic ties had been recounted.

In an email message to The N&O, she said changes were made after comments from the Faculty Executive Committee, which she chaired.

The information about Crowder isn’t hearsay. The N&O had reported Crowder’s ties to the Athletic Department the previous month, and they were later acknowledged in an investigation led by former Gov. Jim Martin, who determined Crowder wasn’t specifically helping athletes. He had not interviewed her and provided little evidence to back his claim. Martin had received both versions of the faculty report.

Other UNC records given to an accreditation commission looking into the fraud connect Crowder and athletes. The university’s initial investigation, covering a recent five-year period, found nine bogus classes that appeared to have been set up by Crowder. Athletes accounted for all but eight of the 56 students enrolled, including 31 football players and eight basketball players.

Kane: 919-829-4861

via Report omitted Crowder’s athletic ties | Education | NewsObserver.com.

Updated: Fri 11:36 AM, May 17, 2013

The head of a university that remains under SBI investigation is stepping down.

Elizabeth City State University Chancellor Willie Gilchrist today says he is resigning and plans to formally retire June 30th.

Gilchrist’s resignation follows last week’s departure of university police chief Sam Beamon. The SBI says it’s looking into allegations of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation. ECSU says the investigation centers on how it handled a complaint of assault and sexual battery on campus.

Gilchrist, who has been at ECSU since 2007, said his decision is in the best interest of the university, the state system and his family. UNC President Tom Ross will soon name an interim chancellor, according to a news release.

Prior to ESCU, Gilchrist was superintendent for the Halifax County School system.

via ECSU Chancellor Resigns Amid SBI Probe.

By Michael Abramowitz

Friday, May 17, 2013

North Carolina’s health care providers soon will have a new state system for Medicaid reimbursement claims, but they have no idea yet who their Medicaid management partners will be.

N.C. Secretary of Health and Human Services secretary Aldona Wos on Thursday presented local health professionals with Gov. Pat McCrory’s vision for the future of Medicaid and gathered suggestions, questions and concerns about how to achieve a system that “makes people healthier in a predictable and sustainable way.”

McCrory already has opened the bidding process to private-for-profit entities to compete with the state’s award-winning not-for-profit community care (CCNC) management entity, a move that has concerned many health care providers. Wos said that having multiple management entities would make it easier for care providers to contract for management services and receive reimbursements more efficiently, “but how many is the right number… to keep the system successful and sustainable?”

She said the state has whittled the number to about 10 from which to choose, but said it will probably golower.

Wos did not present a new Medicaid plan, but outlined the administration’s general views and goals of providing the most effective care while reducing administrative costs through an efficient management system for services and cost reimbursements that will reduce the taxpayers’ burden. The DHHS operates under $20 billion budget, from which $13 billion goes to Medicaid, she said.

“The governor asked me to look at this carefully and make sure that North Carolina citizens’ needs are being met and the $13 billion is being efficiently spent,” Wos said.

After analyzing feedback already received, Wos cited common themes around which the department has started to build a framework for reform: simplifying the complex information management system for health care providers and patients, reducing administrative complexities and finding a way to treat patients as a whole by combining management of mental and behavioral health care with physical health care under one statewide umbrella, Wos said.

Even without a replacement Medicaid management system in place, the state will begin using an electronic one-stop provider billing system on July 1 and will require use of a one-stop electronic eligibility processing system on Oct. 1, Wos said.

Wos did not say, when asked, why the State Legislature turned down the federal government’s offer to fund 100 percent of its Medicaid program until 2017, then 90 percent thereafter. She and Medicaid director Carol Steckler were not allowed by their press secretary to answer questions about the 500,000 state residents not presently covered by Medicaid or any other insurance plan.

McCrory has said the new plan will not include eligibility for that portion of the population.

“The governor has said we are focusing on making our current Medicaid system more efficient and effective,” spokesman Ricky Diaz said. “His plan does not provide for any change in eligibility.”

When asked whether McCrory has factored the financial effect to his plan of leaving 500,000- 600,000 people out of the health care coverage equation, Diaz repeated that those people will not be eligible.

Health care providers in the east, like Dr. David Herman, CEO of Vidant Health System, which provides care under state law to 70,000 uncovered, non-paying people each year, were well aware of the challenges they face to continue providing quality care without reimbursement while keeping the system financially viable.

“Secretary Wos and I acknowledge there need to be changes in the health care system,” Herman said. “Our organization, however has particular challenges because of the demographics of eastern North Carolina. Dr. Wos has expressed that she understands that perhaps one size doesn’t fit all.”

Herman said his biggest concern about even small Medicaid funding changes is the effect they can have on Vidant’s ability to deliver on its mission, due to the wide variations in the payer mix.

“We can’t shift the cost of care to other payers the way providers in other parts of the state perhaps can,” he said.

Contact Michael Abramowitz at mabramowitz@reflector.com or (252) 329-9571.

via The Daily Reflector.

Jean Little helps the children with their after-school work at the Little Willie Center on Thursday, May 9, 2013. (Aileen Devlin/ The Daily Reflector)

Editorial

Friday, May 17, 2013

A shining source of hope and positive child development for 23 years, the Little Willie Center after-school program stands tall as one of this city’s most recognized faith-based support networks for families in need. And at the same time, the center is itself in the perpetual position of reaching out to the greater community for financial and volunteer support.

All this week, the center’s community development group has been hosting prayer vigils, health screenings and other events designed to further illuminate its mission and draw support. Those with the time and means to participate and help should seize the opportunity to do so.

The center has expanded its focus in recent years to include education service and workforce development for adults trying to improve their lives and the lives of their children. But the center’s long-standing core mission of “addressing the needs of latchkey children” in the West Greenville community has not changed since Renee Arrington founded the organization in 1990.

The center will provide its services at no cost, although parents are asked to volunteer and help in other ways. Instead of paid staff, the center uses volunteers from the community, East Carolina University and other groups.

“The community really owns the Little Willie Center,” said Marvin Arrington, chairman of the center’s board of directors.

After many years of operating out of a small house on West Fifth Street, the center is now located in the nearby Lucille W. Gorham Intergenerational Center, where it offers summer camps in addition to its after-school and other programs. While the larger location has allowed for some expansion in services, the center can serve only so many children at a time. That number is at 40 now, but Marvin Arrington will tell you there are always many more waiting for a spot to become available.

It should be noted that the Little Willie Center has been an inspiration to other community outreach programs that provide similar services to children and families in need. The Building Hope Community Life Center, Third Street Community Center, Operation Sunshine, the Boys & Girls Club of Pitt County, and numerous churches and other groups all do wonderful work deserving of support.

The Little Willie Center is certainly not the only local effort working to help today’s at-risk children develop into tomorrow’s positive role models and community leaders. But it should continue to stand as a positive role model for how that work can and should be done.

via The Daily Reflector.

Published: May 17, 2013 Updated 1 hour ago

By Tammy Grubb — tammy.grubb@newsobserver.com

DURHAM — A judge has continued the order sealing search warrants in the September death of a UNC-Chapel Hill student.

The search warrants were resealed May 14 for another 60 days in the death of Faith Hedgepeth, 19, a junior from Warrenton.

A judge said previously the documents were sealed to keep information confidential that only investigators and the suspects might know. Police did release some information in January about DNA evidence gathered from the scene.

Hedgepeth was found dead Sept. 7, 2012, in her Hawthorne at the View apartment on Old Chapel Hill Road. Chapel Hill investigators still have not released a cause of death.

Anyone with information should call the Chapel Hill Police Department at 919-614-6363 or Crime Stoppers at 919-942-7515.

Calls to Crime Stoppers are confidential, and callers may be eligible for a reward of up to $39,000. Written information can be sent to crimetips@townofchapelhill.org.

via DURHAM: Judge reseals warrants in UNC student’s death | Crime | NewsObserver.com.

Editorial

Published: May 16, 2013 Updated 12 hours ago

It was not encouraging when, during a forum in Reidsville on how to deliver Medicaid to North Carolinians, state Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Aldona Wos cited Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin as the reason Medicaid wasn’t expanded to include another 500,000 working class state residents.

The reason, of course, was the determination of Republicans in the General Assembly to take a stand against President Obama and the federal government’s offer to provide the money for additional people free of charge to the state. Turning down the offer, which will hurt hundreds of thousands of people and their families, was nothing more than an ideological and political stance, and it was a horrible decision.

Wos needs to be fully informed as to the state of Medicaid before she takes her show on the road, the intention of the show being to get community input, including comment from doctors, as to how the state can best deliver care.

Governor McCrory, in the name of saving money, wants to convert the delivery of Medicaid to three or four managed care organizations. They would run the show for a set price, and both the companies and doctors would share some financial risk if, for example, services wound up costing more than anticipated.

Many doctors seem to prefer a setup such as Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC), a network of doctors that focuses on preventative care and monitoring those with chronic illnesses, the aim being to keep them out of emergency rooms and more expensive care. Under McCrory’s plan, CCNC wouldn’t continue, unless it wanted to be one of the bidders for services.

CCNC seems to work well. The state would do well to encourage its expansion.

Carol Steckel, state director of Medicaid, said CCNC needed to include mental health care. Doctors have advocated that the program be expanded to do that, and that hospitals be drawn into the mix as well.

In any case, by going out and talking to people, Wos has a chance to get some meaningful feedback and it’s hoped, to take some of the ideas back to the governor, who should remain at least somewhat flexible.

Unfortunately, McCrory’s representatives, Wos and Steckel, are apparently limited in what they can say. When, on Wednesday in Durham, a professor of medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill said the decision not to expand Medicaid was “bad from a public health standpoint,” all Steckel would say was, “We hear your opinion about the Medicaid expansion. Let’s talk about how we can improve the existing Medicaid program.”

Getting input about Medicaid from different areas of the state is a good idea, but it will prove a productive idea only if Wos and Steckel do more than listen.

via DHHS leader Wos should listen before changing Medicaid | Editorials | NewsObserver.com.

Posted: May 16, 2013 6:27 PM EDT Updated: May 16, 2013 6:31 PM EDT

By Alex Freedman, Weekend Anchor

Gov. Pat McCrory is keeping the ball rolling on his proposed restructuring of our state’s Medicaid program, potentially putting a large portion of it in private hands.

The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Aldona Wos, is touring the state answering questions about what they’re calling the “new framework.”

Wos visited East Carolina University’s Heart Institute Thursday for a question and answer session with local health experts.

“$36 million a day for the state of North Carolina is how much we spend on Medicaid right now,” said Wos during her presentation.

The state spends $13 billion a year on the Medicaid program and Gov. McCrory hopes to make it more cost effective by replacing the current non-profit organization that runs Medicaid with multiple for-profit healthcare management companies he’d dubbing “Comprehensive Care Entities.”

The CCE’s will bring together what McCrory calls the “silos” of healthcare: Mental and Physical Health, along with Substance Abuse.

Opponents question how a for-profit company will keep costs down and, more importantly, keep profits in North Carolina. Under the new framework, DHHS would take applications from healthcare management companies hoping to become a CCE, even applications from out-of-state companies.

Wos says she hopes North Carolina based management companies will “step-up to the table” so the department will not have to rely on out-of-state companies.

Al Delia, current Director of the Office of Health Access at the Brody School of Medicine, says there is still work to be done.

“I think a lot of the details still have to be worked out,” said Delia, “We have too many silos in North Carolina so I think that aspect of the plan that they put forth is right on target.”

The new framework is projected to roll out in 2015.

via Sec. Aldona Wos talks Medicaid ‘framework’ – WNCT | 9 On Your Side Greenville NC & Eastern NC News.

By Amanda Albright

Updated: 16 hours ago

Drew Moretz, a lobbyist for the UNC system, has fielded tough questions from legislators about how state money is being used on college campuses.

“We want to make sure they feel there is a return on investment,” he said.

Moretz said he emphasizes the economic impact of the UNC system — such as the number of people it puts to work post-graduation — when lobbying legislators.

But when economist Mike Walden gave a presentation last year to higher education leaders about the UNC system’s economic impact, several Republican legislators called his findings a ploy for public support.

Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University, found that the UNC system’s teaching function benefited the state by $6.1 billion in 2009 and out-of-state students’ spending totaled $400 million.

The controversy surrounding his analysis reflects a larger debate in the state and nationwide as to whether public higher education provides an economic return on investment.

With some North Carolina leaders doubting education’s viability and less state money available, investments in the UNC system have dropped dramatically.

In 2011, a cut of $414 million caused UNC campuses to eliminate 3,000 positions and hundreds of course sections, and McCrory’s 2013-14 budget proposal includes another $139 million cut to the system.

The legislature will release its final budget next month.

Harry Leo Smith Jr., a businessman and one of 16 new appointees to the UNC-system Board of Governors, said the legislature has been reluctant to fund higher education for political and economic reasons.

“It’s a culmination of ideology and the recession,” Smith said. “When the checkbook’s empty, you’re supposed to ask a lot of questions.”

But Joe Hackney, a Democrat and Speaker of the N.C. House from 2007-2011, said the reduced investment in higher education can be attributed to Republican control of state politics.

“They’ve always been more skeptical of the value of the university system and a little more hostile to some of the things that go on at universities,” he said.

Hackney said the UNC system has provided longstanding economic benefits to the state by employing a wide range of disciplines, including medicine, public service, science and research.

Smith said the state should evaluate its investment in the UNC system through schools’ job attainment rates and graduation rates.

“There has to be some accountability to performance,” he said. “You can break it down college by college — who is doing the most with the money they get?”

Schools have to balance measures of economic impact with soft outcomes such as critical thinking, Smith said.

But David Ayers, a professor at UNC-Greensboro, said increasing emphasis on the economic impact of education is damaging.

“The legislature is trying to choose for them, and is pushing them in the direction of job training,” Ayers said.

Sen. Jeff Tarte, R-Mecklenburg, said universities need to educate students and prepare them for careers.

“You don’t want to invest in a system where nobody graduated or had an interest,” he said.

Ayers said the return on the investment in a liberal arts education cannot be measured monetarily.

“It’s pretty clear that when states invest in education systems, their graduates become more productive citizens and become leaders, and overall the economy improves.”

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.

via The Daily Tar Heel :: NC leaders evaluate economic impact of investment in higher education.

By Michael Abramowitz

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration today will detail its alternative to the federal Medicaid expansion plan he and the state Legislature rejected under the Affordable Care Act.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Vos and state Medicaid director Carol Steckel will outline and discuss the governor’s plan with health care providers at 1:15 p.m. at the East Carolina Heart Institute at East Carolina University, 115 Heart Drive, a DHHS official announced.

Vos and Steckel will seek creative and innovative ideas as the plan’s details are finalized, the governor’s spokespeople said.

“The Partnership for a Healthy North Carolina” is McCrory’s proposed Medicaid framework for a network of behavioral and physical health care services for North Carolina’s children, older adults, people with disabilities, people with mental illness and low-income families, the governor’s staff said in a prepared statement last week.

Republican legislators in March rejected the ACA plan that offers states the opportunity to voluntarily participate in expanded federal Medicaid coverage paid by the federal government.

“Before considering Medicaid expansion, we must reform the current system to make sure people currently enrolled receive the services they need and more taxpayer dollars are not put at risk,” McCrory said when he signed the bill.

When he announced his alternative plan on April 3, McCrory said it calls for providers, recipients, taxpayers and the state to come together to implement a coordinated-care model of delivery to bring long-term predictability, sustainability and efficiency to the program.

“We’re bringing all partners together to improve care, customer service and efficiency, but most importantly, to deliver right care at the right place at the right time to improve results for our state’s most vulnerable citizens,” McCrory said.

The state tour featuring Vos and Steckel, which was in Durham on Wednesday, ran into some controversy last Friday when Vos told an audience in Reidsville that the decision not to expand the state’s Medicaid program came from state Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin. Goodwin fired back, saying that statement was untrue.

As soon as the tour was announced, the N.C. Medical Society issued a statement expressing skepticism about the governor’s plan.

“We’re interested in learning more about the details of the governor’s proposal,” the statement said. “However, if the administration’s idea of reform is bringing in out-of-state corporations so they can profit by limiting North Carolina patients’ access to health care and cutting critical medical services to our state’s most vulnerable citizens, that is not change we can support.”

Contact Michael Abramowitz at mabramowitz@reflector.com or 252-329-9571.

via The Daily Reflector.

Published: May 15, 2013 Updated 14 hours ago

By Jane Stancill — jstancill@newsobserver.com

CHAPEL HILL — A task force on UNC-Chapel Hill’s sexual harassment and assault policy will look to a recent agreement between the U.S. government and the University of Montana over that campus’s response to sexual assaults.

The settlement, announced last week, requires the University of Montana to do an overhaul of its sexual assault policies and procedures, including educating the campus on harassment and sexual violence, creating a tracking system for complaints, conducting annual campus surveys and requiring better response by campus police. The agreement followed a yearlong federal investigation prompted in part by high-profile sexual assault cases involving football players.

Federal officials have said the Montana agreement provides a blueprint for reform at campuses across the nation.

UNC-CH, itself under federal investigation for its reporting and handling of sexual assault cases, has undertaken a review of its policy by a 22-member task force that includes faculty, staff and students.

The panel started its work Wednesday, when a university-hired consultant, Gina Smith, said UNC-CH is at the forefront of a changing national conversation about sexual misconduct on college campuses.

“You are there and you are emerging as national leaders,” she told the group, “and this task force is one example of it.”

The five women who filed a federal Title IX complaint against UNC-CH have argued that the current policy was written by a few administrators without input from students and those with expertise in sexual violence. They have said the policy is hard to understand and too focused on compliance.

Smith said just meeting standards isn’t enough. The university has to be sure to tend to the needs of individuals who face personal and emotional crises during such experiences, she said.

“Compliance is the floor,” she said. “We want the well-being of our students to be – the sky is the limit.”

A varied task force

The new task force includes a cross-section of faculty, students and staff who regularly deal with sexual harassment and assault, including counselors and coordinators who handle rape prevention education, student complaints and investigations. There is a law enforcement representative and a university attorney, as well as a professor who does research on violence against women, a member of a feminist student group and the director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer center on campus.

Christy Lambden, student body president, said the diversity of the group should give people confidence about its deliberations.

“From my understanding of the way that the policy was being written previously, this is a much more diverse group writing this policy now and it’s a much bigger group,” Lambden said. “Whether we reach the same conclusion or a different conclusion remains to be seen, but I certainly think that there will be more trust and faith in the process because we do have that big a group with more constituencies represented.”

‘Embrace the tension’

Already, differing opinions began to emerge Wednesday. Several members said there should be some recognition that women are disproportionately affected by sexual violence and that a “fair and balanced” standard may not work in a society where men and women are not always treated equally.

Smith told task force to “embrace the tension” and the group’s chairwoman, Christi Hurt, said disagreements will provide a “creative force” to the discussions.

“It means we’ve got the right people in the room,” Hurt said.

Lambden, the student body president, said the revision of the policy is a recognition that change is necessary.

“There is an understanding that the university has messed up,” he said, “and that now we are doing our best to fix that and move forward.”

Stancill: 919-829-4559

via CHAPEL HILL: Rewrite of UNC-Chapel Hill sexual assault policy begins | Education | NewsObserver.com.

Chapel Hill, N.C. — A 22-member task force began Wednesday the intricate process of examining how the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill handles campus sexual assault cases and how administrators can improve that system.

Student protests in recent months prompted Chancellor Holden Thorp to appoint the task force. The protests followed the filing of a complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights.

Five women asked federal investigators to look into what they called an atmosphere of sexual violence at UNC-Chapel Hill. Their complaint accuses the school of under-reporting sexual assault cases for 2010 in an annual report to the federal government on campus crime and alleged that campus officials have created a hostile environment for students reporting sexual assault.

“We know these issues are emotionally charged and incendiary. I’d ask you to try to take emotion out of this process so we can fully and fairly identify these issues,” Gina Smith, a nationally recognized expert on sexual assault cases, told the task force.

UNC-Chapel Hill has hired Smith to help it strengthen its policies regarding campus sexual assaults.

“(Victims) are not being treated fairly (and have) a perception of feeling judged or isolated, not having right support, before, during or after the process,” she said.

Smith has held several campus conversations in recent weeks to solicit feedback from students and staff, and the task force will take those ideas into account. The group also has set up an online suggestion box to gather input.

“We must not judge,” Smith, a former prosecutor, told the panel.

The group plans to meet weekly through the summer, with the goal of presenting recommendations to administrators when students return to campus in August.

“We’re going to have very different perspectives on what a policy should do and who we’re accountable to,” said task force member Sarah-Kathryn Bryan, a rising junior. “I think that, as long as we have a solid policy with administration and staff, who are well-trained and accountable to upholding policy, then we’ll be able to move forward with a campus that doesn’t support rape culture.”

Reporter: Renee Chou

Photographer: Tom Normanly

Web Editor: Matthew Burns

via Panel starts examining UNC-CH’s handling of sex assault cases :: WRAL.com.