Blair Higgins returns home with big plans for teaching her fourth-graders

Winston-Salem Journal – Blair Higgins thought she would head into the big city of Charlotte once she graduated from college. Instead, the 2006 Appalachian State University graduate returned home to Kernersville and began teaching for the school system that once taught her.
“I just realized that my whole life is here,” Higgins said. Read full article

Scientific literature is revealing the locations of newly discovered animals

The Australian – Once researchers describe a species, the information often goes into online databases, which provide an even bigger security risk. Finding articles in obscure research journals takes some hunting by poachers, but anyone with an internet connection can check the online archives at many institutions, finding the origins of the plants and animal species in their collections. Scientists treasure that kind of easy access. For instance, combining data from an entire region with past records of plant ranges should help scientists predict how climate change could affect plant populations, says Zack E. Murrell, an associate professor of biology at Appalachian State University in the US and director of a database organisation called the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections. Read full article

Could small farms provide fresh food year-round, even in northern climes?

Grist Magazine – Terry Carroll, a professor at Appalachian State University in nearby Boone, has been pushing a method for using those hillsides to extend our growing season here. Known as “passive-solar design,” Carroll’s work involves building greenhouses directly into south-facing hillsides. Along the rear wall — backed by a hillside’s robust insulating power — Carroll packs steel drums filled with water. As the sun streams in by day in the winter months, those drums store heat, which is released as temperatures fall at night. Carroll’s test projects have proved that his design can support vegetable production all winter, with little or no fossil-fuel energy burned and no costly solar panels.

The winters here in western North Carolina’s high country don’t rival those in the Midwest, but they are too cold for most vegetables to thrive. Read full article

Smoky Mountian News – When Aaron Patterson graduated from Tuscola High this year, little did he know a big chunk of his summer break would be spent, clipboard in hand, sprawled out in the dirt on a 5,000-foot mountain top, sharing long intimate moments with the leaves of a wild coneflower plant. One of the research leaders, Howard Neufeld of Appalachian State University, took that experiment to the field to study the effects of ozone on plants in their natural environment. The Appalachian Science Learning Center, a research outpost in the Haywood County portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, helped Neufeld plant a plot of coneflowers and enlisted high school interns to monitor the plot, known simply as the “ozone garden.” Read full article

A leader in the field of developmental education, which supports underprepared college students, will speak at Crafton Hills College

Redlands Daily Facts – Hunter R. Boylan, director of the National Center for Developmental Education and chairman of the American Council of Developmental Education Associations, will speak on “Best Practices in Developmental Education” at 3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, in the Finkelstein Performing Arts Center at Crafton Hills College.

Developmental education, according to the National Center for Developmental Education, “supports the academic and personal growth of underprepared college students through teaching, counseling, advising and tutoring.”

Boylan, who has written more than 80 articles and three books including the internationally renowned “What Works: Research-Based Best Practices in Developmental Education,” is one of the most respected voices in the field of developmental education. The National Association of Developmental Education has designated its award for outstanding research as the Hunter R. Boylan Award in honor of his contributions to research in the field. Read full article

Networld.Com – Margarita Ruiz is running late for her meeting with fellow graduate students at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Ruiz is enrolled in ASU’s master’s program in educational media.

She catches up with the students in the plaza and they head for a conference room where they continue a discussion on questions posed by a professor. Later, she stops one of her professors and quizzes him about the internship she’s planning. She visits the library to check on recent periodicals. Finally, she chats with two students about their postgraduate plans.

Then she logs off her computer to make supper at her home in Puebla, Mexico.

Ruiz, a private-school teacher in Puebla, is attending ASU’s Reich College of Education through a 3-D online world called Applied Education Technology Zone, or AET Zone. Through the Zone, hundreds of students in the college’s instructional technology programs communicate, socialize and learn. Many of the students live miles from the actual campus, and there is a growing number from other countries, including Mexico and Finland. Read full article

Workers World – The federal Institute of Medicine recently released a report recommending that regulations limiting federal biomedical research on prisoners be relaxed so that inmates can participate in higher-risk studies. Daniel S. Murphy, professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University, said, “Free and informed consent becomes pretty questionable when prisoners don’t hold the keys to their own cells, and in many cases they can’t read, yet they are signing a document that it practically takes a law degree to understand.” Read full article

Asheville Citizen-Times – Classes crank up this week at local colleges and universities, but many incoming freshmen received one of their first assignments long before arriving on campus. Read full article

Lenoir-Rhyne College looks into video posted on Internet

Hickory Daily Record – Hazing mostly occurs among fraternities, sororities and sports teams, said Dan Jones, Ph.D., director of Counseling & Psychological Services at Appalachian State University. For many organizations, hazing is tradition, Jones said.

“(Hazers) think, ‘I’ve been through this. It wasn’t so bad. So it must not be bad for someone else to go through it,’” Jones said. “I think most of them think they are (hazing) out of fun. Sometimes, it gets out of hand.” Read full article

Metal detectors search for guns and phones
New Jersey Star Ledger – Screening inmates, visitors and some prison employees is common procedure across the country. But most states do not require screening for corrections officers, as New Jersey does.

“Typically, across the nation, the guards are not required to do so because the corrections officers’ union is incredibly powerful and they purport this would be an incredible invasion of privacy,” said Daniel S. Murphy, a professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.

But after a recent incident in Florida, Murphy predicted, “there’s going to be a change.” Read full article

Asheville Citizen-Times – Classes crank up this week at local colleges and universities, but many incoming freshmen received one of their first assignments long before arriving on campus. Read full article

N.C. near top in high school grads who go to state’s schools

Charlotte Observer – The top three universities selected by the top freshmen were UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. State and Appalachian State. UNC Charlotte ranked fifth. Read full article

Charlotte Observer – North Carolinians invest generously in public higher education. Tax dollars have built 16 diverse universities and 58 community colleges. Read full article

Asheville Citizen-Times – I’ve been a fan of Nancy Dillingham’s books of combined fiction and poetry since 1998, when she published her first volume, “New Ground.” I now cheer her latest, “Thanks for the Dark but That’s Not Home,” which features several breakthrough pieces. Read full article

Winston-Salem Journal – People in Business: David C. Taylor was named the director of gift planning at Appalachian State University. Read full article

Triangle Business Journal – North Carolina colleges and universities made a strong showing in the 2007 U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” rankings, with 22 different Tar Heel institutions claiming distinctions on four separate lists. Read full article

New York Times – An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. Daniel S. Murphy, a professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., said that loosening the regulations would be a mistake. Read full article

Winston-Salem Journal – A new water-treatment plant going into use at Appalachian State University this week will produce enough water that the college may be able to sell some to the town of Boone.

ASU is the only university in the University of North Carolina system to operate what’s essentially a municipal water system.
Read full article

Winston-Salem Journal – By Curtis R. Ryan, Guest Columnist (Curtis R. Ryan is an associate professor of political science at Appalachian) – Israel has argued, correctly, that it has the right to defend itself. Unfortunately, that does not account for most of the violence in Lebanon today. The fighting is not between Israel and Lebanon. Lebanon has yet to fire so much as a BB gun. It has hunkered down against an overwhelming assault, and as I write this, it has not struck back. The fight is between Hezbollah guerrilla fighters and the full might of the Israeli military. Read full article