Winston-Salem Journal
When Hugh Morton died of cancer last June at 85, he left behind a legacy in more than 4,000 acres of conservation easements that will forever protect Grandfather Mountain from development.

While many family businesses are ruined by disagreements after the death of a strong central figure, the Mortons say they are united in a vision for the future of Grandfather Mountain.

Among the changes, Crae Morton plans a research center at the base of the mountain. It would be independently operated by at least two well-known scientific organizations. An announcement naming the organizations is expected in the near future.

The park has also hired experts from ASU to evaluate how Grandfather Mountain can use cleaner sources of energy. That’s why Morton drives a hybrid electric-gasoline car, and is looking at other ways of making the park more energy efficient.   Read full story

White Rocks full of plants and lichen connected to Ice Age

Knoxville News Sentinel
A cliff ecology study in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park has uncovered an assemblage of plants and lichens that echo back to the Ice Age.

Samples collected by Appalachian State University include a group of lichens normally found in the Artic and boreal regions of Canada, as well as a lichen species never before documented in southeastern North America.   Read full story

Huffington Post
The French have a saying, “bien dans sa peau.” It means, literally, to feel good in one’s skin. We have no equivalent saying; the very notion of feeling good about oneself is, well, Greek to us. “…self-consciousness about our abs or butts or faces isn’t just an individual preoccupation, it’s almost a social dictate,” to quote Huffington Post’s very owen Arianna. Actually, it is a social dictate, according to a study in the June issue of the journal Body Image–a mandatory ritual known as “fat talk,” as one of the study’s authors, Denise Martz of Appalachian State University, explained: “We have found in our research that both male and female college students know the norm of fat talk–that females are supposed to say negative things about their bodies….Females like to support one another and fat talk elicits support. An example would be one saying, ‘It’s like, I’m so fat today,’ and another would respond, ‘No, you are not fat, you look great in those pants.’”                 Read full story

Wilmington Star News

Campuses in the University of North Carolina system must reduce textbook costs for their students under a plan approved Friday by the Board of Governors.

By January, students in large introductory courses will either be able to sell their books back to the schools at the end of the year or rent books for the course.

Textbook costs at UNC schools usually add $800 to $1,200 to students’ bills each year. And textbook costs nationally have nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, according to a study by the federal Government Accountability Office. The UNC system for the past year has experimented with ways of keeping textbook prices down. At some campuses, bookstores formed a buyback consortium that resulted in more available used books and a better return for students selling their books.

At Fayetteville State University, some professors ordered older textbook editions or let students choose between a new and older version.

Appalachian State, Elizabeth City State and Western Carolina universities already have book rental programs, which are rare around the country. Read full story

Asheville Citizen-Times

The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University has received a $500,000 gift, given in honor of a retiring history professor who serves as the center’s advisory board chairman.

The unrestricted gift, given by two alumni who asked the university not to release their names, is made in honor of Dr. Peter Petschauer.

“I am extremely grateful and humbled by this gift,” he said. “The funds are a tremendous boost to the Turchin Center, in that this gift affirms all the previous gifts and allows us to enhance our already widely acclaimed programming. Read full story