Spartanburg Herald Journal
The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg has selected an Appalachian State University administrator as its new leader. Perry Mixter, director of corporate and foundation relations at ASU, has been named president and chief operating officer of the local arts partnership.   Read full story

Asheville Citizen Times

A: To a team of Appalachian State University students who won a $75,000 award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for designing an affordable solar greenhouse. It was one of only six teams in the country to land a P3 award for sustainable energy solutions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The greenhouse will allow farmers to power greenhouses with renewable energy by storing subsoil heat and using liquid foam insulation. To learn more about P3 and the award, go to http://es.epa.gov/ncer/p3/
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Winston-Salem Journal
Students and their faculty advisers from Appalachian State University won the EPA’s third annual P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) Award, a national student design contest for sustainability April 25. The winning entry was titled “The Affordable Bioshelters Project: Testing Technologies for Affordable Bioshelters.” Read full story

Asheville Citizen-Times
A team of students from Appalachian State University’s Department of Technology has won a $75,000 award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the development of an affordable solar greenhouse.

The ASU team was one of six college teams chosen to receive the EPA’s P3 award, the result of a national competition for college students to develop sustainable energy solutions.

“We have an opportunity to continue the work we’re doing and that’s really a privilege,” said Yonatan Strauch, a graduate student at ASU and the project coordinator. Read full story

Young people embrace communication phenomenon

Hickory Daily Record
In high schools and colleges across the U.S., students bringing their cell phones to class is almost as common as bringing their books. While talking on the cell phone is its No. 1 function, most of the younger generation uses it for another purpose: Text messaging. Dr. Richard McGarry, a linguistics professor at Appalachian State University, said it’s not surprising how quickly the texting phenomenon took off.

“The pace of life is much, much faster than it used to be, and this is just one way to keep up with it,” he said. “This is a version of a post office on the go. It’s replaced the post office.”

On ASU’s campus, McGarry said he sees students texting people or talking on their cell phones on a regular basis.

“And these are people they’ve just seen an hour ago,” he said. “Texting has replaced face-to-face communication, in a time when either the pace of life has picked up and the technology has followed, or vice versa.”  Read full story

Cost, convenience persuading more students to start degree work at community colleges

Charlotte Observer

As high school seniors make their college plans in the coming weeks, a growing number will likely decide to enroll in N.C. community colleges before transferring to four-year schools.

Transfers from the state’s community colleges to University of North Carolina system campuses increased by more than 34 percent from 2000 to 2005, admissions statistics show.

Appalachian State University student Ryan Barringer, 21, spent a year at CPCC, although he could have gone straight to a four-year college with his grades, he said. He wanted time to decide where to go and what to study. “I didn’t really know where to start, because not many people in my family had gone to college after high school,” he said. “I thought, since I’m not sure where I want to go, I can go here (to CPCC) and start working on what I’ll need to have, no matter where I go.”                   Read full story

Charlotte Observer
When area colleges and universities select books for their new students to read over the summer, I always find the list interesting.
Here’s a sampling for this year: Appalachian State — “A Home on the Field: How One Championship Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America,” by Paul Cuadros. Follows the lives of members of a Latino soccer team in Siler City.   Read full story

Akron Beacon
Doctors, lawmakers and specialists are launching a large-scale public health network to change one of the stark facts of Appalachian life: Residents here are 20 percent more likely to die from heart disease than the rest of the country.

The goal is to focus attention and money on preventing cardiovascular disease in Ohio and the 12 other Appalachian states, especially their poor, rural and underserved areas.

It can be misleading to look for a single cause in the culture of such a large region, though, according to John Williams, a historian at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Even though there are similarities in rural living the culture in New York State is much different than in Mississippi, he said.

What’s more, some of the common risk factors in Appalachia may have less to do with traditional culture than with trends that can be seen nationwide, he said.

“Does the higher incidence of obesity come from the traditional Appalachian Sunday dinner, or is it from the spread of convenience stores and fast food in the last 25 years?” he asked.   Read full story