There’s some great archival footage in here of the Brickyard, the Bell Tower, Homecoming and the Court of North Carolina. If there are any alumni out there with this kind of film of NC State, drop me an e-mail at chris_richter@ncsu.edu. We’d love to see what you’ve got.
Check out the above photos that Tim O’Brien, a photographer with NC State Student Media, took during the Wolfpack women’s basketball practice yesterday at Reynolds. And if you’ve ever wondered what a college basketball team does during a practice, we’ve got a complete, almost minute-by-minute breakdown of one here. After the jump, we’ve also compiled a list of some highlights from practice and things Coach Kellie Harper said to the team during it. But first, we’ve got excerpts from a quick interview we did with her after practice. It’s all part of our third installment of “A Coach’s First Season,” NC State magazine’s ongoing coverage of Coach Harper and her team throughout the season.
On what she does after practice
After every practice I write down what we did not do well and we’ll focus in on it tomorrow. If we didn’t have a good practice, I’ll figure out why and how I can make it a better practice. I’ll knit-pick little things. Whether it’s reasonable or not, that’s how I do things. I’m always trying to find a way to do things better.
Michael Roberts, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics, is back on The New York Times’ Room for Debate blog (we linked previously to his May appearance). This time, he responded to the question “Can Biotech Food Cure World Hunger?” One of his concerns:
I am mindful of arguments coming from technological optimists who believe crop yields will continue to rise, that there is plenty of oil still left to find and that geo-engineering will solve global warming.
But I don’t think today’s doomsayers are a few voices in small corners of the scientific community. There is a real threat to worldwide food security over the next 10 to 40 years. The threat comes from global income inequality combined with projected global warming, which could cause tremendous declines in crop yields.
As he writes in his follow up on his excellent Greed, Green and Grains blog:
I don’t think biotech crops are evil and could be a big help, especially in developing nations. But I think we’d be naive to think these will solve all the world’s food problems going forward. Maybe they will but they probably won’t.
Roberts and a colleague from Columbia University published a paper in August that made some startling predictions about declines in crop yields due to global warming.
h/t to @ncstatenews
From today’s N&O:
If he had it to do over, former N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger would have taken a closer look at university policy before giving his provost, who was on the brink of resigning, a sizable severance deal this year.
And he would have been more forthcoming with the media, he said in an interview Wednesday, the same day he was identified as a finalist for the presidency at New Mexico State University, a land-grant public institution that, like NCSU, emphasizes research.
And this:
[Oblinger] stepped down June 9 and has been on a six-month leave before returning to the faculty. In that time, Oblinger said, he realized he still wants to be a university leader. Many of the issues he tackled at NCSU - campus construction, private fundraising, economic development and student aid - are also important in New Mexico, he said.
“I think I have something to offer still in the administrative role,” he said. “I could be very contributory as a faculty member, but I think my current strength is still in these large, big-picture areas.”
Great news on the ice cream front. That delicious NC State ice cream you wait in line for at the State Fair each October? You can now trek on down to the Bragaw C-store and pick up a pint for $4.50. Flavors include chocolate chocolate chip, vanilla, cookie dough, chocolate chip mint and campfire delight (a graham-cracker flavored ice cream with chocolate chunks and marshmellows). Of course, you can always get your 3-gallon tubs and tiny cups at Schaub Hall or settle in with a book and a sundae from The Creamery in D.H. Hill Library.
We wrote about the ice cream in a 2003 story and dug up this about dairy production at NC State:
In fact, dairy production at NC State dates to the early 20th century, when the first pasteurized milk was produced in the basement of Polk Hall. Those early supplies went to soldiers in World War I. In the early 1960s, the dairy science curriculum merged with a few other majors to become food science. And in 1968 the new major found a home in Schaub Hall, which was built with a fully operational dairy pilot plant.
The NC State Alumni Association Board of Directors has released this letter following a change in leadership at the organization:
Dear NC State Alumni,
The decision of Chancellor James Woodward to end the employment of NC State Alumni Association Executive Director Dr. Lennie Barton is being received with a great deal of sadness by many NC State alumni. Dr. Barton faithfully, ably and enthusiastically served our Alumni Association and NC State for more than 30 years, and we are deeply grateful for his leadership. The officers and board of directors of the NC State Alumni Association recognize that Chancellor Woodward, in reaching this decision to end the employment of Dr. Barton, heard and considered many points of view, and that his decision was made with a great deal of thought and careful deliberation. We respect the chancellor’s authority to make decisions regarding the employment of his senior staff members, such as Dr. Barton.
GoPack.com has posted a good story written by A.J. Carr about Kellie Harper and the Wolfpack women’s basketball team. One snippet:
[Harper] can be vocal, yell if I have to, but is never profane. When really upset, she’s apt to vent Dad Gum it! More often players will hear Jeepers Creepers! with a country twang.
A.J. has been covering sports in North Carolina for more than 50 years and is among the state’s most respected and knowledgeable sportswriters. He took the time to speak with us today about Harper and the team. It’s another installment in NC State magazine’s coverage of the team. Read what he told us and then check out his story.
On first impressions
I was very impressed with her. She seems to know precisely what she wants to do. She has a great background and brings outstanding credentials as a player and as a coach — as both as an assistant and as a head coach at Western Carolina. And her personality. I see her as a likable coach and one that players will truly respond to. The players spoke a lot about her energy level. She’s certainly also a person with strong values and is a strong Christian, just as Kay Yow was. I sense that she’ll be very caring to players and an excellent motivator.
NC State will break ground on the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library today as it celebrates the 25th anniversary of Centennial Campus. The N&O has a front-page story on the history and evolution of Centennial Campus.
The campus is revered elsewhere in the world, but many locals aren’t aware of what it has become, said Tom Rabon, an executive vice president of Red Hat, the software company with headquarters on Centennial. About three years ago Rabon was invited to Toulouse, France, to talk about the place his company had picked for its headquarters.
“The French government paid me to come over and talk about nothing but Centennial Campus because they wanted to emulate exactly what we have,” he said. “People in Raleigh drive past every day and just have no idea what’s behind that line of trees on I-40, and no idea that Centennial Campus is the envy of the world.”
The 200,000-square-foot Hunt Library will include impressive features such an automated retrieval system. Check out a video of the system and see a virtual exhibit of the library. It’ll open in 2012 or 2013. Keep up with construction through a live-video feed, and check our design renderings here.
We just left a meeting with Wolfpack women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper to talk about plans for NC State magazine to follow her and her team during the season. (Check out our very first post on this: a Q&A with Coach Harper.) Over the next several months, we’ll be at enough practices, games and team functions so you’ll get a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the program and you’ll get to know Coach Harper and her team. Throughout the season, we’ll frequently post stories, photos, videos and Q&As. The culmination will be a lengthy feature story in NC State’s spring issue.
But first, we want to know what you want to know. What questions do you want to ask Coach Harper? She’ll answer your questions as part of an upcoming “Seven Questions With . . . ” feature. And what do you want to know about the Wolfpack women’s basketball program? NC State will take into consideration what you want to know as we pursue this story. Just leave a comment or e-mail us.
After the jump is a few things we learned about Coach Harper during our conversation today as we planned the story:
What if every time you sat down to play a video game, the story that unfolded before you was unique to you? That’s the vision of Michael Young, a computer science professor and co-director of the university’s Digital Games Research Center. In this interview with Escapist Magazine, he and Patrick Sebring, lead technical designer at Atomic Games, talk about artificial intelligence in gaming.
Gaming is big business, and researchers and students at NC State are doing some fascinating work in the area. Earlier this year, we posted a few examples of games created last year by students in one of Young’s classes and a link to an article we did last year on gaming at NC State.
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