JULIA FURLONG

News

Buying into the problem

By JULIA FURLONG | October 31

Every other Friday, junior Nikki Bean gets a paycheck. And more often than not, Bean says, she spends it all by the end of the weekend. For Bean, it feels like a "little victory" when she finds something she likes on a shopping trip, whether she's in a supermarket or a clothing store. Sometimes she makes a purchase just to avoid coming home empty-handed. Having a credit card would be "catastrophic," Bean said. As it is, she often moves money from her savings account to her checking account to prepare for trips. Spending makes her happy, she said.

News

Library's late-night crew observes diverse bunch

By JULIA FURLONG | October 16

It's Thursday night, and Brian Sharpe and Michael Hamilton are holding down the House. The Robert B. House Undergraduate Library, that is. As overnight supervisors at one of the busiest spots on campus, open 24 hours Monday through Thursday, they say they've seen it all - hookups, breakdowns and everything in between. Last week was less busy than usual for midterm season, they said, but sometimes they are surprised when they go on their hourly head counts, which start at 12:30 a.m.

News

America's drinking game gets official

By JULIA FURLONG | September 13

Christian Kunkel and Kyle Lininger want to bring beer pong to the masses. While surfing in Hawaii this summer, the entrepreneurs founded the American Beerpong Association of America with a lofty goal - to be the ultimate governing body of the most popular drinking game, said Kunkel, a 2006 Duke University grad from Harrisburg, Pa. "As we see it, beer pong right now is an underground sport," said Lininger, a 2006 graduate of Vanderbilt University. "It's played behind closed doors." Kunkel and Lininger plan to change that.

News

The final victory lap

By JULIA FURLONG | August 30

Johnny Lechner isn't just a guy who wakes up in his toga at noon everyday. "Sure that is happening some days a week definitely, but I couldn't have done that for 12 years," said Lechner, 29, who is at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for his thirteenth and final year of college. "It was more or less my friends started to graduate, and I got cold feet, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life," Lechner said of his decision to spend more than a decade as an undergraduate.

News

Integration at UNC sees 50th anniversary

By JULIA FURLONG | April 28

Sept. 16, 2005 - In the fall of 1950, then-Student Body President John Sanders stood in front of an all-white crowd at UNC's annual fall convocation and predicted a monumental change was en route. "I remember saying, 'It is probable that in the course of your stay here we will have black students in the student body,'" says Sanders, former director of the Institute of Government. "'And they will be accepted without differentiation.'" While Sanders' prediction wasn't exactly on the mark, his prophecy came true exactly fifty years ago.

News

Robert B. House Library

By JULIA FURLONG | October 11

Before he left for France to fight in World War I, Robert B. House, a 1916 first-honors graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, sent Frank Porter Graham a letter in which he made his loyalties clear. "I am not a single-purposed man; if I have one dominant desire I don't recognize it," he wrote. "But the resultant of all my desires to live and serve is a purpose to come back and live and serve through Carolina." House did, in fact, return to UNC-CH.

News

Lenoir Dining Hall

By JULIA FURLONG | October 11

Although the dining hall that has stood in the Pit since 1939 carries his namesake, many are not aware that Gen. William Lenoir put what is arguably the first culinary stamp on the University. Lenoir, the first chairman of UNC's Board of Trustees, was also the chairman of the food committee, which was responsible for recommending the quality and quantity of food to be offered to future students.

News

Students find University history a bore

By JULIA FURLONG | October 11

On Jan. 15, 1795, a delegation led by Gov. Richard Dobbs Spaight struggled through a severe downpour and treacherous paths to reach a place called New Hope Chapel Hill. There they held a brief opening ceremony in North Wing (now known as Old East), officially opening the doors of the recently chartered University of North Carolina. Not a single student was in attendance. More than two centuries later, the journey to the ceremony is no longer rigorous.

News

50 years later, a look back

By JULIA FURLONG | September 16

In the fall of 1950, then-Student Body President John Sanders stood in front of an all-white crowd at UNC's annual fall convocation and predicted a monumental change was en route. "I remember saying, 'It is probable that in the course of your stay here we will have black students in the student body,'" says Sanders, former director of the Institute of Government. "'And they will be accepted without differentiation.'" While Sanders' prediction wasn't exactly on the mark, his prophecy came true exactly fifty years ago Saturday.

News

Studies unsure of college readiness

By JULIA FURLONG | August 31

Many high-school graduates are anxious about the demanding classes that await them on college campuses this fall. “I’m nervous for the work itself more than anything else,” says freshman Mallory Plaks of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But the students themselves are not the only ones feeling insecure about whether they have had adequate preparation for the rigors of college coursework.