TECHNICIAN Estefania Castro-Vazquez Correspondent
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UNC-Chapel Hill junior defensive tackle Ethan Farmer, senior safety Tre Boston, senior defensive end Kareem Martin and senior defensive tackle Tim Jackson to celebrate by stomping on N.C. State’s 50-yard-line logo after defeating the Wolfpack at Carter-Finley Stadium Saturday. The Tar Heels beat the Wolfpack 27-19, dropping N.C. State to 0-5 in conference play.
Number of students applying to med school at all-time high N.C. State’s Health Professions Advising Center, which almost lost funding before this semester, is helping provide more students a pathway to medical school than ever before. Dr. Anita Flick, the director of health professions advising at N.C. State, said that during the past two years, Health PAC has seen a 70 percent increase in the number of students applying to medical school through its program and review committee. Health PAC, which is heavily IT driven with an extensive website, a portfolio and composite system, listserv, service and events tracking, event registration and pre-health club functions, nearly lost funding
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due to budget cuts before fall 2013. “Through efforts of the Office of Student Affairs, N.C. State was able to determine resources needed to maintain the program and provide the support for students,” Flick said. Flick said medical school acceptance rates are rising as well. In recent years, about 75 to 80 percent of students utilizing Health PAC’s services who are recommended without reservation by the review committee gain acceptance into one of their chosen schools — a high statistic compared to a national average of 40 to 45 percent, Flick said. “We now have 5,000 pre-health students,” Flick said. “We continue to see increasing numbers of students both entering the discipline and returning to campus to pursue healthcare careers.” N.C. State’s shift reflects a nation-
wide trend: Medical school application and acceptance rates in the United States are at an all-time high. According to a report by the Chronicle for Higher Education, the number of medical school applicants increased by 6.1 percent to about 48,000 in 2013. The number of students enrolled increased as well, exceeding 20,000 for the first time. Increases can be attributed to a 2006 nationwide call for medical schools to increase enrollments by 30 percent with a hope to prevent a predicted shortage of 90,000 physicians, reported the Chronicle. A current medical school applicant in the interview process, Elizabeth Kripner, a senior in marine science, said that increases in
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North Carolina Department of Public Instruction officials are expecting a significantly lower educational ranking based on the state’s End of Grade test results Thursday. Lynda Fuller, an information and communication specialist for the NCDPI, said that the state of North Carolina made changes to schools’ curricula last year to make End of Course and EOG assessments more challenging. Fuller said NCDPI officials expect new standardized test scores to be about 20 percent lower than in previous years. The results from last year’s EOCs and EOGs will be released Thursday. Fuller said that while EOC and EOG assessments are usually not used for comparison because these tests are administered by state governments, but she hopes North Carolina’s scores will be more comparable to other states. “Because they are more aggressive, those numbers are expected to parallel more than in the past because there has been some debate
that North Carolina’s tests really aren’t that aggressive or challenging,” Fuller said. Lower scores may not sound like a good thing, but the hope is to ensure that these assessments are not showing false proficiency standards, according to Fuller. These results will come less than a month after the National Center for Educational Statistics released a report that ranked North Carolina sixth in mathematics and 30th in science in the United States. “This is a big week for North Carolina public schools,” Fuller said. The NCES study used 2011 scores in math and science from two sources: the National Assessment of Educational Process, which was administered to eighth graders in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Department of Defense schools; and from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which evaluated eighth graders in 38 different countries and 9 “subnational entities,” such as Quebec or Dubai. Usually, it’s hard to compare how state public school systems are doing
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80 percent of students admit to texting in class Katherine Kehoe Staff Writer
A majority of students are texting during classes at N.C. State and other universities across the United States. The Atlantic published a study that found that 80 percent of college students text in class, reinforcing the idea that using mobile phones in the classroom has become the new norm. The results came from 777 college and graduate students in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, North Carolina and Mississippi.
Angelica Stanisic, a freshman in textiles, said she uses her cell phone two or three times every class period. “I am mostly just checking the time or texting,” Stanisic said. “It doesn’t make me forget about the lecture as long as I don’t get caught up in browsing Facebook for long periods of time.” The survey also found that almost a third of students use a digital device more than 11 times during classes for non-classroom related activities.
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NCSU faculty member performs in piano recital Jacqueline Lee Staff Writer
A member of the N.C. State faculty joined other Raleigh-based performers for a recital in Thompson Hall on Sunday. The Olga Kleiankina Piano Faculty Recital featured piano and double bass arrangements from the group. “I hope that students enjoyed my events, and they will be attracted to future performances,” said Kleiankina, assistant professor of piano at N.C. State. Kleiankina accompanied Leonid Finkelshteyn who played the double bass and performed pieces by artists such as Adolf Mišek, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Giovanni Bottesni. “I enjoyed the performance as it was technically proficient and wonderful musically,” said Greg Song, a sophomore in business. Kleiankina said she has one recital every semester and will perform soon at an event
featuring Beethoven’s music on Nov. 17, at Meymandi Concert Hall. Finkelshteyn is the principal bassist for the North Carolina Symphony and the Eastern Festival orchestra. He has toured with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Philharmonia Hungarica. Kleiankina performed “Carnival of the Animals” with pianist Anatoly Larkin. Larkin is from Russia and has studied and written music since the age of four. He has studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and moved to Raleigh in 2005 to work with music technology company Zenph. “I always try to pick pieces that will be interesting to the audience, so I knew they would like to do ‘Carnival of the Animals,’” Kleiankina said. A narrator read sections of a poem by Ogden Nash such as “Introduction and Royal
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Olga Kleiankina plays the piano with guest-artist Leonid Finkelshteyn, playing the double bass in Thompson Hall Sunday. Guest-artist Anatoly Larkin also played the piano in the second half of the recital.
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