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Wolfpack weighs in on IN BRIEF Pope, sin, religion Salary raises for UNC system chancellors face objections
Faculty groups at various universities across the UNC system are denouncing the chancellor’s salary raises, while professor’s salaries see no increase. Monday at Appalachian State, protestors asked the chancellor to deny her 17.5 percent salary increase. The Faculty Senate at East Carolina University passed a resolution that disapproves the chancellor’s pay raise without also raising professor’s salaries. There is an online petition with about 270 signatures asking chancellors to reject their raises. SOURCE: News & Observer
State farmer’s markets sees drops in attendance
Farmer’s market officials said the farmer’s market saw drops of tens of thousands of people every month this year. Last October, more than 344,000 attended the Farmers Market. This month, attendance was down by nearly 69,000. Officials said the construction from the nearby Fortify project could be a factor in the low attendance. SOURCE: WRAL
NC judge charged with paying bribes
The United States Attorney’s Office announced that North Carolina Superior Court Judge Arnold Ogden Jones, II was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with promising and paying a bribe to a public official. Jones offered a couple of cases of beer and $100 to an FBI officer for copies of text messages. The FBI officer originally told Jones that he could not get copies of the text messages because they require a search warrant and he lacked probable cause. Jones is scheduled to make his first court appearance today at 10 a.m. in Raleigh. SOURCE: WCNC
Sasha Afanasyeva Correspondent
The results from the first Pack Poll, a poll conducted several times throughout the year, are in. The poll typically targets the undergraduate students and covers a variety of topics. The newest results touch on everything from religion, sin and the pope. The survey was conducted Oct. 5 and 6. In the poll, students were asked what they considered to be a sin. Of the 974 poll respondents: • 87 percent considered cheating on their partner to be a sin • 64 percent considered cheating on schoolwork to be a sin • 36 percent considered using energy without thinking of the environment to be a sin • 35 percent considered engaging in homosexual behavior to be a sin Political identification played a role in considering homosexual behavior a sin. About 63 percent of Republicans reported homosexual behavior to be a sin, while only 12 percent of Democrats reported homosexual behavior to be a sin. Of the students who responded to the poll, 44 percent identified as Democrat, 40 percent identified as Republican and 17 percent identified as Independent. On the topic of religion, 34 percent identified as Protestant, 15 percent as Catholic, 14 percent as atheist, 15 percent as agnostic and 22 percent as other. However, other issues, like cheating on a partner and homework, were not split by political partisanship. “We noticed that, interestingly, cheating on the partner was the most sinful thing for students and that party identification did not matter in that specific case but was a major issue in all the other cases considered,” said Alessandro Da Rold, a student studying international studies who worked with Pack Poll. The Wolfpack’s student opinion on Pope Francis was high, with 85 percent of students saying they held a favorable opinion of the pope. However, when given the option to say they had no opinion, only 59 percent of students were favorable of the pope and 9 percent were unfavorable. The remaining 32 percent had no opinion. “A third of students said they didn’t have an
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
The pastoral visit of Pope Francis to Korea closing Mass for Asian Youth Day Aug. 17, 2014.
opinion about the pope, which was surprising,” said Michael Cobb, Pack Poll advisor and associate professor of political science. “There are not that many famous public figures like that, so it is surprising that many did not have an opinion.” Students who worked with Cobb on creating the poll were also surprised by the results. “One of the most surprising parts of our findings, in my opinion, was the fact that people were not paying much attention to Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S.,” said Tyler Michels, a senior studying political science. “Despite the pope’s visit being covered quite extensively by major news media organizations, students were largely uninterested in his visit.” Of the students who paid attention “fairly closely” or “very closely” to the pope’s visit, 56 percent were Catholics and 33 percent were non-Catholics. Out of Catholics who called themselves Republicans, 68 percent followed the pope’s visit very closely, as opposed to only 43 percent of Catholic Democrats. “We do more than one survey a semester,” Cobb said. “We do one large pole with a lot of questions and topics, and we do small polls focused on a smaller topic. This is the first poll we did this semester, and we did it on the pope
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Raleigh, North Carolina
Hillsborough theater to be restaurant
New semester, new classes, more sleep? Conor Kennedy Staff Writer
at the end. Marshall stated that she was proud of what Sprout Pharmaceuticals is doing in North Carolina. The long processes of approval from the FDA hurts small businesses, according to Whitehead. Sprout spent five years going through trials for the FDA, something that cost millions. “As a small business owner, it is exceptional to have support for small business,” Whitehead said. “If you look at the process of the FDA, it’s potentially a door shutter to be asked to do one extra trial that costs millions.” Whitehead explained that most of the innovation comes from small companies. “The big companies often
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Correspondent
ALEKSANDRA AFANASYEVA/TECHNICIAN
Cindy Whitehead , CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, came to NC State on Wednesday evening to give a talk about Addyi in the auditorium in Nelson Hall. Addyi is a controversial pill designed to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women, a common sexual disorder.
thought the benefit was only modest, so why expose women to the risk? In our clinical trials, modest was meaningful. So we disputed.” Feb. 14, Sprout submitted 1 million pages of data to the FDA for re-approval. The original submission in 2010 was 100,000 pages of data. Whitehead said most pharmaceuticals submit about 1,000 pages, but Whitehead said she wanted to be thorough. Letters from supporters and congresswomen encouraged Sprout to keep going through the difficult approval process, according to Whitehead. North Carolina’s Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, was among the 200 attendees of the event and participated during the question and answer session
The abandoned Varsity Theater on Hillsborough Street near Kabab and Curry and Mitch’s Tavern will be converted into a 240-seat, casual, full-service restaurant. Highlights on the restaurant’s menu include Howling Cow milkshakes (with and without alcohol), smoked turkey pot pies, fried chicken and tomato soup, pierogies, spaghetti with meat sauce and chicken ramen noodles with egg and crispy chicken cracklings. The restaurant will include a bar, open kitchen, plentiful seating on the first floor and two outdoor patios. A private dining area will be created where the projection room used to be. Gary Bryant is the visionary behind the restaurant. He is a 1984 NC State alumnus and was a student manager for the basketball team under coach Jim Valvano. His father was president of the Wolfpack Club. Bryant said he wanted to celebrate the energy and vibrancy the street once had. The restaurant will offer valet parking, according to Bryant. Millions of dollars have been invested from the city, NC State and developers during the past five years in remaking Hillsborough Street. Varsity Theater was built in 1941. It closed in the 1980s and was later converted to a McDonald’s and then a bookstore.
Spring 2016, students will face a variety of changes to their course lists and schedules, including the addition of new classes and the elimination of the 8:05 a.m. class block. The decision, made a year ago by the Registration, Records and Calendar Committee, will result in the pushback of classes by 30 minutes and an increase in the number of 75-minute courses offered. “On average, students preferred 8:30 classes over 8:05 classes and the 75-minute classes over the 50-minute classes,” said Louis Hunt, senior vice provost and university registrar. These changes will align Main Campus’ timetable more closely with Centennial Campus’, resulting in less scheduling conflicts. Another possible result is a reduction in the amount of congestion experienced by staggering the arrival of faculty and students to campus. These timetable changes shouldn’t drastically change student life on campus, but, “can, in theory, push classes later in the day,” Hunt said. Twenty-four new courses are being added to the course list, seven of which are GEP courses. New courses are added for a number of reasons. One of State’s goals is to maintain an innovative and relevant course list. Classes might be added based on student surveys, faculty suggestions or accreditation requirements. “The faculty really help shape and manage the course list,” said Barbara Kirby, professor and associate vice provost of Administration and Curricular Programs. When a faculty member wants to develop a course, the course first goes through the Courses and Departmental Committee where it is evaluated on its innovative values. From there, the course must be approved by a department head before moving to the college’s Courses and Departmental Committee where it is evaluated on its relevance to the rest of the course list among other factors. From there, it is pushed to the University Courses and Curricula Committee, where the prospective class is looked at by representatives from the faculty, library, student body and other relevant agencies and eventually finalized. There are two student seats available on the University Courses and Curricula Committee. Members of the committee vote at committee meetings and have the opportunity to provide immense input on the student perspective. There is only one student currently on the committee, Mian Wu, a graduate studying educational research and policy analysis, while the other seat remains vacant. Student Senate President Cody
Sasha Afanasyeva
uncomfortable with the topic and often attributed the problem to being “in your head” as opposed to a medical condition. “Sex is complex,” Whitehead said. “Men and women alike bring biology into the bedroom, and biology was where women were being underserved.” The FDA originally rejected Addyi when it was first proposed in 2010. Whitehead sold her previous startup Slate to help fund trials so that Addyi would eventually be approved. According to Whitehead, FDA believed that the benefit was too small to be worth the risks. “Here is the basis of drug approval: All drugs come down to risk and benefit,” Whitehead said. “We characterize those and turn over the decisions to the patients and providers. FDA
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Staff report
CEO discusses first female sex drive pill Cindy Whitehead, CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, the company behind the controversial female libido pill, came to Nelson Hall’s auditorium Wednesday night to give a talk about the small, pink pill. The small, pink pill, called Addyi, is often incorrectly referred to as “female Viagra,” but Whitehead is on a campaign to change the name because it does not accurately describe how the pill works. “Media dubbed us ‘female Viagra’, and I wish they hadn’t,” Whitehead said. “First step in education is to not call it female Viagra.” The FDA approved Addyi in August, and the pill has been available by prescription for roughly two weeks. Sprout Pharmaceuticals, the startup company behind Addyi, is located in the Captrust buildings in North Hills of Raleigh. After the FDA approved Addyi, the drug received national attention, spanning the last several months, as being the first female libido pill to help treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder. HSDD is the most common sexual disorder in women. Although HSDD was discovered in 1977, it wasn’t until seven years ago that there were brain scan trials that showed definitive proof of it. Whitehead said that part of the reason for the little research and medicine development was that society was
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