The state medical examiner’s office released an autopsy report Thursday morning on the death of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill junior Courtland Smith, who was shot by an Archdale, N.C. police officer Aug. 23.
Smith told a 911 officer that he had a gun and was suicidal, the (Raleigh) News & Observer reported. Smith’s blood-alcohol content was .22 when police pulled him over on Interstate 85 just south of Greensboro. The report also states that Smith had talked to friends about suicidal ideas on the day he died.
The report leaves plenty of questions unanswered about the sudden tragedy, which has had an impact on UNC’s greek community. Smith was the president of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at UNC. The News & Observer reported that Smith’s parents told the parents of another fraternity member that no gun was found in his SUV, and the report does not state that Smith was armed on the night he was shot.
Despite requests from the News & Observer and other media organizations, a Randolph County judge refused to release video recordings of the incident that were captured on a police car’s dashboard video camera. The officer involved in the shooting, Jeremy Paul Flinchum, has been placed on leave, pending the completion of an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation.
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Blogger Kevin Davis had speculated earlier that Bill Gates and his wife Melinda French Gates, Trinity ‘86 and Fuqua ‘87, would be visiting the Durham Public Schools’ Performance Learning Center on West Club Boulevard today.
Turns out he was right.
The couple made a surprise visit to the Center this afternoon. The Gates Foundation also supports similar educational facilities across the country, according to NBC 17.
The appearance marks Trustee Emerita Melinda French Gates’ first public stop in Durham since the dedication of the French Family Science Center at Duke in 2007, but today’s visit is unrelated to this weekend’s Homecoming festivities.
“There won’t be any surprise presentation on the football field,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “It’s up to them if they want to show up.”
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TerriblyClever Design, the Stanford-based Web company that helped to design DukeMobile, has been bought out by Blackboard, Inc. for about $4 million, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The sale makes millionaires of Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein, the two Stanford University students who founded the company in 2007.
Blackboard’s chief business officer Matthew Small explained his company’s decision to buy TerriblyClever in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education:
“Every single school is going to have an iPhone application,” said Mr. Small, in an interview. “For Blackboard, the question is, How do we bring teaching and learning to where students are, which is on mobile devices?”
The DukeMobile application, originally launched in March, can be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It includes a variety of features, and the application has been very popular on campus, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations.
Duke’s foray into the world of mobile application began last Spring and was largely based off of iStanford, a set of iPhone applications introduced by Stanford University in January.
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A student claimed that a man attempted to force her into a truck near the intersection of LaSalle Street and Erwin Road around 2:30 a.m. Monday morning. According to a Duke Alert sent Monday afternoon, the student described the suspect as a 5′6″ Hispanic male driving a black truck. The student told the Duke University Police Department that the suspect fled in the truck. Anyone with information is being asked to contact the Durham Police Department or DUPD.
Popular student residences including the Lofts at Lakeview, Erwin Terrace and Belmont Apartments are all located off Erwin Road near the LaSalle Street intersection.
The Clery Act of 1990 requires the University to issue timely warnings about crimes that present a threat to Duke’s students or employees. The Duke Alert system was most recently used to notify students of the Jan. 30 burglary of two Central Campus apartments and a Dec. 10 robbery that a student reported in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
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As The Chronicle previously reported, Duke’s donations are down by about 20 percent for the 2009 fiscal year. But the University’s fundraising performed well against its peers for the previous fiscal period. According to a list compiled by the Council for Aid to Education, Duke ranks 13th out of the top 20 college and university fundraisers, with a total of $385.67 million raised in fiscal year 2008.
Private donations composed about 18 percent of Duke’s operating budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, told The Chronicle earlier this month.
JuicyCampus shut down today, but another Web site claims it has emerged to fill the void. All traffic directed to JuicyCampus.com is now forwarded to The Anonyous Confession Board, which is hosted at CollegeACB.com. The site was founded by students at Wesleyan University and is currently managed by Peter Frank, a freshman at the school. According to today’s press release, the ACB intends to avoid much of the offensive content that plagued JuicyCampus:
The site is devoted to promoting actual discussion, not provoking salacious posts or personal attacks. Its mission statement reads: “The College ACB or College Anonymous Confession Board seeks to give students a place to vent, rant and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo.”
Such a philosophy sets the ACB apart from JuicyCampus, a website that fostered superficial interactions, often derogatory and needlessly crude. By contrast, the ACB consistently hosts a higher level of discourse—while still making room for the occasional gossip post.
One of the features of the site is a user-moderation button that allows readers to flag posts that they find inapproriate. JuicyCampus Founder and Chief Executive Officer Matt Ivester, Trinity ‘05, decried “mean-spirited posts and personal attacks” but openly encouraged users to engage in the “lighthearted gossip of college life.” The founders of ACB appear to be setting a different tone in their press release by encouraging “open exchange of information” about college rather than pure “gossip.” It remains to be seen if this political correctedness will produce material that is any different from the often salacious discussions found on JuicyCampus.
