Well Said

The new year will feature new stories about Carolina’s faculty, staff and students and their impact on the state, the nation and the world. Before telling those new stories, this week’s episode will update three stories from this past fall semester.

For Jack Morton, Carolina basketball is more than just sports fandom. It's a lifeline. On this week’s episode, we continue Morton's story of his journey that led him to follow his grandfather’s footsteps into photography and how the basketball team helped him through one of the most challenging times in his life. It’s a tale of two families, a family of photographers and the Carolina basketball family.

Jack Morton considers himself a “basketball junkie." It’s good for the 2000 Carolina graduate, then, that he spends so much time on Carolina’s baseline. The freelance photographer said he wouldn’t trade his seat on the floor for any other spot. “I’m so spoiled,” said Morton, who’s in his 13th year of photographing Carolina basketball games. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch a game from the stands again because the perspective is so unique.” There’s a good chance that Morton won’t have to watch the game from the stands ever again. His grandfather Hugh Morton was a famous North Carolina photographer and nature conservationist, and he photographed Carolina basketball for more than 60 years. Jack Morton hopes to continue that legacy. On this week’s episode, Jack Morton shares the journey that led him to follow his grandfather’s footsteps into photography. It’s a tale of two families, a family of photographers and the Carolina basketball family.

As graduating senior Carlos Perez-Heydrich was preparing for Winter Commencement, he tried to prevent the magnitude of the celebration from overwhelming him. It worked until he saw one of his graduation photos. “It kind of hit me in that moment,” said Perez-Heydrich, a biology major from Miami who is minoring in chemistry and neuroscience. “I was like, ‘Oh, gosh. I’m graduating.’ It hit me like a waterfall.” Perez-Heydrich will graduate from Carolina at Winter Commencement, which takes place on Dec. 16 in the Dean E. Smith Center. On this episode, Perez-Heydrich shares how he was able to find a home away from home in Chapel Hill with the Chancellor’s Science Scholars and what he’s learned about himself during his time at Carolina..

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in an address to millions of Americans decades ago, Dec. 7 1941 is a date that lives in infamy. In remembrance of the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, UNC-Chapel Hill history professor Joe Glatthaar explains the context surrounding the events leading up to – and following – the attack.

When Dr. Lisa Hightow-Weidman was in medical school, she saw that people with HIV were affected not just by the disease itself but also by the stigma of having something that they might not have told their friends or families about. As the principal investigator of the UNC Behavior and Technology Lab and the UNC/Emory Center for Innovative Technology, Hightow-Weidman tries to tackle that stigma through mobile technology. “The ability to empower patients and participants to have control over their health and their sexual health is a really important thing,” said Hightow-Weidman, an associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine. December 1 is World AIDS Day. Every year since 1998, the first day in December has been dedicated to raising awareness about the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Hightow-Weidman explains why her innovative work is so important for helping health care workers reach the people who need HIV and AIDS information the most.

It’s tradition for many families to go around the table at Thanksgiving and say all the things they’re thankful for. This practice of gratitude, according to associate professor of social psychology Sara Algoe, is actually beneficial to our health and relationships. In this episode of Well Said, Algoe describes the positive effects of gratitude on our lives, including improvements in physical health. Listen in for helpful tips on how to practice gratitude daily.

For senior Covenant Scholar Gabrielle James, coming to Carolina required a leap of faith. She hadn’t even stepped foot on the campus before enrolling. But she was familiar with one thing — the Carolina Indian Circle. It’s a group created about 40 years ago by American Indian students with the goal of building a support network for members from a wide variety of tribes and showcase their culture with the rest of campus. Members of the club came to visit her high school in Robeson County when Gabrielle was a senior. She joined when she first got to campus and has been serving the club ever since. In this week’s episode, Gabrielle discusses her experience with the Carolina Indian Circle, why it’s important to celebrate this American Indian Heritage Month at Carolina and what she plans to do after she graduates. She also reflects back on the leap of faith that brought her to Carolina years ago. “I have absolutely loved my four years here,” said Gabrielle, a political science and American Indian indigenous stu

For Steve Davis, archaeology is everywhere. “I mean, it’s literally right underneath your feet if you know what to work for,” said Davis. As the associate director of Carolina’s Research Laboratories of Archaeology, Davis leads excavations on campus. Sometimes, he knows what he’s looking for; other times, people find something they need him to inspect. That’s what happened in August when construction was happening at the Carolina Inn. On this week’s episode of Well Said, Davis discusses that discovery at the Carolina Inn and how he uses 3D technology to preserve moments in time.

In this special episode of Well Said, the UNC Visitors’ Center shares spooky stories from some of Carolina and Chapel Hill’s most famous legends and haunts. From friendly campus ghosts to top-secret student societies, the Visitors’ Center has the inside scoop. Visit them online or in person to learn more about Carolina’s history, traditions, legends and landmarks.

Hanger isn't a word your mom made up, after all. It's actually defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “feeling irritable or bad tempered when you’re hungry,” and has become the research focus of doctoral student Jenn MacCormack, who is studying how physical states — like hunger — impact human emotions — like anger. Her research shows that hanger is not automatic whenever you need a snack. The environment you’re in and whether or not you’re aware of your hunger play a role in going from hungry to hangry. On this week’s episode of Well Said, MacCormack and her advisor, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience Kristen Lindquist, take us through some research they’ve conducted on hanger.

To help celebrate University Day, Tar Heel alumni participated in community service projects across North Carolina, the country and the world for the annual Tar Heel Service Day. In this episode of Well Said, alumna and UNC General Alumni Association Coordinator of Outreach Jennifer Chandler explains the variety of projects that took place this year and Charlotte Carolina Club board member Suzanne Cowden gives us insight on the club’s annual project.

On this week's podcast, Vice Chancellor for Workforce Strategy, Equity and Engagement Felicia A. Washington discusses University Day and shares her vision for Carolina's future.

Triffin Morris has more than 20 years of experience costuming Broadway stars in some of the most well-known plays and musicals, including Wicked, Shrek, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now she’s bringing her expertise to Carolina as a professor in the College of Arts & Sciences and as head of costume production at PlayMaker’s Repertory Company. An expert in quick-change and other trick costumes, she teaches Carolina students how to make costume-change magic on stage. In this episode of Well Said, Triffin lets us in on a few of the costuming tricks she uses every day and how she's sharing her talents with students.

The gentle stream that flows beside McIver Residence Hall hasn’t always been part of the campus landscape. It just looks as though it has. A pipe beneath the street combined with the natural path of rainwater and nearby springs presented an opportunity for staff in UNC Finance and Operations to collaborate on a unique solution for the perpetually wet field near McIver. Instead of merely repairing and reburying the entire pipe, Sally Hoyt, a stormwater engineer in Energy Services, and landscape architect Jill Coleman worked with a team of consultants and Carolina staff to create an aboveground stream with a filtration process that naturally filters pollutants and contaminants out of runoff water. On this episode, Hoyt explains the importance of the Battle Grove Restoration project and how it moves the University toward its Three Zeros goal.

Hans Paerl has lived in North Carolina since 1978, and in those 40 years, he hasn’t seen a storm quite like Hurricane Florence, which made landfall near Wilmington early in the morning on Sept. 14. In this week’s episode, Paerl — the Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences — updates us from the North Carolina coast on the damage caused by Florence, explains what made this storm so unique and addresses the lingering long-term danger left behind by storms like Florence: pollutants in the watershed that could poison people and kill fish. To better understand the concerns about how this storm will affect water quality for weeks and months to come, we will also revisit our conversation with Paerl from 2017.

Rameses, a 7-year-old horned Dorset ram who roams the sidelines of Kenan Stadium during football games, has become one of Carolina's most famous and beloved Tar Heels. Away from the football field and the public light, the same family has been caring for UNC-Chapel Hill's mascots since the first Rameses walked campus in 1924. In this episode, three members of that family share their story and explain why they love caring for everyone’s favorite Tar Heel.

Two Carolina journalism professors have set out to change the narrative around one of the most pressing global issues of our time: sex trafficking. In today’s episode, we talk with Anne Johnston and Barbara Friedman about their organization, The Irina Project, and how they’re empowering journalists to report on human trafficking in a responsible and ethical way. This episode features music by So Far As I Know (“The Conqueror”), Lee Rosevere (“Keeping Old Letters”) and Scott Holmes (“Epic Cinematic.”)

Dr. Jonathan Parr of the UNC School of Medicine has spent his career studying diseases that disproportionately impact lower-income communities throughout the world. His interest in conditions like malaria and hepatitis took Parr to central Africa to assist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's first country-wide health survey and study the spread of hepatitis C. After discovering approximately 1 percent of patients were infected with the virus, the team was asked to conduct a similar survey on hepatitis B. In this episode of Well Said, Parr describes his experience in the Congo and the expected impact this research will have on the country.

Legend has it that a sip from the Old Well on the first day of classes brings students good luck — even a perfect GPA. Thousands of Carolina students line up at the well every year to test the theory for themselves. But the legend’s origin has been a bit of a mystery. To find out when the tradition started, University archivist Nicholas Graham turned to a trusted tool: Facebook. He reached out to UNC-Chapel Hill alumni who graduated in the '70s, '80s and '90s to learn the whole story.