49er Gold Rush 2014

It is that time of year again for the 5K on the UNC Charlotte campus, one of my favorite races. I blogged about it eight years ago when it was the homecoming race, which I think was the first one--now homecoming is in the fall but the race stayed and just changed names. Campus has changed a lot since then but it is still hilly. It was chilly but clear and sunny when the race started and it warmed up pretty quickly.

It was a milestone for us because all three of my kids ran the race. We brought the jogger stroller for my youngest daughter, who is five, but she ran the whole way instead. This will mark the end of running strollers for us.

She also greeted Norm, the UNC Charlotte mascot:

UNCC Football Faculty Coach For A Week

I had the pleasure this past week to be a "faculty coach" for the UNC Charlotte football team, which is in its first year of existence. I had a great time, as did my family, and so I can't thank Head Coach Brad Lambert and Coach Napoleon Sykes enough.

On Tuesday afternoon I got a tour of the football facilities, then sat in for a bit of Coach Sykes' linebacker meeting. I know football pretty well, but it felt very much like sitting in on an advanced foreign language--he talked rapidly while writing and erasing constantly on a whiteboard. And the players obviously understood him. From there he walked me over to practice, where I actually addressed the team very briefly.




I told them we had opposite jobs. My job involved stressing students out with work, and their job involved having a good game to make students foret me. I am no Vince Lombardi, but hey.

The next event was Friday, where my son and I met the team to watch a movie at the Student Union. From there we walked to dinner, where the rest of my family met us. We had a really nice time, and my 5 year old daughter seemed to take to Coach Lambert, intent on goofing around with him. We were also joined by the other faculty coach, Professor Valentina Cecchi, who is in Electrical Engineering, and her husband. They sat with us with at the game too.

It was capped off today, where my son and I went to the game and had a pass to walk around on the sidelines before it started.




Both teams played really well, but we lost to Wesley College, 35-28.

The purpose of the faculty coach program is to foster more connection between the academic and sports parts of the campus, because there is often antagonism (and often for very good reason). I even chatted with Coach Lambert about the challenges of starting a team right when the Penn State and UNC Chapel Hill controversies are fresh. Expectations of transparency are high, which is all to the good. From my own limited angle, though, time after time this week I found myself talking to very personable and enthusiastic people who gave off no air of machismo, arrogance, or anything else.

My colleague Anita Blanchard in Psychology had a similar positive experience.

Latinos and Democratic Mayors in Charlotte

Above the fold on the front page of today's Charlotte Observer (yes, I actually get a paper paper) was the headline "Can Charlotte Republicans Regain Mayor's Office" (accompanied by a quote by my political science colleague Eric Heberlig). I used it in my Politics of Latino Immigration class today because it fit so well with our ongoing discussions of political demography. The article's point was that demographics are favoring the Democratic Party in Charlotte. It has this very nice map comparison between the 2007 and 2013 mayoral elections.

You can see how the red is concentrated heavily in south Charlotte, and is shrinking. What the article unfortunately doesn't do, however, is integrate that analysis with the growth of the Latino population, which is a pretty glaring omission.

In work I've done with my dad, we got data on births in Mecklenburg County, then mapped them. Here is what you get:

What you can see is that the Latino population is dispersed across Charlotte, though less so in south Charlotte (which is more wealthy and white). If you combine it with the mayoral map, you end up with a city and county that will become bluer and bluer because of course Latinos support the Democratic Party by a very large margin. The children being born will not be voters for at least 18 years, but our map can also be viewed as a proxy for Latino families. Some are already citizens and non-citizens will slowly naturalize, faster if immigration reform with some sort of amnesty with path of citizenship is passed (which, naturally, is one reason many Republicans oppose it).

Thus, in Charlotte it will be really, really hard for Republicans to win mayoral elections. And by the way, in the future it may well get more difficult to win County Commissioner seats as well, if you look at the data for Hispanic births by county commission district.

As I keep repeating to my class, it doesn't matter if you like or dislike this. It's just the way things are, and demographic shifts are going to have major political impacts.

Doc Hendley Talk

For UNC Charlotte's Common Reading Experience this year, we read Doc Hendley's Wine to Water, which I reviewed last year. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a dinner with him (I am on the Common Reading Committee, which is a lot of fun) and then go to the talk. It was really fabulous.




He's a tremendously engaging speaker who has gone all over the world doing water projects while remaining very humble (and funny). He was wearing what he said his wife called his "denim tuxedo," with a Red Man belt buckle.

One of the points he stressed was how Wine To Water is growing, but he was committed to making the growth happen by connecting more to local organizations, who could help forge local solutions. In each place he helps drill wells or fix them using very cheap material. If you bring in expensive drills from India, as many organizations do, then it is costly to repair them. If you construct them out of things that can be bought locally, then you can make a well for $500 versus $5,000 and it can be easily repaired by going to local markets for parts.

If you haven't read the book, you really should.

Job Opening for Latin American History

If you are a historian of modern (post-1930) Latin America then check out the position UNC Charlotte has.

The Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte invites applications for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the field of modern Latin American History to begin August 2014. Applicants are required to have a Ph.D. in History or a related field at the time of appointment, show evidence of a strong potential for professional development as a scholar and teacher, and demonstrate a commitment to promoting diversity as a value in the department and college. A research and teaching focus on modern Latin American history is required, with an emphasis on the period since 1930. The field of specialization and the regional focus are open, although we particularly welcome applications from candidates interested in the areas of ethnicity/diaspora, human rights, environmental history, gender, and/or digital humanities.

This is a great place to work and the chair of History, Jurgen Buchenau, is a historian of the Mexican revolution and good friend of mine. If you're eligible you should apply!

Lake Norman YMCA Triathlon

I did the Lake Norman YMCA Triathlon this morning. The weather was great--sunny and not very hot--but for some reason I was slower than last year. That's a bummer, but I actually felt good and enjoyed it.

Anyway, it is a great race for novices like me. The lake is warm and easy to swim in, it is hilly but not crazy, and the distances are very doable. When you look around, there are obviously people in greatly varying condition, but the vibe is really positive.

Just two downsides. One is that you ride on pretty narrow roads, and cars are unforgiving. I was riding not far behind another guy when we got buzzed by a car as the driver laid into his horn. Although there has been progress, unfortunately Charlotte (or I guess even Davidson, which actually has a lot of people on bikes) is not a great place for pedestrians or bicycles.

The other was that when I finished, they had run out of water. When I asked about it, the woman at the finish asked me back if maybe I was just too slow or had taken the scenic route. Thanks.

Immigrant Intimidation in Charlotte

Via La Noticia, here is a copy of a letter sent to immigrants in an apartment complex. The letter, which did not really come from the owners, is simply intended to intimidate people. Very, very sick.

If you can't read Spanish, it tells people that if there any doubt about their legal status, they must move out of the apartment immediately, making up a fake law to back it up.