UNC

Wright's lawyers say charge didn't fit

bniolet — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:00:15 -0500

CHARGE IT: Former state Rep. Thomas Wright's 2008 obstruction of justice conviction came on a made-up charge, his lawyer argued before an N.C. Court of Appeals panel Monday. An attorney for the state told the judges that the charge fit well with Wright's actions. (N&O)

HIRING THAWED: Public universities continued to hire faculty members this year even as cuts to swelling administrative ranks put many employees out of work. The faculty hiring is the result of a strategic move by UNC system leaders to shave costs almost exclusively from the administrative side of the ledger and protect academics. (N&O)

A BETTER TOMORROW: Gov. Bev Perdue told elected education officials Monday that the state's financial picture is improving but unemployment may keep rising in the short term. (AP)

Online classes grow

bniolet — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:03:17 -0400

VIRTUAL GROWTH: Enrollment in virtual, online high school classes has surged just as tight school budgets have closed off some traditional courses. (N&O)

HACK INVESTIGATED: The Attorney General's office is investigating a security breach at the UNC-Chapel Hill medical school in which a hacker infiltrated a computer containing information for a mammography study. Many of the women only learned their data was being studied when they received a letter informing them of the hacker. (N&O)

LOOK WHAT WE FOUND: Gov. Beverly Perdue announced that the state found $15 million to shore up community services for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled just hours before advocates for those groups planned to criticize spending cuts. (AP)

Duke Energy, UNC reach wind deal

bniolet — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:47:35 -0400

Duke Energy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have a contract under which the utility would build a mini-wind farm and the university would study it.

A recent UNC study suggested a test wind energy farm in Pamlico Sound, Lynn Bonner reports.

The contract allows several ways for the company to get out of building the windmills, including if the project's cost exceeds $35 million. The university and the company can mutually agree to end the contract if opposition to the project is too intense.

The university will be able to study topics such as hurricane resistance and turbine-animal interactions.

A provision in the state budget allows the company to recoup its windmill costs by charging customers.

Stimulus goes to research

bniolet — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:42:21 -0400

Triangle area researchers won a massive infusion of $145 million in federal stimulus money Wednesday for scientific projects large and small — including an ambitious effort to seek cancer treatments by unraveling the complex genetics of tumors.

Of the 521 grants awarded to the state, 415 are in Rep. David Price's 4th Congressional District, which includes the Triangle. The big winners were UNC-Chapel Hill, with 186 grants worth more than $60 million, and Duke University, with 181 grants totaling more than $75 million.

The stimulus bill enacted this year included $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which opened the financial spigot to projects that might have otherwise taken years to fund.

In addition to creating high-paying jobs in scientific fields, the money will spur the pace of discovery into conditions that affect millions, including heart disease, autism, Alzheimer's and breast cancer.

"What it should do is help to extend existing research programs but also help to create new research programs into the future that will be very competitive with respect to obtaining other funding," said Wayne Holden, an executive vice president with RTI International, a think tank in Research Triangle Park that received 10 grants. (N&O)

Turbine cost could go to consumers

bniolet — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:52:44 -0400

Duke Energy is offering to pay for the wind turbines planned as part of the alternative-energy demonstration project in Pamlico Sound, but the state will let the company make the money back by passing along the cost to customers.

The state and the University of North Carolina are working on a contract that would have Duke Energy build up to 3 windmills, at a cost of about $12 million each, while allowing the university to study the operation, Lynn Bonner reports.

The budget bill sets out $300,000 in federal stimulus money for the study, and says the contract must be finished by Oct. 1.

The budget bill says the state Utilities Commission must establish an annual rider for the company to recover its costs when the company applies for it.

The boogeyman for conservatives

bniolet — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:29:04 -0400

Booo. Halloween comes early this week for conservatives and Rob Christensen counts the ways it will be scary.

Strobe Talbott, the president of the liberal Brookings Institution, and President Bill Clinton's former Deputy Secretary of State will be in Chapel Hill on Thursday to discuss "Obama and the World."

Talbott will be speaking at the Fedex Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium at the University of North Carolina at 5:30 p.m.

Talbott has been a friend of Clinton since they were Rhodes Scholars together at Oxford and worked in the George McGovern presidential campaign in 1972. Talbott had a distinguished career for Time magazine before becoming a diplomat.

Board to admit illegal immigrants

bniolet — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:07:44 -0400

Illegal immigrants will be allowed back into the state's community colleges.

All but one member of the the State Board of Community Colleges voted to allow them in at out-of-state tuition rates, Kristin Collins reports.

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, a Democrat, was the only board member to vote no on the matter.

Other board members said the policy puts them in line with the UNC system policy.

"The whole economic prosperity of the United States depends on the education of the next generation," said State Treasurer Janet Cowell.

A committee of the State Board of Community Colleges recommended Thursday that undocumented students be admitted to degree programs, but they would have to pay out-of-state tuition, be denied financial aid, and be enrolled in classes only after legal students are given slots.

The full board vote today caps nearly two years of controversy over whether to allow illegal immigrants to enroll in degree programs at the state's 58 community college campuses.

Universities cut 430 Triangle jobs

bniolet — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:20:47 -0400

* Public universities in the Triangle will eliminate about 430 positions this year as part of a massive UNC system budget cut.

N.C. State University is eliminating 205 administrative jobs, and UNC-Chapel Hill is cutting 202 positions, according to a report released Thursday that gave the most detail to date on how the system will slash its operating budget 10 percent. N.C. Central University in Durham is cutting 21.5, including four at its law school.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles had said he expected administrative positions to account for 75 to 80 percent of the cuts. That number has subsequently risen to 96 percent, officials now say — an acknowledgment that administrative job growth swelled out of control over the last several years. Few cuts have been made to academics. (N&O)

* A law recently signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue imposes new regulations on the industry that provides human-resources services to businesses -- in exchange for the repeal of a controversial ban.

The new statute allows the few professional employer organizations that self-insure the employee health insurance plans they provide to businesses to continue to do so; other licensed PEOs can establish self-funded plans until Oct. 1. Previously, a law prohibiting self-insured health plans was scheduled to take effect Oct. 1.

State regulators requested the additional oversight on self-insured health plans. (N&O)

UNC students need to wash more

bniolet — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:30:13 -0400

* The state's universities and colleges are being hit hard with cases of flu, most likely of the H1N1 variety.

A type of influenza easily passed among young people, H1N1 is circulating so commonly that health officials don't even test for it specifically. They simply say students have "influenza-like illness" and assume the strain is H1N1.

The largest numbers are at UNC-Chapel Hill, which through last week had nearly 700 cases. That's more than twice the 309 cases reported by N.C. State over essentially the same period, and NCSU is a larger institution.

Most other universities report far lower numbers. Wake Forest has seen about 200 cases, and Duke has had about 170. At Peace, the small women's college in Raleigh, Murray is one of 13 students to get it.

The totals are likely higher. These numbers represent only students who seek help from a campus health office. The cases are mild and so far have not led to mass absences.

More hand washing could help slow the virus spread. One professor says students need to hear how unpleasant the illness is to get them to wash up. (N&O)

* A program set up last year to help North Carolina homeowners with subprime loans avoid foreclosure has been expanded to include those with traditional mortgages.

The State Home Foreclosure Prevention Project lets homeowners call a toll-free number and receive counseling and legal advice through a network of state and local government agencies and nonprofit agencies.

Mark Pearce, state chief deputy commissioner of banks, said Tuesday that North Carolina's foreclosure crisis has spread far beyond people who took on mortgages at high interest rates. Foreclosure filings over the first eight months of the year totaled just under 40,000 and are up 7 percent over the same period last year. Pearce said 60 percent of the foreclosure filings in the state now involve prime loans. (N&O)

* A North Carolina safety panel adopted emergency changes to its gas guidelines on Tuesday, three months after an explosion at a Slim Jim factory killed three people.

The N.C. Building Code Council to require that workers who are purging indoor gas lines to vent the pipes outside of the building. New guidelines demand that workers take proper precautions if venting is not possible, including the evacuation of those not directly working on the gas lines. (AP)

Bowles believes he has work left

bniolet — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:38:38 -0400

UNC President Erskine Bowles turns 65 next August, but he was vague about exactly when he would step down. UNC presidents have traditionally retired at 65.

Bowles says he's not focused on retirement. Not that he's in love with the job right now, he told editors, reporters and editorial writers today at The News & Observer, Jane Stancill reports.

"All things being equal, I want to go home. God knows I love Chapel Hill, but living in that great big museum by myself, eating Chick-Fil-A twice a day, that is my life."

But, he said, there are big issues to contend with, including the fallout from Mary Easley's hiring at N.C. State University and the elimination of costly layers of campus middle managers. He also says he'll demand more accountability from the UNC campuses on their performance of graduating and preparing students.

"We have some issues we need to deal with and I think the buck stops with me," he said.