Dave DeWitt

This has not been a good few months for major college football. Schools like Ohio State, U-S-C, and Miami have run afoul of the NCAA. That’s also the case at UNC-Chapel Hill, where football coach Butch Davis was fired just before practice began, and school officials will face the NCAA infractions committee in October.

While this environment would seem to make college presidents run from big-time football, one UNC system school is running toward it.

Thousands of students are returning to area universities. They will be greeted by a variety of changes brought on by budget cuts.

Today, the Duke men’s basketball team is in Kunshan China. They are there to kick off a global tour that will also take them to Shanghai, Beijing, and Dubai.

It’s the latest, and most public, effort by Duke to expand its global reach.

It’s campaign season in cities and counties across the state. And nowhere are the races more interesting or hotly contested than in Wake County.

UNC system leaders today expressed public support for UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Holden Thorp. Thorp has been under fire from some alumni for firing football coach Butch Davis last month.

UNC system president Tom Ross and Board of Governors chair Hannah Gage released a statement this morning, reiterating their support for Thorp and his leadership of UNC-Chapel Hill.

Earlier this week, an alumni group threatened a lawsuit. They said they were misled into helping pay for a stadium expansion and were led to believe Davis would continue as coach.

The five-year wait is now over, and North Carolina Central is officially a member of the NCAA’s Division I.
 

The NC Central Board of Trustees voted back in 2005 to move from division 2 to division one. The move was somewhat controversial, as it meant the Eagles would no longer play in the popular CIAA basketball tournament.

The Eagles then played as an independent with no conference affiliation. Last year, NC Central was a provisional member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

The state legislature may be out of session until September, but that hasn’t stopped Governor Bev Perdue from firing the latest shot in the fight over pre-k programs.

On Wednesday, Perdue issued an executive order that directs the Department of Health and Human Services to offer pre-K education to all eligible 4-year olds in the state.

She says that will put North Carolina in compliance with a ruling last month by superior court judge Howard Manning. Last year, about 32,000 4-year olds were enrolled in More At Four. About double that many qualified.

Personal information on 1,800 school children was accidentally posted online by NC State researchers.

The security failure affected elementary students who attended Wilson and Richmond County schools from 2003 to 2006. The personal information posted online included names, dates of birth, and social security numbers.

A parent was the first to notice the error. NC State removed the data when it became aware of the situation late last month and has begun the process of trying to contact affected families.

North Carolina will be one of the states seeking a waiver from the Department of Education, exempting it from parts of No Child Left Behind. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced this week that he will allow some states to opt out of the controversial education law.

State Superintendent June Atkinson says educators have become increasingly unhappy with No Child Left Behind's all-or-nothing system of judging schools.

Another round of statewide test results came out on Thursday. More high school students are graduating, but more schools across North Carolina are falling further behind more challenging goals.