RALEIGH – Shiny new buildings are cool, but Gov. Roy Cooper apparently realizes we need to take care of what we have. The governor’s budget recommendation for 2017-19 includes $351 million in bonds to pay for renovations to state buildings,1 half of them in the University of North Carolina System. The needs are substantial –… READ MORE
Step up to fight NC’s biggest killer
RALEIGH – Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget plan includes a proposal that’s vital both to North Carolinians’ health and to our economy: Restoration of the University Cancer Research Fund to full funding.1 Nearly 40 percent of us will contract cancer at some point in our lives. Even if we manage to avoid it, we each have… READ MORE
Return of the Teaching Fellows?
RALEIGH (March 9, 2017) – Legislative and education leaders proposed a partial restoration today of the N.C. Teaching Fellows Program that would offer forgivable loans to college students who agree to become public school teachers in high-demand STEM and special-education fields. The Teaching Fellows program began in 1986 and offered four-year scholarships to promising students… READ MORE
Duke President: “We need … a great public university system”
DURHAM – Duke likes UNC? Yes, Duke University President Richard Brodhead says in the accompanying video. It might not be evident from sports rivalries, but Duke supports and enjoys a collegial relationship with its neighbors from the University of North Carolina System. “We, like everybody else in the state, need and absolutely require a great… READ MORE
Great athletics: “An image of excellence”
DURHAM – Duke University President Richard Brodhead doesn’t want UNC to be bad at basketball. “When people play sports against each other, the idea isn’t that you want to be good and have them be bad,” Brodhead says in the accompanying video. “You want them to be good because only when they’re good can they… READ MORE
NCSSM: “Best high-school education in the country”
DURHAM – Imagine a public high school where students take multivariable calculus, organic chemistry and mechanical engineering – and all of them go on to college. It’s not imaginary. The NC School of Science and Mathematics was the nation’s first public residential high school focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. Eleven states have… READ MORE
Keep the talent here
DURHAM – The expression ‘best and brightest’ is overused – but at the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it really does apply. From NCSSM’s class of 2016 alone, six graduates went to MIT, five to Yale, four to Stanford, six to Cornell. From one graduating class. In the accompanying video, NCSSM Chancellor Todd Roberts says… READ MORE
Hospital turned high school
DURHAM – A high school is one creative way to reuse a 1908 hospital. The former Watts Hospital that became the NC School of Science and Mathematics breathes character – architectural and otherwise. The skylights in a former operating room now illuminate an art studio. The nursery with its round windows for viewing newborns now… READ MORE
Leadership Profile: UNCG Chancellor Franklin Gilliam, Jr.
GREENSBORO – Oddly, Frank Gilliam Jr.’s path into academia started on a football field. As a senior running back for the Drake University Bulldogs, Gilliam was having the game of his life against Colorado until a fateful hit sent him over the bench with a set of broken ribs. “I sat up and said, ‘I can’t… READ MORE
Most diverse campus in the UNC system?
GREENSBORO – At UNC Greensboro, it’s a challenge to define the “typical” student. “We have perhaps the most diverse student body in the system,” Chancellor Frank Gilliam, Jr. says in the accompanying video. “It’s a fascinating campus in that way,” Gilliam says, listing non-traditional and working adults, African-Americans, LGBTQ and veterans among the student populations on… READ MORE