There will be more Thursday night football in Chapel Hill.

UNC's Oct. 22 game with Florida State went smoothly enough - aside from a loss for the home team - that campus officials now say they want to host another mid-week home game.

"It was a trial balloon and we were really pleased with what we found out," said Dick Baddour, UNC's athletics director. "We will do it again."

The Oct. 22 game was the first Thursday night game ever held at UNC. Kenan Stadium is squarely in the middle of a congested campus, and planners had long feared the gridlock that might accompany such a large event on a workday.

The UNC hospitals complex, which employs thousands, sits just south of the stadium and many workers get out around the same time as many fans would head into campus.

But this year's game was held during Fall break, which meant fewer students would be in town. And employees were dismissed at 3 p.m. that day, an attempt to alleviate traffic congestion.

UNC lost the game, 30 to 27. The following Thursday, they won a big, national TV game at Virginia Tech. So which brings the bigger payoff?

Said Baddour: " [At UNC] They're looking at the Carolina blue. They're looking at your fans. They're looking at, I think, the magnificence of your stadium, and your university is being talked about more. So I think there's a difference. If you ask me how you measure winning away vs. losing at home, I don't know. It's always good when you win. Maybe the difference is that your home crowd, your university, enjoys more exposure and you get a better sense, if you're John Q Public, of the university, the program, when you host at home. But there's no question that victory up at Virginia Tech speaks volumes as well."

Read more on this issue in Saturday's News & Observer.

Duke broke ground today on a big new cancer center, one half of a $700 million construction project designed at least in part to enhance the health care system's global brand.

The cancer center, slated to open in 2012, follows a similar project at UNC Chapel Hill, which just opened its own cancer hospital.

The Duke facility will put cancer research and clinical services under one roof and will come as cancer rates continue to rise. The N.C. health department has predicted a 16 percent hike in cancer cases from 2006 to 2011, with a 21 percent hike in the Triangle over that same time period.

Jarring stuff, and sobering enough to prompt Gov. Beverly Perdue, who attended the Friday ceremony, to say "I don't ask if I'll be diagnosed, but when, because it's so prevalent among us."

For more, read Saturday's News & Observer.

Minnie Sangster, N.C. Central University's new faculty chairwoman, thinks a lot of students who arrive at NCCU aren't ready yet. Not prepared, academically. Not the proper study habits, not the proper focus.

And that, she says, may be a big reason for lagging retention and graduation rates. The answer: More resources so faculty can teach in smaller classes and give more individual attention.

Here's more.

North Carolina State University will hold a rally Thursday at noon in support of Doc Hendley, a 2004 alum named one of 10 "CNN Heroes" by the cable news network.

The rally, at the brickyard, will include comments by Hendley, Chancellor James Woodward and Raleigh City Council member Thomas Crowder.

Hendley is the founder and executive director of "Wine to Water," an international faith-based organization that installs running water and sanitation systems in needy parts of the world.

Click here for a CNN video about Hendley's work.

At UNC Chapel Hill, student leaders are bringing back an old tradition: the homecoming parade.

Homecoming is this weekend in Chapel Hill, and Carolina takes on Duke in football at 3:30 p.m. The parade will start at 11 a.m. at the Columbia Street/Cameron Avenue intersection.

As Student Body President Jasmin Jones writes today in the Chapel Hill News, student leaders want the event to be a town/gown initiative.

The last homecoming parade is believed to have been in 1993, according to this Daily Tar Heel report.

The number of high school seniors applying to Duke University through the Early Decision process rose 32 percent from last year.
 
Those who apply via this process commit to enrolling at Duke if accepted. That decision comes in December.

“Last year, we received 1,535 Early Decision applicants, which had been our second highest total,” Christoph Guttentag, Duke's undergraduate admissions dean, said in a Tuesday news release.  “This year, we’ve recorded 2,040.”
 
Guttentag attributed the increase to a number of factors. For one, a rise in applications last year - 17 percent over the previous year - that got people's attention. Also, Duke and other universities have in recent years placed a greater emphasis on student aid, leading more students to apply.

At Duke University, layoffs are still a possibility as the university works its way through budget problems.

So said Kyle Cavanaugh, the university's head of human resources, in a recent information session for employees interested in a retirement incentive program.

But Duke has made progress so far. In October, Duke offered the first incentive program to 198 salaried employees.  Then, an incentive plan for hourly employees attracted nearly 300 participants.

Duke is trying to shave $125 million from its annual operating budget.

Duke will hold more information sessions for employees this month.

For more info, read this.

Well, this should help the old resume.

David Babson, an N.C. State student, just got published in a scholarly physics journal. Wait, isn't that what his professors are supposed to do?

Here's what happened: Two years ago, Babson was working through a problem in his electromagnetism textbook and just couldn't figure out how to get the answer the book was telling him was correct.

That's because the book was wrong. The problem concerning a basics physics principle was flawed.

Here's Babson's story.

Remember back last week when UNC Chapel Hill hosted its first Thursday night football game?

Well, some folks got twisted a bit out of joint over it. (Click here and read the story and the comments...)

And to be sure, the UNC-CH faculty has long played a role in the university's decision not to schedule a disruptive Thursday night game on campus.

But UNC-CH made it happen this year. And if it bothered you, you're not alone. You need look no further than Blacksburg, where your Tar Heels will tonight be squaring off against the Virginia Tech Hokies. There, too, classes are being let out early due to the game, though it's being done on less of a formal basis.

And there, too, some faculty say a Thursday football game, broadcast nationally on ESPN, essentially proves that athletics trumps academics.

The Washington Post has this topic covered in some detail in today's paper, and the story ends with this quote from a Virginia Tech prof, proving that not every academic sees the issue the same way.

A football team "does great things for the university, much more so than somebody discovering something in their PhD dissertation, which five people read. That's true, and we're going to have to live with it."

There was a week earlier this year when all James Oblinger wanted to do was celebrate success. For the N.C. State Chancellor, there were three groundbreakings that week marking the start of significant new construction project on campus, each of which would eventually yield something good for NCSU.

Yet those ceremonial events all took place as the heat around Oblinger grew. He now calls it "the swirl," a frenzy of media activity surrounding the actions he and others took in hiring former First Lady Mary Easley for a job that didn't exist before she was placed in it.

It was during that week that Oblinger realized he had to step down.

"I never got a question about how great it was for the university," he said of the groundbreakings that week. "The only questions were about the situation. That meant I was overshadowing a lot of great work. I had never planned on anything other than retiring as chancellor at N.C. State University."

Since resigning June 9, Oblinger has stayed largely out of the public eye. But he's now in the running for a new job - the presidency of New Mexico State University - and he knows he'll be facing some tough questions there. 

He already has, in fact, and the folks doing the interviews seem pleased with what they've heard. He'll be down there in November for campus interviews, and the university expects to make a decision Nov. 19.

"We're aware of the situation that happened at N.C. State," Del Archuleta, who is chairing the New Mexico State search, told me this morning. "But he's extremely experienced, very professional. He appeared a very sincere man and very qualified. It looks to us like an unfortunate set of circumstances. He told us mistakes were made and things were learned from it."

In an interview Wednesday, Oblinger spoke at length about how he's spent the last four months since resigning the chancellorship. He has been on leave, and thus has had time to both reflect on his actions and to re-tool and prepare for his next venture, as an NCSU faculty member.

But when the New Mexico State job came up, it sounded to him like a good fit. 

Here's today's story from that interview.