Former Duke University President Nannerl O. Keohane will give a leadership lecture in early February at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy.

Keohane, author of the new book "Thinking about Leadership," will speak Friday, Feb. 4. She'll be joined by Duke profesor Kristin Goss and Mike LeFevre, president of Duke Student Government.

“What Makes a Good Leader: A Conversation with Nan Keohane” will address Keohane’s perspectives on leadership and gender, based on her new book.

The event begins at 1:30 p.m. in Sanford’s Fleishman Commons and will be followed by a book signing and reception. The conversation is part of the Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture series and is free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Science Drive visitor’s lot or the Bryan Center parking deck.

Keohane, a political theorist, is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and Center for Human Values. From 1993 to 2004, she was Duke’s first, and only, woman president.

Previously she was president of Wellesley College and taught at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. Her book is, in her words, “a contribution to the centuries-long conversation about human life in social groups that began before Plato and Aristotle and continues vigorously into the present day.”

Co-presenters Goss and LeFevre are both affiliated with Duke’s Hart Leadership Program.

With new leadership in the General Assembly, the UNC system sees opportunity.

UNC officials say new leaders in the State House and Senate have indicated an interest in providing universities with more flexibility by loosening some regulations.

UNC  leaders said earlier this month they plan to seek some additional freedom to do business autonomously; pressed for details, several officials said they aren't yet sure where that flexibility might be.

But it could be in human resources, construction, purchasing or other areas.

"This may be a time to step back and see if there are rules and regulations that are no longer needed," said Jeff Davies, chief of staff with the UNC system.

One solid example: The UNC system wants the state to relax a rule mandating that state employees who retire must wait six months before going back to work for the same state agency or another.

The UNC system would like that restriction scaled back to one month. Officials there say they could routinely put retirees back to work, a money-saving move because those workers would work for a set time period and not earn benefits.

UNC officials expect to provide more specifics in coming months.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has led an effort to build a controversial inter-faith cultural center in lower Manhattan, will speak in March at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Abdul Rauf will deliver the 2011 Weil Lecture on American Citizenship on March 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Hill Hall on the UNC-CH campus. It's free and open to the public, but tickets are required.

The lecture, paid for by private funds, is the featured event in a series of conversations on American citizenship. It is sponsored by UNC's Institute for the Arts & Humanities.

Abdul Rauf, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Kuwaiti-born imam, founded and chairs the Cordoba Movement, which seeks to improve understanding among people of all cultures and faiths.

Abdul Rauf promotes the Cordoba House, a center to encourage multi-faith understanding at Park51, the proposed cultural center located near the site of the World Trade Center tragedy.

While Abdul Rauf plans to lead inter-faith activities at the center, he is neither speaking for Park51 nor raising funds for the center in his current appearances around the country, according to a UNC press release. He also has speaking engagements lined up at Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other universities.

Rauf's inter-faith center project, which some refer to as the "Ground Zero Mosque," has been controversial due to its location blocks from the site of the World Trade Center towers, which fell in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Abdul Rauf leads Masjid al-Farrah, a mosque at a different site in Manhattan. He also founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the first Muslim organization committed to bringing American Muslims and non-Muslims together through programs in academia, policy, current affairs and culture.

Students, faculty and staff with UNC One Cards may pick up lecture tickets beginning on Feb. 28 at the Memorial Hall Box Office, 140 E. Cameron Ave. – one ticket per One Card; two One Cards per person. Starting March 3, the remaining tickets will be available to the general public to pick up in person at the box office – limit two tickets per person.

The box office is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The University recommends calling the box office at (919) 843-3333 first to confirm that tickets are available.

On March 16, the lecture will be broadcast live to an overflow location, the Hanes Art Center auditorium, where seats will be available to UNC students, faculty and staff as well as the general public on a first-come, first-served basis.

No tickets will be required. Hanes is beside the Swain visitor parking lot off East Cameron Avenue and an alley leading off Franklin Street beside the Carolina Coffee Shop.

Big changes are coming at N.C. State.

Chancellor Randy Woodson announced plans today for a major reorganization aimed at rooting out underperforming or non-critical departments, programs and units.

It's a budget-cutting measure intended to streamline the university and mirrors a similar initiative soon to get underway on the UNC system level.

Jay Price has today's story here.

And here's a video and text copy of Woodson's announcement.

A co-chair of the presidential commission that investigated the BP oil spill will speak at Duke later this month.

William K. Reilly, co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, will discuss his group's 380-page report Monday, Jan. 24.

His talk starts at 5 p.m. in the RJ Reynolds Theater in Duke's Bryan Center. It is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and can be reserved on the box office website, http://tickets.duke.edu, or by calling 919-684-4444.

Released last week, the commission’s massive report calls for Congress to approve new regulations for offshore drilling as well as funding for an agency to oversee these rules -- recommendations that Reilly will share with Congress the day after his visit to Duke.

“Our investigation shows that a series of specific and preventable human and engineering failures were the immediate causes of the disaster,” Reilly said in a recent press conference covering the report’s findings. “But, in fact, this disaster was almost the inevitable result of years of industry and government complacency and lack of attention to safety. As drilling pushes into ever deeper and riskier waters where more of America’s oil lies, only systemic reforms of both government and industry will prevent a similar, future disaster.”

A reception will follow Reilly's talk.
 

Duke and Carolina are playing nice again.

A new grant program for students, set up by charitable trusts affiliated with the two universities, will fund 10 scholarly projects.

The projects are designed to enhance collaboration between the two universities. Each of 10 awardees will get $5,000 from the Kenan-Biddle Partnership.

That's "Kenan," as in the UNC-affiliated William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, and "Biddle," as in the Duke-affiliated Mary Duke Biddle Foundation.

This isn't, of course, the first example of academic collaboration between the two campuses. It is perhaps most notably evident in the Robertson Scholars Program, which allows students to take courses on both campuses.

Each project must include one public exhibition, presentation or performance, and preference was given to proposals made jointly by students at both schools.

“We received more than 90 proposals, which made the selection process highly competitive,” said Ronald Strauss, executive associate provost at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-chair of the grant selection committee. “We are confident that the 10 projects chosen are well designed to achieve the benefits intended by the partnership.”

A couple examples of the grant winners include:

•  Shifting Trends: an Experiment in After-school Computer Literacy Programs.
•  Duke/UNC-Chapel Hill Working Group in Contemporary Poetry.
•  Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill Students Working for Sustainable Agriculture.

An annual call for proposals from both campuses will encourage collaborative arts, sciences and humanities projects that will positively affect both campus communities.
Proposals for the 2012 class of grant recipients will begin in November.

Should UNC-Chapel Hill get special treatment?

That's what Jay Schalin argues for today on the opinion pages of the News & Observer.

Schalin, who writes for the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, suggests today that, given the state's dire budget circumstances, Carolina get some extra flexibility from state regulations.

Essentially, Schalin proposes that UNC-CH get less state money but take less of a budget hit. In exchange, it can be freed to raise tuition higher and generate more of its own revenue.

GASP! Raise tuition higher? At the people's university?

Yes, Schalin writes.

Chapel Hill could do this, he argues, because its students are wealthier on average than most public university students, and its fundraising machine is far better than any other across the state system.

The core of Schalin's argument is that Carolina is demonstrably different - and better - than other public universities and should be treated as such.

He writes in part:

"The campus is different from the other UNC schools. It has a Nobel Prize winner on the faculty and its students regularly win Rhodes Scholarships. Its incoming freshmen average between 125 to 450 points higher than its UNC system counterparts on combined math and reading SAT scores. In many ways it resembles Duke or Wake Forest more than other UNC schools."

It's an interesting idea and not one I've heard floated - at least publicly - by anyone associated with the university.

So what do you think?

Peace College is in transition.

That much and more is evident today from this story by Jane Stancill. It reveals tiny Peace College as an institution in flux - maneuvering away from some long-held norms and vexing supporters with promises of change.

Faculty have been bought out, the music department eliminated, and Chapel attendance is no longer mandatory.

The changes have led some alums to wonder whether Peace is losing its character, the uniqueness they say makes it special.

In today's paper, the full story on new UNC President Tom Ross's desire to seek out duplication within the UNC system.

This should be an interesting process. On individual campuses, faculties aren'g generally programmed to think first about working collaboratively with their counterparts at other public institutions. It happens, but it isn't as high a priority as it's going to become.

Ross's first big venture will seek out what he calls "unnecessary duplication" among academic programs, an endeavor sure to result in some hurt feelings and turf wars.

Here's the story.

Duke student Drew Everson had been drinking before he died in an accidental fall in October.

According to a toxicology report released Friday, Everson had a blood-alcohol content of .133. In North Carolina, .08 is the point at which you're considered legally intoxicated.

Everson had been out with friends but went his own way and wasn't seen again until he was found behind the student union on Duke's East Campus. He was found at the foot of a steep, concrete stairwell behind the building. He later died.

According to a medical examiner's report, he died of blunt trauma to the head as the result of a fall.

His organs were donated, according to the medical examiner's report.

"The medical examiner's report released today provides finality to the extensive investigation by the Duke Police, which has concluded that Drew Everson’s death occurred as a result of an accidental fall into an open stairwell," said Michael Schoenfeld, a Duke spokesman. "The Duke community is deeply saddened by this tragedy and continues to mourn Drew's death.  His legacy at Duke will be long-lasting, and we offer our thoughts and prayers to Drew's many family and friends."

Everson, 21, was a popular student who friends said had an uncanny knack for bringing people together. The university held a memorial service to honor him in Duke Chapel; it attracted more than 1,000 mourners.