The New York City imam behind the controversial Islamic center near Ground Zero will speak at Duke next week.

Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf is already scheduled to appear Wednesday at UNC-Chapel Hill, an event that has people talking. Now, Duke has lined him up as well. He'll speak at noon Thursday at Duke Chapel.

It's free and open to the public.

At Duke, Abdul-Rauf will appear with Sam Wells, dean of Duke Chapel, and will take questions from Duke's Muslim chaplain, Abdullah Antepli, and Christy Lohr Sapp, associate dean for religious life.

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

He's been targeted by conservatives suspicious of Park51, the cultural center proposed near the cite of the World Trade Center tragedy.

In Washington, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, is turning the spotlight of inquiry to the Islamic faith this week. He is convening a Capital Hill hearing Thursday on Muslim extremism.

In a news release, a Duke professor cautioned today that the hearing should be done with sensitivity.

“Hearings ought to focus on the difficult task of how to identify individuals who are vulnerable to radicalization and prevent them from engaging in violence," said David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke and UNC and a associate professor of the practice at Duke's  Sanford School of Public Policy. “Unfortunately, plans for the hearings appear to be taking an accusatory tone, with U.S. Rep. Peter King charging that Muslim-Americans do not cooperate sufficiently with law enforcement. Even if there have been instances of non-cooperation, which is not surprising in a diverse community of approximately 3 million people, it is unclear how highlighting this will help prevent radicalization in the future."

Author Salman Rushdie, whose "Satanic Verses" book prompted death threats decades ago, will speak next month at Duke University.

Rushdie's public lecture will be Tuesday, April 12 at 6 p.m. in Duke University's Page Auditorium. A brief question-and-answer period will follow.

(Associated Press photo)

The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets can be picked up on a first-come, first-served basis at the University Box Office in the Bryan Center starting March 15 for Duke students, faculty and staff, and March 16 for the general public. Tickets are limited to two per person.

Rushdie is the author of 10 novels, including “Midnight’s Children,” winner of the Booker Prize in 1981, “The Satanic Verses” and most recently “Luka and the Fire of Life.” A fellow of the British Royal Society of Literature, Rushdie has received, among other awards, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (twice), the Writers’ Guild Award, the James Tait Black Prize, the European Union’s Aristeion Prize for Literature, and author of the year prizes in both Britain and Germany.

He is perhaps best known for the 1989 publication of "The Satanic Versus," which enraged Muslims who believed it mocked their faith and led Iran's Ayatollah Khomenei to issue a fatwa urging his assassination. 

He went into hiding for nine years and still receives the occasional death threat, he told a British newspaper last year.

These days, Rushdie holds the rank of commander in the Order of Arts and Letters -- France’s highest artistic honor. Between 2004 and 2006, he served as president of PEN American Center, and continues to work as president of the PEN World Voices International Literary Festival, which he helped to create.

“Salman Rushdie is without question one of the greatest writers of the 20th and 21st centuries,” said Ian Baucom, director of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, an event co-sponsor. “I'm delighted we have the opportunity to host him and hear this lecture. It promises to be a remarkable event.”

Paid parking for the lecture will be available in the Bryan Center garage.
 

The Duke Endowment's $80 million gift to Duke University for a series of construction projects is the largest in school history.

It supplants another Duke Endowment gift at the top of the list - a $75 million gift in 2005 towards a financial aid initiative.

Other big gifts to Duke include:

• $70 million from Peter Nicholas in 2003 to the Nicholas School of the Environment
• $50 million from the Duke Endowment in 2008 for two uses - $35 million for a medical educational facility and $15 million for a pediatric care facility.
• $46.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006 to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine.
• $40 million from the Duke Endowment in 2007 for a strategic faculty initiative.

Duke University announced the largest private gift in its history - an $80 million donation from the Duke Endowment.

The gift - $10 million of which has already been delivered, the balanced pledged over coming years - will pay for renovations to three campus meeting and performance spaces.

They are the West Union and Page Auditorium on Duke's West Campus, and Baldwin Auditorium on East Campus.

These are projects Duke would not have been able to pay for were it not for the largesse of the Duke Endowment, the private philanthropic organization established by James B. Duke, said a very grateful Richard Brodhead, Duke's president, following the gift announcement Monday.

"The university is committed to insurinmg the highest quality of experience to students," Brodhead said.

Collectively, the three renovation projects aim to create better meeting spaces for students, faculty and staff. Page and Baldwin are performance venues while the West Union houses restaurants and meeting spaces.

Brodhead promises a startling transformation that will retain the historic character of each building while making a quantum leap forward in terms of modernization and utility.

"We'll have to take 'before' and 'after' pictures of the sites," he said. "Because people will take the 'after' for granted."

Read more on this in Tuesday's News & Observer.

A conversation on a Duke University blog is prompting some interesting questions about the role a dean should play in public affairs issues.

The blog is The Green Grok and is written by Bill Chameides, dean of Duke's School of the Environment.

In a Feb. 21 blog post, Chameides takes aim at House Republicans hoping to de-fund environmental initiatives.

His comments on several political moves raised the ire of some of his readers. The result is a fairly thoughtful, occasionally testy exchange worth a read.

Chameides has some pretty pointed thoughts in this blog post. A few examples:

He points to the recent elimination of the role of U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, held by Todd Stern. Chameides writes that Stern's role as America's chief negotiator at the United Nations global warming talks is vital, and notes that while his job was being eliminated, legislators "courageously beat back an amendment that would have halted the Defense Department's sponsorship of NASCAR."

Chameides then takes aim at Mike Beard, a Minnesota state representative who, in a media interview, suggested that God will guarantee that the world doesn't run out of any energy sources or important resources.

"I guess words like famine and drought have not made it into the Minnesotan's lexicon," Chameides wrote in part.

He adds later: "Thank the lord that our creativity and ingenuity do not include the ability to make bombs so powerful they can destroy whole cities and with enough o them an entire planet. Oh...my bad,"

Chameides' word and tone bothered some readers.

In the blog's response section, one writes:

"The sarcasm in this column is deaming of an academic institution. I am embarrassed by this particular blog. We cannot claim to be objective - speaking and listening to all sides - with this statement/wording from our Dean. This is poisonous not only to those outside Duke, who look to univrsersities as a source of objectivity, but it also says volumes to our prospective students about teh Dean's ...blatant advocacy."

In later comments, other readers add their thoughts as well. Some come to Chameides' defense. Another asks for a smidge more objectivity and diplomacy.

What do you think?

UNC President Tom Ross has added to his leadership team.

Lyons Gray, a Winston-Salem businessman who served six terms in the N.C., General Assembly before joining the administration of President George W. Bush, has been named Senior Advisor to the President of the 17-campus University of North Carolina. Gray will earn $180,000 for the one-year appointment, which begins March 14.

His is a new position paid by non-state funds, said Joni Worthington, a UNC system spokeswoman.

 In his new role, Gray will provide guidance and assistance on state and federal issues impacting university priorities, as well as university-wide efforts to implement efficiency measures and best practices that reduce overall operating costs.
 
After attending UNC- Chapel Hill, Gray spent more than a decade working for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company before founding and growing several small businesses.  Appointed to the N.C. House of Representatives in 1989 to represent Forsyth County, he was subsequently elected to the position for six consecutive terms. 

During his 14-year tenure in the General Assembly, he chaired the House Finance Committee, introduced key legislation supporting economic growth and quality of life improvements across the state, and helped advance the $3.2-billion Higher Education Bond Referendum of 2000. 

After leaving public office, Gray served as president of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership before being nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as chief financial officer of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  He served in that capacity, managing a budget in excess of $7 billion, from 2005 to 2009.
 
Gray is currently vice chairman of the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation, and has previously served on the boards of UNC-Chapel Hill’s General Alumni Association, Salem Academy and College, the UNC School of the Arts Foundation, and the Piedmont Triad Partnership. 

Tuition for in-state undergrads at UNC Chapel Hill is going up a few hundred bucks next year.

Not coincidentally, the deductible for one of Duke University's most popular employee perks will likely go up the same amount.

Duke's Children's Tuition Grant program, which covers much of the cost of college for the children of employees, generally doesn't cover the cost of a public university education in North Carolina. That's because Duke sets a deductible about at the tuition rate in-state students pay to attend the UNC system's flagship, UNC-Chapel Hill.

With tuition going up $313 next year over at Carolina, the Duke deductible will probably go up as well to meet it, said Kyle Cavanaugh, Duke's human resources vice president.

The point here: If you work at Duke and have a child going to UNC-CH or another public university, Duke won't help pay.

But if you go to a more expensive college in North Carolina or elsewhere, Duke will help out - considerably. Duke's tuition grant program will cover your child's college tuition, up to 75 percent of Duke's tuition, minus the deductible.

This year, the yearly deductible is $4,816.

What it all means: If your college is expensive enough, Duke will cover up to $14,000 a semester. Students are eligible if a parent has worked full-time at Duke for five years. It maxes out at eight semesters and there's a two-child limit.

About 1,100 employees receive the benefit this year, Cavanaugh said, adding that over the years, it has proven a valuable tool to lure employees.

"It's very much a recruitment and retention issue for us," he said. "It's clearly one of the most valuable benefits we have."

The recession has been particularly unkind to the legal profession, where a combination of lost public sector jobs and consolidated private firm services has created a job vacuum.

This hasn't been good news for the hundreds of new lawyers streaming out of North Carolina law schools over the last few years.

As I report today, the job market for new lawyers is still lagging, as is the market for summer jobs for current law school students.

It's bad enough that one local law school dean recently sent an email plea to his alumni asking them for help finding jobs. Even those that don't pay anything.

I'm guessing this story will prompt a great deal of tut-tut-tutting about how there are too many lawyers. This is actually quite hard to gauge. The industry itself doesn't have a distinct way to measure market saturation, and law schools say they don't restrict enrollment when times get tough because of the lag time between when a student starts law school and when he or she graduates.

It's a three-year journey, and a lot can happen to an economy, good or bad, in that time.

If you're the parent of a college student, Toy Story 3 spoke to you.

The animated Pixar film, the third in the hugely successful series about children's toys come to life, gets to the emotion of the empty next - the moment when your child goes off to college.

It's a sweet movie that has had far broader appeal than just to kids, as Jenna Johnson with the Washington Post points out here.

And as Johnson also notes, the first Toy Story came out in 1995, targeting young children who now, 16 years later, are reaching college age. They're graduating with Andy, the little boy who grows up over the course of the three movies.

To summarize: As Andy gets ready for college, mom makes him pick which toys to take with him, which to junk and which to stash in the attic.

Of course, Andy's mom gets weepy thinking about life without him in the house. As Johnson points out, an industry has sprung up around this particular angst - self-help books and college orientation sessions aimed at the parent struggling to give junior some space.

It's a great movie with a genuine, tear-jerker of an ending. On Sunday night, it took home two Oscars.

Nice going, Buzz. Nice going, Woody.

Tuition at Duke is going up.

Trustees approved a 4.3 percent tuition hike for next year, which will bring the total cost of a Duke undergraduate education, if you factor in room, board and other costs, to nearly $54,000 a year.

A Duke spokesman cites a number of rising costs, like health insurance, as one reason for the university's need for additional revenue.

Duke's not alone. The UNC system is also raising its tuition rates. Officials there approved hikes averaging about 6 percent for the next academic year.