A Duke professor of journalism and public policy has been named managing editor of Frontline, the PBS investigative documentary series.

Philip Bennett will continue teaching at Duke when he joins Frontline in May.

Formerly the managing editor of the Washington Post, Bennett has taught at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy since 2009.

He is taking a newly created post with the Frontline series and will help plan the show's documentaries and help shape its long-term vision.

Has it really been 40 years?

Bill Friday, the longtime UNC president who many in this state consider the godfather of public higher education, is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his UNC-TV interview show, "North Carolina People with Bill Friday."

As Yonat Shimron reports in Sunday's News & Observer, Friday is as sharp and on point as ever, having long ago learned the value of the open-ended question.

Read on.

UNC-Chapel Hill has received its second big gift this week to support academic support for athletes and the ongoing expansion of Kenan Stadium.

Alumnus R. Charles "Charlie" Loudermilk Sr. has made a $7.5 million commitment to fund facilities supporting athletes as part of the Kenan Stadium renovation.

The commitment will create The Loudermilk Center for Excellence, a 150,000 square-foot facility being built on the stadium's east side. The center will serve all of Carolina's nearly 800 student-athletes across 28 sports.

As part of the Kenan Stadium renovation project, the Loudermilk Center is scheduled for completion in September 2011. The $70 million project is being funded by private gifts and premium seating sales.

The Loudermilk Center's largest feature will be the John W. Pope Student-Athlete Academic Support Center. This 29,000 square-foot facility will provide classrooms for teaching and tutoring, advanced computer technology, a writing lab, reading rooms and office space.

It also will be home to the Carolina Leadership Academy, which offers leadership training to Carolina student-athletes, coaches and staff.

The Raleigh-based John William Pope Foundation donated $3 million for that project, a gift announced earlier this week.
 
The Loudermilk Center will also house a strength and conditioning center for Carolina's Olympic sports programs, facilities for men's lacrosse and a visitor's locker room that can be split to host high school football championships. Other features include premium seating for fans watching football games, as well as office and operations space for the department of athletics.

"The Loudermilk Center is the heart of the Kenan project and will provide for one of the nation's top academic support facilities," said Dick Baddour, athletics director. "We are extremely grateful to Charlie for his generosity. Charlie loves his University and has supported it in so many ways. He was especially close to Charlie Justice, so it is fitting that the facility named for him is located in Kenan Stadium."

Loudermilk is chairman of Atlanta-based Aaron's Inc. A 1950 UNC graduate, he earned a bachelor's degree in commerce and now serves on the Board of Visitors of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

A UNC Charlotte professor has won the top faculty award given by the UNC system.

Diane Browder, a special education professor at UNCC, received the O. Max Gardner Award Friday during a meeting of the UNC system's Board of Governors.

Browder has spent more than two decades on academic instruction and assessment methods for severly disabled children. Her work has changed educational expectations for disabled children and helped shape educational policies and practices, according to a Friday news release.

"Dr. Browder is living proof that the research we do on our campuses matter," UNC system President Tom Ross said.

Browder's award, which carries a $20,000 prize, is given annually from the will of former Gov. Oliver Max Gardner to recognize faculty who make "the greatest contributions to the welfare of the human race."

A Duke graduate, Browder has long worked to dispel the notion that children with severe disabilities can't learn cognitive or academic skills.

In accepting her award, she told a short anecdote that elicited smiles and tingles from a packed room of onlookers. It centered on a young girl who was severely disabled. She'd never spoken in her life, communicating essentially through with her eyes.

Then one day, Browder was quizzing her with pictures. She locked eyes on a picture and, for the first time in her life, spoke.

The word was "apple."

The disruption expected when the Democratic National Convention comes to Charlotte next year may force a significant adjustment to the academic calendar at UNC Charlotte.

The university may push back the start of the fall 2012 semester by more than three weeks to both accommodate infrastructure demands from convention visitors and to avoid disruptions caused by the event, which is expected to draw 35,000 to the Queen City.

"It would be very difficult to conduct regular business with the convention going on," said Phil Dubois, UNCC's chancellor. "If the president comes to town, everything stops."

Currently, fall classes next year are slated to start Aug. 20. But Dubois told members of the UNC system's Board of Governors this week classes may be pushed back 25 days.

"It looks like we could make it work if we push close to Christmas," Dubois said, adding that the university may add Saturday classes to help make up the lost class days.

The convention is slated for the week of Sept. 3, and UNCC's downtown facility is just three blocks from the convention site.

In addition, the university has been asked to help provide housing for visitors; Dubois has offered up 1,500 residence hall beds but will charge $500 per person per night. That's what the university needs to charge to make up for lost revenue.

UNCC would have to alter contracts for student housing and food service and make other adjustments that, in total, would cost the university $3 million.

"There's a cost to our cooperation," Dubois said. "We're not going to do anything to be subsidizing the Democratic National Convention."

The university also hopes to turn the convention into a learning lab for some of its students. It hopes to place some as volunteers and perhaps create courses that involve the convention; a fourth summer session may be squeezed in during the 25-day delay at the end of the summer, Dubois said.

"Yes, it's an inconvenience," he said. "But with that inconvenience comes a chance to do something meaningful. The faculty see it as an opportunity for students."

Dozens of students stood in solidarity with several UNC-Chapel Hill building maintenance workers who skipped work today to protest a schedule change that will force them to work five, rather than four days a week.

About 70 construction workers opted to work four 10-hour shifts each week when given the choice in 2008. University administrators now say they need all 150 tradesmen and women to work five 8-hour shifts.

In a written statement, university officials said the loss of 31 positions over the last couple of years has made it too difficult to cover all the tasks that need doing.

“The dual work schedules result in inefficiencies, such as too few employees with the range of skills required to meet ongoing maintenance requirements,” the statement reads.

Amid a long discussion this morning on the budget cuts hanging over the UNC system, one member of the system's governing board spoke of what he called the university's "social compact."

That being, the cycle the university sets in motion by bringing a student to a public university.

Here's what Charlie Mercer said:

For many years, this university has educated people across this state that go back to their communities and contribute. When those students have gone to the university, the people in their community are very proud of them. There's an emotional component. They're going to go back to their community. So that one educated person will help that community. There's a societal benefit. We can't lose sight of that.
 

A UNC-Chapel Hill daycare center more than 40 years old is getting chopped by the budget axe.

The child care center at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will close in July 2013, according to this memo on the institute's website.

"The decision to close in no way reflects on the quality of the program or its importance in the community," the memo reads in part. "Budget reductions have driven us to this decision. With ongoing budget recutions by the state and other grant agencies, FPG cannot continue to subsidize the costs of operating a high-quality, inclusive early care and education program."

The institute itself is in no jeopardy, the memo states.

Former Durham Schools chief Ann Denlinger is going to work for Peace College.

Denlinger, most recently president of the Wake Education Partnership, will be an associate professor and direct Peace College's education department.

Denlinger served as schools superintendent in Wilson and Durham counties and in 2000 was the first woman named North Carolina Superintendent of the Year.
 
Denlinger will oversee several changes to Peace's education department, including a new option for middle school licensure and a curriculum reorganization.

And Denlinger said in a college news release she expects to find new ways to provide real-world experience for students through relationships with schools in Wake County and perhaps elsewhere.

Denlinger earned her associate's degree from Peace College in 1964 and her master's and doctorate in educational administration from Campbell University.  She has been a classroom teacher and a school principal.

A foundation run by Wake County businessman Art Pope has donated $3 million to UNC-Chapel Hill for an academic support center for athletes.

The gift from the John William Pope Foundation of Raleigh will create the John W. Pope Student-Athlete Support Center, part of an ongoing renovation of Kenan Stadium.

The original center, which was located in the stadium's previous field house, opened in 1986 and was also funded by the Pope Foundation.

The center is named for John W. Pope Sr., a 1947 UNC-CH graduate who founded the Henderson-based Variety Wholesalers. He died in 2006.

"My father loved Carolina and believed strongly in excellence in both academics and athletics, that each reinforced the other," Art Pope said in a news release. "The Pope Foundation is pleased to honor my father's memory by donating funds for the John W. Pope Student-Athlete Academic Support Center at Kenan Stadium to benefit the University's student-athletes, coaches, staff and the Carolina Leadership Academy."

The 29,000-square-foot center will serve all of Carolina's nearly 800 student-athletes across 28 sports. Features will include classrooms for teaching and tutoring, advanced computer technology, a writing lab, reading rooms and office space.

"This is a showcase facility that will benefit student-athletes in every sport, and will allow them to continue their collective goal to be productive members of their communities," said Dick Baddour, athletics director, in a news release. "We are proud of the athletic success we have had at North Carolina and even more proud of the success our student-athletes have demonstrated academically.  

The center will also house the Carolina Leadership Academy, which trains athletes, coaches and staff.

The $70 million stadium renovation is slated to be complete this fall. It is being funded entirely by private gifts and the sale of premium seating.