Fred Foster, president of the Durham NAACP branch, has become the third official unofficial candidate for the Board of County Commissioners.

Candidate filing does not open until Feb. 13, but this week Foster (right) registered a campaign committee with the Durham County Board of Elections.

A long-time Democratic Party activist, Foster ran unsuccessfully for a commissioners' seat in 2000 and 2008, and for the state House in 2010.

He joined Duke University biologist Will Wilson and former Durham Planning Commissioner Wendy Jacobs, who had already registered their campaign committees. Both are registered Democrats.

Political newcomer John Owens, also a Democrat, registered an "exploratory committee" this week, but has not specified an office he is seeking.

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."

Democrats in the State House are crying foul over the way the new majority in the legislature has appointed new members to the UNC system's Board of Governors.

House Republicans elected a new slate of eight members to the governing board Tuesday amid a protest from Democrats claiming the process was corrupt.

As Jane Stancill reports today, the 16 new members of the 32-member board include 13 white men, 2 white women and 1 man of Indian descent.

Seeing no need to cast votes that wouldn't matter, House Democrats turned in blank ballots and later voted "no" on a roll call vote on the list approved by Republicans.

Since members of the UNC board are political appointees, the majority power always has the option of stacking the deck to its liking.

But as we reported last week, previous legislatures have kept some level of gender and racial diversity on the board.

The board is now clearly far more conservative than it has been in prior years. But as newly re-elected board member Brent Barringer points out in today's story, the board has traditionally not operated in a particularly ideological or political manner.

By that, I mean that in discussions of higher education issues - tuition increases, approval of academic programs, the hiring of chancellors - the board very rarely divides along party lines.

In fact, there have been very few contentious, split votes in recent memory.

Perhaps that will change. We'll see.

While the legislature has now made its 16 appointments, not all members will be new. There are several re-appointments, including Peter Hans and Ann Goodnight on the Senate side, and Barringer and Leroy Lail on the House side. Those members have experience with board issues and are up to date on the UNC system's ongoing struggles with budget cuts, clearly the top issue facing the university right now.

Two more of the new appointees are prior members - John Fennebresque and H. Frank Grainger. So it's not all new blood.

Still, there will be challenges. When the new members take their seats on the board later this year, the budget situation may still be unclear. And the UNC President, Tom Ross, is new in his role as well, having taken over at the start of the year for Erskine Bowles, who retired after a five-year run.

Here's the slate appointed by the House this week:

Brent Barringer, a Cary lawyer (re-elected)

Leroy Lail, a Conover businessman (re-elected)

Mary Ann Maxwell, a Goldsboro business owner

Ed McMahan, a Charlotte businessman and former state legislator

Hari Nath, a Cary information technology consultant

David Powers, of Winston-Salem, a vice president with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

Richard Taylor, a Lumberton insurance, real estate and auto dealer

Raiford Trask III, a Wilmington developer

Our Nov. 16 story "Winds of patriotism renewed" brought quite a response from readers. We've run several letters this week, and more will appear on Sunday Forum, Page 17A, this Sunday. Included in these 20 online-only letters and also in Sunday Forum is a letter from Ronnie Chapman, right, the gentleman who was featured on the front page last Sunday and who has been the object of some criticism since.

Two General Assembly candidates, Democrat Paul Luebke and Libertarian Sean Haugh, face off at 6 tonight at the Southwest Branch Library, 3605 Shannon Road. The public is invited.

Haugh and Luebke are rivals for the House District 30 seat, which represents a wedge of Durham County extending from Walltown west to the Orange County line and from Little River Road south to U.S. 15-501.