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.

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.

Duke University has set an ambitious goal: Become climate neutral by 2024.

Plenty of universities are going in this direction, making public declarations of their intent to cease harmful carbon emission activity. But most have set a 2050 goal. Duke's is far more aggressive.

Read more here.

Duke Trustee David Rubenstein has donated $5.75 million to the university's Sanford School of Public Policy.

The gift will be used in three areas, Duke officials said in announcing the gift Tuesday. It will provide $3.5 million for the school's endowment to support its program in Environmental and Energy Policy; $1.125 million will be used to fund a speakers series, and $1.125 million will support internships for master's students.

The gift lets Sanford, which recently transitioned from an institute to a formal "school" designation, hit a $40 million fundraising benchmark. The school ultimately hopes to raise $65 million.

Rubenstein is a Baltimore native and 1970 Duke graduate. He is the co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms. Rubenstein Hall, which opened in 2005 on campus, bears his name in recognition of a previous $5 million gift.

Duke University joined other colleges across the country on a list it would have preferred to avoid: academic institutions whose endowments have been rocked by the recession.

Duke's endowment lost 24.3 percent of its value for the year that ended June 30, reports our brother blog, Campus Notes. The endowment has returned an average of 10 percent a year for the past decade.

Duke, like major research institutions across the nation, was hit hard by turmoil on Wall Street. The endowment is now worth $4.4 billion.

Duke University's endowment lost more than 24 percent of its value last year.

Duke, like major research institutions across the nation, was hit hard by the recession last year. The endowment lost 24.3 percent of its value and is now worth $4.4 billion, according to this new report.

With less money to pull from its endowment for operational costs, Duke officials spent much of the last year looking for ways to ease, over three years, a $125 million budget shortfall.

They did so in part by offering incentives for workers to retire and by freezing construction projects.

Ariel Dorfman, the novelist who has taught at Duke for 25 years now, got a shout-out Saturday during the big U2 show in Raleigh.

Near the end of the show, Bono, the mega-band's singer, dedicated the evening to Dorfman, according to this report. 

In 1998, Bono and playwright Harold Pinter contributed to Deadline, a fictional film set to two of Dorfman's poems.

Wednesday was profitable for scientists in the Triangle.

A load of federal stimulus money - $145 million - arrived in area science labs to spur research and jumpstart the economy. Duke and UNC Chapel Hill were among the prime beneficiaries.

Sarah Avery and David Bracken report on it here.

Duke scientists won 181 grants worth $70 million, and UNC-CH researchers won 186 grants worth more than $65 million. 

RTI International, a Research Triangle Park think tank, received 10 grants as well.

Here's a rundown of some Duke's success stories. Similarly, here's some UNC-CH info, and click here for the national picture.

One of the biggest pieces of the pie landed at UNC-CH, one of 12 winners of a Cancer Genome Atlas Grant, to examine mechanisms of how cancer grows and spreads.

The five-year award will total between $13 million and $20 million and will result in the hiring of at least six people for lab and computer work.

"It's really the next phase of the Human Genome Project," said Dr. Charles Perou, a UNC-CH professor leading the cancer atlas project.

Wednesday's yield was among the first positive results since the federal stimulus plan was announced. Since the emphasis on science research became known, area universities kicked into high gear, employing every tool in the arsenal to prepare grants quickly and submit strong, concise and accurate proposals to the federal government.