The Duke-UNC Rotary Center for international studies in peace and conflict resolution will hold its 8th annual spring conference Saturday, April 9th at 9 a.m. at the FedEx Global Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Nine graduating Rotary Peace Fellows will present their research on a range of issues related to sustainable peace.

 The Duke-UNC center is the only joint center of five total, with the others located in Argentina, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The fellows  are international, mid-career graduate students funded by Rotary International’s World Peace Fellowship.  This program provides a comprehensive scholarship designed to support a Rotary Peace Fellow in a master’s degree program at one of the five Rotary Centers for International Studies. 
 
The Duke-UNC Rotary Center is the only joint center of the five (others are located in the UK, Argentina, Japan and Australia).  Worldwide, just 50 Rotary Fellows are chosen annually, and the Duke-UNC venture currently hosts 18 fellows from 14 countries.

Topics to be discussed on April 9 include: challenges related to refugees from Myanmar; the role of the media in post-conflict Nepal; strategies for the World Food Program in responding to the global food crisis; and political power and the Inter-American Court of human rights.
 
The event is free and open to the public.

Duke University professor Miguel Nicolelis was a guest last night on 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,' discussing his new book 'Beyond Boundaries." Nicolelis' amazing work will soon help paralyzed people walk again with the help of a full-body robotic vest that moves according to brain commands. Watch the interview below.

Man, people love it when Duke loses.

Not me, of course. Just, you know, people.

Here's how I know. Ever see a website called diddukewin.com.

Check it out.

This promises to be an interesting week at UNC and Duke.

No, I'm not talking hoops. I'm talking about speaking appearances at both universities by the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Muslim leader of an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site in New York City. The project has been referred to as the Ground Zero Mosque.

The imam will speak Wednesday evening at UNC's Hill Hall. A Christian group will protest the imam's appearance by attempt to counter-program some attention away by showing a movie about families affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Abdul Rauf's stop at UNC is part of a speaking tour, and he's being paid $20,000 plus travel expenses from a private fund. Not taxpayer dollars, to be clear.

Abdul Rauf also speaks Thursday at noon at Duke Chapel on the Duke University campus.

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 mood of corporate CFOs is on the upswing with regard to the nation's economic prospects, according to a quarterly survey issued by Duke University and CFO Magazine.

The chief financial officers at public and private companies expect a boost in earnings growth and capital spending, offset by a modest recovery in employment.

The survey reports a confidence index of 61.3, based on a survey of 512 U.S. CFOs. That's the highest confidence index since early 2007, before CFO confidence bottomed out at an index of 40 during the recession.

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?