New North Carolina coach Larry Fedora gets three commitments.

We finally caught up with Durham's own Kymia Nawabi, an artist who is competing on Bravo's "Work Of Art," beginning tonight.  Nawabi grew up in the Woodcroft area of the Bull City and attended Jordan High. She's also a graduate of East Carolina University.

Via email, she answered some questions about her work (she's exhibited at artspace), her experience on the show, and growing up Iranian-American in the South:

Happiness: What made you want to be on the show?
Kymia: I really cannot think of any other facility that provides such a great amount of exposure for a young and emerging artist. "Work of Art" was the best way for me to really promote, challenge and elevate my work and myself.  Also, I love that it is also this strange sociological experiment; putting 14 strangers together and seeing what happens with all that energy.

In the 1940s at East Carolina University, Amanda Etheridge was everywhere.

She played five sports. She was the student government secretary. She was on the honor roll.

And then, in what should have been her senior year, Amanda Etheridge vanished.

The story of this fascinating Manteo native is detailed here in East Carolina's alumni magazine. It's the tale of a young lady who dared to challenge authority, and lost, badly.

The quick summary - Etheridge was running student government when then-ECU president Leon Meadows ran afoul of the law for misusing student funds.

She offended the wrong people and eventually got kicked out of school for the unforgivable sin of....are you ready for this? .... failing to sign out of her dormitory one day when going to meet a professor.

The horror!

Read the story. It's fascinating.

East Carolina University is among just 15 employers nationwide who will be honored by the Pentagon this year for extraordinary support of National Guard and Reserve troops.

It was also the only university in the nation to received an Employer Support Freedom Award, the federal government’s highest honor for employers who give outstanding support to workers  who also serve in military reserve units.

The winners, which were announced Thursday by the defense department, are nominated by Guard and Reserve troops or members or their families, and provide the reservists with full salary and other benefits while they are away from their civilian jobs serving.

Other winners include the Salisbury-based supermarket chain Food Lion.

The winners are picked from among the nominees by a selection board. The university will be presented with the award during a formal ceremony in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23.

Some East Carolina alums are trying to raise the profile of their alma mater in the Triangle.

Pirate Pulse is a new non-profit business networking group formed to "advocate for issues related to ECU," according to a recent press release from the group.

“According to the East Carolina University Alumni Association, the Triangle area has the highest concentration of ECU alumni in the state,” said Nick Francis, a co-founder of the group. “However, there is not currently a mechanism in place for Triangle-area alumni to advocate for our alma mater. Pirate Pulse will help focus the Pirate Nation on advocating for our university, not just having the largest caravan going down highway 264 for sporting events.”

The group will hold quarterly meetings and social events at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Research Triangle Park. More information is available on the group's website, www.piratepulse.org.

East Carolina University has created the nation's first interdisciplinary master's degree in sustainable tourism.
The university says the new degree reflects a growing concern about balancing the economic, ecological and social impacts of tourism on the world's vacation destinations.
“There is a close link and relationship between good science and good business,” said Patrick Long, director of ECU's Center for Sustainable Tourism, in a news release. “We need to train and educate our future leaders in this industry on how to best integrate those two major components.”

The UNC system's Board of Governors approved the degree on Jan. 8, and the full program is already in motion.
 
As the Center defines it, sustainable tourism “contributes to a balanced and healthy economy by generating tourism-related jobs, revenues and taxes while protecting and enhancing the destination’s social, cultural, historical, natural and built resources for the enjoyment and well-being of both residents and visitors,” according to the news release.

Students in the program will study under faculty with expertise in business, arts and sciences, human ecology, and health and human performance.

The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University does a good job of training primary-care doctors to practice in poor parts of the state.

That according to the Annals of Internal Medicine, which has ranked the ECU med school in the nation's top 10 for "social mission." The journal published a survey conducted by George Washington University.

UNC's med school ranks in the middle, while Duke is in the bottom 20.

Here's more.

East Carolina needs to spend a half-million bucks on new dorm doors.

The university has asked the UNC system to authorize a $564,000 new capital project to replace 310 doors on Aycock Residence Hall.

That's 300 doors to dorm rooms and 10 entry doors.

The doors on this dorm, which was built in 1960, are in poor shape and require some customization, according to a UNC system memo.

The work will include the installation of new hinges, new doro closers and new, ADA-compliant hardware. Until the doors are replaced, the dorm won't meet state life safety guidelines set by the state building code.

Quoth the UNC system memo, in part: "ECU's maintenance history shows that residence hall doors must withstand slamming, kicking and general horse play by residents."

The board of trustees at East Carolina University has a new chairman.

He is David Brody, a Kinston developer and philanthropist. Brody succeeds Bob Greczyn, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

The new vice chairman is Robert V. Lucas, a Selma attorney and former chair of the North Carolina Fisheries Commission. The board secretary is David Redwine of Ocean Isle Beach, a former chair of the N.C. House Appropriations Committee.

Brody, who had served two years as vice chair of the board, is a former chair of the Pitt County Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees and is a member of the family for whom the Brody School of Medicine at ECU is named.

The college admissions game is both an art and a science. Each year, admissions officers at universities start out with a target enrollment goal - the number of new students they want to enroll for the next academic year.

From that, they offer spaces to a significantly larger pool, knowing that not all students will take them up on the offer.

Sometimes they hit the goal. Sometimes they go over, sometimes they fall short. While they use data and statistical modeling to help predict the numbers, they are, of course, at the whims of 17-year-old kids who decide on colleges for reasons ranging from academic reputation to the performance of the athletic teams.

But as Jay Price reports in today's News & Observer, the ongoing economic uncertainty has added a variable to this game, and admissions officer say they may end up with too many good students.

Read all about it here.