The Wake County school system will be one of the topics at this week's "Re-Segregation Revisited" symposium sponsored by the N.C. Central Law Review.

According to the symposium website, the topics to be discussed are "the history of school segregation, modern day resegregation and the Wake County school assignment plan, realities of re-segregation:  school-to-prison pipeline, high stakes testing, etc., the role of the courts in promoting equal education opportunity during the 21st Century and alternative ways of achieving education equity."

John Brittain, a civil rights and education law scholar, will be the lecturer at a dinner that kicks off at 5:30 p.m. to mark the start of the event. The symposium will start Friday morning at N.C. Central's campus in Durham.

Emmy-winning actress America Ferrera will speak at N.C. Central University at 7 p.m. Monday in the H.M. Michaux Jr. School of Education, 700 Cecil St. Doors will open at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Ferrera played Betty Suarez on ABC's “Ugly Betty,” which earned her an Emmy, a Golden Globe award, a Screen Actors Guild award, an American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) award and an Imagen award.

Here is an early lok at Bob Wilson's column in the Sunday Durham News. Tell us what you think (but add your name if you want your comment published in the paper)

By Bob Wilson

In a let-it-all-hang-out culture that disses rules for almost everything, especially when it comes to personal appearance, two events in Durham last month suggest that a counter reformation is stirring beneath the surface. Some people have had enough, others are learning that they should.

Huzzah, then, for N.C. Central University Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who is teaching male students how to tie a necktie. Seriously. It seems many freshmen arrive at NCCU never having heard of the Windsor knot.

That's because nobody along the way thought to impress on these young fellows the importance of professional attire, otherwise known as coat and tie.

The other event was a convocation of ministers and other concerned adults with young people in gangs or at risk of joining them. Such meetings are not new in Durham. What is new is the continuum that now links Durham's at-risk young blacks with what Charlie Nelms is doing at NCCU.

N.C. Central University will phase out four bachelor’s degree programs and one master’s program under a restructuring program announced today.

Fourteen academic programs are being eliminated or merged, including the consolidation of the colleges of science and technology and liberal arts to form a College of Arts and Sciences. Nine programs are being restructured or merged, and one program will be established.

The changes are expected to generate approximately $500,000 to strengthen the university’s degree offerings. Additionally, approximately $1.4 million will be produced from administrative efficiency enhancements. These funds will be reinvested in the university’s highest priorities related to student retention and graduation.

N.C. Central University Provost Kwesi Aggrey today issued a statement regarding Preston Mitchum, the NCCU law graduate who admitted that he copied a speech from a YouTube video for his remarks at last week's commencement.

"We are deeply saddened and disappointed that our student engaged in plagiarism," Aggrey's statement said. "At North Carolina Central University, we completely disavow this behavior by any of our students in any capacity.  To our knowledge, this is the first time someone has replicated remarks for one of our Commencement exercises.  We hope this incident will serve as a teaching moment for our students."

Mitchum said Monday he meant to credit Binghamton University graduate Anthony Corvino for his original speech last year. Read the story from today's N&O.

In today's paper, a big story about the rising cost of college and the impact legislative decisions may have, in particular, on financial aid and debt levels.

In reporting the story, I ran across an interesting student at N.C. Central University, William Anyu. He didn't make the story, but his tale is worth telling here. A version will likely also appear in the Durham News at some point soon.

William Anyu is so tuned in to his finances that he can  tell how much he spent on the clothes he’s wearing.

That gray cardigan was $15 from the clearance rack at J.C. Penney.  The sweatpants? Ten bucks at Walmart.

The N.C. Central University sophomore is proud of his financial  smarts. But ask him about the rising costs of college, and a brief  storm cloud shadows his sunny disposition.

“It’s a depressing thought,” he said one recent evening during his  graveyard shift manning the front desk of a NCCU residence hall.  
“I can’t do anything about it.”
 

N.C. Central University is dipping deeper into its endowment than is customary to help its cash-strapped students cope with the rising cost of college.

The university will spend about 8.5 percent of its $19 million endowment next year, a  jump from the standard 5.5 percent it usually takes each year. Doing so will yield an extra $142,000 that the university will use for scholarships.

(image courtesy citytown.com)

At a university where more than 90 percent of students receive financial aid, the extra money is expected to benefit 142 students who will receive grants of $1,000 each.

A committee of the university's trustee board approved the unusual move Tuesday, and the full board will likely give its blessing Wednesday.

NCCU and most universities generally take 5 or 5.5 percent of its endowment each year, based on a three-year rolling average, for scholarships and other uses. But mounting budget cuts and rising college costs prompted the move, officials said Tuesday during meetings of the university's board of trustees.

Read Wednesday's News & Observer for more.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a leading activist of the civil rights movement, will give the undergraduate commencement address at N.C. Central University on Saturday, May 14.

As a student at Fisk University, Lewis organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tenn, according to a university news release. In 1961, he participated in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. Despite being beaten by angry mobs and arrested by police, Lewis continued to defy and fight Jim Crow legislation.
 
In 1963, he was named chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) the release continues. Though just 23 years old, he was considered one of the “Big Six” leaders of the movement, along with Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer and Roy Wilkins. He was an organizer and speaker at the historic March on Washington in August of 1963.
 

N.C. Central University's law school has some heady company atop a new list of the nation's most popular law schools.

NCCU's law school ranks ninth on this new list, from U.S. News & World Report, that evaluates schools on the percentage of students admitted who choose to enroll. Basically, if lots of students you admit decide to show up, you're popular.

Topping the list? Yale, followed by Brigham Young and Harvard.

NCCU's the only North Carolina law school in the top 10. Its acceptance rate - the percentage of applicants it offers to enroll - is 20 percent, far better than the national average of about 39 percent, said Raymond Pierce, the school's dean.

This is the latest ranking to raise the profile of the law school at this small, historically black institution. It has previously been tabbed the nation's best value by National Jurist Magazine.

The honor illustrates that legal education is headed away from high-price, high-debt schools and towards affordable options whose grads pass the bar at a high rate. Pierce said.

"Affordability is a big piece of this," he sasid. That's where legal education is going."

A N.C. Central University professor has been appointed chairman of the state's African-American Heritage Commission.

Gov. Beverly Perdue has named Freddie L. Parker to the post. Parker, currently the interim chair of NCCU's history department, joined the commission at its formation two years ago.

The General Assembly established the commission to advise and assist the Secretary of Cultural Resources in preserving, interpreting and promoting African-American history, arts and culture.

An NCCU alumnus, Parker has lent his time to a number of organizations related to history. He is past chairman of the North Carolina Historical Highway Marker Commission and currently is chairman of the African American History Project Advisory Board at Tryon Palace in New Bern.

Last fall, he was elected vice-president of the Historical Society of North Carolina and will become its president this year.
 
In January, Parker won entry into the North Caroliniana Society, a nonprofit group that selects as members North Carolinians who meet the strict criterion of "adjudged performance" in service to the state's heritage.
 
Parker received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from NCCU in 1975 and 1977 respectively, and the Ph.D. in American History from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1987. He is the author of “Running for Freedom: Slave Runaways in NC, 1775-1840,” and “Stealing a Little Freedom: Advertisements for Slave Runaways in NC, 1791-1840.”