A French business school is opening a campus in Raleigh and will begin classes for 300 students in January.
The SKEMA Business School said today it will operate out of N.C. State University's Centennial Campus. The French educational institution picked the area for its proximity to Research Triangle Park.
The campus will begin with 30,000 square feet of space but SKEMA has commissioned a larger campus in a new building, according to the school's announcement.
North Carolina State University has hired an Atlanta-based consultant to help the university's search for a new athletics director.
The firm is Parker Executive Search. It will be paid $75,000, a NCSU spokesman said.
A 13-member committee begins work today looking for a successor for Lee Fowler, who the university eased out recently. The committee meets today.
The search is being chaired by Smedes York, the former chairman of the NCSU Board of Trustees.
The use of search consultants for high-profile administration positions at universities is not unusual. The UNC system is shelling out $100,000 to a headhunter helping in the search for the next university system president.
last week, Jane Shaw from the Pope Center for Higher Education wrote a provocative letter to the editor that ran in the News & Observer commenting on a recent story showing that several of this year's summer reading selections at area universities are, well, depressing.
Shaw, whose Pope Center routinely pokes at what it perceives as a liberal bias infecting American higher education, wrote that summer reading selections are generally a university's first attempt to brainwash young minds.
She wrote in part:
"Freshman reading begins four years of immersion in radical but baseless notions: that capitalism represses women and minorities, that the only important part of American history is its racist past, and that Americans should feel guilty about prosperity. For many college faculty, the goal of education is to lead students to reject traditional institutions."
Zing!
Enter Jeff Braden, dean of the college of humanities and social sciences at N.C. State. He reacts to Shaw's letter today with one of his own. In it, he notes several reading selections from recent years at NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill, like the 2004 UNC-CH selection chronicling a year at West Point, that he feels counter's Shaw's claims.
He writes in part: [Shaw] is welcome to read our book selections, attend our public lectures and yes, even take our courses. However, she'll have to do her homework if she wants to pass our classes."
So what do you think?
Lee Fowler shouldn't have been fired.
That's the stance of the News & Observer's lead editorial today, which argues in part that Fowler did plenty of good things in his time as N.C. State's athletic director.
(Fowler was let go earlier this week)
It reads in part: "The university doesn't cover itself in glory when it dismisses someone like Lee Fowler, who worked hard to unite all the members of the university community and alums, who had the respect of the faculty, who did by all accounts (even those of his critics) a terrific job in overseeing some facilities upgrades that have given NCSU a showplace for football, and in partnership with the Carolina Hurricanes (and taxpayers) also a palace for basketball."
C.J. Leslie played "Meet the Press" Monday afternoon at a press conference at Raleigh Word of God Academy.
Leslie, a 6-foot-8 basketball forward at Raleigh Word of God, reaffirmed his commitment N.C. State and said he thinks the Wolfpack will be outstanding next season. He plans to sign his national letter of intent on Tuesday afternoon.
N.C. State has a new alumni association director.
He is Ralph (Benny) E. Suggs, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret.) and general manager of the Harley Owners Group (HOG) and Rider Services at Harley-Davidson Motor Company.
He succeeds Lennie Barton, who was fired last year by interim Chancellor James Woodward.
Suggs, a 1969 graduate of NC State, was one of the university’s 2006 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. He has also served on the General Hugh Shelton Leadership Initiative Board of Advisors at the university for the past eight years.
“We’re thrilled that Benny Suggs is returning to the university he has loved and supported over the years, “ said Alumni Association President Dennis Howard, in a university news release. “He epitomizes the leadership and public service commitment graduates of NC State are known for throughout the nation.”
From the release:
As general manager of the Harley Owners Group, Suggs is responsible for managing an organization with 1.2 million members worldwide. He also manages all rider-training programs sponsored by Harley-Davidson as well as authorized rentals worldwide. He has a full-time staff of 60 and thousands of volunteers around the world.
Suggs is also a Navy aviator, receiving his Naval Aviation Wings in 1971. He has received the Defense Meritorious and Distinguished Service Medals, Five Legion of Merit Medals and Two Navy Commendation Medals.
NCSU has more than 175,000 alums.
Two North Carolina research organizations were among 37 nationwide that will share more than $106 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for research projects that, in the DOE's word, "could fundamentally change the way the country uses and produces energy."
N.C. State University was awarded $2.7 million and Research Triangle Institute was awarded $2 million through the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy initiative.
An N.C. State geneticist and two Duke faculty members have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
N.C. State's Trudy F.C. Mackay become the university's ninth current faculty member elected to the academy. The William Neal Reynolds and Distinguished University Professor of Genetics and Entomology, is one of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected to the prestigious society.
Mackay studies the genetic and environmental factors that lead to variations in quantitative, or complex, traits.
She currently receives funding from the National Institutes of Health to study the genetics of glaucoma, the genetics of alcohol sensitivity and the genetics of aggression.
Mackay joins two Duke professors also elected to the academy.
They are Philip Benfey, the Paul Kramer Professor of Biology, and Vann Bennett, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical and the James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology in the departments of cell biology, biochemistry and neurobiology with the Duke University Medical Center.
Benfey and Bennett join 18 other Duke faculty members in the academy.
UNC-Chapel Hill has 10 members, according to the academy's Web site.
Two university dorms in the state are among 14 buildings vying for a national building competition sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The competition pits buildings against each other to see which one can reduce the most energy use in one year.
Morrison Residence Hall at UNC Chapel Hill and Tucker Residence Hall at N.C. State University were picked from nearly 200 applicants for the EPA contest.
N.C. State University has found one more way to publicize its research.
The university has unveiled "The Abstract," a new blog dedicated to research being done in its laboratories.
