From our keeping on top of things dept.:

The InterNeighborhood Council spent 22 minutes last week debating whether or not to endorse the city's proposed UC-2 zoning for an area near NCCU. It was an earnest discussion.

In time, the delegates voted for a resolution favoring the zoning, but with conditions, and sent the resolution on to City Hall.

In response, City Hall replied that the City Council had approved the zoning three weeks before.

Better late than never, we suppose.
 

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's a look at today's local headlines:

SLOW MONEY: In the second of our new semi-monthly local business features, correspondent Jamie Kennedy reports on Slow Money, a person-to-person lending program for business startups and expansions. "It's about bring our money back home," says cofounder Carol Peppe Hewitt.

LIBERTY ARTS: The sculpture studio and gallery is hosting a party in its new space behind Golden belt this week during the "Third Friday Durham" culture crawl (does anyone still call it that?) Correspondent Debbie Meyer has that story and a roundup of all the gallery offerings in her monthly arts feature.

GANG PROBLEM: It's complicated, says Durham new anti-gang coordinator , Jim Stuit. Staff writer Jim Wise provides an update on how Durham is tackling its youth violence problem.

Carl Kenney, winner of this years N.C. Press Association 1st place award for serious columns, says the downtown Business Improvement District tax is way overdue. (Hank Scherich disagrees.). Duke hosts a free all-day conference Friday on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.  And Bonitta Best finds NCCU's LeVelle Moton at a loss for words after Central's tough loss in the MEAC quarterfinals.

Tell us what's on your mind at editor@newsobserver.com, and thanks for reading,

Mark 

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.

Here's a look at today's local headlines:

AUTISM SCHOOL SUSPENDS CLASSES: The Asperger Connection School can't pay its bills. So why are someparents vowing to keep their kids enrolled? Find out in Monica Chen's two-story package.

PARTY MARDIS: How did Duham's Mardis Gras celebration go? Well, you just might want to put Fat Tuesday 2013 on your calendar ... there's an app for that, right?

FAITH AND GANGS: For some Durham teens it's an either/or question. Jim Wise reported on the start of a conversation among local clergy and young people about the problem.

I speak with Chancellor Charlie Nelms about this week's program cuts at NCCU, Bob Wilson says local attorney Kerry Sutton shows true grit, and diet docs say a recent guest column on overweight kids got it wrong.

And NCCU prof Lydia Lavelle asks what would JFK say about the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in North Carolina? Tell us what you think with a letter to the editor at editor@newsobserver.com

Thanks for reading,

Mark

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.

Anyone who has been a caretaker knows it's not easy. Being a reluctant caretaker? Even worse.

That's the situation, at least initially, revealed in "Raising Renee," (8 tonight, HBO 2), a documentary chronicling artist and NCCU professor Beverly McIver's effort to care for her mentally disabled sister.

McIver made the promise to care for her sister to her mother blithely; she was a rising artist, unmarried and childless, raising cats and living in Arizona. A part of her, she admits, didn't (magically) think her mother would die. But Ethel McIver develops cancer, leaving her daughter to make good on her word.

Should UNC limit enrollment? Reduce it, even?

Gasp!

This isn't the sort of idea that has ever gotten much serious consideration in North Carolina, a state that prides itself on providing an affordable and accessible education to its citizens.

But these woeful economic times are changing the minds of decision-makers. In today's paper, a story about why this may not be the worst time for the state to consider scaling back enrollment.

One note: There's an error in the story that will be corrected. There are 58 community college campuses in North Carolina, not 56.

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.