Connecticut remained atop The Associated Press women's basketball poll for the 45th consecutive week on Monday when the first regular-season ranking list was released.

No. 6 Duke (1-0) remained in the same position as the preseason poll, while No. 14 North Carolina (1-0) moved up one spot. N.C. State (2-0) received eight votes for a place among the nation's top 25 teams.

N.C. State has snared $1.8 million to find ways to better predict consequences of climate change.

The money is part of a five year, $10 million National Science Foundation grant that will also fund projects at North Carolina A & T, the University of Tennessee and Northwestern.

At NCSU, researchers will focus on better predicting hurricane and precipitation patterns. Professors Fred Semazzi and Nagiza Samatova will do the work.
Semazzi is a professor of marine, earth and atmosheric sciences at NCSU.  He'll try to better predict Atlantic hurricanes by advancing computing techniques used to analyze climate data sets.

Samatova, an associate professor in computer science, will try to develop a new approach to Atlantic hurricane prediction.

At N.C. A & T in Greensboro, engineering professor Abdollah Homaifar, a data-mining expert, received $900,000 to develop new fusion an dsearch algorithms that will help scientists and public officials better predict hurricane activity.
 

The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University will guarantee admission to a few top students at UNC- Pembroke and N.C. A&T State University under a new agreement among the three schools.
 
ECU is expanding its “early assurance” medical school admission plan to the other universities, hoping to beef up the number of doctors practicing in underserved parts of the state.
 
For 10 years, the medical school has guaranteed medical school admission to select high school seniors competing for the East Carolina Scholars program, the university's top undergrad scholarship.

Four students get that early admission each year. It means if they hit certain academic benchmarks, they'll be admitted to the ECU medical school after college graduation without having to compete with other applicants or take the medical school entrance exam.

Since the program started, 15 such scholars have graduated from ECU's medical school.
 
Now, ECU will admit two early assurance students each from UNC-P and N.C. A & T. Those students must be North Carolinians with at least a 3.5 grade point average.

UNC-P expects to open the program to students enrolling in fall 2011. N.C. A &T will offer it to students starting either this fall or next fall.

North Carolina A & T University has moved quickly to find a replacement for Chancellor Stanley Battle, whose abrupt announcement in February that he planned to step down caught the institution by surprise.

The UNC system's Board of Governors has called a special meeting for tomorrow morning where they will name Battle's replacement. The university system hasn't said who it will be, but the Greensboro News & Record reports that it will be Harold Martin, currently the UNC system's vice president for academic planning.

Martin has a wealth of campus experience and a well of support within the university system. A N.C. A&T alum with two degrees from there, he chaired that institution's electrical engineering department, was the engineering dean and served as vice chancellor for academic affairs  before leaving in 2000 to become chancellor at Winston-Salem State University. 

He held that post until 2006.

Among his more recent roles, Martin chaired a UNC system task force that examined - in the wake of racist graffiti discovered at N.C. State - whether the university should have a policy on hate crimes.

In Guilford County, a prosecutor has decided not to pursue charges against James Renick, the former chancellor at North Carolina A & T University.

Renick left the Greensboro institution two years ago amid questions over the misuse of hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money.

As the Greensboro News & Record reports, Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson has concluded that neither Renick nor a program manager, Anna Anita Huff, violated any laws.

Henderson asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into the issue after a state auditor's report found nearly $400,000 from a vending account had been transferred to Renick's discretionary account.

The state auditor is questioning the way N.C. A&T University used a state procurement card to buy clothes for student leaders to wear at homecoming.

Our Under the Dome blog has the scoop.