If you're not sure what sort of silly hat your kid was wearing Sunday at UNC-Chapel Hill's commencement, we've got you covered.

Navigate your way over to this super-fantastic, interactive panoramic photo of the graduation ceremony, zoom in and find your child in all his or her silly glory.

Have fun.

The American Association of Universities, an elite organization of institutions that excel in research, has taken the rare step of kicking out one of its members.

The group, of which Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill are members, has expelled the University of Nebraska, the first time the group has kicked out one of its own, according to this coverage in Inside Higher Ed.

The move has drawn a great deal of attention within the higher education elite. Membership in AAU is coveted, and the group rarely adds or removes members. It expelled Nebraska a year after revising its membership criteria and focuses largely on the level of biomedical research and research funding.

Members voted on Nebraska's fate last week, and the university would have remained in the group had two fewer universities voted to expel it, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Vote details are not public, but presumably, UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp and Duke President Richard Brodhead cast votes representing their respective institutions.

A spokesman for Thorp declined to comment Monday, deferring to AAU itself. I haven't heard definitively yet today from Duke, though it will likely decline to comment as well, I'm guessing.

A second university is leaving AAU under pressure. Syracuse University, whose credentials are also receiving scrutiny now from AAU, has announced plans to voluntarily withdraw.

The AAU's newest member is Georgia Tech, added in 2010. It has 62 members in all; Duke joined in 1938, while UNC has been a member since 1922.

N.C. State is not a member, though some feel it carries the necessary credentials. When Georgia Tech joined last year, NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson told the Chronicle of Higher Education he'd like his institution considered.

"The AAU is the pre-eminent research-intensive membership group," Woodson told that publication. "To be part of that organization is something N.C. State aspires to."

Annual dues are $80,500, according to that same Chronicle story.

A prominent UNC-Chapel Hill researcher has settled a dispute with the university, re-gaining her credentials and full salary while agreeing to retire at the end of the year.

Bonnie Yankaskas, a noted epidemiologist, had been demoted, her pay cut essentially in half, after a hacker infiltrated a computer server that she, as the principal investigator for a massive breast cancer study, oversaw.

Yankaskas has overseen the Carolina Mammography Registry, a federally funded project that compiles and analyzes mammogram data submitted by dozens of radiology offices across North Carolina to improve breast cancer screening.

The university held her responsible for the breach and first tried to fire her before later recommending the demotion from full to associate professor and the pay cut.

Under the terms of a settlement announced Friday, Yankaskas has regained her status as a full professor and her full salary of $175,000 has been restored.

She agreed to retire Dec. 31 of this year, according to a news release issued late Friday.

Under the terms of the agreement, the university will not comment on the settlement’s terms. Nor will Yankaskas, according to her attorney, Raymond Cotton.

It wasn't a hate crime. In fact, it wasn't a crime after all.

That's the takeaway from the false police report filed by UNC-Chapel Hill freshman Quinn Matney, whose claim that he was assaulted apparently due to his sexual orientation sent the campus into a brief frenzy.

But here's a question I haven't yet answered: why even use the "hate crime" classification? To what end?

Here's the deal: North Carolina has no specific law dealing with hate crimes. That means had Matney's claim been true and police had made an arrest, that person could not be charged with a hate crime under state law.

But universities that receive federal Title IV student financial assistance money must conform to the Higher Education Opportunity Act, one requirement of which being an annual report of crimes identified in the Clery act, which requires universities to report crime statistics.

A hate crime on the UNC-CH campus would have met the Clery crime definition of a hate crime and as such would have been included in the university's annual report, said Jeff McCracken, the campus police chief.

Reporting it as such doesn't automatically trigger any action, McCracken said, but would allow local police to request FBI assistance in investigating the situation, and federal charges could be filed.

Of course, it's all moot now.

McCracken said Thursday his agency will likely charge Matney with filing a false report. It isn't clear when Matney will be charged, though. For now, the student has returned home to Asheville to be with his family.
 

It's been quite a week for the gay community at UNC-Chapel Hill.

First, word trickled out that a gay student had been viciously attacked because of his sexual orientation.

Then, last night, the stunning news: Freshman Quinn Matney invented his story about being attacked in the middle of the night by a man who pressed a scalding piece of metal to his wrist.

Now, more questions than answers, said Jeff DeLuca, co-president of the university's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight Alliance, a student organization.

"It was certainly shocking, almost as shocking as hearing a hate crime could have happened on this campus," DeLuca said Wednesday, a day after hearing that the student he'd sought out and supported had made up the story. "People put a pretty emotional investment in this, trying to find out what happened. Though this didn't turn out to be be what we thought it was, the roller coaster ride was real. People are shocked and confused."

But DeLuca's student group is moving forward with a previously scheduled campus forum Thursday night - at 6:30 in Gardner Hall - where the issue will be discussed.

And DeLuca still wants to reach out to Matney.

"We have to keep supporting Quinn," DeLuca said. "Even if it's a different type of support we have to give him."

Authorities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are investigating an assault on campus last week as a hate crime.

"As a university community, we condemn this act of violence," said UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp in a statement on Alert Carolina, the campus website that disseminates safety-related information to students, faculty and staff. "Our Department of Public Safety will bring the strongest possible charges against the attacker."

The attack, which was reported to police April 5, occurred on the foot bridge between Craige Residence Hall and the intersection of Ridge Road and Manning Drive. Police said the student was treated for burns at the student health center. The student, freshman Quinn Matney, told police a person he recognized but did not know pressed a hot piece of metal to his left wrist, scalding it and doing tendon damage.

The burn left an imprint that looks something like a figure 8.

Police have no suspects yet, Chief Jeff McCracken said Tuesday. Matney said he stopped to speak to another acquaintance just prior to the attack, but didn't know that person by name, either, McCracken said.

Thorp said in the statement that the aggravated assault "appears to have been motivated by the sexual orientation of a male student."

Thorp said the university intends to report the assault as a hate crime to the federal government.

"Everyone in our community has the right to a safe, inclusive and welcome living and learning environment," Thorp said. "And all of us have a responsibility to stand against acts of violence, harassment, bullying and intimidation and to treat each other with civility and respect."

Outside of a bare bones incident report on hand at the police station, the attack was not made public by the university until Monday, a week later. That lag time has bothered some members of the gay community at UNC-CH.

"It's troubling when the only way we find out about a hate crime on campus is by word of mouth," said Jeff DeLuca, a sophomore and co-president of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight Alliance.

A UNC-Chapel Hill daycare center more than 40 years old is getting chopped by the budget axe.

The child care center at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will close in July 2013, according to this memo on the institute's website.

"The decision to close in no way reflects on the quality of the program or its importance in the community," the memo reads in part. "Budget reductions have driven us to this decision. With ongoing budget recutions by the state and other grant agencies, FPG cannot continue to subsidize the costs of operating a high-quality, inclusive early care and education program."

The institute itself is in no jeopardy, the memo states.

A foundation run by Wake County businessman Art Pope has donated $3 million to UNC-Chapel Hill for an academic support center for athletes.

The gift from the John William Pope Foundation of Raleigh will create the John W. Pope Student-Athlete Support Center, part of an ongoing renovation of Kenan Stadium.

The original center, which was located in the stadium's previous field house, opened in 1986 and was also funded by the Pope Foundation.

The center is named for John W. Pope Sr., a 1947 UNC-CH graduate who founded the Henderson-based Variety Wholesalers. He died in 2006.

"My father loved Carolina and believed strongly in excellence in both academics and athletics, that each reinforced the other," Art Pope said in a news release. "The Pope Foundation is pleased to honor my father's memory by donating funds for the John W. Pope Student-Athlete Academic Support Center at Kenan Stadium to benefit the University's student-athletes, coaches, staff and the Carolina Leadership Academy."

The 29,000-square-foot center will serve all of Carolina's nearly 800 student-athletes across 28 sports. Features will include classrooms for teaching and tutoring, advanced computer technology, a writing lab, reading rooms and office space.

"This is a showcase facility that will benefit student-athletes in every sport, and will allow them to continue their collective goal to be productive members of their communities," said Dick Baddour, athletics director, in a news release. "We are proud of the athletic success we have had at North Carolina and even more proud of the success our student-athletes have demonstrated academically.  

The center will also house the Carolina Leadership Academy, which trains athletes, coaches and staff.

The $70 million stadium renovation is slated to be complete this fall. It is being funded entirely by private gifts and the sale of premium seating.

The Duke-UNC Rotary Center for international studies in peace and conflict resolution will hold its 8th annual spring conference Saturday, April 9th at 9 a.m. at the FedEx Global Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Nine graduating Rotary Peace Fellows will present their research on a range of issues related to sustainable peace.

 The Duke-UNC center is the only joint center of five total, with the others located in Argentina, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The fellows  are international, mid-career graduate students funded by Rotary International’s World Peace Fellowship.  This program provides a comprehensive scholarship designed to support a Rotary Peace Fellow in a master’s degree program at one of the five Rotary Centers for International Studies. 
 
The Duke-UNC Rotary Center is the only joint center of the five (others are located in the UK, Argentina, Japan and Australia).  Worldwide, just 50 Rotary Fellows are chosen annually, and the Duke-UNC venture currently hosts 18 fellows from 14 countries.

Topics to be discussed on April 9 include: challenges related to refugees from Myanmar; the role of the media in post-conflict Nepal; strategies for the World Food Program in responding to the global food crisis; and political power and the Inter-American Court of human rights.
 
The event is free and open to the public.

Okay. This is pretty much priceless.

So way before Holden Thorp landed the dream job running Big State U., he was an awkward teenager with a hobby.

His hobby: The Rubik's Cube.

Remember the Rubik's Cube? All the rage in the early 1980s. I couldn't solve mine unless I took it apart. Figures.

A young Holden Thorp could, of course, solve his. And fast.

As revealed back in this newspaper profile in 2008, Holden was a pretty good Rubik's Cuber, even winning a regional tournament that yielded 500 bucks that he blew on records.

Not tapes. Not CDs. Records. The 80s, remember?

Anyhow, his efforts landed him a TV appearance on That's Incredible, during which he showed off his wizardry.

And thanks to youtube, it's here for all to see. (And thanks to the chancellor himself for circulating it via twitter. He's @chanthorp, if you're interested.)

Check it out. If you want to skip forward, go to the 3:30 mark....