A UNC Charlotte professor has won the top faculty award given by the UNC system.

Diane Browder, a special education professor at UNCC, received the O. Max Gardner Award Friday during a meeting of the UNC system's Board of Governors.

Browder has spent more than two decades on academic instruction and assessment methods for severly disabled children. Her work has changed educational expectations for disabled children and helped shape educational policies and practices, according to a Friday news release.

"Dr. Browder is living proof that the research we do on our campuses matter," UNC system President Tom Ross said.

Browder's award, which carries a $20,000 prize, is given annually from the will of former Gov. Oliver Max Gardner to recognize faculty who make "the greatest contributions to the welfare of the human race."

A Duke graduate, Browder has long worked to dispel the notion that children with severe disabilities can't learn cognitive or academic skills.

In accepting her award, she told a short anecdote that elicited smiles and tingles from a packed room of onlookers. It centered on a young girl who was severely disabled. She'd never spoken in her life, communicating essentially through with her eyes.

Then one day, Browder was quizzing her with pictures. She locked eyes on a picture and, for the first time in her life, spoke.

The word was "apple."

The disruption expected when the Democratic National Convention comes to Charlotte next year may force a significant adjustment to the academic calendar at UNC Charlotte.

The university may push back the start of the fall 2012 semester by more than three weeks to both accommodate infrastructure demands from convention visitors and to avoid disruptions caused by the event, which is expected to draw 35,000 to the Queen City.

"It would be very difficult to conduct regular business with the convention going on," said Phil Dubois, UNCC's chancellor. "If the president comes to town, everything stops."

Currently, fall classes next year are slated to start Aug. 20. But Dubois told members of the UNC system's Board of Governors this week classes may be pushed back 25 days.

"It looks like we could make it work if we push close to Christmas," Dubois said, adding that the university may add Saturday classes to help make up the lost class days.

The convention is slated for the week of Sept. 3, and UNCC's downtown facility is just three blocks from the convention site.

In addition, the university has been asked to help provide housing for visitors; Dubois has offered up 1,500 residence hall beds but will charge $500 per person per night. That's what the university needs to charge to make up for lost revenue.

UNCC would have to alter contracts for student housing and food service and make other adjustments that, in total, would cost the university $3 million.

"There's a cost to our cooperation," Dubois said. "We're not going to do anything to be subsidizing the Democratic National Convention."

The university also hopes to turn the convention into a learning lab for some of its students. It hopes to place some as volunteers and perhaps create courses that involve the convention; a fourth summer session may be squeezed in during the 25-day delay at the end of the summer, Dubois said.

"Yes, it's an inconvenience," he said. "But with that inconvenience comes a chance to do something meaningful. The faculty see it as an opportunity for students."

In today's paper, the full story on new UNC President Tom Ross's desire to seek out duplication within the UNC system.

This should be an interesting process. On individual campuses, faculties aren'g generally programmed to think first about working collaboratively with their counterparts at other public institutions. It happens, but it isn't as high a priority as it's going to become.

Ross's first big venture will seek out what he calls "unnecessary duplication" among academic programs, an endeavor sure to result in some hurt feelings and turf wars.

Here's the story.

Several initiatives at local universities take a beating this week in a new congressional report on stimulus funding.

The report, Summertime Blues, is at a small handful of projects funded by the $862 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that its authors, U.S. senators Tom Coburn and John McCain, feel are wasteful.

"We owe it to all Americans that are paying taxes and struggling to find jobs, to rebuild our economy without doing additional harm, and to do it in a way that expands opportunities for future generations," Coburn and McCain wrote in the report. "Too many stimulus projects are failing to meet that goal."

Some local notables:

• From Duke University, a $498,176 grant from the National Science Foundation to look for ways to improve privacy and functionality for social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. This is number 41 on the report's list, on page 29.

• At N.C. State University, a $253,123 grant to an insect museum. The report claims the museum has "virtually no public presence" by virtue of the fact that it averages 44 visitors a year. The stimulus funding would be used for bug storage - the purchase of new cabinets, drawers and units for bug specimens, and for new computer equipment. The museum is number 68 in the report, on page 37.

• UNC Charlotte received $762,372 to develop a computerized choreography program to help design and produce interactive dance performances. This is number 2 on the report's list, page 6.

• NCSU makes the list again, along with Georgia Tech, for video game research. NCSU received $770,856, and Georgia Tech received $427,824, each from the National Science Foundation to examine how video games like the Nintendo Wii can "help improve mental health for the elderly."  That's number 39 on the list, page 28 of the report.

Follow this link to the full report.

Stoned monkeys, menopausal yogis, video-gaming retirees and insect trading cards are among the stimulus-funded projects in North Carolina that have made the latest list of 100 questionable projects paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The report issued today by Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma includes eight dubious projects from this state among 100 selected throughout the country.

"Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects that Give Taxpayers the Blues" highlights projects that are wasteful, mismanaged or plain worthless in terms of job creation.

Year after year, UNC Charlotte professor James Cook would be told during his annual review that he should do "less of that service stuff" and concentrate more on publishing research.

Over time, Cook became adept at side-stepping that suggestion while also finding ways to incorporate the work he does as a community psychologist into his research.

It paid off.

Cook, now in his 29th year on the UNCC faculty, received a public service award Friday from the UNC system's Board of Governors.

The award, created three years ago, recognizes one UNC system faculty member each year for public service work. In accepting his award Friday, Cook said he was unapologetic about the time he's spent on the service portion of his job.

"I'm a community psychologist," he said. "It's what I do."

Cook received a $7,500 cash prize for his efforts.

For decades, Cook has worked with poor and mentally or physically disabled people in the Charlotte area. He has served as a link between the university, city and county  agencies and community organizations who support those in need of help.

He's been a board member of Mecklenberg Open Door, which service adults with mental health problems, for 23 years and has also served as president of his local mental health association.

And in his classes, all students take on some form of public service.
"The students learn how to solve problems in the community," he said.

One of his goals, he said Friday, was to make the world a little smaller for folks who need help but don't know where to turn. UNCC and other universities have a lot to offer, but can be difficult to navigate, he said.

We're massive institutions," he said. "It's hard for people in the community to know where to go lots of times."

Cook has spent a great deal of time over the years writing grant proposals to raise money for community projects. The result: About $25 million in external funding for projects serving the homeless and mentally ill, officials said Friday.

UNC Charlotte is about to become a football school.

Whether the 49ers become a decent football school is another issue entirely, but the university passed its first hurdle today when its campus board approved the creation of a football program. 

University leaders hope to field a team by 2013 if fans will kick in $5 million in donations to help pay for a $45 million stadium.

The team would play in the terribly-named Football Championship Subdivision, which was formerly known by the far-less-confusing Division I-AA.