Wakefield High wide receiver Jordan Fieulleteau committed to the University of North Carolina on Monday.

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound junior caught 83 passes for 1,190 yards during the 2011 season. He was receiving recruiting attention for the Alabama, Maryland, Duke, Rutgers, Kentucky, Florida State, Wake Forest, N.C. State and others, but Carolina was the first school to offer a scholarship.

“I am going to graduate in December and wanted to get my recruitment behind me,” Fieulleteau said. “The Carolina coaching staff loves me, it is a great school and I want to major in journalism. It is a win-win situation. I want to go there and they want me.”

Six former North Carolina high school basketball players are among the list of the Greatest McDonald’s All Americans. The list was released in celebration of the 35^th Anniversary of the McDonald’s All American High School Boys Basketball Game.

New North Carolina coach Larry Fedora gets three commitments.

The Big Cat Kickoff Clash, a preseason football scrimmage at UNC's Kenan Stadium, is back on.

Justin Meredith, a 6-foot-5, 230-pound tight end at Anderson (S.C.) Hanna, has turned down more than 30 other scholarship offers to commit to the University of North Carolina.

Jackson Simmons, a 6-foot-8 senior basketball standout at Smoky Mountain High, got an unusual telephone call on Wednesday night.

Duke and Carolina are playing nice again.

A new grant program for students, set up by charitable trusts affiliated with the two universities, will fund 10 scholarly projects.

The projects are designed to enhance collaboration between the two universities. Each of 10 awardees will get $5,000 from the Kenan-Biddle Partnership.

That's "Kenan," as in the UNC-affiliated William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, and "Biddle," as in the Duke-affiliated Mary Duke Biddle Foundation.

This isn't, of course, the first example of academic collaboration between the two campuses. It is perhaps most notably evident in the Robertson Scholars Program, which allows students to take courses on both campuses.

Each project must include one public exhibition, presentation or performance, and preference was given to proposals made jointly by students at both schools.

“We received more than 90 proposals, which made the selection process highly competitive,” said Ronald Strauss, executive associate provost at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-chair of the grant selection committee. “We are confident that the 10 projects chosen are well designed to achieve the benefits intended by the partnership.”

A couple examples of the grant winners include:

•  Shifting Trends: an Experiment in After-school Computer Literacy Programs.
•  Duke/UNC-Chapel Hill Working Group in Contemporary Poetry.
•  Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill Students Working for Sustainable Agriculture.

An annual call for proposals from both campuses will encourage collaborative arts, sciences and humanities projects that will positively affect both campus communities.
Proposals for the 2012 class of grant recipients will begin in November.

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.

Under Erskine Bowles, the UNC system focused largely on making the administrative side of the university more efficient.

Now, new president Tom Ross wants to attack the academic side.

Ross announced his desire Friday morning to look for ways to streamline the university's academics by looking for "unnecessary duplication."

It is important, Ross told members of the UNC system's Board of Governors, for the university to be "nimble and flexible" as it works through what is expected to be a difficult budget year.

He has tapped James Woodward, the longtime former chancellor at UNC Charlotte, to head this initiative.

(Woodward also served as interim chancellor at N.C. State University)

Stay tuned for more.
 

Rodney Purvis, one of the top high school basketball point guards in the Class of 2012, ended his college recruitment on Friday when he announced he will sign with the University of Louisville.

"My mind was made up about three weeks ago when I visited Louisville," Purvis said Saturday. "I just waited a while to make sure I didn't change my mind."