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One sure sign that economy stinks: N.C. Central University’s finance officials see a silver lining in a 21 percent hit to the institution’s endowment.

NCCU’s three endowments - two that invest money for professorships and a third that manage scholarship funds - collectively took a 21.36 percent nosedive in 2008, a loss in real numbers of more than $4 million.

“That compares to a market that’s down about 50 percent from a year ago,” commented Alan Robertson, NCCU’s vice chancellor for administration and finance. “I know it’s pretty sad, but they are outperforming the market.”

Robertson’s comments came during committee meetings of NCCU’s Board of Trustees and were indicative of the conversations finance staffers are having at universities across the country. State funding is in peril, endowment values are sinking fast, and private donations are slowing.

N.C. Central Univeristy has joined a resource-sharing consortium with eight other universities aimed in part at improving the academic performance of African-American male college students.

The project is called Interlink Alliance and joins eight historically black institutions with Ohio University to share ideas and resources and will include faculty and student-exchange programs.

Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte is the other member from North Carolina.

More information is available here.

Historically black institutions have long struggled to improve the academic performance of black, male students, a challenge the leaders of this new initiative acknowledge.

"We felt that the African-American male was an endangered species and that we needed to do something that would allow the matriculation and graduation of more African-American males throughout our institutions as well as others," said Roderick McDavis, Ohio University's president, speaking to Diverse, a higher education publication.

Less than 34 percent of black, male freshmen at North Carolina's public historically black colleges who enrolled in 2000 graduated after six years, according to UNC system data.

At NCCU, 34.7 percent of black, male students graduated in that time frame, according to the data.

At Fayetteville State University, new chancellor James Anderson is offering a day-in-the-life opportunity to lucky students.

It's called the "Chancellor for a Day" program. Students will shadow Anderson for a day to understand how a university operates.

Glamorous? Perhaps not. The program's goals are to give students a chance to be part of the administrative process, emphasize the role of the student at the university, give students decision-making experience, and let students get a feel for the leadership skills required to manage a large organization.

This being academia, students must write an application letter of no more than 500 words, which will be reviewed, naturally, by a committee.

Universities love committees.

Applicants must have a 3.00 grade point average, demonstrate leadership abilities through involvement in student or community organizations, and "give compelling factors about themselves to prove they are the best person to be Chancellor for a Day," according to a press release.

Students will be selected bi-monthly. Applications should include name, address, phone number, e-mail address, academic major and classification and be sent via email to Dr. Bertha H. Miller, Special Assistant to the Chancellor, bmiller@uncfsu.edu.

The economic slowdown and demands that state agencies cut 3 percent from their current budgets are having a tangible effect at UNC Greensboro, where a new building for the School of Education has been put on hold.

Planning and design for the new, 110,000-square-foot, $47 million facility will continue but construction — expected to start next spring — will be delayed. The building was to open in fall of 2011, Chancellor Linda Brady said in a press release.

The release did not say how long the delay would last. The 3 percent budget cut is in addition to a cut of almost 1 percent imposed at the start of the fiscal year as a result of the state's revenue shortfall.

"I hope this will be the extent of the cuts, but it is very possible that we will be asked to absorb further cuts this year or next," Brady said.

Several Duke University professors have weighed in on the effect Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama will have as the presidential campaign nears its conclusion.

Here are some of their thoughts, via a Duke press release:

• Political scientist Kerry L. Haynie says Obama has been unable to broach the topic of bias against Muslim Americans the way Powell did in his endorsement.

"No candidate wants to be seen openly courting Muslim votes, although they very much want and need them," says Haynie. "There is a long history of white Democrats behaving in a similar way toward blacks. For example, they never wanted to be photographed with Jesse Jackson, but they wanted all the black and brown voters he registered to vote for them."

"Muslim Americans may be the new African-Americans in American politics. Both political parties are afraid to embrace Muslim-American voters like they are afraid to reach out for black voters. Statistics show that if political parties rely on or reach out to black voters, they ultimately lose white voters."

• Jen'nan Read, an associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke, argues that Powell’s comments about Muslims could be a turning point for the negative rhetoric that has marked the campaign.

“Colin Powell is the first voice on either side of the aisle to articulate a point that is long overdue by decisively stating that it is un-American to use the term ‘Muslim’ to discredit and slander a presidential candidate," says Read, a Carnegie scholar who is currently studying the political integration and activity of U.S. Muslims.

“Since 9/11, Muslims have been vilified and generalized as a monolithic group tied to Islamic extremism. The reality is that Muslims are very much like the rest of the American public -- generally diverse and politically integrated, and in step with the rest of the American public on today’s most divisive political issues. It is important to know the facts about Muslim Americans before lumping them all into one group.”

• Paula D. McClain, a professor of political science, public policy and African and African American studies, finds some of the recent media commentary to be offensive.

"What it says is that if a prominent black American -- one who is of the opposite political party and has served two Republican administrations -- after a great deal of deliberation comes out in favor of the black presidential candidate, that it has to be racial," says McClain.

 

"What all of these people have done is to racialize Colin Powell and his endorsement, essentially saying that regardless of his stature and past accomplishments and prominence, his skin color is the explanation, regardless of the long and eloquent argument he laid out for his endorsement."

Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation in the late 1990s led to the impeachment of President Clinton, will speak Wednesday at N.C. Central University's law school.

A Duke graduate, Starr is now the dean of the law school at Pepperdine University. He will speak at 3 p.m. in the Moot Court Room as part of the law school's Discourse on Contemporary Legal Issues Speaker Series.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Marcia Thomas at 530-7723 or Sharon Alston at 530-5386.