Election marred by absences SEE GPSC ON PAGE 6 Fisseha and Shen join DSG race against Brown by Joanna Lichter THE CHRONICLE In a meeting Tuesday, the Duke Student Government Judiciary ruled that a second extension of the campaign packet deadline was constitutional—validating the applica- tions of 13 candidates previously deemed ineligible to run for Senate, vice presiden- tial and class positions. The campaign packets, which qualify students to run for office, were originally due April 2 at 5 p.m. But DSG Attorney General Var Shankar, a senior, extended the deadline to April 7 at 5 p.m to accom- modate students who were out of town at the NCAA Final Four. The Judiciary ruled Shankar’s extension unconstitutional April 9, citing the Election Commission as the sole body responsible for modifying the election process. At that point, students who submitted campaign applications after the initial deadline were disqualified. Eight of the 13 students who were elimi- nated from the election filed suit against the Judiciary’s ruling in an April 10 e-mail to Chief Justice Matt Straus, a sophomore. Straus notified the complainants Sunday morning that their case was dropped be- cause it was an appeal of the case that the SEE ACS ON PAGE 10 COURTNEY DOUGLAS/THE CHRONICLE Junior Metty Fisseha, who is running for VP of athletics and campus ser- vices, says her range of campus experiences qualifies her for the position. MARGIE TRUWIT/THE CHRONICLE Junior Reid Carleton won the third-set tiebreaker of a marathon match against No. 19 North Carolina’s Jose Hernandez to propel the No. 14 Blue Devils past the rival Tar Heels, 4-3, Tuesday at Ambler Stadium. Holding court Judiciary OKs app extension GPSC SEE ELECTION ON PAGE 9 DSG VICE PRESIDENT FOR ATHLETICS AND CAMPUS SERVICES by Carmen Augustine THE CHRONICLE A lack of communications left some candidates out of the Graduate and Profes- sional Student Council’s Board of Trustees committee elections Tuesday evening. Ten graduate students were elected to six different Board of Trustees commit- tees. Three nominated candidates, two of whom said they were never told when the elections would be held, were not present at the elections. The students said that their ability to be elected to the commit- tees was hampered by this miscommuni- cation. The third student could not be reached for comment. “How am I supposed to be involved if they’re only letting people who are involved [with GPSC] be the representatives?” said Aris Baras, a student in the Fuqua School of Business and the School of Medicine. Ba- ras was nominated for a seat on the Medical Center Affairs Committee. She added that she received a GPSC e-mail Tuesday at 2:54 a.m., but it did not note that the general assembly would be voting on representatives or taking nomi- nations for the Board of Trustees standing COURTNEY DOUGLAS/THE CHRONICLE Sophomore Yingyi Shen, who is running for VP of athletics and cam- pus services, stresses inclusiveness and practicality in her campaign. by Taylor Doherty and Lindsey Rupp THE CHRONICLE Junior Metty Fisseha and sophomore Yingyi Shen will join the race for the position of Duke Student Government vice president for athletics and campus services. The addition of Fisseha and Shen to the ballot comes after a last-minute DSG Judiciary ruling Tuesday evening that extended the deadline for submitting campaign ap- plications. Fisseha, a Chronicle columnist, is a Duke Uni- versity Union representative, and Shen is a member of the DSG Judiciary. The two join the athletics and campus ser- vices race alongside freshman Chris Brown, a Durham and regional affairs senator who was profiled by The Chronicle Tuesday, before the Judiciary validated the campaigns of Fisseha and Shen. Fisseha said because her candidacy officially began Tuesday night, her platform is still “in the making.” But Tailgate, Duke busing and transportation and dining would all be essential areas of her work, if elected. Fisseha noted that although she could not feasibly reach out to every student on campus, she said she can serve as an effective intermediary between the administration and students. The Chronicle THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH YEAR, ISSUE 132 WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM Duke looks to resume winning ways against Wake, Page 11 ONTHERECORD “With a higher budget, we are going to have more and better events that are open to everyone.” —WXDU Director Marc Loeffke on DUU’s budget allocations. See story page 3 Save the bonobo handshakes! Noted bonobo conservationist Claudine André shares her history, PAGE 3
Transcript
Election marred by absences
See gpsc on page 6
Fisseha and Shen join DSG race against Brown
by Joanna LichterTHe CHRonICLe
In a meeting Tuesday, the Duke Student government Judiciary ruled that a second extension of the campaign packet deadline was constitutional—validating the applica-tions of 13 candidates previously deemed ineligible to run for Senate, vice presiden-tial and class positions.
The campaign packets, which qualify students to run for office, were originally due april 2 at 5 p.m. But DSg attorney general Var Shankar, a senior, extended the deadline to april 7 at 5 p.m to accom-modate students who were out of town at the nCaa Final Four. The Judiciary ruled Shankar’s extension unconstitutional april 9, citing the election Commission as the sole body responsible for modifying the election process. at that point, students who submitted campaign applications after the initial deadline were disqualified.
eight of the 13 students who were elimi-nated from the election filed suit against the Judiciary’s ruling in an april 10 e-mail to Chief Justice Matt Straus, a sophomore. Straus notified the complainants Sunday morning that their case was dropped be-cause it was an appeal of the case that the
See acs on page 10
courtney douglas/the chronicle
Junior Metty Fisseha, who is running for VP of athletics and campus ser-vices, says her range of campus experiences qualifies her for the position.
margie truwit/the chronicle
Junior Reid Carleton won the third-set tiebreaker of a marathon match against No. 19 North Carolina’s Jose Hernandez to propel the No. 14 Blue Devils past the rival Tar Heels, 4-3, Tuesday at Ambler Stadium.
Holding court Judiciary OKs appextension
gPSC
See election on page 9
DSg ViCe PReSiDeNT FoR ATHleTiCS AND CAMPuS SeRViCeS
by Carmen AugustineTHe CHRonICLe
a lack of communications left some candidates out of the graduate and profes-sional Student Council’s Board of Trustees committee elections Tuesday evening.
Ten graduate students were elected to six different Board of Trustees commit-tees. Three nominated candidates, two of whom said they were never told when the elections would be held, were not present at the elections. The students said that their ability to be elected to the commit-tees was hampered by this miscommuni-cation. The third student could not be reached for comment.
“How am I supposed to be involved if they’re only letting people who are involved [with gpSC] be the representatives?” said aris Baras, a student in the Fuqua School of Business and the School of Medicine. Ba-ras was nominated for a seat on the Medical Center affairs Committee.
She added that she received a gpSC e-mail Tuesday at 2:54 a.m., but it did not note that the general assembly would be voting on representatives or taking nomi-nations for the Board of Trustees standing
courtney douglas/the chronicle
Sophomore Yingyi Shen, who is running for VP of athletics and cam-pus services, stresses inclusiveness and practicality in her campaign.
by Taylor Doherty and Lindsey RuppTHe CHRonICLe
Junior Metty Fisseha and sophomore Yingyi Shen will join the race for the position of Duke Student government vice president for athletics and campus services.
The addition of Fisseha and Shen to the ballot comes after a last-minute DSg Judiciary ruling Tuesday evening that extended the deadline for submitting campaign ap-plications. Fisseha, a Chronicle columnist, is a Duke Uni-versity Union representative, and Shen is a member of the DSg Judiciary. The two join the athletics and campus ser-vices race alongside freshman Chris Brown, a Durham and regional affairs senator who was profiled by The Chronicle Tuesday, before the Judiciary validated the campaigns of Fisseha and Shen.
Fisseha said because her candidacy officially began Tuesday night, her platform is still “in the making.” But Tailgate, Duke busing and transportation and dining would all be essential areas of her work, if elected. Fisseha noted that although she could not feasibly reach out to every student on campus, she said she can serve as an effective intermediary between the administration and students.
The ChronicleThe independenT daily aT duke universiTy
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH YEAR, ISSUE 132www.dukechronicle.com
Duke looks to resume winning ways against Wake, Page 11
onTherecord“With a higher budget, we are going to have more and
better events that are open to everyone.” —WXDU Director Marc Loeffke on DUU’s budget allocations. See story page 3
Save the bonobo handshakes!Noted bonobo conservationist Claudine
André shares her history, PAGe 3
2 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Duke University has positions for work study or non work study students for part-time tour guides from May 3 - August 21, 2010. Also, two full-time internships are available.
Looking for a summer job or extra spending money during
summer school?
The Primary responsibility will be providing walking tours of West Campus to prospective students and their families. Part time guides work a flexible schedule which could include as many as 4 tours per week. This is a perfect opportunity to earn some extra income while attending summer school. Being an active participant in the Duke community is a plus, as is enthusiasm.
Interested individuals should contact Samuel Carpenter,
Assistant Director of Admissions, at 919 684-0172 or
tives tuesday pledged “urgent action” to cut the record budget deficit and protect the country’s top-grade credit rating if it wins the may 6 general election.
leader david cameron suggested his party will shrink the size of the state and said he will go further and faster than the ruling labour Party in cutting the deficit, which at almost 12 percent of economic output rivals that of greece.
“we have to deal with this deficit and we have to take early steps to do that,” cameron said at an event in london tuesday to publish the party’s election manifesto. “the challenge is to get more for less.”
By scaling back the role of govern-ment, the conservative leader said voters will get a chance to take a more active role in running services, providing the
money to cut the deficit and lower taxes. the debate over which party has the best policies for cutting the deficit and avert-ing a return to recession is dominating the election campaign.
Polls suggest neither the conserva-tives nor Prime minister gordon Brown’s labour Party, which issued its election platform monday, has enough support to win a majority in Parliament. cameron urged voters to back his vision for a “big society” in favor of Brown’s desire for “big government.”
“we can make things better without spending more money,” cameron said. “why? Because communities with the power to determine their own destiny will solve the social problems that cause spending to rise in the first place. good government costs less with the conser-vatives.”
“ ”All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
— Ronald Reagan
ToDAY iN HiSToRY1799: Napoleon called for es-tablishing Jerusalem for Jews
washington, d.c. — President Barack obama will announce plans thursday to re-tain and revise some aspects of the discard-ed constellation rocket and capsule system, will commit to selecting a rocket capable of carrying astronauts to deep space within five years, and will allocate $40 million to put together a job retraining program for Florida space workers who will lose their jobs when the shuttle is grounded next year.
addressing workers, astronauts and lawmakers in a much-anticipated speech at the Kennedy space center, obama will flesh out the new nasa architecture for re-turning americans to space that was first proposed in his 2011 budget announce-ment. those proposals — to kill the con-stellation program and jump-start devel-opment of a commercial space industry that could take its place — were met with substantial bipartisan opposition.
Mine chief faces challengeswashington, d.c. — when explo-
sions rocked the nation’s deepest coal mine in 2001, a veteran mine safety ac-tivist flew to alabama and confronted those investigating the blast.
Joseph main, safety director for the united mine workers of america, wasn’t shy in his dealings with federal officials he thought were whitewash-ing the investigation and failing to include the families of the 13 dead miners. “he screamed, he pounded his fists on the table. he’d swear and kick chairs,” recalled dennis o’dell, a for-mer colleague. “miner safety has been Joe’s life.”
today, main is running the agency — the u.s. mine safety and health ad-ministration — whose investigators he attacked on that september day nearly a decade ago.
today:
6352 thursday:
7543
Tories pledge urgent steps to cut Britain’s deficit
Obama to outline proposal for returning to space
sarah l. voisin/the washington Post
Sabrina Hossain feeds the goats on the family’s farm, in Spotsylvania, Virginina. Her husband, Duke graduate Mukit Hossain, recently left his corporate job as a telecommunications executive in order to start his own organic goat farm that delivers halal meat, goat meat that is in accordance with islamic law. Hossain says his new job is the most rewarding and peaceful job he has ever done.
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 3
FRiday, apRil 16
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Politics of the South Today, Griffith Film Theater, Bryan CenterFifty years ago Terry Sanford was elected governor of North Carolina, hailed as a moderate/liberal alternative to the traditional southern politician. What is his legacy, and how has Southern politics changed since then? Robert Korstad, Kevin D. Gorter Professor of Public Policy Studies and History, leads a discussion with John A. Drescher, Jr. M.A.’88, executive editor, News & Observer; Faulkner Fox, author and lecturing fellow, Department of English; and Kerry Haynie, associate professor and associate department chair of Political Science.
2010 Reunions April 16-17, 2010 Duke Arts and Academics ProgrammingOPen tO the Duke COmmunity
Kevin Gray
SatuRday, apRil 17
9:30 – 10:30 a.m. Fifty Years of Bonkistry – and Counting, French Family Science Center Auditorium James Bonk, professor of chemistry, is celebrating 50 years of introducing Duke students to the fundamentals of chemistry and is still going strong. Join Chemistry chair Warren S. Warren and Alvin L. Crumbliss, dean of the Natural Sciences, in congratulating Professor Bonk, who will then discuss sustainable energy, interspersed with demos of hydrogen balloons, a model hydrogen car, and liquid nitrogen ice cream!
2:00 – 3:15 p.m. Health Care: Why It Passed, Griffith Film Theater, Bryan CenterPanel: Donald H. Taylor Jr., assistant professor of public policy, Center for Health Policy, and assistant professor of community and family medicine and nursing, School of Medicine; Barak D. Richman, professor of law at Duke Law School; and Kevin Schulman, associate director, Duke Clinical Research Institute, professor of medicine, School of Medicine, and professor of business administration, Fuqua School of Business.
2:00 – 3:15 p.m. Memories of Duke and JFK, Rare Book Room, Perkins Library Retired Lt. Commander Ted Robinson ‘40 will reminisce with Alex Roland Ph.D. ‘74, professor of history, about working his way through Duke during the Great Depres-sion, winning a commission in the Navy, and serving in Torpedo Boat Squadron 6 with John F. Kennedy in World War II. Robinson’s memoir, Water in my Veins: the Pauper Who Helped Save a President, reveals his part in rescuing Kennedy and surviving crew of PT 109 after it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer.
2:00 – 3:15 p.m. Talkin’ Jazz, Von Canon A, Bryan CenterDo you just love jazz and wish you understood it better? Have you ever wondered why a song is played one way and sometimes another? Come sit in with John Brown, director of jazz studies, when he and a quartet of local musicians perform tunes to inspire a dialogue on the notes and nuances of jazz.
Spotlight Speakers3:30 – 5:00 p.m. Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center Dave Karger ’95, senior writer for Entertainment Weekly magazine, appears regularly on The Today Show, where he discusses the Oscars and entertainment trends. He has written more than 30 EW cover stories and writes a seasonal blog called OscarWatch for EW.com. He will interview actor and screenwriter Jack Coleman ’80, a constant actor 30 years known for his roles in such hits as Dynasty and the sci-fi series Heroes, and Kevin Gray ’80, whose Broadway, Off-Broadway, and National Tour credits include leading roles in The King and I and the Phantom of the Opera, and is currently appearing with the symphony tour Three Phantoms in Concert.
Dave Karger
Jack Coleman
Budget for next year finalized
Duu
See andré on page 8 See duu on page 7
sPecial to the chronicle
Bonobo conservationist Claudine André will speak tonight at 7 p.m. in love Auditorium as part of Duke’s “Primate Palooza.” André is the founder of the only bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
by Ray KohTHe CHRonICLe
Duke University Union’s new executive board is gearing up for the last events of the year and preparing for next year’s.
at their meeting Tuesday night, the new DUU executive board members met for the first time without the outgoing leaders. They finalized budget allocations for each of the 15 committees Saturday and briefly discussed them Tuesday.
“We are going to provide the opportuni-ty for every committee to put on awesome events,” said Chief Financial officer Ben Condon, a junior.
He said the total allocation was $684,124. each committee’s budget was based on what the committee needed for its events and what its budget was last year. The general funding, however, remains unknown until the size of next year’s freshman class is fi-nalized, Condon said. He noted that DUU keeps a general fund of about $20,000 to $30,000 for buffer.
“There were some budget increases and decreases among committees,” Condon said. “We looked at each committee and what its ideas were for next year, and de-cided accordingly.”
one committee with a decreased budget
Q A& with Claudine Andréby Tullia Rushton
THe CHRonICLe
As a special portion of Duke’s “Primate Pa-looza,” renowned bonobo conservationist Clau-dine André will speak at 7 p.m. today in Love Auditorium. Andre founded and now runs the only sanctuary for bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, called Lola Ya Bonobo. Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are primates and are only found in Congo.
The Chronicle’s Tullia Rushton sat down with André to discuss her role and inter-est in bonobo conservation. The following tran-script has been edited for length and clarity.
the chronicle: How did your involve-ment and passion for bonobos develop?
claudine andré: In 1991 we had a very bad period—it was not war, but it was a difficult political period for Congo.... The story begins like this: after one month, two months, three months [of strife that] I don’t remember very well, a man brings me a baby bonobo. [It was] almost dead with pneumonia, and the director of the [local] zoo says, “oh Madame Claudine, don’t put your heart in this animal, it’s a bonobo and they never survive in captiv-ity, 100 percent die. We never have [had] one.” So it was a... challenge—because they all die, [I was determined that] this one would survive.
tc: How has political violence and war affected the bonobo population?
ca: The country was hurting and the bonobo habitat was with military occupa-tion for 60 months and it was a very bad period for bonobos because there were a
4 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
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Obama says nuclear summit adds to world’s securityby Edwin Chen and Roger Runningen
THe WaSHIngTon poST
WaSHIngTon, D.C. — president Barack obama said Tuesday a summit on nuclear security was conclud-ing with a strong agreement among 47 countries that the world’s nuclear stockpiles must be secured to re-duce the chance of terrorists getting an atomic device.
“We have seized the opportunity,” obama said at a news conference at the conclusion of the two-day sum-mit. “The american people will be safer and the world will be more secure.”
In a 12-point summit communique, the U.S. and 46 other nations gathered for the meeting pledged “sustained and effective international cooperation” on obama’s goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear mate-rial in four years.
The representatives and heads of state from around
the world spent two days discussing a plan of action for locking down global nuclear stockpiles. obama has said the most significant security threat is the potential for al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to acquire the materials to develop a nuclear weapon through theft or illicit sales.
opening the summit’s plenary session earlier, obama said the world must recognize the changed na-ture of the nuclear threat.
“Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel irony of history—the risk of a nuclear confron-tation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up,” obama said. That re-quires “we summon the will, as nations, as partners, to do what this moment in history demands,” he said.
The leaders and representatives at the summit reaf-firmed their commitment to preventing terrorists from
obtaining “information or technology” required to use nuclear material and to maintain security of such sup-plies, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg news.
The communique recognizes the role of the United nations as well as other organizations to enforce com-pliance “within their respective mandates and mem-berships” and it calls on states to “work cooperatively” by requesting and providing assistance as necessary.
obama also got agreements from individual coun-tries on actions to secure nuclear material. The U.S. announced Monday that Ukraine will relinquish its en-tire stockpile of highly enriched uranium and convert research reactors to use lower-grade fuel.
Canada prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is in Washington for the summit, separately announced that his country will send spent highly enriched uranium to the U.S. for processing to make it unusable for a weapon.
Canada also joined with the U.S. and Mexico in a plan to convert highly enriched uranium from a Mexi-can research reactor, the White House said Tuesday. The action will result in the removal of all high-grade uranium from Mexico, according to a White House statement. Chile previously has agreed to give up its stockpile.
In another step toward eliminating such material, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signed a protocol Tuesday in which each side agrees to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough material for about 17,000 nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia’s plutoni-um Management and Disposition agreement had been stalled since 2000 over differences on implementation.
In addition, obama said several nations at the sum-mit agreed to bolster security at ports to block smug-gling of nuclear material.
Two potentially high-risk sources of illicit nuclear materials, Iran and north Korea, weren’t invited to the summit and aren’t specifically part of the agenda. obama said at the news conference that the United nations is moving toward tougher sanctions if Iran doesn’t comply with demands it halt any attempt to en-rich uranium.
Cooperation on sanctions is a sign that “internation-al diplomacy” is making it more possible to “isolate” countries like Iran and north Korea. “I want to see us move forward boldly and quickly,” he said.
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 5
nicholas.duke.edu/leaf
to receive The Duke LEAF Award Sat., April 17 • Page Auditorium 2 p.m.Free and open to the public
Browne is being honored for his extraordinary body of work as an environmentalist, songwriter and musician. His most stirring andinspirational works include “Lives in the Balance,” “For Everyman,” “The Pretender,” “Before the Deluge” and “The Drums of War.”
Free and open to the public. Tickets available at the Duke box office.
jackson browneyou are invited
Judge orders Mississippi county to end segregation
Letter sent without approval, McDonnell spokesman says
by Spencer HsuTHe WaSHIngTon poST
WaSHIngTon, D.C. — a federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregat-ing its schools by grouping black students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county’s only majority-white school, the U.S. Jus-tice Department announced.
The order, issued by Senior Judge Tom Lee of the U.S. District Court of South-ern Mississippi, came after Justice Depart-ment civil rights division lawyers moved to enforce a 1970 desegregation case against the state and Walthall County.
Known as Mississippi’s cream pitcher for its dairy farms and bordering Loui-siana 80 miles north of new orleans, Walthall County has a population of about 15,000 people that includes about 54 percent white residents and 45 percent african american residents, according to the U.S. Census.
For years, the local school board has permitted hundreds of white students to transfer from its Tylertown schools, which are about 75 percent african american and serve about 1,700 students, to an-other school, the Salem attendance Cen-ter, which is about 66 percent white and serves about 577 students in grades K-12. The schools are about 10 miles apart.
Salem became “a racially identifiable white school while the student enrollment of the Tylertown schools has become pre-dominantly black” because of the trans-fers, U.S. officials alleged in December,
based on data from the 2007-2008 school year, according to Lee’s order.
at the same time in Tylertown four K-12 schools, “District administrators group, or ‘cluster,’ disproportionate num-bers of white students into designated classrooms... resulting in significant num-bers of segregated, all-black classrooms at each grade level,” the judge wrote, sum-marizing the Justice Department lawyers’ case.
The Walthall County School District did not file a response to the case, Lee wrote in approving the government’s de-segregation plan.
“More than 55 years after Brown v. Board of education, it is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that en-courages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools,” Thomas perez, U.S. as-sistant attorney general in charge of the civil rights division, said in a written state-ment. “We will take action so that school districts subject to federal desegregation orders comply with their obligation to eliminate vestiges of separate black and white schools.”
Walthall County School Superinten-dent Danny McCallum declined to com-ment, saying he had just received the judge’s order. The school system’s lawyer, Conrad Moore, did not immediately re-spond to messages left with his office.
Walthall school officials have said they will comply with the consent decree. But they have pointed out that because of
by Anita KumarTHe WaSHIngTon poST
RICHMonD, Va. — Letters telling more than 200 felons in Virginia that they had to write a “personal letter to the gov-ernor” to get their voting rights restored were sent in error, a spokesman for gov. Bob McDonnell said Tuesday, adding that the potential requirement is merely a “draft policy proposal.”
The letters sent to felons said that, “as a new requirement,” non-violent offenders must provide a “personal letter to the gov-ernor explaining the circumstances of your arrest and conviction.” They were also told to detail their efforts to get a job, seek edu-cation and participate in church and com-munity activities, and why they believe their rights should be restored. The governor’s letter went on to say that failure to do so would result in applications being closed “with prejudice.”
“The letter was sent without approval by a well-meaning staffer attempting to con-tinue to process requests even while new procedures were being considered,” said McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin.
McDonnell, a Republican, is revamping
the entire system for felons to have their rights restored as he works to process every application within 90 days. other gover-nors have taken six to 12 months to process applications.
Martin said media outlets, including The Washington post, were incorrect in reporting that the governor’s office had decided to require the letters to the gov-ernor. “as this paper and other media out-lets have been told, this remains a draft policy proposal. nothing has changed,” Martin said.
The post reported that Secretary of the Commonwealth Janet polarek and deputy secretary Christie Heath said in an inter-view last week that while McDonnell was still considering broader changes to the process for restoring voting rights, the de-cision had been made to require offenders to submit letters.
Heath said 213 nonviolent felons have applied to have their rights restored since McDonnell was sworn into office in January. ninety-five percent of them have written letters to the governor by an april 1
See segregation on page 10
See letter on page 7
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6 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
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Former gPSC vice president Yuvon Mobley, a second-year graduate student in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology, speaks in front of the committee during elections Tuesday.
committee representatives.Baras called the elections a “complete
s- show.” after the meeting, former gpSC vice
president Yuvon Mobley, a second-year graduate student in the department of mo-lecular genetics and microbiology, said this year’s notification procedure differed form last year’s.
“Last year I do know that I person-ally sent e-mails to all of the individuals who had been nominated giving them the date of the meeting and the format,” Mobley said.
outgoing gpSC Vice president adam pechtel, a third-year law student, said the bylaws do not require the executive Board to send another notification of the date and time of the election to the candidates.
“It was on our Web site, on gpSC news, as far as I know, and we could have sent some reminder e-mail and we probably should have but I mean, it slipped my mind and they have a responsibility as candidates to find out when the elections are,” pechtel said. “although [sending a reminder e-mail] would have probably been a best practice that we should in the future implement, it’s not something we’re required to do.”
gpSC president-elect Daniel griffin, a third-year ph.D. candidate in classical stud-ies, added that the election date was post-ed in the minutes from gpSC’s March 23 meeting, which were available to view on the gpSC Web site.
Crystal Withers, a third-year MD and ph.D. student who was nominated to run for the Medical Center affairs commit-tee but did not show up to the meeting, said she could find information about the committees but not about the election on the Web site.
“I don’t know where the sites are where they give details about meeting agendas,” Withers said.
griffin said gpSC is working to include more students, but getting people involved had been a problem this year. He added that as president, he hopes to further pro-mote student involvement next year.
Mobley and Yang Yang, a third-year ph.D. candidate in physics, were elected Faculty, graduate and professional School affairs representatives.
emeline aviki, a student in Fuqua and the School of Medicine, was elected to the Medical Center affairs committee.
griffin and Yvonne Ford, outgoing gpSC president and a fourth-year ph.D. student, were elected Institutional advancement standing committee representatives.
Mili Doshi, a first-year Fuqua student, was elected Undergraduate Student affairs committee representative.
ali Saaem, a graduate student in bio-medical engineering, and Karen Lilley, a first-year Fuqua student, were elected Busi-ness and Finance standing committee rep-resentatives.
Liz Bloomhardt, a third-year graduate student in mechanical engineering and a Chronicle columnist, and Caleb Varner, a student in Fuqua and the Sanford School of public policy, were elected Facilities and environment standing committee repre-sentatives.
in other business:gpSC members also approved a new
strategic plan at the meeting.The plan calls for gpSC to improve
communications with graduate students, advocate for graduate students in the Duke community and provide opportunities for graduate students to engage with commu-nities beyond the University.
a table of contents and executive summary
were also added to the plan. The mission state-ment was adapted from gpSC’s bylaws and a vision statement was created, pechtel said.
griffin said the new plan will act as guide-lines for gpSC’s activities in the coming years. He added that the Strategic plan was revised based on gpSC’s goals and aspirations.
“[It’s] a way for us to identify what prob-lems we might have in achieving our goals,” griffin said.
Some students expressed discontent with the changes made to the plan. Bloomhardt said she was under the impression that the Strategic planning Committee was to only make minor changes to the plan.
“These are not minor changes,” Bloomhardt said.
Some students were also worried that the new plan was directed to a different
audience than the previous one. The new plan is more of an internal strategy for gpSC, Bloomhardt said, not one to pres-ent to administrators.
griffin said he thought this document was better organized to present to Board of Trustees members.
The 2010-2011 budget was also ap-proved. More funds were allotted for group funding and student life.
graduate student Campout for men’s bas-ketball tickets has been set for october 1-3 said Basketball Committee co-Chairs allison Schmitt and Rebecca Wilusz. Wilusz is a bio-medical engineering graduate student and Schmitt is a graduate student in chemistry.
Campout will be held at the same site as last year, where there will be space for both tents and RVs.
gPSC from page 1
dukechronicle.com
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 7
was the Major attractions committee, said president Yi Zhang, a junior. The newly formed Innovation committee, which will put on creative and new events, received approximately $15,000.
Zhang explained that Major attractions plans to hold more events in page audi-torium, instead of more costly venues like Cameron Indoor Stadium. Major attrac-tions received a smaller budget because of the decision to use less expensive venues.
Committees with significant budget in-creases include the Coffeehouse, Visarts and WXDU, Zhang said.
WXDU received a larger budget be-cause the committee plans to hold new concerts for students and the community, said returning WXDU Director Marc Loef-fke, a junior.
“We wanted to use the resources within our DJs,” Loeffke said. “They know a lot of local and touring bands, and we really wanted to take advantage of this unique knowledge resource.”
Loeffke declined to comment on the ex-act budget numbers for this year and next year, but he said the increase was “signifi-cant.”
He said one new major event that WXDU will sponsor next year is the “Rock Lotto.” The committee will gather about 60 musi-cians from the Triangle area and put their names in a hat. Then, four names drawn out of the hat will form a band and have six weeks to practice. The band will play at a concert after practicing for the given time period, Loeffke said.
“I am really excited for next year,” he said. “With a higher budget, we are going to have more and better events that are open to everyone.”
Duu from page 3
emily shiau/the chronicle
Duu Chief Financial officer Ben Condon (left) and President Yi Zhang share a laugh at Tuesday’s Duu meet-ing. At the meeting, the union finalized its 2010-11 budget allocations among its 15 committees.
leTTeR from page 5
See jump on page 7
deadline, Martin said Tuesday.State Sen. Donald Mceachin, D-Rich-
mond, who opposes the changes, said he was baffled as to why the governor’s office was collecting letters from applicants if they were never going to use them.
“It raises an eyebrow,” Mceachin said. “If they’re not going to use the essay, why have they written people and told them they’re going to use the essays? It’s starting to look like the gang that can’t shoot straight.”
The proposal was met with heavy criti-cism from Democrats, civil rights groups and those who work with felons to restore their rights. They said McDonnell’s pro-posal would turn a nearly automatic pro-cess into a subjective one that may prevent poor, less-educated or minority residents from being allowed to vote.
Virginia would be the only state in the nation to require a letter for the restoration of civil rights, according to Marc Mauer, ex-ecutive director of the Sentencing project, a research and advocacy group.
Former gov. ernie Fletcher, R-Ky., re-quired a personal essay, but his Democratic successor Steve Beshear removed the re-quirement in 2008.
In 39 states, voting rights are automati-cally restored after a felon completes their prison sentence, probation or parole, Mau-er said. In the remaining states, felons must petition a governor or board.
polarek will hold a meeting with the aCLU, the naaCp and other groups that work with felons on Wednesday to talk about changes the governor’s office is mak-ing to the process.
“This is a rather odd way to make policy, but we’re delighted if they’re seri-ous about dropping the requirement of a lengthy personal letter to the governor,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia branch of the american Civil Lib-erties Union.
In Virginia, under a system designed by former gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, felons convicted of nonviolent crimes have been able to apply to have their voting rights restored by filling out a one-page form with information about their arrest and conviction.
8 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
The LDOC Oversight Board is looking for
YOU!
Information on applying and the applications can be found online at
http://www.duke.edu/web/ldoc/Home.html
The applications are due on
Friday, April 16th at 9PM .
Interviews will be held on
April 18th starting at 8PM .
Apply to be LDOC Chair or CFO for the 2010-2011 academic year
lot of guns and bullets in the forest. So more and more baby orphans arrive and through [that], I realize we have to do something with the [Con-golese] government.
tc: Beyond just the dangers that the war presented, why is it that bonobos are commonly hunted for and killed?
ca: Bushmeat [the meat of wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes] is the first big problem of bonobos. It’s a phe-nomenon that we cannot stop because nothing works against this. Millions of dollars are used by big conservationists to try to do something against [the hunting], but I didn’t see any results because it’s a mix of different factors. It’s not only poverty... but also war in Congo. You can imagine how [many] guns, how much mess is in this country, so it’s easy to go in the forest and kill everything.
tc: In addition to providing safety to or-phaned bonobos, what else goes on at the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary?
ca: [We have created an] education pro-gram. We have now 30,000 kids who come every year. We are also forming a reintroduction pro-gram to put [more] of these bonobos back into the wild—the original forest, almost 1,000 kilo-meters from Kinshasa.... We currently have 55 bonobos [at the sanctuary], because we already gave a group of nine back in the forest and we are preparing a second group of 10 to go back.
tc: Despite the widespread problems facing the bonobo population, what do you hope you accomplish personally to aid their conservation?
ca: I think the main goal I have is [to] speak about bonobos, for people to know about bono-bos before they disappear.... education, all the time. I do not have the power to [do it alone], but I can speak all the time. I can make inter-views and go to the radio. I can go to the televi-sion shows. I can speak about bonobos and I can see the results.
ian soileau/the chronicle
Seniors socialize around the bar at Alivia’s during Tuesday night’s Pub Crawl event, which took place on Main Street as a part of Senior Week.
Crawling down Main StreetANDRé from page 3
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 9
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Judiciary had ruled on april 9. Yesterday’s judicial ruling, however, up-
held the election Commission’s decision to move the final deadline for campaign pack-ets to april 13 at 9 p.m. election day will now shift from april 14 to april 20 and campaign-ing will last until polls close april 20. Students were informed of the changes yesterday in a blast e-mail sent around 5 p.m.
“The judicial precedent set [in the april 9 ruling] applies specifically to the instance in which the attorney general—without an official vote of the election Commission—moves the date which campaigning will begin,” the Judiciary’s majority opinion reads. “In this case, the date that campaign-ing begins has not been changed, and all actions taken by the attorney general have been accompanied by an official vote by the election Commission. Hence, the judicial prece-dent does not apply and this can be viewed as an entirely separate de-cision; the prior decision still stands.”
Junior Jus-tin Robinette, who is run-ning for a stu-dent affairs senate seat, filed a complaint just minutes after candidates were notified of changes to the election policy. Robinette said he thinks the extended deadline is un-fair because it affects the campaigning pro-cess and postpones election day.
He added that the voting process offi-cially started a few days ago, as some stu-dents studying abroad sent in absentee ballots via e-mail. Students studying abroad may send in absentee ballots beginning three days prior to the election.
“While I submit my petitions on time, fol-low regulations and guidelines and respect the rule of law, this does not apply to oth-ers in DSg leadership currently, and now we have extremely unqualified candidates joining every DSg race,” Robinette said. “once the balloting process has begun, and once numerous votes, including votes
abroad, have been cast... it’s indicative of how we let presumptuous post-adolescent teenagers with drinking problems and per-sonal vendettas control DSg.”
prior to the extension, Robinette’s race was uncontested.
DSg executive Vice president gregory Morrison, a junior, said the original candi-dates have a clear advantage over the new candidates because they had an extra week of campaigning. Morrison further argued for the constitutionality of the election Commission’s decisions, pointing to an election bylaw in DSg’s constitution.
“The election Commission will set the time and date which campaigning will be-gin,” the bylaw reads. “any electoral situa-tion not covered in this bylaw or any other DSg bylaw or the DSg constitution will be resolved by the election Commission.”
Morrison said the Final Four weekend qualified as an unusual circumstance that
required the election Com-mission’s in-t e r v e n t i o n . Because many students were pre-occupied with basketball and away in In-dianapolis, stu-dents who nor-mally would have applied did not have the chance, he added.
“We are trying to accommodate a major disruptive event in the life of the Univer-sity, and to change the deadline to honor justice,” Morrison said.
Former DSg attorney general Meg Foran, a senior, said the election bylaws were intentionally broad to grant wide au-thority to the election Commission so that dilemmas such as this can be resolved ef-ficiently.
“The election Commission has a great deal of latitude in actions where unex-pected events come up. We must maintain that latitude for the election Commission to maintain its job and rule under un-precedented, unexpected circumstances,” Foran said. “We have to deal with them and implement them without being wor-ried about getting sued. It makes it very difficult to do our jobs.”
Junior Ben Bergmann, an athletics and campus services senator who is running for re-election, also filed a complaint and said he thinks the deadline was extended for “purely political reasons”—namely, to fill DSg with friends of next year’s elected of-ficers. Before the extension, Bergmann was running unopposed.
“Clearly I raised the suit because I think what happened today was inappropriate,” Bergmann said. “I respect the Judiciary’s decision and that they had the constitu-tional authority to do what they did. I ques-tion why they did it and the ethical reasons
behind it... the reasons disclosed publicly are not the truth.”
Chief of Staff Mike Lefevre, a junior and DSg president-elect, said he is pleased with the Judiciary’s decision to validate the cam-paign applications.
“I think that regardless of how anyone feels about constitutionality, the fact that the 13 students were facing ineligibility was really a shame,” Lefevre said. “Justice has been served—they’re able to run, the elec-tion is more competitive and more people are involved. There is a much more highly qualified pool of candidates.”
eleCTioN from page 1
qDUKE.COMpresented by The Chronicle
Make it your homepage.
“Justice has been served—they’re able to run, the election is more
competitive and more people are involved. There is a much more highly qualified pool of
EDUC 100 Foundations of EducationEDUC 140 The Psychology of WorkEDUC 168 Reform in American ClassroomsEDUC 170S Education Through FilmEVANTH 234L Advanced Human OsteologyFRENCH 2 Elementary French 2 FRENCH 63 Intermediate French Language/CultureGERMAN 1 First-Year GermanGERMAN 65 Intermediate German 1GREEK 1 Elementary GreekITALIAN 2 Elementary Italian 2LATIN 63 Intermediate LatinLIT 120BS Hitchcock: Master of SuspenseLIT 133ZS Arts, Media and the BodyMMS 161 Marketing ManagementPHIL 48 LogicPHIL 100 History of Ancient PhilosophyPHIL 118 Philosophical Issues in Medical Ethics
S CAVENGER H UNT
Think you have what it takes? Find out more at:
http://tinyurl.com/LOHforHaiti
What: Scavenger hunt and clothing collection with teams of four around the Duke campus
Why: Partner with Tide to provide Haiti earthquake victims hope with clean clothes and win a grand prize trip to New Orleans
When: April 17, 2010
Time: 1p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business Fox Center
how district lines are drawn, some students within Tylertown bound-ary lines actually live closer to Sa-lem. They have also said there are not enough white students remain-ing to spread out evenly across Ty-lertown classes.
overall, Walthall County’s six schools serve about 2,500 students, 64 percent of them black and 35 percent white.
Lee required county schools, starting this Fall, to bar student transfers within the district ex-cept in cases involving a risk to the child’s health or safety, major hard-ship, a parent employed at the re-ceiving school or a resulting reduc-tion of the racial disparity in both the child’s old and new schools. Ris-ing seniors set to graduate in 2011 would also be exempted.
The court also ordered Tyler-town schools to stop using race in classroom assignments “in a man-ner that results in racial segregation of students,” adopting instead ran-dom, computer-generated assign-ments in most cases.
according to county data re-quested by the U.S. Justice De-partment in 2007, Walthall Coun-ty schools allowed transfers that made the racial composition of Salem’s student body “15 percent more white” in the 2007-2008 school year, or 66 percent instead of 51 percent. If the transferred students stayed at Tylertown schools, white students would have represented 31 percent of students, up from 22 percent.
SegRegATioN from page 5
Fisseha cited her involvement at the Uni-versity as a considerable advantage to her can-didacy and called herself the “realistic candi-date.” She noted that her relationships with administrators like Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst give her an advantage over the other candidates.
“one thing that I want to empha-size is I’m going on my fourth year at Duke,” she said. “There is something to be said for having been on campus and having experienced on a daily ba-sis a lot of the things that I would be addressing if I were elected.”
Fisseha is a political science ma-jor and serves as a consultant for the University Consulting group—a DUU committee that helps campus organi-zations coordinate events. She also serves as a marketing assistant for the newly founded Duke Department of Campus Recreation.
“I’ve been very extracurricularly active,” Fis-seha said of her time at Duke. “I’ve always had this in me, the desire to run for DSg... [and] I am the candidate that would be able to bring about the most change.”
UCg Vice president of external affairs Will Benesh, a junior who has worked with Fisseha on a number of initiatives this se-mester, cited her dependability and ability to contribute as major strengths.
“She’s always followed through on her commitments,” Benesh said. “She’s easy to get in contact with, she’s dependable.... She’s been a really good contributor to my committee.”
Shen, a current member of the Judiciary, hopes to represent all students on campus next year.
“even though I’m not a political science major, I’m not a politician, but I can still do something to make students’ lives more
awesome as a regular student,” Shen said. “I don’t think DSg should be for just DSg stu-dents, it should be for all students... they all deserve to have their voices heard.”
Shen said she hopes to achieve “practi-cal” and “easy to realize” initiatives, includ-ing adding eprints to the laundry buildings on Central Campus, adding more healthy
late-night dining options to campus and starting a peer-tutoring program for infor-mal physical education classes.
although Shen has not been a member of the Senate either, she said she has ample
knowledge of the Constitution and the by-laws from her almost two years as an associ-ate justice on the Judiciary.
“I have improved myself [on the Judi-ciary]... sometimes I feel so bad about the party we ruled against, but we have to do it
anyways,” Shen said. “all this unhappy stuff actually gives us a chance to go through all the bylaws by DSg—I think the best way to test a rule or test a law is by practice.”
Junior Yiwen Zhu has worked with Shen for two years on the Duke University Math Union. Zhu said Shen has been approachable and dedicated as secretary for the union this year.
“She’s extremely committed to any-thing that she does, she puts 110 to 120 percent in—she definitely goes beyond what is expected,” Zhu said.
Shen recused herself from the two most recent cases heard by the Judiciary because they directly affected her cam-paign. She initiated a complaint against the Judiciary’s april 9 ruling, which invali-dated her campaign, and said she contact-ed the 12 other disqualified candidates to join her as complaintants. at least eight did, including Fisseha herself.
Shen said she filed a complaint for the candi-dates because she thought the Judiciary’s april 9 ruling—which deemed an election deadline extension unconstitutional—was incorrect.
“I was in the Judiciary, so I have the elec-tion bylaw and I saw their reasoning and thought that was not good,” Shen said. “I may win or may lose... but if I cannot defend my own lawful right, who will trust me?”
Brown, who was profiled in Tues-day’s Chronicle because he was the only candidate for the position, said that although the situation could have been avoided, he approved of the Judi-ciary’s ruling.
He also noted that allowing more candidates to compete increases student
participation in DSg and voter turnout.“It’s something that will be corrected in the
future—we learn from our mistakes,” Brown said. “I’m running a campaign now, so it’s more of a competition now, but I signed up for office to run a campaign so it’s part of the job.”
ACS from page 1
“I’ve always had this in me, the desire to run for DSG... [and] I am the candidate that would be able to bring about the most change.”
— Metty Fisseha, DSG VP for ACS candidate
“I’m not a politician, but I can still do something to make stu-dents’ lives more awesome as a
regular student.” — Yingyi Shen,
DSG VP for ACS candidate
SportsThe Chronicle
www.dukechroniclesports.com
WEDNESDAYApril 14, 2010
>> INSIDE Duke dropped a close con-test to Davidson Tuesday, 4-2, but the Blue Devils take the field again today against UNC Greensboro at 6 p.m. in Cary
One day—maybe sooner, but prob-ably later—we might forget about a cer-tain basketball game played last week. We might not remember it was Brian Zoubek who forced Gordon Hayward’s miss and then grabbed the rebound, or that it was Kyle Singler who ran into a glass door in the waning seconds or that it was Nolan Smith who posed on the court where his late father won the same
championship in the same city 30 years ago. The in-timate details will prove fleeting; they always do. What I will remem-ber, more than anything, is where I was when Duke won its fourth na-
tional championship. It’s in this sense of place that memories form, where ev-erlasting bonds are made, where a com-munity is forged.
That Monday—it seems so long ago, already—I chose to stay on cam-pus rather than drive to Indianapo-lis, having analyzed the benefits and downsides of both situations for en-tirely too long. I was banking on a beautiful North Carolina spring day, one that would validate my decision to be here, and yet I still would never have expected 80 degrees and sunny, perfect in every way.
Walking to the Armadillo Grill around 4 p.m. to save seats for the 9:21 p.m. tip, I saw a slew of tour groups camped out on Main West quadrangle, the same
The good of this place
BenCohen
See cohen ON pAGe 12
michael naclerio/The chronicle
The interplay of old and new on Duke’s campus is what makes the school so special for Ben Cohen.
CAROLINA CRUSHEDCarleton, Duke outlast Tar Heels in epic finish at Sheffield
margie TruwiT/The chronicle
Senior Dylan Arnould was unable to win at No. 3 singles, but still ended his final home match victorious thanks to Reid Carleton’s late heroics.
by Jacob LevittTHe CHRONICLe
Reid Carleton let out a vic-torious roar and slammed his racket to the ground.
The junior had just scored the clinching point of No. 14 Duke’s 4-3 victory over No. 19 North Car-
olina (16-5, 6-3 in the ACC) in a con-test that
was somehow even closer than the score would suggest.
In a moment that neatly sum-marized what was by all accounts a tumultuous afternoon, Carle-ton’s teammates rushed to his side on court one of Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center—joined by members of the Duke men’s soccer and wrestling teams—after a five-hour long affair that initially started on the outdoor courts of Ambler Stadium and was full of exciting and unusual turns of events.
“I’ve been a part of college tennis for a long time,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “And that was the most amazing finish I’ve ever seen.”
Carleton, who at one point led North Carolina’s Jose Her-nandez 3-2 in the second set after winning the first, 6-4, sur-rendered four straight games to send the match to the third set. By the middle of the final set,
the other courts had cleared off and left the ledger in a 3-3 tie—it was clear that the Carleton-Her-nandez match would determine which school would earn brag-ging rights.
After Carleton won the first game of the third set to take back control, Hernandez broke Carleton’s serve in an intense, back-and-forth game to regain his momentum from the second set. He then held his own serve and broke Carleton for a second consecutive time to take a 4-1 lead in the third set.
With all the momentum go-ing against him, Carleton man-aged to break Hernandez’s serve to give himself a fighting chance. The next game, on the Blue Devil’s serve, might have been the longest in a match filled with long games. Carle-ton staved off multiple break points in that crucial game, and both players were visibly tired at the end of point, re-sorting to lobbing the ball rather than hit it directly.
“We played a bunch of long games today, but that was prob-ably the most important long game,” Carleton said. “He had a bunch of break points to make it 5-2 and if he had made it 5-2 the match most likely would have been over.”
See m. tennis ON pAGe 13
Blue Devils preach focus against Wake
courTney douglas/The chronicle
Junior Reka Zsilinszka is the only Blue Devil with a winning record in her last three matches.
by Andrew ErmogenousTHe CHRONICLe
Despite a preseason No. 1 ranking and a strong start to the season, the Blue Devils have lost their pace during recent weeks, dropping to sixth in the national polls.
Coming off three consecutive losses in ACC play, Duke looks to bounce back today against Wake Forest in Winston-Salem at 4 p.m.
A notable trend over the past three losses is the team‘s inability to win de-
spite taking the doubles point. Sopho-more Monica Gorny and junior Reka Zsi-linszka have won three straight doubles matches at No. 1. Senior elizabeth plot-kin and freshman Mary Clayton have also won three straight doubles matches at the second position. However, the team has still dropped each match because of weak performances in singles play.
“We spent a lot of time working on our doubles and now we’re at the point where were winning routinely,” head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “They should learn to build off that confi-dence. When we were losing doubles we were playing singles with a sense of urgency, and now that we’re winning doubles we don’t go to singles with the same sense of urgency. That’s some-thing that we really stressed, continue to work at the doubles the way we did but continue that intensity in the sin-gles match play.”
Zsilinszka is the only player in singles with a winning record over the past three games, taking all three matches at No. 2. Senior Amanda Granson and Clayton each have won just a single match and junior ellah Nze and Gorny have lost three straight contests. The team hasn’t been able to find a consistently success-ful singles rotation, and it is something that needs to be addressed moving for-ward, especially going into the ACC tour-nament next week. See w. tennis ON pAGe 15
performing better in singles play isn’t the only part of their game that the Blue Dev-ils (17-5, 5-3 in the ACC) need to work on.
WEDNESDAY, 4 p.m.Winston-Salem, N.C.
Wake Forest
No. 6 Duke
vs.
DUKE 4
UNC 3
womeN’S TeNNiS
area where, hopefully, we would blaze the benches later that night. It was Blue Devil Days, of course, and campus never looked better. It was nearly impossible to walk from Alpine to the Bryan Center without spotting someone in a Duke jersey, some-one else sporting a Duke shirt, defying the standard that it’s somewhat gauche to be seen in a uniform away from Cameron Indoor Stadium. Friends lounged on the plaza and drank on the quad, basking in the sunlight. For one day, at least, Duke was everything any wannabe Dukie could have wanted.
At one point, we were all iterations of those pre-froshes on the quad, awed by architecture and struck by the ease with which everyone handled themselves. (Four years later, I still am, sometimes.) When I first visited campus, in the sum-mer before my junior year, our tour group walked around in a torrent of hu-midity, dripping sweat with each step. We took refuge in the air conditioning of perkins—the construction of von der Heyden, next door, made it hard to hear our tour guide—and the tour ended on Towerview Road, with Cameron lurk-ing, small and unimpressively, across the street. On the inside, the stadium was awesome and charming, almost enough to make me forget the powerful heat and the ineptitude of the tour guide. It was quiet. peaceful. It felt like home.
The next year, when I compiled my col-lege list, I was still hesitant about applying to Duke. My tour, after all, had been un-derwhelming, to the point where the trip to Cameron salvaged it, rather than en-hancing it. My mother convinced me with common sense, as is her wont. “You’re not going to apply to Duke?” she asked, rhetorically. “Why wouldn’t you?” There wasn’t really an answer. even as a New Jer-sey kid—or maybe, given the demograph-ics of Durham, it’s not so surprising—I had grown up with Mike Krzyzewski on the television, with Duke on the winner’s line my annual NCAA Tournament brack-et, with Shane Battier as my imaginary teammate on the driveway basket.
It’s trite for most to claim that they chose Duke because of basketball, but I don’t have any other excuse. Without the
CoheN from page 11
larsa al-omaishi/The chronicle
The scene on campus after the men’s basketball team won the National Championship was what Ben Cohen hoped to witness when he applied to Duke four years ago.
ubiquity of Duke Basketball, I wouldn’t be here right now. I was accepted, fortu-nately, several months later. A few days earlier, Duke had lost in the NCAA Tour-nament’s Sweet 16, and still, I couldn’t shake myself of the idea of attending a university that epitomized the interplay between academics and athletics. The admissions department’s decision filled my computer screen, and right then, I knew: I wanted to spend four years at Duke, and only Duke.
This University, it’s often said, is built on a series of binaries, evident as soon as any prospective student walks up Chapel Drive. Duke is a new campus that looks
old, a liberal arts college flourishing within a research university, a cutting-edge global institution in a sleepy South-ern city. And while Duke is a world-class university—pat yourself on the back—its global image is fashioned off the success of the basketball team, specifically, and the athletic department as a whole. Duke is a recognizable brand, and not simply because of the intellectual stimulation in a single seminar.
Athletics, in short, bring out the best in this place. That idea isn’t revolution-ary, for sure, but it’s worth reiterating af-ter last week, when the University buzzed with an aura unlike anything I had ex-
perienced in four long years. I realized, then, that it wasn’t so much basketball that brought me to Duke, but what bas-ketball represented.
Walking through campus felt like wig-gling into a photo shoot for the school, and it became even more uncanny by thinking about what those high school seniors must have thought of this big, beautiful place. That night, a bonfire did, indeed, sway till the morning’s wee hours, and the next morning, a rush of students poured into Cameron one last time, and all it did was trigger a thought that no senior ever wants to have. It made me never want to leave.
12 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
The LOOP would like to congratulate you
on getting that4th NCAA
CHAMPIONSHIP BANNER!WWe’re proud to be part of this campus,
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Hernandez eventually began to cramp up, and Carle-ton took advantage.
“I knew that he was cramping—he ended up taking an injury timeout during that game,” Carleton said. “I was just trying to win that game and go after every single ball and give myself a chance.”
With Hernandez leading five games to four in the third set, and up 30-love—just two points away from earning a victory for the Tar Heels—the Durham sky let loose just enough rain to delay the match. Most of the North Carolina fans that had made the eight-mile trek down to see the match assumed that Carleton could not put together a rally and left under the assumption that Hernandez was comfortably in control. Having seen the rest of the match, they should have known better.
“It was a bizarre situation with Hernandez cramping up,” Smith said. “Reid did a great job of prolonging the match, and conditioning came into play.”
The match moved inside and both players were given the opportunity to warm up again. That gave Carleton a chance to collect himself and regain his focus, and it also meant that Hernandez’s cramps would continue to set in. By the end of the match, Hernandez, who put in a her-culean effort to fight through the pain, was barely able to walk—near the end, he double faulted a point during which he did not even try to jump on his serve.
Once indoors, Carleton fought back to force a tie-breaker. After falling behind 5-2, the junior reeled off five consecutive points and won the match after Hernandez’s return went wide on Carleton’s final serve.
Carleton’s spectacular finish, however, would have been meaningless without strong performances from the other Blue Devils.
Although Duke (15-6, 8-1) lost the doubles point of the match, with the top pairing of Carleton and freshman sen-sation Henrique Cunha losing for the first time since Jan. 30, the Blue Devils rebounded in the singles portion.
Like Carleton, Cunha won his individual match as No. 1. The victory is the 13th straight for Cunha—who is No. 3 nationally—though, like Carleton, he needed a come-back to make it happen. Cunha lost a first-set tiebreaker but rallied to win the next two sets 6-3, 6-2, gaining mo-mentum as he went along. Beyond his contribution to the match ledger, Cunha’s win came at a crucial time—tying the team score at three—and brought energy to the Am-bler Stadium crowd.
The other individual victories for the Blue Devils came from the bottom of the lineup. Junior Jared pinsky won his fourth straight match in straight sets against North Carolina’s No. 5 Zach Hunter while sophomore Luke Marchese managed to stay undefeated in the ACC by beating Andrew Crone 6-2, 7-5.
Senior Dylan Arnould, who lost from the third spot, still felt more than satisfied with the conclusion of his final match at home.
“It was the most amazing match I’ve ever been a part of in my four years here,” he said. “I really couldn’t ask for a better ending.”
m. TeNNiS from page 11
margie TruwiT/The chronicle
Sophomore Torsten wietoska was part of Duke’s lone doubles victory at No. 3, as the Blue Devils lost the doubles point but still won 4-3.
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 13
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margie TruwiT/The chronicle
Freshman henrique Cunha battled back from a subpar doubles outing and a one-set deficit in singles to beat North Carolina’s Clay Donato at No. 1.
14 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 ThE ChRoNICLE
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Duke loses tight game to Davidson, 4-2Sophomore eric pfisterer pitched his first career
complete game, but it wasn’t enough as the Blue Devils (19-14) lost to the Wildcats, 4-2, at USA Baseball Na-tional Training Complex in Cary Tuesday. pfisterer sur-rendered one run over his final seven innings, but the damage done early proved to be all the offense David-son would need.
The Wildcats (14-19) scored three runs in the pivotal second inning. pfisterer walked Will General with one out, then gave up consecutive singles to Tommy piacen-za and Seth Freeman before shortstop Michael Zeblo slammed a double to bring home two more runs.
Wildcat starter Brian Russell held Duke to one run on four hits in six innings of action, and Davidson re-lievers Andy Bass and Mike Frongello limited the Blue Devils to one more run over the final three innings.
Leadoff hitter Ryan McCurdy got on base three times, and shortstop Jake Lemmerman had two RBI, but the rest of Duke’s bats went cold in the team’s first nonconference loss in 14 games. The Blue Devils didn’t strike out once against the Wildcats, but grounded into four double plays to quash potential rallies.
Duke had a chance to cut into the lead in the eighth inning after Lemmerman brought home freshman Mar-cus Stroman on a sacrifice fly. The Blue Devils then had runners on the corners with two out, but Frongello es-caped the jam to preserve a 3-2 lead.
The Wildcats tacked on an insurance run in the ninth inning and Duke wasted another opportunity with two baserunners to end the game.
The Blue Devils continue their homestand today in Cary against UNC Greensboro (14-18) at 6 p.m. Duke is 5-2 against the Spartans all time, and 4-2 under head coach Sean McNal-ly. The teams have split the last four contests, all high-scoring routs in which one team topped the 10-run mark.
Blue Devils face off against north carolina tonightThe women’s lacrosse team ends ACC regular-season
play today with a trip down Tobacco Road to play rival North Carolina at 7 p.m.
No. 5 Duke (11-3, 2-2 in the ACC) is coming off a win against No. 19 Boston College, 12-11, after coming back from a five-goal deficit. Sarah Bullard led the Blue Devils with four goals with Kat Thomas pitching in three goals and the game-winning score with 7:23 left to play.
No. 2 North Carolina (11-1, 3-1) beat Maryland on Saturday, 13-9. Tar Heel goalie Logan Ripley was recently named ACC player of the Week on April 12. Ripley averages a 5.19 save percentage this season and has started every game for North Carolina in the net. The Tar Heel offense is lead by trio Corey Donahue, Kristen Taylor and Becky Lynch. Donahue and Taylor each have 31 goals on the season with Lynch pitching in a total of 25.
Duke boasts a slim 12-10 advantage over North Carolina in the all-time series going into the match. The Blue Devils, with a perfect 5-0 record on the road this season, seek to gain their first win in Chapel Hill since 2006 when they beat the then-No. 3 Tar Heels 10-8. Similarly, North Carolina looks to extend its un-tainted 7-0 record at home this season.
If Duke does not come out on top in today’s match-up, it will be the first three-loss ACC season for the Blue Devils since 1997.
sylvie spewak/The chronicle
Senior elizabeth Plotkin has won three straight doubles matches with freshman mary Clayton at No. 2.
Ashworth said that some sort of refocusing needs to be made for both the Wake Forest match, and for the rest of the season.
“We have to make sure we have the right energy,” Ashworth said. “Our team walked onto the court after winning dou-bles and thought that the teams were just not going to compete in the singles and they did, they out-competed us. Win or lose the doubles we have to make sure we give it our best shot. every team is going to give us a fight based on the history of our program. We have to rise to those ex-pectations. This weekend we didn’t and it’s been something we’re trying to re-mind ourselves of, whether we’re playing one in the country or 50.”
Historically, the Blue Devils have
performed very well against the Demon Deacons, holding a commanding 51-4 all-time record, but this game brings a sense of urgency considering Duke’s last few losses. early in the conference schedule, Wake Forest (8-12, 2-6) beat a very good Georgia Tech team that beat the Blue Devils last week in Atlanta. The Demon Deacons’ top doubles team of senior Sasha Kulikova and freshman Kathryn Talbert are ranked No. 36 in the country, presenting a challenge to the Blue Devils’ doubles lineup.
“Wake’s really good,” Ashworth said. “When they go on the court they play with a lot of intensity…. They’re loud and they’re going to be all over us from an emo-tional standpoint, so we have to make sure we match that. As long as we can match the emotional and mental intensity that they’re going to bring, then we’ll be fine.”
w. TeNNiS from page 11
ThE ChRoNICLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 15
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Sudoku Fill in the grid so that
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the chronicle what offices we would run for:
soup nazi: ....................................................................... charlie, tonimaster and commander: .......................................... will, emmelinepresident: ................................................................................ jessicadoes bill simmons elect an intern?: ............austin, brostoff, shuchiMVP: ................................................................smerch, caroline, claxthe most interesting woman in the world: ...............courtney, samhead of the interwebs:..............................................klein, christineeditor, duh: ............................................................... lindsey, tiffanyBarb Starbuck already has her own office: .............................. Barb
Student Advertising Manager: ..............................Margaret PotterAccount Executives: ................... Chelsea Canepa, Phil DeGrouchy
Liza Doran, Lianna Gao, Rhea Kaw, Ben MasselinkAmber Su, Mike Sullivan, Jack Taylor
In the early 2000s, Uni-versity officials announced plans for a “new” Central Campus complete with addi-tional classroom buildings, eating areas and a new book-store. Persistent objections from members of the Durham c o m m u n i t y, however, forced the Univer-sity to reconsider the exist-ing designs.
After returning to the drawing board, the Univer-sity revised these plans in Spring 2008, abandoning the idea of reconstructing Cen-tral and instead focusing on building New Campus along Campus Drive.
Then, of course, came the global financial crisis that deflated the University’s en-dowment and pushed back the ground breaking of New
Campus from the foresee-able future.
Throughout this roller coaster of plans unrealized, one problem has persisted: Central Campus residents were stuck in substandard
housing on a campus lack-ing any basic
amenities or any sense of community.
We were hopeful last Fall when Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergradu-ate education, announced plans for the construction of the Mill Village complex to add an eatery and common spaces to Central Campus. But given the administration’s mixed track record on deliv-ering results, our optimism was cautious.
Although the project was mired in construction delays,
this promise—unlike many others before it—actually materialized. And it was well worth the wait.
The addition of the Devil’s Bistro eatery, study rooms, outdoor seating areas and a recreation facility to Central Campus are small changes, but they will have a huge im-pact on the everyday lives of its residents.
For the first time, Cen-tral Campus will benefit from a beautifully designed central gathering area com-plete with tall ceilings and a shaded patio. With this social space, residents have the opportunity to forge re-lationships with their neigh-bors and develop a sense of belonging to the community in which they live.
In addition, students will no longer be forced to always
head to West Campus for food. Instead, they can make the short walk to the Devil’s Bistro, saving them time and added frustration.
As welcome an addition as the Mill Village complex is, it is only a first step to making Central a more livable place. Because the existing apart-ments on Central will remain intact for at least the next sev-eral years, administrators must continue to improve the Cen-tral Campus experience.
A huge priority must be combating the perception that Central Campus is unsafe. Poor lighting and the occa-sional robbery contribute to a shared feeling among many Central residents that they are not secure walking around their apartments.
Although statistically Cen-tral is no more dangerous
than East or West Campus, as long as this sentiment exists, it must be addressed. Better lighting and better landscap-ing could make Central look more like it is part of Duke’s campus and make students feel more at ease.
Dividing the campus into neighborhoods, as recently suggested by Campus Coun-cil, should also be considered. Not only could this improve navigability of the labyrin-thine campus, but breaking Central down into smaller geographic units would also increase opportunities for community-building.
A relatively small, four-building complex like Mill Village can make a difference on a large campus like Cen-tral. And although it may not be a huge leap forward, one step is better than none.
Spring is in the air, our favorite local sports team has seized the day and school is at an end. No one wants to read about current
events, the prob-lems of domestic politics, how hu-manities Ph.D. students won’t get academic jobs or the vagaries of our democracy.
With that in mind, I have de-cided to end my column on a more sanguine note than usual; that is, with a list of TV shows and movies that I think people need to watch. Some of them are familiar, and others less so. Hopeful-ly, some readers will be exposed to programming of which they happened to be unaware. Now, in no particular order:
1) “Peep Show” (2003-present). Without a doubt one of the best comedies of the last de-cade. With the barest of setups—Mark is a credit analyst, obsessed with World War II, self-loath-ing doormat, Jeremy is an unemployed, would-be techno musician—“Peep Show” has trans-formed into one of the funniest TV series I’ve ever seen. Also, the first five seasons (“series” in the Queen’s English) are available on Hulu, fa-cilitating the ease of viewing.
2) “Archer” (2009-present). Unfortunately, this seems to have been mostly overlooked, although FX has renewed it for a second sea-son. It basically follows the trials and tribula-tions of the white-collar workers of the Inter-national Secret Intelligence Service. As many reviews have described it, however, it is more of a “workplace” comedy—but way funnier than the maudlin “The Office”—than a spy show. Ei-ther way, hilarious.
3) “Real Time with Bill Maher” (2003-pres-ent). A show I avoided for a long time, and only recently got into watching. Although sometimes the program is weighed down by the ignorance of celebrities (see: Cameron Diaz), more often than not Bill Maher is able to get some heavy hitters—including James Carville, Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie—and even some celebrities who offer incredible social and political insights, such as Chris Rock. Either way, Maher’s generally libertarian perspective is refreshing, and his com-ments trenchant, generally insightful and, most importantly, honest.
4) “Smiley Face” (2007). So-called “pot
comedies” are generally uninspired affairs, either focusing on the ridiculous (e.g., “Har-old and Kumar Go to White Castle”) or the asinine (e.g., the Cheech and Chong oeuvre). Smiley Face, nonetheless, is unique among stoner comedies in that it is: 1) actually hilari-ous and 2) stars a female. Before this movie, I had only been familiar with Anna Faris’s work generally, mostly from “Scary Movie”(s). In this film, however, she demonstrates herself to be a comedienne of significant gifts. Revolving around the mistaken ingestion of baked goods that had been tampered with, the “Commu-nist Manifesto,” and being an out-of-work ac-tress in LA, this is a great, and unfortunately under-seen, movie.
5) “The Great Happiness Space” (2006). A portrait in sadness. “The Great Happiness Space” is a documentary examining a so-called “host club” in Osaka, Japan. Host clubs (as op-posed to “hostess clubs”) are basically nightclubs where women come to drink, party and most im-portantly pretend like they have a boyfriend. Es-sentially, for a fee, the various “hosts” employed by a club act like the patrons boyfriends, giving them advice, listening to their problems and, on occasion, having sex. Once you choose a host, you are stuck with him for the rest of your pa-tronage. The film only gets more interesting when you discover that most of the patrons are themselves prostitutes.
6) “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (2008). This German-language film examines the his-tory of the Rote Armee Franktion (Red Army Faction), an extremist left-wing group that arose in the wake of the student protest move-ments of 1968 by Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin. The RAF, as it was known, used terrorist tactics as a means to call attention to their of-ten-muddled causes. The film is balanced in its judgments and analysis of the fraught political climate of Germany in the late-1960s and 1970s. Anyone interested in German history, the histo-ry of the left or political violence should check out this film.
And, finally, two recent classics that every-one must check out are “The Wire” and “Ar-rested Development”—it doesn’t get better. If anyone has any other suggestions, please post them in the comments section to this article online—I’m always looking for good enter-tainment.
Daniel Bessner is a third-year Ph.D. student in European history. This is his final column of the semester.
commentaries18 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 thE chRoNIcLE
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commentariesthE chRoNIcLE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 | 19
The most bamboozling adjective in all of collegiate English: “awkward.” It would be impossible to brief-ly capture all of its poignant usages, so important is
it to our conversations. For our generation,
“awkward” has become a catch-all for everyone and ev-erything that is irredeemably repellent. It’s infinitely bet-ter to be caught being mean or spiteful or evil: Those are just flaws that might be amended. Here at Duke, it seems that “awkward” is a terminal condition.
If you’re generally agreed to be awkward, you’re lost in a foreign country wherein all the inhabitants are put off by your presence and afraid that it might be catching. Spend too much time around that which is awkward, and you might one day awaken to discover that you, too, have lost that intangible quality that separates you from the state of awkwardness. Catch the disease, and you’ll have no choice but to tramp off to a distant Awkward Colony in either the high Himalayas or the depths of the Amazon River Basin. You’re awkward, and you can never be anything more.
Interactions, too, can of course be awkward. I don’t know of a single person who doesn’t occasionally relish a really ca-thartic confrontation. Fights, scraps, arguments, shouting matches—call them what you will, but we all need to have our purely angry, aggressive moments. But those subtle, passive-aggressive moments of mere awkwardness? Excruciating be-yond belief, and never a good thing. Worse, the cumulative effect is once again true: Have too many awkward moments, and you’re permanently set to “awkward.”
That’s a lot of connotative baggage for a word that we haven’t yet really defined.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives a number of defini-tions for “awkward,” the best of which is probably this: “Un-toward or unfavourable for one’s purpose; ill-adapted for use; clumsy in operation.” That all seems to fit with “awkward” as we tend to use it, especially because words like “untoward” and “ill-adapted” give that wonderful Victorian resonance to the definition of a term that we use socially—you can’t be awkward by yourself. You can only be awkward within a so-cial context, and being “ill-adapted” means you’ve somehow failed the age-old middle school test of worth: “fitting in.”
Just like Victorian Brits, Duke students seem to have an abiding interest in what is socially right and what is socially wrong (or awkward). It’s just one of our defining neuroses, and it may be the most pernicious and contradictory. After all, aren’t we given to Bacchic revelry and free-spirited raging? Aren’t we egocentric and spoiled, and doesn’t that mean that we’re capable of acting without regard to “social norms”?
We might do or be all of those things, but I’ve never been anywhere that features so many people so interested in describing and adhering to some particular, detailed, petty model of social propriety. It’s due to our peculiar ob-session with social realities, in whatever way we choose to grapple with them.
This evening, a passel of prominent organizations (in-cluding Panhel, Interfraternity Council and the Honor Council) is holding a forum on the moral and cultural significance of gossip websites, like College ACB and such. That may or may not be a worthwhile exercise—given cur-rent trends, it won’t be long before there’s a campus-wide forum held to discuss which kind of fertilizer gets sprayed on the beleaguered Main Quad. Still, it would take a stu-dent body given to actively studying “Duke Social Life” and literate in all the (supposed) intricacies of our school’s (supposedly) complex structures to make any kind of pub-lic matter of a petty gossip site.
That we are socially aware beings is due as much to evo-lution as anything else—we’ve all got a little chimpanzee in us, we all like to be part of a troupe. But let’s take a step back and recognize that, while anyone who knows anyone else has a few social loyalties and prejudices, reality con-sists of more than social constructs. If we make too much of a point of social details and distinctions—and overuse the vague language of social anxiety—there’s the nagging risk that we’ll actually start to believe the derivative drivel coming out of our reactionary mouths. Whatever else you may be, you don’t want to start being a boring, chimp-like conversationalist, Primate Palooza aside.
In short, “awkward” is the kind of word that we’re better off leaving to 19th century vicars with an abiding interest in ferns. Language is all about conceits; that’s half the fun of it. But I’ve had about enough of this “awkward” stuff. I hereby move that, from this moment forth, only Larry Drew II’s basketball passing be described as “awkward.”
Connor Southard is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Wednesday.
This weekend I saw a spectacular performance of “Rent,” one of my favorite Broadway musi-cals put on by Hoof ‘n’ Horn. It got me start-
ed thinking about numbers. The catchphrase from Rent’s opening song, “Sea-
sons of Love,” is the number of minutes in a year, 525,600. Com-pare this to more than 25 million—the num-ber of people who have died of AIDS worldwide since its discovery in 1981. Or 33.4 million—the number of people who were, as Rent’s “La Vie Boheme” would proclaim, “living with, not dying from” HIV/AIDS at the end of 2008. As mem-bers of the developed world, we tend to have more rel-evant issues threatening our nation: the economy, terror-ism or poverty within our own borders. In our daily lives, we focus on the more immediate task at hand.
Even taking into consideration recent national and international tragedies, compared to the 200,000 peo-ple lost in the Haiti earthquake, the 4,287 Americans killed in Iraq and the 2,973 Americans who died in the 9/11 attacks, AIDS is still the leading cause of death in developing nations and the number one cause of death in Africa. A recent study predicted that within the next 25 years, AIDS will join heart disease and stroke as the top three causes of death in the world. Team America parodies Rent with the song “Every-one has AIDS.” The irony is in how we have forgotten about the millions who live with the disease.
HIV is an insidious virus that affects those who can afford to suffer the least. Prevalence of HIV within a nation correlates with average income levels, placing the greatest burden on developing nations struggling with other diseases, poverty and hunger. According to the UN, it has become the number one cause of death for women worldwide, an outcome resulting from ever present gender inequality, sexual violence and the lack of services for women. Up to 70 percent of women worldwide have been forced to have un-protected sex, according to UNAIDS.
Since 1994, Rent, put simply, a rock musical about AIDS, or more expansively, a cultural phenomenon, has brought back one of the world’s most important issues to the table. Through the performance of its characters who are more alive near death than some healthy people will ever be, Rent showcases love that makes no distinction between race, gender or sexual-ity. Aside from its soundtrack, I believe that it is this story of survival, hope and the human condition that has captivated audiences and has allowed the musi-cal to deliver its political message to the world.
Rent measures “the last year on earth” of seven friends in Lower East Side Manhattan in “daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laugh-ter, [and] in strife.” Although it would be ludicrous to compare second semester senior year to the experience of those living with disease, I am inspired by the charac-ters in Rent who face the great unknown with courage and compassion, and even more by the individuals who live their reality. Their fate and mine are not nearly the same, but at times I too feel as if I live with a deadline, waiting for the end of my life at Duke. I’ve learned from Rent, however, that in these last few weeks the greatest joy is not in the numerous activities one can do but just being alive at Duke itself. As the cast of Rent sings, “I can’t control my destiny. My only hope is just to be.”
There are 151,200 minutes in one semester. As of to-day, there are 31 days left before graduation. Looking back, I won’t remember the “report cards” and, in Duke’s case, not “speeding,” but parking tickets. Instead, I mea-sure in interviews, bonfires, Common Ground retreats, late night sing-alongs, concerts at the Coffeehouse, free T-shirts, friendships, relationships and championship games. And, of course, I measure in love.
Despite the mistakes that have been made, for-get regret, otherwise life—and these last 43,200 mo-ments so dear—are yours to miss. Before I go, I take from Mimi Marquez and Roger Davis the lesson that there is no other course— no other way—but to live like there’s no day but today. “There is no future and there is no past. I live this moment as my last.”
Sue Li is a Trinity senior. This is her final column.
525,600 Well, I never!
sue liphilosopher’s stone
The April 9 Chronicle editorial “A Robertson report card” did an excellent job of describing the success of the Robertson Scholars Program in “developing
strong leaders and provid-ing the support for civically engaged students to turn their ambitions into real, impactful projects.” But the Robertson Scholars Program has also had a more positive impact in promoting collaborative efforts between the two campuses than the editorial suggests.
As the editorial board noted, the establishment of the Rob-ertson Scholars bus has greatly facilitated the ability of faculty and students from each university to attend classes, programs and events at the other. It is also noteworthy, however, that it builds on prior connections between the two Tobacco Road rivals. Among the meaningful collaborative programs between Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that predate the Robertson Scholars Program by many years are Title VI area studies programs such as the UNC-Duke Consor-tium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the North Carolina Consortium for South Asian Studies.
Equally significant is the catalytic effect of the Robert-son Scholars Program for other Carolina-Duke ventures. Since its inception, both universities have launched the nation’s first public-private joint graduate education pro-gram in German, the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German. More recently, the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies was established, formalizing decades of collaboration between scholars and students at the two institutions. Plans are now underway to establish a Duke-UNC graduate certificate in Middle East Studies and, eventually, a joint Ph.D. program modeled on the success of the joint graduate program in German. In many depart-
ments, there are joint Duke-UNC graduate student read-ing groups, and for the past seven years there has been a Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Research Confer-ence that has achieved national prominence.
The two institutions also collaborate in less visible but no less essential areas of university education. These in-clude language instruction, library acquisitions and collec-tion development. We cooperate in offering a wider selec-tion and scope of instruction in languages such as Persian, Turkish, Urdu and other less commonly taught languages than either university could muster on its own. Crucial to each university is the labor of librarians: They exchange information and coordinate purchases so that Duke-UNC library collections complement rather than duplicate each other, insuring scholars and students at both universities access to the broadest range of materials in their fields.
Finally, many departments and programs at Duke and UNC regularly work together to co-sponsor conferences, programs and events, sharing the costs of bringing high-profile guest speakers and scholars to the Triangle. Duke and UNC faculty regularly collaborate on research proj-ects and publications. Faculty members from each univer-sity regularly speak in classes, give lectures or participate in scholarly or extracurricular events on the other campus. Accessibility by bus to the other’s campus makes all these activities infinitely more doable —and more enjoyable.
In short, there is a vibrant, pervasive academic synergy between Duke and UNC that reverberates at all levels of our two universities. The Robertson Scholars program has been a catalytic force to increase the long-standing collaboration that preceded its formation and has improved because of it.
Kelly Jarrett is senior program coordinator of the Duke Islamic Studies Center.
Duke-UNC collaborationruns wide and deep
kelly jarrettguest column
connor southarddead poet
20 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 thE chRoNIcLE
OPERATION: Gothic Bookshop PUBLICATION: ChronicleHEADLINE: Coach K Book Signing DATES: 04/16/10COLOR: CMYK
Coach Mike KrzyzewskiBook Signing
Friday, April 16 | 1pm - 3pmThe Gothic Bookshop
Upper Level, Bryan CenterIn addition to a purchased copy of any book written by Coach K, Coach K will be happy to sign one additional piece of Duke memorabilia at this special signing.
