Emily Waples | The ChronicleDuke PAWS, Duke Partnership for Service and the Duke University Hospital sponsored an event featuring therapy dogs and hot chocolate in front of the Chapel to raise money for Hope Animal Rescue Monday afternoon.
Having a ruff day?
For some couples, the trip to the Chapel just got a whole lot longer.
A popular place for Duke alumni, faculty, staff and current students to get married, the Duke Chapel is booked solid until it closes for construction May 11, 2015, with three weddings each Saturday and one each Sunday.
Most of these couples have reserved their date one year in advance, reflecting the popularity
and high demand of the Chapel as a wedding venue. And for these couples,
tenting expands beyond the demands of K-Ville. Although limited to Duke alums
and employees, as well as their chil-dren and grandchildren, couples
looking to wed at the Chapel typi-cally have to book about a year in advance—the dates for a particu-
lar month opening up at 8:30 a.m. on the first of the same
month a year beforehand, closing six weeks before the
wedding date.This tradition, however,
will see a one year gap as the chapel closes for
construction until Spring 2016.
But instead of finding a new venue
for their weddings, many couples are
choosing to wait until the Chapel reopens for
their weddings.“Most brides are going to
wait until 2016, that is the
Duke Chapel’s closing does not deter
brides-to-be“Most brides are going to wait until 2016.
That is the phenomenon that we are seeing right now,” says Beth Pendergrass
Grace Li The Chronicle
Claire Ballentine The Chronicle
Brown named new CSGD director
See Chapel on Page 4
After six-month search process, Bernadette Brown has been named the new director of the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity.
After former-director Jamie Long was named associate vice provost for undergraduate education in May, a six-per-son search committee, including faculty, students and staff from the LGBT Task Force, selected two potential candi-dates from a large pool of applications. These two recom-mendations were sent to Zoila Airall, assistant vice president of student affairs for campus life, who made the final deci-sion to hire Brown. The decision was based on Brown’s previ-ous leadership and youth-oriented experiences, said Damon Seils, a researcher at the Duke School of Medicine, co-chair of the campus LGBT task force and chair of the search com-mittee.
“We selected Brown in part because she was able to speak with knowledge and experience about LGBTQ issues and
has experience with young people,” Seils said. “She also felt strongly about her role being one of advocacy.”
He said that Brown possessed many of the qualities the committee desired in a director.
Brown comes to Duke from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, where she focused on LGBT youth within the juvenile justice system.
“We wanted someone with leadership experience who could come into the role with confidence and be-gin leading from day one,” Seils said.
Senior Daniel Kort, the president of Blue Devils United, believes that Brown will positively impact the LGBTQ community at Duke.
“I am confident that Brown will build on the legacy of the CSGD and LGBTQ life at Duke by expanding our campus presence to areas that are not as inclusive as they can be,” he said.
However, Seils believes one of Brown’s challenges will be adjusting to the Duke culture and students who will have
See CSGD on Page 4
2 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
Q&A
Sunder reflects on first semester as DSG president
See DSG on Page 5
Lavanya Sunder, a junior and Duke Stu-dent Government President, has led DSG through a semester of both accomplishments and challenges. The Chronicle’s Kali Shulklapper conducted an interview with Sunder on DSG’s endeavors and goals for the future.
The Chronicle: How do you feel DSG has run this semester? What do you feel are some of DSG’s biggest accomplishments?Lavanya Sunder: We’ve really done a lot this semester in terms of focusing our ef-forts on a number of projects expanding student life. The projects that I’m most proud of, and in no particular order, are—
One, helping to revamp the women’s mentoring network—completely re-vamping it, starting cool new program-ming with networks to the alumni net-work, creating mentors and really just completely changing that. We now have a lot of women involved in that.
Two, successful launch of the new tail-gate model, which is Devilsgate—really making sure that that model is sustain-able for years to come.
Three, we’re really proud of our final launch of Zagster, the new bike-share program that DSG has been working on bringing to campus for almost a year. Membership is increasing day by day, and we’re starting to see the program become a part of campus life.
Four, the launch of the research unit DS-GRU and the first commissioning of ques-tions that will be used to assess Duke life.
Five, we’ve been really, really im-pressed with the way that the Durham and Regional Affairs Committee was able to mobilize voters and make sure that voter
identification laws were well known—and we actually increased voting at the polls by 30 percent from the last midterm year.
Six, for the first time in Duke history we got a panel on diversity in greek life to appear—which is a really big thing that I supported in my platform while running for president.
Seven, the Queering Duke History ex-hibit—President [Richard] Brodhead’s Task Force on LGBTQ Affairs Task Force and sort of the general push for more
Shanen Ganapathee | Chronicle File Photo
LGBTQ academics on campus. DSG is now working pretty heavily on pursuing an LGBTQ DukeImmerse program.
TC: What have been the biggest chal-lenges?
LS: I think the biggest challenges have revolved around communication with regards to construction and also campus life in general. DSG
The Chronicle www.dukechronicle.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 3
OPERATION: Stores Administration PUBLICATION: ChronicleHEADLINE: Sign Up DATES: 11/02/07COLOR: CMYK
sign up.Be the first to know about new arrivals,
special collections, the latest in technology,sales events, textbook buyback and more.
For more information, visit our website atwww.dukestores.duke.edu and click on the BTFTK icon on the left.
Our Privacy Policy:We respect your right to personal privacy. We promise to use this subscription service for the express purpose of keeping you informed of only those services that you have requested. Your personal information will not be disclosed to any third parties. We hope you will find our e-mails of benefit. We promise to keep them informative and to-the-point. You will have the option of unsubscribing from this service with each e-mail campaign.
Duke Episcopal chaplain to assume new position in N.Y.
It’s a complex time in the history of the Church—
society’s attitute toward the Church is changing, which presents a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge.
— Nils Chittenden
Rachel Chason University Editor
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia CommonsNils Chittenden will leave the University in Jan. to assume a position as Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, pictured above, in Armonk, N.Y.
Rev. Nils Chittenden, who has served as Chaplain of the Duke Episcopal Cen-ter since 2010, will depart in January to assume a position as Rector of St Ste-phen’s Episcopal Church in Armonk, N.Y.
Chittenden said he has enjoyed his time at Duke—citing the connections he has formed with students, his work on the Episcopal Center’s renovation and his collaboration with other cam-pus ministries as several highlights of his time on campus. Although he will miss the “immensely dedicated and pas-sionate” students and faculty with whom he developed friendships, he said taking this next opportunity “felt right.”
“I’m most excited about working to make the Church something that is important in people’s lives,” Chitten-den said. “It’s a complex time in the history of the Church—society’s attitude toward the Church is changing, which presents a challenge, but it’s an ex-citing challenge.”
Chittenden, who came to Duke fol-lowing eight years working at the Uni-versity of Durham, England, said it took some time to understand the philosophy
Nils Chittenden
and functioning of an American university. However, he quickly grew to love his work and the people he met at Duke, forming strong relationships across the University.
Part of Chittenden’s job involved providing spiritual counseling to those who sought it. He emphasized that he was not only present for Episcopalian students.
“My goal, not to be a chaplain only for Episcopalian students, but a chap-lain who could provide an Episcopalian perspective for any students seeking that,” Chittenden said.
He said he was particularly impressed by the religious com-munity across different denominations at Duke–emphasizing the impor-tance of collaboration across the more than 20 ministries, Christian and non-Christian, that the University supports.
“Talking to other campus ministers across the country, it’s clear
that what we have at Duke is unique,” Chittenden said. “The collaboration and personal friendships across ministries is truly remarkable.”
Chittenden also focused on the Epis-copal Center’s building on Central
Campus, which he described as being “rather sorry for itself” when he arrived in 2010. In the last four years, he has helped renovate the building, making improvements that he said has made it a “great resource” for the community.
He said one other thing he will miss about Duke is the 50-bell carillon played at 5 p.m. every weekday and emphasized that all students should have the oppor-
tunity to go to the Chapel. This Sunday at 7 p.m., students will have the oppor-tunity to gather outside the chapel for the third-year of Advent Lessons and Carols—a candlelit service Chittenden helped start.
“I encourage all students to stop by,” Chittenden said. “The candles, the dark-ness, it’s a remarkable spiritual experi-ence.”
4 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
Coming Wednesday
different backgrounds compared to the students she has pre-viously worked with.
Seils said that Brown’s unusual background as an attorney set her apart from the other applicants. Brown has a bachelor’s degree in anthro-pology from Columbia University and a a degree in law from Boston University.
“We really wanted someone who will get along well with students, and we saw that in her campus visit during the hiring process,” Seils explained.
The hiring process was originally pre-dicted to be over by September, but sev-eral factors resulted in a delay.
“The process took longer than expected because it began during summer break when many people are out of the of-fice,” Seils said.
He also said that the committee wanted to acquire a large pool of applicants before they made their decisions, which took longer than they thought. Nonetheless, he said he is excited for Brown to begin and looks forward to seeing the CSGD continue to do well.
“I am very excited for Bernadette Brown to arrive and kick off a new chapter in LGBTQ and ally life on campus,” Kort said.
During her time as director, Long headed the effort to change the name of the LGBT Center to the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity and assisted its move to the en-trance of Bryan Center.
Brown is scheduled to begin work at Duke on Jan. 5, 2015.
phenomenon that we are seeing right now,” said Beth Pendergrass, catering sales manager at Washington Duke Inn. “Brides are actually calling asking if we have availability in 2016, but we can only book a year out in advance.”
Before the Chapel officially closes, however, staff are working to fit in as many time-sensistive weddings as possible, said Sara Clark, event and wedding coor-dinator for the Chapel. She noted that the Chapel is such an iconic part of the Duke experience that many couples are unwilling to sacrifice.
“A lot of couples met here at Duke and they’re also connected to here as a religious space,” Clark said.
Because of the closing, couples with a Duke affili-ation—that generally would opt for nuptials in the Chapel—are being given priority for booking at other venues for weddings, such as the Sarah P. Duke Gar-dens, the Washington Duke Inn and the Nasher Mu-seum of Art. Theses venues, however, have not seen increases in demand for weddings.
“People who want specifically the Chapel wedding don’t necessarily want a garden wedding. One doesn’t substitute for the other,” said Marcia Julien, assistant manager of special events for the Gardens.
She added that many brides that have graduated from Duke and have started careers around the coun-try fly back to Duke to have their weddings here.
The Chapel restoration projects will include re-storing stained glass windows and woodwork, as well as cleaning the floor and walls. The Chapel has had
Bernadette Brown
Chronicle File PhotoMany couples reserve their wedding dates one year in ad-vance by tenting outside the Chapel.
CSGDcontinued from page 1
CHAPELcontinued from page 1
few repairs since it was completed in 1932, and these restoration projects to replace the original construc-tion materials will preserve the aesthetics and use of the Chapel for generations to come.
“The Chapel is trying to keep open as much as we can, as these restoration projects are being done,” Clark said.
The Chronicle www.dukechronicle.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 5
Open Courses in Public Policy Studies Enroll Now! There’s Still Space Available!
PUBPOL 237S.01 Research in Research Research in International Policy Issues M 8:45-11:15am Instructor: Tana Johnson
PUBPOL 290S.06 Research in Health Global Health Policy TTh 10:05-11:20am Instructor: Amy Finnegan
PUBPOL 290S.07
Inequality, Public Policy, and Politics TTH 3:05-4:20pm Instructor: Deondra Rose
PUBPOL 290S.12 Inequality, Public Industrial & Developing Countries TTH 11:45-1:00pm Instructor: Sarah Bermeo
Spring 2014
This course will survey several issues displaying different forms or policy responses in various geographical regions and cultures. Examples include: competition over energy resources, design of international organization, trends of human migration, privatization of security, and patterns of economic inequality. An interdisciplinary approach with attention to political, economic and social patterns.
This course has at its center in-depth analysis of a global health issue where students work in groups of between 3 and 4 persons to 1) put together a timeline of the birth to present life-course of an assigned global health topic, 2) track their topic stakeholders in real-time by following their Twitter streams, and 3) critically evaluate global progress towards stated goals in these topic areas and how much we should trust the data that is being provided. The in-class group projects will be supplemented with interactive case studies and debates, readings that help develop skills to critically analyze whether global health is worth intervening in or not and how we should do it, and in-class panels and/or Skype discussions with practitioners in the field that will help students get a picture of the career options available to them in development.
Since the late 1970s, the United States has seen an increase in economic inequality that—coupled with disparities in terms of gender, race, social class, and other factors—has had important outcomes for the nation’s political landscape. Placing an emphasis on how lawmakers use public policy to address the challenge of disparity, this course examines the nature of inequality in the United States, the social and political factors that shape it, and the impact that it has on American democracy.
This is meant as a survey course for students interested in learning about the major issues in international relations between industrialized and developing countries. The goal of this course is to lay out the issues that define relations between rich and poor countries and to assess how these have changed over time. Topics include trade, foreign aid, peacekeeping, military interventions, migration, disease, trafficking, natural resources, climate change and others.
Instructor needed for math learning center to work with children
grades 2-12. Must have strong math and communication skills. Afternoons/Evenings estimated10-20 hours per week. $10/hr.
administration has found it difficult to communicate the things that we have been doing. It was difficult to navigate the voting ID laws and voting in general—very difficult to figure out where students should vote, how they register, et cetera, and more so just to make sure that students were aware of the information after we found out. And then, making sure we got funding for buses to the polling locations, et cetera, was very difficult.
As far as DSGRU, the commissioning process was a little contentious on the floor, but worthwhile in the long run. But other than that I think we did a fairly good job at kind of attacking what we wanted to. We have a number of projects that are still in the works, but I think the difficulty is that they are still in the works. We’re currently working on a West Union Arts project—encouraging students to think of con-
DSGcontinued from page 2
struction in a positive life and encouraging arts on campus. The difficulty is just that those projects take time, but we are working on them as soon as possible.
TC: What do you feel DSG has not accomplished/ will be continuously working on next semester? What are some of its biggest goals?
LS: We are working on the housing model—review-ing the residential guidelines for housing and making sure they’re reflective of what we think the good char-acteristics of a house are. We’re also working on some initiatives to help promote socio-economic inclusivity with the Career Center, potentially working on pro-viding free test prep books, access to subsidized test prep courses and professional clothing.
We’re also working heavily to make sure student voices are reflected in the curriculum reform that’s happening. Vice-President of Academic Affairs Ray Li and I have been invited to serve on the Curriculum Review Advisory Committee, which advises the actual committee of faculty reviewing the curriculum. We’re just working to ensure student voices are reflected in
the entire process.
TC: What changes would you like to see imple-mented on a broader level?
LS: We’re potentially looking at revamping the way Duke communicates with students—that project is honestly so under construction that I can’t say any-thing more other than that we are trying to figure out a better way that Duke can provide information or that students can access information.
TC: What kind of problems do you see in the cur-rent model?
LS: I think its twofold. So one, when there’s info that exists, it’s difficult to find and sometimes it’s con-tradictory and repetitive and usually there’s not just one place for students to go for something. There are a lot of different sources and you can get academic information through ACES, student affairs websites and also the Duke University website. So we’re trying to see if maybe there’s a way that we can make all of that a little bit more cohesive.
CHRONICLE DAILY NEWSLETTER
THE
•••
Stay informed.Sign up today to receive
free daily headlines via email, with links to
the top stories.
•••
6 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
SPORTS
The Chronicle www.dukechroniclesports.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 7
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechroniclesports.com
SportsThe Chronicle
Seattle be the farthest possible locale from the welcoming confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium, but Duke could not be more excited about its NCAA tournament bid.
The Blue Devils will travel to Seattle to take on Hawaii Friday at 8 p.m. at Alaska Airlines Arena in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The brackets were announced Sunday night on ESPNU, giving Duke five days to prepare for its first opponent.
“To see our name come up on the board for the NCAA tournament is exciting,” head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We’re excited to represent Duke. We’re excited that we have this opportunity in the NCAA tournament. It’s not easy to get in there, and to make it through a season in the ACC and work really hard to get this opportunity, it’s really exciting to see your name on the board.”
Hawaii (21-6) will enter the matchup on a hot streak, having won its last five matches. But the Rainbow Wahines are not the only ones with momentum heading into Friday’s clash. The Blue Devils have won seven of their last 10 contests.
“[Momentum]’s really important,” Nagel said. “It’s important that our team feels like they’re playing well right now and that we are playing that well against
a team that is now the seventh seed in the NCAA tournament and beat the sixth seed two weeks ago. I think that’s really important and will give us confidence.”
The Blue Devil head coach was adamant that her squad is excited
for the upcoming challenge, but was still surprised when the brackets were announced and had the Blue Devils playing in Seattle.
“I did not think we’d be going to Seattle,” Nagel said. “But it’s exciting
Nick MartinSports Editor
Sanjeev Dasgupta | The ChronicleDuke will travel to Seattle to take on a tough Hawaii squad Friday, with a potential matchup against No. 3 overall seed Washington looming in the second round Saturday.
to go somewhere different and play Hawaii.”
It will be a short turnaround for Duke travel-wise, as the Blue Devils will likely leave Wednesday around midday, Nagel said.
And though it is tournament time—something the players have been looking forward to all season—it is also exam time at Duke. So when the Blue Devils hit the road Wednesday, they will have to bring their studies with them in order to keep up with their workload.
“We’re hoping to stay up on our academics so that we can feel good about that as we head out of town,” Nagel said.
The winner of the Friday’s contest will face the winner of the Washington-New Hampshire game Saturday, Dec. 6 at 10 p.m. The Huskies are the No. 3 seed, meaning Duke’s path to the title will have a steep challenge potentially waiting in the second round. Although Nagel felt the Blue Devils’ record had earned them a better seeding, she and her squad are not focusing on what is out of their control and are looking forward to the possible challenge.
“I did not think we would be having to play a team with that high of a seed as early as the second round,” Nagel said. “I thought our season had earned us something a little different than that, but the bottom line is, you’ve got to play the best and beat them all to win the national championship.”
Volleyball
Blue Devils to face Hawaii in first round of NCAAs
Nine may be the new lucky number for Duke football.
After clinching back-to-back seasons of nine or more wins for the first time in program history Saturday against Wake Forest, the Blue Devils landed nine players on All-ACC teams, as announced by the conference Monday.
Three Duke seniors—wide receiver Jamison Crowder, right guard Laken Tomlinson and linebacker David Helton—garnered first-team All-ACC accolades. Redshirt junior safety Jeremy Cash was the lone Blue Devil representative on the second team, and senior offensive tackle Takoby Cofield, redshirt junior center Matt Skura, junior kicker Ross Martin and redshirt sophomore return man DeVon Edwards were all selected to the third unit. Redshirt junior punter Will Monday received honorable mention from the voters.
Crowder was also named to the first unit as a return specialist. The Monroe, N.C., native ranks second in the conference with 6.5 receptions per game and also sits in second place on the ACC’s all-time
career receptions list.Tomlinson, previously named to the
Allstate Good Works team for his work in the Durham community, has started 51 consecutive games for head coach David Cutcliffe, and will join Crowder at the Reese’s Senior Bowl Jan. 24, 2015, looking to improve his NFL draft stock. Tomlinson’s offensive line teammates,
Cofield and Skura, have helped the Blue Devils keep quarterback Anthony Boone upright, allowing the 11th-fewest sacks per game in the country.
Helton, who took over at the Mike linebacker position after Kelby Brown suffered a preseason ACL tear, leads the ACC in tackles with 125 and ranks 10th in Duke history with 338 career takedowns.
A transfer from Ohio State, Cash had 103 tackles and 5.5 sacks during the regular season, making him the only defensive back in the country to have more than 100 tackles and more than five sacks.
Edwards also received honorable mention as a safety. The Covington, Ga., native’s 119 tackles rank second on the team behind Helton.
Wallace Wade is my favorite college football stadium. There, I said it.
I’ll preface this ode/rant with saying I have only ever known Wallace Wade Stadium as a place with a winning tradition. In my two-and-a-half years of attending games,
I have witnessed more Blue Devil victories than I have losses, and I understand how few people can say that.
So when I hear about the new renovations in place and listen to the excitement in the voices of Director of Athletics Kevin White and head coach David Cutcliffe, it makes me excited as well. But it also makes me nervous.
This past Saturday, as Duke took on Wake Forest on Senior Day, I was forced to crawl out from my room—where I was handling the editing and oversight of our in-game social media—and make the trek to ole Wally Wade to drop off some left-behind equipment for one of our photographers. I had not eaten dinner yet and it was only the third quarter, so I decided to grab some food and watch the Blue Devils dismantle the god-awful Demon Deacons.
I grabbed a seat—well, it was actually an entire row—at the top of the student section and enjoyed my $4 hotdog. As I sat there in 40-degree weather and watched Duke’s defense wreak havoc, I started to look around to the construction vehicles parked on the track, the soon-to-be demolished Finch-Yeager Building and the soon-to-be-crumbled wall surrounding the horseshoe. For the first time in my Wallace Wade attendance history, I actually understood why I enjoyed the stadium.
There’s a certain balance that the stadium has been able to find so that students can come, but unlike Cameron Indoor, they don’t have to stand and be intense for the entirety of the game. You can show up late and not worry about getting a seat—usually. You can go to the concessions stand or bathroom at any time and not worry about your seat being taken or rubbing against dozens of sweaty, painted-up Crazies on your way there.
My favorite memory came Oct. 20, 2012, when Jamison Crowder made his game-winning snag to take down North Carolina and make the Blue Devils bowl-eligible for the first time in the Class of 2018’s lifetime. The stadium, as personal as it is, was more alive that night than it will possibly ever be again.
As the students spilled over the wall to rush the field in celebration, I would venture to say it was one of the greatest moments in the past
See Wallace Wade on Page 8
When No. 4 Duke meets No. 2 Wisconsin Wednesday night in the most-anticipated matchup of the young college basketball season, there will be no shortage of subplots.
ACC vs. Big Ten. Youth against experience. Bo Ryan opposite Mike Krzyzewski.
But the battle that has commanded the spotlight since the ACC/Big Ten Challenge pairings were announced in April is the one that will take place down low. Blue Devil center Jahlil Okafor—the top-ranked recruit in this year’s freshman class—will go up against the Badgers’ Frank Kaminsky, widely considered the best upperclassman center in the country.
“He’s a great player, one of the best players in college basketball,” Okafor said. “He’s a had a great career. He’s a proven big man; [I’m] just a freshman,
only played seven games of college basketball.”
Kaminsky, a 7-foot senior, burst onto the college basketball landscape last spring during the Badgers’ run to the Final Four. The center averaged 16.4 points per game in postseason play and turned in a dominant 28-point, 11-rebound effort in the Elite Eight
to power Wisconsin past Arizona. The Wildcats boasted one of the nation’s top frontcourts, but Kaminksy used a flurry of step-throughs and post moves to carve up the Arizona interior, showcasing footwork that rivals the polished post game of Okafor.
Despite his talent playing with his
Jack White | The ChronicleDuke freshman center Jahlil Okafor is averaging 17.7 points per game and will look to continue his early success against Frank Kaminsky and No. 2 Wisconsin Wednesday.
Men’s Basketball
ACC sets three proposals for autonomy
Autonomy is coming to the NCAA, and the Atlantic Coast Conference took a step toward defining what it will look like Monday.
The ACC announced three proposals as a part of the recently adopted autonomy process. The proposals were approved by the conference’s Council of Presidents and fall in line with what many believed would be the initial focus of the league. The proposals revolve around the true cost of attendance for student athletes, loss-of-value insurance and guaranteed scholarship renewal.
“The ACC’s continued discussions related to enhancing the student-athletes’ experience has resulted in our submission of three legislative proposals,” Donna E. Shalala, Chair of the ACC Council of Presidents and President of the University of Miami, said in a press release.
The gap between what students receive in grant-and-aid and the full cost of attendance is the main focus of the initial proposal, and much has been made in the past year of athletes not having enough money to fulfill their basic needs.
The monetary value of the gap is based on one’s athletic scholarship. Student-athletes on full grant-and-aid at Duke will be entitled to $3,024, the average gap between the cost of attendance and scholarship money. For students on a half-scholarship, the amount is also cut in half, entitling them to $1,512.
“There certainly appears to be a consensus for providing full cost of attendance for student-athletes on athletic scholarships,” Duke vice president and director of athletics Kevin White said. “My instinct is that that one will be ratified.... I do know the ACC is totally on board with full cost of attendance.”
This proposal is one that all five of the Power Five conferences—the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12—have also been in agreement on, White said. It will go to an official vote in January at the first business meeting. If passed, it would go into effect by Aug. 1, 2015, although it may be executed earlier than this in order to cover the full 2015-16 academic year.
The ACC also agreed upon loss-of-value insurance. This would allow a student-athlete to borrow against his or her future earnings potential to obtain loss-of-value insurance.
The insurance falls in line with injury
insurance and has been taken out by notable names like Jameis Winston and Teddy Bridgewater in the past. The policies are centered around the idea that if players’
Football
Nine Blue Devils selected to All-ACC squads
Darbi Griffith | The ChronicleRedshirt senior guard Laken Tomlinson was one of three Blue Devils to be named to the All-ACC first team, joined by senior linebacker David Helton and senior receiver Jamison Crowder.
Staff Reports
See Centers on Page 9
Column
Ryan HoergerBeat Writer
Jack White | The ChronicleFlorida State quarterback Jameis Winston is one of several NCAA athletes to have loss-of-worth insurance.
Here’s to you, Wallace Wade
CENTERS OF ATTENTIONDuke’s Jahlil Okafor and
Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky are set to face off Wednesday
NCAA
Nick MartinSports Editor
See Autonomy on Page 8
Nick Martin
The Chronicle www.dukechronicle.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 7
SPORTS
The Chronicle www.dukechroniclesports.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 7
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechroniclesports.com
SportsThe Chronicle
Seattle be the farthest possible locale from the welcoming confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium, but Duke could not be more excited about its NCAA tournament bid.
The Blue Devils will travel to Seattle to take on Hawaii Friday at 8 p.m. at Alaska Airlines Arena in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The brackets were announced Sunday night on ESPNU, giving Duke five days to prepare for its first opponent.
“To see our name come up on the board for the NCAA tournament is exciting,” head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We’re excited to represent Duke. We’re excited that we have this opportunity in the NCAA tournament. It’s not easy to get in there, and to make it through a season in the ACC and work really hard to get this opportunity, it’s really exciting to see your name on the board.”
Hawaii (21-6) will enter the matchup on a hot streak, having won its last five matches. But the Rainbow Wahines are not the only ones with momentum heading into Friday’s clash. The Blue Devils have won seven of their last 10 contests.
“[Momentum]’s really important,” Nagel said. “It’s important that our team feels like they’re playing well right now and that we are playing that well against
a team that is now the seventh seed in the NCAA tournament and beat the sixth seed two weeks ago. I think that’s really important and will give us confidence.”
The Blue Devil head coach was adamant that her squad is excited
for the upcoming challenge, but was still surprised when the brackets were announced and had the Blue Devils playing in Seattle.
“I did not think we’d be going to Seattle,” Nagel said. “But it’s exciting
Nick MartinSports Editor
Sanjeev Dasgupta | The ChronicleDuke will travel to Seattle to take on a tough Hawaii squad Friday, with a potential matchup against No. 3 overall seed Washington looming in the second round Saturday.
to go somewhere different and play Hawaii.”
It will be a short turnaround for Duke travel-wise, as the Blue Devils will likely leave Wednesday around midday, Nagel said.
And though it is tournament time—something the players have been looking forward to all season—it is also exam time at Duke. So when the Blue Devils hit the road Wednesday, they will have to bring their studies with them in order to keep up with their workload.
“We’re hoping to stay up on our academics so that we can feel good about that as we head out of town,” Nagel said.
The winner of the Friday’s contest will face the winner of the Washington-New Hampshire game Saturday, Dec. 6 at 10 p.m. The Huskies are the No. 3 seed, meaning Duke’s path to the title will have a steep challenge potentially waiting in the second round. Although Nagel felt the Blue Devils’ record had earned them a better seeding, she and her squad are not focusing on what is out of their control and are looking forward to the possible challenge.
“I did not think we would be having to play a team with that high of a seed as early as the second round,” Nagel said. “I thought our season had earned us something a little different than that, but the bottom line is, you’ve got to play the best and beat them all to win the national championship.”
Volleyball
Blue Devils to face Hawaii in first round of NCAAs
Nine may be the new lucky number for Duke football.
After clinching back-to-back seasons of nine or more wins for the first time in program history Saturday against Wake Forest, the Blue Devils landed nine players on All-ACC teams, as announced by the conference Monday.
Three Duke seniors—wide receiver Jamison Crowder, right guard Laken Tomlinson and linebacker David Helton—garnered first-team All-ACC accolades. Redshirt junior safety Jeremy Cash was the lone Blue Devil representative on the second team, and senior offensive tackle Takoby Cofield, redshirt junior center Matt Skura, junior kicker Ross Martin and redshirt sophomore return man DeVon Edwards were all selected to the third unit. Redshirt junior punter Will Monday received honorable mention from the voters.
Crowder was also named to the first unit as a return specialist. The Monroe, N.C., native ranks second in the conference with 6.5 receptions per game and also sits in second place on the ACC’s all-time
career receptions list.Tomlinson, previously named to the
Allstate Good Works team for his work in the Durham community, has started 51 consecutive games for head coach David Cutcliffe, and will join Crowder at the Reese’s Senior Bowl Jan. 24, 2015, looking to improve his NFL draft stock. Tomlinson’s offensive line teammates,
Cofield and Skura, have helped the Blue Devils keep quarterback Anthony Boone upright, allowing the 11th-fewest sacks per game in the country.
Helton, who took over at the Mike linebacker position after Kelby Brown suffered a preseason ACL tear, leads the ACC in tackles with 125 and ranks 10th in Duke history with 338 career takedowns.
A transfer from Ohio State, Cash had 103 tackles and 5.5 sacks during the regular season, making him the only defensive back in the country to have more than 100 tackles and more than five sacks.
Edwards also received honorable mention as a safety. The Covington, Ga., native’s 119 tackles rank second on the team behind Helton.
Wallace Wade is my favorite college football stadium. There, I said it.
I’ll preface this ode/rant with saying I have only ever known Wallace Wade Stadium as a place with a winning tradition. In my two-and-a-half years of attending games,
I have witnessed more Blue Devil victories than I have losses, and I understand how few people can say that.
So when I hear about the new renovations in place and listen to the excitement in the voices of Director of Athletics Kevin White and head coach David Cutcliffe, it makes me excited as well. But it also makes me nervous.
This past Saturday, as Duke took on Wake Forest on Senior Day, I was forced to crawl out from my room—where I was handling the editing and oversight of our in-game social media—and make the trek to ole Wally Wade to drop off some left-behind equipment for one of our photographers. I had not eaten dinner yet and it was only the third quarter, so I decided to grab some food and watch the Blue Devils dismantle the god-awful Demon Deacons.
I grabbed a seat—well, it was actually an entire row—at the top of the student section and enjoyed my $4 hotdog. As I sat there in 40-degree weather and watched Duke’s defense wreak havoc, I started to look around to the construction vehicles parked on the track, the soon-to-be demolished Finch-Yeager Building and the soon-to-be-crumbled wall surrounding the horseshoe. For the first time in my Wallace Wade attendance history, I actually understood why I enjoyed the stadium.
There’s a certain balance that the stadium has been able to find so that students can come, but unlike Cameron Indoor, they don’t have to stand and be intense for the entirety of the game. You can show up late and not worry about getting a seat—usually. You can go to the concessions stand or bathroom at any time and not worry about your seat being taken or rubbing against dozens of sweaty, painted-up Crazies on your way there.
My favorite memory came Oct. 20, 2012, when Jamison Crowder made his game-winning snag to take down North Carolina and make the Blue Devils bowl-eligible for the first time in the Class of 2018’s lifetime. The stadium, as personal as it is, was more alive that night than it will possibly ever be again.
As the students spilled over the wall to rush the field in celebration, I would venture to say it was one of the greatest moments in the past
See Wallace Wade on Page 8
When No. 4 Duke meets No. 2 Wisconsin Wednesday night in the most-anticipated matchup of the young college basketball season, there will be no shortage of subplots.
ACC vs. Big Ten. Youth against experience. Bo Ryan opposite Mike Krzyzewski.
But the battle that has commanded the spotlight since the ACC/Big Ten Challenge pairings were announced in April is the one that will take place down low. Blue Devil center Jahlil Okafor—the top-ranked recruit in this year’s freshman class—will go up against the Badgers’ Frank Kaminsky, widely considered the best upperclassman center in the country.
“He’s a great player, one of the best players in college basketball,” Okafor said. “He’s a had a great career. He’s a proven big man; [I’m] just a freshman,
only played seven games of college basketball.”
Kaminsky, a 7-foot senior, burst onto the college basketball landscape last spring during the Badgers’ run to the Final Four. The center averaged 16.4 points per game in postseason play and turned in a dominant 28-point, 11-rebound effort in the Elite Eight
to power Wisconsin past Arizona. The Wildcats boasted one of the nation’s top frontcourts, but Kaminksy used a flurry of step-throughs and post moves to carve up the Arizona interior, showcasing footwork that rivals the polished post game of Okafor.
Despite his talent playing with his
Jack White | The ChronicleDuke freshman center Jahlil Okafor is averaging 17.7 points per game and will look to continue his early success against Frank Kaminsky and No. 2 Wisconsin Wednesday.
Men’s Basketball
ACC sets three proposals for autonomy
Autonomy is coming to the NCAA, and the Atlantic Coast Conference took a step toward defining what it will look like Monday.
The ACC announced three proposals as a part of the recently adopted autonomy process. The proposals were approved by the conference’s Council of Presidents and fall in line with what many believed would be the initial focus of the league. The proposals revolve around the true cost of attendance for student athletes, loss-of-value insurance and guaranteed scholarship renewal.
“The ACC’s continued discussions related to enhancing the student-athletes’ experience has resulted in our submission of three legislative proposals,” Donna E. Shalala, Chair of the ACC Council of Presidents and President of the University of Miami, said in a press release.
The gap between what students receive in grant-and-aid and the full cost of attendance is the main focus of the initial proposal, and much has been made in the past year of athletes not having enough money to fulfill their basic needs.
The monetary value of the gap is based on one’s athletic scholarship. Student-athletes on full grant-and-aid at Duke will be entitled to $3,024, the average gap between the cost of attendance and scholarship money. For students on a half-scholarship, the amount is also cut in half, entitling them to $1,512.
“There certainly appears to be a consensus for providing full cost of attendance for student-athletes on athletic scholarships,” Duke vice president and director of athletics Kevin White said. “My instinct is that that one will be ratified.... I do know the ACC is totally on board with full cost of attendance.”
This proposal is one that all five of the Power Five conferences—the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12—have also been in agreement on, White said. It will go to an official vote in January at the first business meeting. If passed, it would go into effect by Aug. 1, 2015, although it may be executed earlier than this in order to cover the full 2015-16 academic year.
The ACC also agreed upon loss-of-value insurance. This would allow a student-athlete to borrow against his or her future earnings potential to obtain loss-of-value insurance.
The insurance falls in line with injury
insurance and has been taken out by notable names like Jameis Winston and Teddy Bridgewater in the past. The policies are centered around the idea that if players’
Football
Nine Blue Devils selected to All-ACC squads
Darbi Griffith | The ChronicleRedshirt senior guard Laken Tomlinson was one of three Blue Devils to be named to the All-ACC first team, joined by senior linebacker David Helton and senior receiver Jamison Crowder.
Staff Reports
See Centers on Page 9
Column
Ryan HoergerBeat Writer
Jack White | The ChronicleFlorida State quarterback Jameis Winston is one of several NCAA athletes to have loss-of-worth insurance.
Here’s to you, Wallace Wade
CENTERS OF ATTENTIONDuke’s Jahlil Okafor and
Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky are set to face off Wednesday
NCAA
Nick MartinSports Editor
See Autonomy on Page 8
Nick Martin
8 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
SPORTS
8 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechroniclesports.com The Chronicle
OPERATION: The University Store PUBLICATION: ChronicleHEADLINE: Arch Duke Crew Sweatshirt DATES: 12/02/14COLOR: CMYK
Arch Duke Crew Sweatshirts
Colors: Navy, Royal, Charcoal, Oxford, BlackAvailable Sizes: S - 2XL
Fabric Content: 9 oz., 50% cotton, 50% polyester
Offer cannot be combined with any other discount/sale.
Offer valid Tuesday, December 2 through Sunday, December 7, 2014, or while supplies last.
Available in the following locations:
The University Store Upper Level, Bryan Center
Medical Center Bookstore Lower Level, Duke Clinics
SHOPDUKESTORES.DUKE.EDU
$
13Compared to $18 each
50 years of Duke football fandom.Unfortunately, these kind of memories do not come
around that often in Wallace Wade, and it’s far from being the team’s fault.
The football team was putrid up until I arrived on campus—yes, I take partial credit—and not a lot of people attended games. Even now, with Duke being 19-7 in the past two seasons, the Blue Devils have only ever sold out the horseshoe on opening day and North Carolina gamedays, with the Miami game my sophomore year being the sole exception. Duke graduates just about 1,700 undergraduate students each year and is located around already somewhat-established football programs in N.C. State and North Carolina, so Triangle support is not overwhelming.
But people do not harass Duke for poor turnout like they do Miami and Sun Life Stadium because the Blue Devils have never been close to being as big as the Hurricanes once were, and Wallace Wade is dwarfed in comparison to Sun Life.
The stadium currently holds a maximum capacity of 33,941. In the past four years, the highest-attended year came in 2012, the year Crowder came up with that miracle snag and sent his team bowling. It kickstarted Duke’s reentrance into the college football world. But even after the monumental season, the attendance average dipped by nearly 2,000 the next year before finding a middle ground this season.
Here are the numbers to look at for yourself:2011: 24,3932012: 28,1702013: 26,0622014: 27,291What Cutcliffe has been able to do with the program is
spectacular, and I personally feel that not nearly enough students go out to games. Does everyone realize that the Blue Devils finished 9-3 in the regular season and people were disappointed? I know I should treat the team with respect and not view it as The Little Engine That Could like people have for three years, but that change in attitude is wild. And if people want to be disappointed about it, then they better start showing up next year in droves when Duke goes for a third-straight nine-win season.
If people continue to skip out on games, the renovations will be all for naught. White is a true businessman and I trust him to make the right decisions when it comes to these renovations. I’m just not sure if I believe the fans will respond as they should—but I hope I am just being pessimistic.
So in 2016, when the renovations are completed and the construction crews leave Duke’s campus—as odd of a thought as that is—here’s hoping Wallace Wade isn’t a beautiful ghost town. Here’s hoping the fans expect excellence and come out and stick around longer. Here’s to Wallace Wade, the old and the new.
WALLACE WADEcontinued from page 6
draft stock falls due to injury or illness, they will receive a set amount of money, tax-free. Bridgewater’s was valued at $5 million and Winston’s has been slated at $8-10 million. The proposal would be effective immediately.
The final proposal focuses on fairness to athletes on scholarship. The renewal proposal states that a student-athlete’s athletic scholarship may not be revoked for on-field performance or injury. The rule change would go into effect Aug. 1, 2015.
“These three proposals create a pathway to additional benefits for student-athletes, which continues to be the top priority,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. “Our Council of Presidents and membership will continue to explore ways to enhance our student-athletes’ experience within the collegiate model.”
The conference will work with the NCAA to finalize the legislation, as both sides prepare for the coming January business meeting, in which the five conferences will gather to vote on the proposals and continue to vet any unclear legislation. Among those in attendance will be faculty representatives, senior women administrators, athletic directors and, possibly, university presidents, according to White. The date for the meeting had not been set as of Monday.
AUTONOMYcontinued from page 6
Victor Ye | The ChronicleWallace Wade Stadium will undergo massive renovations in the coming two years to bring the stadium up-to-date.
The Chronicle www.dukechronicle.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 9
ACROSS 1 Edie of “Nurse
Jackie” 6 Not quite right11 Prime meridian
std.14 Hipbone-related15 “Holy cow!”16 Waikiki wear17 Related add-ons,
informally19 “___ long
gone daddy in the U.S.A.” (Springsteen lyric)
20 Golden Horde members
21 Suffix with sucr- and lact-
22 Brouhaha23 Tennis umpire’s
call24 “Straight ___
Compton” (seminal rap album)
25 Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman racing film
31 Things confessed at confession
32 Bad things from sharks?
33 Dodgers great Campanella
35 It’s attention-getting
36 Figure skater Harding
37 Scotch ___
38 Whiz
39 Place for a kiddie hawk?
40 Elevator innovator
41 “That” something in an Arlen/Mercer standard
45 Exotic jelly fruit
46 “No thanks, I already ___”
47 The Beatles’ “___ Love Her”
48 Org. whose only members with nonplural names appear at the ends of 17-, 25-, 41- and 56-Across
51 “Fiddler on the Roof” setting
55 Old-time actress Hagen
56 Keep cool in summer
58 Obama or Clinton, informally
59 Add-on60 So unhip as to
be hip, maybe61 Gridiron gains:
Abbr.62 One of the Coen
brothers63 Din-making
DOWN 1 Company that
owns Ferrari 2 Milan’s Teatro
___ Scala 3 Gentle rise and
fall of the voice 4 It makes things
happen 5 Earthy tones 6 First anti-AIDS
drug 7 Luck that’s
workin’ for ya 8 “___ a Teenage
Werewolf” 9 Jumbo, for one10 “Oh yeah? ___
who?”11 Fashionable
celebs12 Like the climate
of Miami or Rio13 Princess topper18 Concerning22 South of France24 Follower of clip
or slip25 Not full-price26 Famous
Yosemite photographer
27 Fauna’s counterpart
28 Elixir
29 “Frida” star Salma
30 Acapulco article
31 Hot spot?
34 “You betcha!”
36 Business card abbr.
37 With it
39 Lawyers’ org.
42 Roman 506
43 Turn to pulp
44 Subject of a massive statue in the ancient Parthenon
45 Tastelessly showy
48 Call at a deli counter
49 “Splish Splash” spot
50 Gillette brand
52 Architect Saarinen
53 Cry made with a curtsy, maybe
54 Astronomical meas.
56 Honey Nut Cheerios mascot
57 Catch some rays
PUZZLE BY ANDREA CARLA MICHAELS
Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS.AT&T users: Text NYTX to 386 to download puzzles, or visit nytimes.com/mobilexword for more information.Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/learning/xwords.
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22
23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34
35 36 37
38 39 40
41 42 43 44
45 46
47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
55 56 57
58 59 60
61 62 63
A C M E S A N N A J O T SQ U O T A P I E R O K R AU R B A N A C R E R A I LA B S D I C K V A N D Y K E
T A L E S E O A S E SR E F I L L C A I NO V E N P O E T S S T PD E A T H V A L L E Y D A Y SE R R I M P E L A P P S
A R I A O U T S E TM E A D E J E A N N ED V D R E C O R D E R L O UL A V A O H I O U M A S SI N I T O N K P L A D L EI S L E P S A T Y O Y O S
The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018
For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550For Release Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Edited by Will Shortz No. 1028Crossword
Find the answers to the Sudoku puzzle on the classifieds page
Fill in the grid so that every
row, every column and
every 3x3 box contains
the digits 1 through 9.
(No number is repeated in
any column, row or box.)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
HARASSMENT OF ANY KIND, including sexual ha-rassment, is unacceptable at Duke. Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination and also prohibited by Title IX, a federal law that pro-hibits discrimination based upon gender. Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, dis-ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran sta-tus, gender or age is prohib-ited by law and Duke policy.
If you have questions or want additional informa-tion, you may contact the Office for Institutional Equi-ty (OIE) directly at (919) 684-8222 or visit our website at: www.duke.edu/web/equity. If you have a concern, you are encouraged to seek help from your manager, Human Resources or OIE. Students who have concerns may seek assistance from the Office of Student Conduct, your chair, dean or OIE.
TRAVEL/VACATION
BAHAMAS SPRING BREAK
$189 for 5 Days. All prices in-clude: Round-trip luxury par-ty cruise. Accommodations on the island at your choice of thirteen resorts. Appalachia Travel. www.BahamaSun.com 800-867-5018
CLASSIFIEDS
Advertise here for the best results
dukechronicle.comclassifieds
TGIF
Recess ~ today!
Sportswrap ~ today!
CENTERScontinued from page 6
Khloe Kim | The ChronicleCenter Jahlil Okafor and the Blue Devils will represent the ACC in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge Wednesday against Wisconsin.
back to the basket, Kaminsky—Wisconsin’s leading scorer and rebounder at 16.6 points and 8.7 rebounds per game—can also step outside and knock down the outside jumper. The center actually leads the Badgers in 3-pointers made this season, knocking down 11 of his 27 attempts.
Fans aren’t the only ones excited to see how the battle down low plays out.
“It’s fun, but you can’t get too into watching it because you’re actually on the floor and you actually have an impact on the game,” captain Quinn Cook said. “[Okafor] wants to [play better] than every big he plays. He takes the matchups personal[ly].”
Kaminsky’s ability to force Okafor to guard him outside of the paint could be a key to Wednesday’s matchup, as drawing the Blue Devil big man away from the rim could help open up the key for other Badgers to penetrate. Okafor said he feels comfortable stepping outside to defend Kaminsky’s unique skill set.
“He’s a different kind of post man,” Okafor said. “It’s definitely going to be a hard test for me and I’m looking forward to it.”
On the other end of the floor, few opposing teams have been able to slow down Okafor’s offensive game, but Kaminsky will provide the Chicago native with his toughest matchup to date. Okafor averages 17.7 points and 6.9 rebounds on a nightly basis and shoots better than 60 percent from the floor, a big reason why Duke ranks fourth in the nation in scoring.
Although he has about 30 pounds on Wisconsin’s big man, Okafor will have to go up strong to finish inside against Kaminsky’s long arms. The Badger center got in early foul trouble in Wisconsin’s most recent game against Oklahoma, and a steady diet of feeding Okafor could draw more whistles and help Duke keep Kaminsky off the floor.
College basketball’s premier centers will go at each other Wednesday night on the hardwood floor of the Kohl Center, but the talented posts might also be worthy adversaries on the dance floor as well.
Kaminsky, known as a fun-loving big man, was featured in a video dancing to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” that quickly made the rounds on the Internet last month. Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan looped
Okafor into the dancing conversation at his weekly press conference Monday when asked what stands out in the freshman’s game.
“Size and maneuverability,” Ryan said. “I haven’t seen him dance, but I bet he can dance. He’s got good feet. That baseline move he has, he’s pretty good that way.”
Told of Ryan’s comments Monday, the 6-foot-11 center concurred with the scouting report.
“I’m a solid dancer,” Okafor said.With some of the silkiest footwork in the sport on
display Wednesday night, Okafor and Kaminsky will tango in the post, each looking to lead their teams to a resume-building win.
BLUE ZONETHE[ ]
Keep up with the Blue Devils
Find all the latest Duke sports news on our sports blog
Creative Services: ............................................ Allison Eisen, Mao Hu, Rita Lo
Business Office .........................................................................Susanna Booth
10 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
edit pages
10 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 commentary The Chronicle The Chronicle commentary TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 11
LETTERS POLICYThe Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form of letters
to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for purposes of identification, phone number and local address. Letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial department for information regarding guest columns.
The Chronicle will not publish anonymous or form letters or letters that are promotional in nature. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, clarity and style and the right to withhold letters based on the discretion of the editorial page editor.
”“ onlinecomment You’ll face disagreement to your religion. That’s normal in a community that was designed to discuss concepts in depth. If anything, it should help you challenge yourself in your own philosophies and beliefs.
—“StatisticallyInsignificant” commenting on the column “Faith at institutions of higher education”
Inc. 1993Est. 1905 The ChronicleCARLEIGH STIEHM, Editor
RAISA CHOWDHURY, News Blog Editor IMANI MOISE, News Blog Editor
SHANEN GANAPATHEE, Multimedia Editor KRISTIE KIM, Multimedia Editor
SOPHIA DURAND, Recruitment Chair ANDREW LUO, Recruitment Chair
MEGAN HAVEN, Advertising Director MEGAN MCGINITY, Digital Sales Manager
BARBARA STARBUCK, Creative Director MARY WEAVER, Operations Manager
The Chronicle is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profit corporation independent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors.
To reach the Editorial Office at 301 Flowers Building, call 684-2663 or fax 684-4696. To reach the Business Office at 2022 Campus Drive call 684-3811. To reach the Advertising Office at 2022 Campus Drive call 684-3811
@ 2014 Duke Student Publishing Company
Let me be the first to say that I love Thanksgiving. It is, in my opinion, the most magical holiday of the year. But,
sadly, I have not been able to go home for Thanksgiving break. Like many other students, I cannot afford the expense of flying across the country to stay at home for a few days and then return to campus for only two short weeks.
First of all, Thanksgiving Break only lasted five days because classes were still scheduled on Monday and Tuesday. Five days aren’t enough time for plane tickets to be worthwhile, even though most classes on those two days end up getting canceled. Unfortunately, most of us don’t get enough warning about cancelations before ticket prices skyrocket to really unfortunate rates. For Duke to insist on those extra two days of classes seems unreasonable if we can’t even expect those classes to happen. Now, if break were a full 9 days, maybe more of us would be able to convince our parents to pay for the plane tickets.
Even then I’m not sure that would be
practical. With my parents paying out of their ears for me to come to Duke, the cost of a plane ticket seems huge. Proportionally, it takes up a significant amount of our budget. Yes, the budget Duke sets for us does account for travel—my financial aid allocates just over four hundred dollars for travel expenses. But that’s barely enough to cover the trip from my house to Duke and doesn’t even pay for the trip home in May, let alone Thanksgiving, winter or spring breaks. Duke’s financial aid should be expected to provide aid based on reasonable estimations of the various costs students have to pay while attending—sadly, it failed me in this respect.
I don’t know what ticket prices Duke is looking at, but travel to Duke does not cost four hundred dollars. I don’t even want to think about how much money international students have to pay to go home—oh wait, a lot of them don’t even get to go home for Christmas. I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to experience this godforsaken empty campus for a full three weeks.
I had good reasons to decide to stay at Duke for break, but they didn’t quite make up for the costs. I haven’t seen my family since August, and it’s been a hard semester. As you can probably tell, I’m really bummed about my Thanksgiving options.
So let me be quite frank when I say that I’m very disappointed in Duke’s level of attention to the students left behind on campus last week. Our needs, physical and emotional, were simply not adequately cared for over break.
On Friday, for example, students had only two dinner options: McDonalds and the Washington Duke. Then—oh, what joy—Panda
Express opened on Saturday. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t really have the food points for the WaDuke nor do I have the desire to eat junk food for all of my meals.
Thankfully I am lucky enough to own a car, so I was able to eat off campus. Having parked on East Campus because of the coming football game, I found myself stranded without a bus. So of course, when Duke Vans didn’t answer their phone, I chose to pay for a cab rather than make the trek to the other side of a deserted campus in the dark.
Thinking that I could at least get some work done as a consolation prize for my seclusion, I sought out a study space other than my dorm room. To my disappointment, I was unable to retreat to my customary refuge in the library. I figured that I could find somewhere else, but I didn’t feel like I could find a space that felt safe enough for a lone female student. Everything else was either very dark or completely deserted.
Yes, I get it—it doesn’t make sense to pay
workers to run campus restaurants, watch over the library, and drive the buses when only a few students are around. And employees should also be able to be with their families for the holiday.
But that doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t have access to adequate transportation services, safe study spaces, groceries, or affordable and healthy food options while they’re stuck on an empty campus when they should be with their families.
I find it hard to believe that a school with a seven billion dollar endowment and numerous unnecessary construction projects can’t afford to provide adequate services to its tuition-paying students. I know that my desire for Perkins Library to be open may not be possible given logistical constraints. But there should have been buses running in the evenings between West Campus and East Campus, where Blue Zone permit-holders were told to park over break. And the Lobby Shop or Uncle Harry’s should have been open along with a healthier food option like Au Bon Pain—this leads to the issue of the overall lack of healthy food on campus, but that’s beside the point.
This experience, along with a series of unfortunate construction projects and my overall disappointment with the condition of student facilities like the dorms, has led me to slowly become convinced that Duke might not actually care about current students and just wants to make as much money off of us as possible. Some people would argue that we knew this all along..
Prove me wrong, Duke. Do more.
McKenna Ganz is Trinity junior. This is her final column of the semester.
For the love of turkey
McKennaGanzTHE DUKE LIFE STRIKES AGAIN
We need to reevaluate the way we talk about race in the United States.Just half a century after the Civil Rights Movement, we live in
a country that politically, economically and socially suppresses black Americans. But racism today, more often than not, lacks an element exhibited generations ago—the explicitly conscious intent to target individuals on the basis of race.
Decades-old policies continue to disproportionately target black individuals, but they often do so through the work of civil servants who do not share the prejudices of those who crafted the policies to begin with. Racial policing practices and judicial biases, for example, are the byproducts of Nixon’s racially motivated “War on Drugs.” In his diary, Nixon’s Chief of Staff wrote: “[President Nixon] emphasized that . . . the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
To deny that racism permeates our culture and our policies is simple naiveté, but the fact that many do not realize this racism is significant. Though racist policies have persisted, intentional acts of racism today are uncommon and condemned by most Americans. Many readers will consider this a distinction without a difference, and to an extent, I agree. Ignorance of the nature of policies that an individual practices does not fully absolve that individual of accountability to their negative impacts.
But this distinction must shape our discourse on racial disparities.Individuals generally oppose the Ferguson Grand Jury’s decision (to
not indict Officer Wilson with a charge for his shooting and killing Michael Brown) for two reasons. First, many make the probabilistic assumption that Officer Wilson acted on racist tendencies in his shooting of Brown. They assume that this case is not an example of an officer exerting his right to self-defense, and that under identical circumstances save skin color, Michael Brown would still be alive.
I contend that the majority of consistent evidence refutes these claims. Undeniably, racism is a central element of tragedies every day, many of which involve police officers extending their power inappropriately, but this does not imply that Wilson is necessarily guilty of the same. To blindly assume so is to exhibit ignorance on par with that of individuals who do not realize the unfair privilege associated with not being black. It would be to criminalize a potential victim (by this I mean someone who may have truly acted in self-defense) exclusively on the basis of his race.
The Grand Jury spent an enormous amount of time reviewing every last detail of the case, and ultimately decided not to push for charges for Officer Wilson. No one in this country knows every intricacy of this case as well as this jury. Some claim that Grand Jury indictments are broad enough that even a ham sandwich could be indicted if someone brought up a case against one. But the conclusion from this claim—that the Grand Jury must have racially decided to protect Wilson despite the evidence—is circular and illogical.
There is a very low bar for an indictment, but this does not necessarily imply a corrupt jury any more than it suggests that the potential case against Officer Wilson was too weak to meet this bar. If this explanation does not satisfy readers, then any conclusion from Wilson’s trial outside of an ultimate conviction would have been unjust. I have trouble understanding a conception of justice in which the premise is that the defendant is guilty regardless of the results of the trial.
This leads me to the second reason readers might provide for why Wilson should have been indicted and ultimately charged—regardless of the context of this case, his prosecution would have offered a symbolic stimulus that would allow us to revise our criminal justice system in a way that outweighs the cost to one potentially innocent man. This presumably utilitarian argument sets a dangerous precedent for a justice system built on defending the individual from sensationalized accusations. It is easy to defend the practice of making one individual the scapegoat for the greater good, but most of us who employ this argument would not take that individual’s place.
Regardless, protests are occurring in Ferguson and throughout the country precisely because Wilson was not indicted. If readers want justice for the black men, women and children who have been unfairly harmed by racist institutions, as we all should, then Wilson’s freedom is ironically the best way to ensure it, despite what occurred in the moments preceding Brown’s death. Peaceful demonstrations nationwide have the potential to influence a huge group of individuals who do not recognize racial privilege.
But unfortunately, so long as these protests are conducted violently at worst and offensively at best, the potential for policy and attitude shifts will be mitigated. When we use violence, we worsen racial stereotypes. When we post #BlackLivesMatter, we systematically and without discretion characterize all who do not believe Officer Wilson deserves a conviction as conscientious racists who do not place value on human life. Instead of demonizing each other for subjectively accused ignorance, we should try to use this tragedy as a window to educate an ignorant public about racism in this country and to actualize public policy changes that could help tragedies like these from reoccurring in the future.
Brendan McCartney is a Trinity junior. This is his last column of the semester.
All lives matter
FednerLauture SHADE-THROWER
Last Monday, as most students prepared for the upcoming break, a student-led group marched from West Campus to East Campus to raise awareness and protest the decision of a Missouri grand jury not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teen, Michael Brown. Following the grand jury’s decision and the student-led march, members of the Duke community expressed both their support of protesters and criticisms of the protests via Facebook, Twitter and anonymously through Yik Yak and Chronicle comments. Today we reflect on the role of social media in protest movements.
Social media outlets have become a crucial part of knowledge production and communication. From interviews and articles to trial transcripts and testimonies, many of the ideas that have been shared to help understand what is happening in Ferguson have circulated via social media. However, despite these positive outcomes, screens cannot and should not replace in-person engagement.
The decision of students to lead a very
public march with faces unhidden shows a commitment to movements that they may also support on online platforms. Often people that participate in what has been dubbed #hashtag activism feel a sense of accomplishment without actually involving themselves in deeper thought or action. Liking or sharing a post and then moving to the next Buzzfeed article does not make an activist. Instead, hashtags should be viewed as a starting point for expanded discussion, not the definitive account of the ideas therein. In discussing the events in Ferguson we must also go beyond criticizing the protests. There can be no intellectual growth or social understanding if we stay on the surface.
As a Duke community, we should seek to engage in the issues rather than simply criticize the method of protest. We should engage in questions like: who polices the police? Is the United States post-racial? What roles do sex and gender play in police-civilian interactions? Which events become a matter of international importance, which do not and why? For this
to occur, members of our community should engage with each other and use Yik Yak and other anonymous forums conscientiously—to employ them for an effective exchange of ideas rather than polarizing diatribe.
Regardless of the medium, when discussions are relegated to antagonistic jabs and defensive rebuttals, the only result may be a hollow “win.” We must come together as a community with the intent to understand one another’s opinion and to share our own in a discussion that does not dissolve into an aimless argument. These discussions ideally would focus on the complexity of events in Ferguson and other places, not on a superficial critique of the current protests. Whether these discussions occur in person or on a social media setting, let us not forget to respect. The vitriol from our community members on Yik Yak, Chronicle comments and other anonymous settings is not present in real life and is unsettling. Social media is an extension or reflection of who we are in the non-digital world. Who are you?
Antisocial media
We’ve all had that one moment when a well thought out expletive just wasn’t enough. From that moment when Mom
walks in during “private time” to forgetting your class had an exam after break, a good and resounding “oh, fiddlesticks” just doesn’t make the cut. Honestly, knocking should be mandatory and really, who reads the syllabus after the first day? Anyhow, awkward moments happen. They happen to me and I am pretty sure they’ve happened to you as well.
I’m one of those people who believes in fate and that everything has a purpose, including those awkward moments that you wish could be
permanently erased from your memory. So in honor of true Senior-Washed-Up-Girl-dom and my I-don’t-care ethos, I have decided to share an awkward moment with you. It has taken me a lot to get to the point in my life where I could really talk about this issue. It has haunted me from childhood to adulthood but no longer will it have power over me.
I still remember the day as if the memory was laser printed onto my brain. It was your typical Floridian day—in other words, sunny. I was a high school junior in my prime—fresh-faced about the college process and on top of the world. Walking into my first period class, I thought it would be just another average day… but I was so wrong. What greeted me at the door wasn’t my teacher, but a substitute. Not much of a big deal, but what really sealed the deal on the colossal disaster this day would become was waiting at her feet. Verde—pronounced: ver-DAY—was a recent acquisition. Fun fact, our sub was also a trainer for Seeing Eye Dogs and Verde was her newest trainee.
It may come as a shock for some, but I hated dogs. I didn’t want them touching me and I did not want them next to me. Their gasping breath and wet, drooly tongues weren’t signs of utter adorable cuteness, but plague and infestation. In fact, when I was younger my mom always warned us that if we didn’t take a shower, dogs would run and attack us. Every night, my siblings and I heard tales of dogs sniffing for young, dirty troublemakers to devour. Twisted? Yes. Effective? Indubitably. Therefore, seeing Verde wasn’t the greatest start to my
morning but, like Destiny’s Child, I’m a survivor, and I was going to make it through this class.
I skirted around the beast and safely made it to my desk. Our first activity was a group project and Verde, who was walking around without a leash because Floridians don’t believe in laws, made his way towards my group. Alert for any sign of the beast, I noticed his sly approach and made a move to leave. I don’t know what it is about dogs but for some reason they’re addicted to my chocolate decadence and, as my luck would have it, Verde followed me. Not only that, he also barked and chased me. Like any reasonable person, I went into full survivor mode—Think Bey in that camouflage bikini and you basically have a mental image of me. I jumped straight into the air, Mario-style, ran three feet horizontally, landed on a desk and screamed for the lord to come save me. Fedner – 0, Verde – 1
It was probably one of the most emasculating experiences of my entire life. This tiny German Shepherd made me completely and utterly lose my mind. Even worse, I ended up using a girl’s head for support after landing on her desk. Whoops. Thinking back on that fiasco I can’t deny that Verde taught me a lot of things about life. Firstly, never turn your back on a dog. They’ll attack first and ask questions later. Secondly, the age of smartphones can turn one embarrassing moment into a gif that would last a lifetime. And finally, awkward moments make great party stories. Awkward moments are only awkward if you make them awkward. I like to quote my favorite comedian, Katt Williams, when it comes to matters of life. “Get your 7 chuckles. Life’s too short, so take this approach in any given situation.”
College, relationships, life—it’s a struggle, and sometimes those awkward moments just make life even harder. Instead of drowning in a watery grave of embarrassment, being the first to laugh can change the entire situation. It’s not people laughing at you but people laughing with you. It’s an approach that’s helped me countless of times throughout my life. In fact, I’m not afraid of dogs anymore! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get wet kisses from animals but at least we can be friends from a distance, because that’s how nature should be observed, from a distance and hopefully in an air-conditioned room with TV. Truthfully, from falling off the bar at Shooters to forgetting to write your Chronicle column, those awkward moments add a little spice to our everyday life. So enjoy them! Preferably with a glass of red wine, but only if you’re 21.
Fedner Lauture is a Trinity senior. This is his final column of the semester.
That awkward moment BrendenMcCartneyA TOUCH OF GINGER
The Chronicle www.dukechronicle.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 11
edit pages
10 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 commentary The Chronicle The Chronicle commentary TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | 11
LETTERS POLICYThe Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form of letters
to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for purposes of identification, phone number and local address. Letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial department for information regarding guest columns.
The Chronicle will not publish anonymous or form letters or letters that are promotional in nature. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, clarity and style and the right to withhold letters based on the discretion of the editorial page editor.
”“ onlinecomment You’ll face disagreement to your religion. That’s normal in a community that was designed to discuss concepts in depth. If anything, it should help you challenge yourself in your own philosophies and beliefs.
—“StatisticallyInsignificant” commenting on the column “Faith at institutions of higher education”
Inc. 1993Est. 1905 The ChronicleCARLEIGH STIEHM, Editor
RAISA CHOWDHURY, News Blog Editor IMANI MOISE, News Blog Editor
SHANEN GANAPATHEE, Multimedia Editor KRISTIE KIM, Multimedia Editor
SOPHIA DURAND, Recruitment Chair ANDREW LUO, Recruitment Chair
MEGAN HAVEN, Advertising Director MEGAN MCGINITY, Digital Sales Manager
BARBARA STARBUCK, Creative Director MARY WEAVER, Operations Manager
The Chronicle is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profit corporation independent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors.
To reach the Editorial Office at 301 Flowers Building, call 684-2663 or fax 684-4696. To reach the Business Office at 2022 Campus Drive call 684-3811. To reach the Advertising Office at 2022 Campus Drive call 684-3811
@ 2014 Duke Student Publishing Company
Let me be the first to say that I love Thanksgiving. It is, in my opinion, the most magical holiday of the year. But,
sadly, I have not been able to go home for Thanksgiving break. Like many other students, I cannot afford the expense of flying across the country to stay at home for a few days and then return to campus for only two short weeks.
First of all, Thanksgiving Break only lasted five days because classes were still scheduled on Monday and Tuesday. Five days aren’t enough time for plane tickets to be worthwhile, even though most classes on those two days end up getting canceled. Unfortunately, most of us don’t get enough warning about cancelations before ticket prices skyrocket to really unfortunate rates. For Duke to insist on those extra two days of classes seems unreasonable if we can’t even expect those classes to happen. Now, if break were a full 9 days, maybe more of us would be able to convince our parents to pay for the plane tickets.
Even then I’m not sure that would be
practical. With my parents paying out of their ears for me to come to Duke, the cost of a plane ticket seems huge. Proportionally, it takes up a significant amount of our budget. Yes, the budget Duke sets for us does account for travel—my financial aid allocates just over four hundred dollars for travel expenses. But that’s barely enough to cover the trip from my house to Duke and doesn’t even pay for the trip home in May, let alone Thanksgiving, winter or spring breaks. Duke’s financial aid should be expected to provide aid based on reasonable estimations of the various costs students have to pay while attending—sadly, it failed me in this respect.
I don’t know what ticket prices Duke is looking at, but travel to Duke does not cost four hundred dollars. I don’t even want to think about how much money international students have to pay to go home—oh wait, a lot of them don’t even get to go home for Christmas. I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to experience this godforsaken empty campus for a full three weeks.
I had good reasons to decide to stay at Duke for break, but they didn’t quite make up for the costs. I haven’t seen my family since August, and it’s been a hard semester. As you can probably tell, I’m really bummed about my Thanksgiving options.
So let me be quite frank when I say that I’m very disappointed in Duke’s level of attention to the students left behind on campus last week. Our needs, physical and emotional, were simply not adequately cared for over break.
On Friday, for example, students had only two dinner options: McDonalds and the Washington Duke. Then—oh, what joy—Panda
Express opened on Saturday. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t really have the food points for the WaDuke nor do I have the desire to eat junk food for all of my meals.
Thankfully I am lucky enough to own a car, so I was able to eat off campus. Having parked on East Campus because of the coming football game, I found myself stranded without a bus. So of course, when Duke Vans didn’t answer their phone, I chose to pay for a cab rather than make the trek to the other side of a deserted campus in the dark.
Thinking that I could at least get some work done as a consolation prize for my seclusion, I sought out a study space other than my dorm room. To my disappointment, I was unable to retreat to my customary refuge in the library. I figured that I could find somewhere else, but I didn’t feel like I could find a space that felt safe enough for a lone female student. Everything else was either very dark or completely deserted.
Yes, I get it—it doesn’t make sense to pay
workers to run campus restaurants, watch over the library, and drive the buses when only a few students are around. And employees should also be able to be with their families for the holiday.
But that doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t have access to adequate transportation services, safe study spaces, groceries, or affordable and healthy food options while they’re stuck on an empty campus when they should be with their families.
I find it hard to believe that a school with a seven billion dollar endowment and numerous unnecessary construction projects can’t afford to provide adequate services to its tuition-paying students. I know that my desire for Perkins Library to be open may not be possible given logistical constraints. But there should have been buses running in the evenings between West Campus and East Campus, where Blue Zone permit-holders were told to park over break. And the Lobby Shop or Uncle Harry’s should have been open along with a healthier food option like Au Bon Pain—this leads to the issue of the overall lack of healthy food on campus, but that’s beside the point.
This experience, along with a series of unfortunate construction projects and my overall disappointment with the condition of student facilities like the dorms, has led me to slowly become convinced that Duke might not actually care about current students and just wants to make as much money off of us as possible. Some people would argue that we knew this all along..
Prove me wrong, Duke. Do more.
McKenna Ganz is Trinity junior. This is her final column of the semester.
For the love of turkey
McKennaGanzTHE DUKE LIFE STRIKES AGAIN
We need to reevaluate the way we talk about race in the United States.Just half a century after the Civil Rights Movement, we live in
a country that politically, economically and socially suppresses black Americans. But racism today, more often than not, lacks an element exhibited generations ago—the explicitly conscious intent to target individuals on the basis of race.
Decades-old policies continue to disproportionately target black individuals, but they often do so through the work of civil servants who do not share the prejudices of those who crafted the policies to begin with. Racial policing practices and judicial biases, for example, are the byproducts of Nixon’s racially motivated “War on Drugs.” In his diary, Nixon’s Chief of Staff wrote: “[President Nixon] emphasized that . . . the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
To deny that racism permeates our culture and our policies is simple naiveté, but the fact that many do not realize this racism is significant. Though racist policies have persisted, intentional acts of racism today are uncommon and condemned by most Americans. Many readers will consider this a distinction without a difference, and to an extent, I agree. Ignorance of the nature of policies that an individual practices does not fully absolve that individual of accountability to their negative impacts.
But this distinction must shape our discourse on racial disparities.Individuals generally oppose the Ferguson Grand Jury’s decision (to
not indict Officer Wilson with a charge for his shooting and killing Michael Brown) for two reasons. First, many make the probabilistic assumption that Officer Wilson acted on racist tendencies in his shooting of Brown. They assume that this case is not an example of an officer exerting his right to self-defense, and that under identical circumstances save skin color, Michael Brown would still be alive.
I contend that the majority of consistent evidence refutes these claims. Undeniably, racism is a central element of tragedies every day, many of which involve police officers extending their power inappropriately, but this does not imply that Wilson is necessarily guilty of the same. To blindly assume so is to exhibit ignorance on par with that of individuals who do not realize the unfair privilege associated with not being black. It would be to criminalize a potential victim (by this I mean someone who may have truly acted in self-defense) exclusively on the basis of his race.
The Grand Jury spent an enormous amount of time reviewing every last detail of the case, and ultimately decided not to push for charges for Officer Wilson. No one in this country knows every intricacy of this case as well as this jury. Some claim that Grand Jury indictments are broad enough that even a ham sandwich could be indicted if someone brought up a case against one. But the conclusion from this claim—that the Grand Jury must have racially decided to protect Wilson despite the evidence—is circular and illogical.
There is a very low bar for an indictment, but this does not necessarily imply a corrupt jury any more than it suggests that the potential case against Officer Wilson was too weak to meet this bar. If this explanation does not satisfy readers, then any conclusion from Wilson’s trial outside of an ultimate conviction would have been unjust. I have trouble understanding a conception of justice in which the premise is that the defendant is guilty regardless of the results of the trial.
This leads me to the second reason readers might provide for why Wilson should have been indicted and ultimately charged—regardless of the context of this case, his prosecution would have offered a symbolic stimulus that would allow us to revise our criminal justice system in a way that outweighs the cost to one potentially innocent man. This presumably utilitarian argument sets a dangerous precedent for a justice system built on defending the individual from sensationalized accusations. It is easy to defend the practice of making one individual the scapegoat for the greater good, but most of us who employ this argument would not take that individual’s place.
Regardless, protests are occurring in Ferguson and throughout the country precisely because Wilson was not indicted. If readers want justice for the black men, women and children who have been unfairly harmed by racist institutions, as we all should, then Wilson’s freedom is ironically the best way to ensure it, despite what occurred in the moments preceding Brown’s death. Peaceful demonstrations nationwide have the potential to influence a huge group of individuals who do not recognize racial privilege.
But unfortunately, so long as these protests are conducted violently at worst and offensively at best, the potential for policy and attitude shifts will be mitigated. When we use violence, we worsen racial stereotypes. When we post #BlackLivesMatter, we systematically and without discretion characterize all who do not believe Officer Wilson deserves a conviction as conscientious racists who do not place value on human life. Instead of demonizing each other for subjectively accused ignorance, we should try to use this tragedy as a window to educate an ignorant public about racism in this country and to actualize public policy changes that could help tragedies like these from reoccurring in the future.
Brendan McCartney is a Trinity junior. This is his last column of the semester.
All lives matter
FednerLauture SHADE-THROWER
Last Monday, as most students prepared for the upcoming break, a student-led group marched from West Campus to East Campus to raise awareness and protest the decision of a Missouri grand jury not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teen, Michael Brown. Following the grand jury’s decision and the student-led march, members of the Duke community expressed both their support of protesters and criticisms of the protests via Facebook, Twitter and anonymously through Yik Yak and Chronicle comments. Today we reflect on the role of social media in protest movements.
Social media outlets have become a crucial part of knowledge production and communication. From interviews and articles to trial transcripts and testimonies, many of the ideas that have been shared to help understand what is happening in Ferguson have circulated via social media. However, despite these positive outcomes, screens cannot and should not replace in-person engagement.
The decision of students to lead a very
public march with faces unhidden shows a commitment to movements that they may also support on online platforms. Often people that participate in what has been dubbed #hashtag activism feel a sense of accomplishment without actually involving themselves in deeper thought or action. Liking or sharing a post and then moving to the next Buzzfeed article does not make an activist. Instead, hashtags should be viewed as a starting point for expanded discussion, not the definitive account of the ideas therein. In discussing the events in Ferguson we must also go beyond criticizing the protests. There can be no intellectual growth or social understanding if we stay on the surface.
As a Duke community, we should seek to engage in the issues rather than simply criticize the method of protest. We should engage in questions like: who polices the police? Is the United States post-racial? What roles do sex and gender play in police-civilian interactions? Which events become a matter of international importance, which do not and why? For this
to occur, members of our community should engage with each other and use Yik Yak and other anonymous forums conscientiously—to employ them for an effective exchange of ideas rather than polarizing diatribe.
Regardless of the medium, when discussions are relegated to antagonistic jabs and defensive rebuttals, the only result may be a hollow “win.” We must come together as a community with the intent to understand one another’s opinion and to share our own in a discussion that does not dissolve into an aimless argument. These discussions ideally would focus on the complexity of events in Ferguson and other places, not on a superficial critique of the current protests. Whether these discussions occur in person or on a social media setting, let us not forget to respect. The vitriol from our community members on Yik Yak, Chronicle comments and other anonymous settings is not present in real life and is unsettling. Social media is an extension or reflection of who we are in the non-digital world. Who are you?
Antisocial media
We’ve all had that one moment when a well thought out expletive just wasn’t enough. From that moment when Mom
walks in during “private time” to forgetting your class had an exam after break, a good and resounding “oh, fiddlesticks” just doesn’t make the cut. Honestly, knocking should be mandatory and really, who reads the syllabus after the first day? Anyhow, awkward moments happen. They happen to me and I am pretty sure they’ve happened to you as well.
I’m one of those people who believes in fate and that everything has a purpose, including those awkward moments that you wish could be
permanently erased from your memory. So in honor of true Senior-Washed-Up-Girl-dom and my I-don’t-care ethos, I have decided to share an awkward moment with you. It has taken me a lot to get to the point in my life where I could really talk about this issue. It has haunted me from childhood to adulthood but no longer will it have power over me.
I still remember the day as if the memory was laser printed onto my brain. It was your typical Floridian day—in other words, sunny. I was a high school junior in my prime—fresh-faced about the college process and on top of the world. Walking into my first period class, I thought it would be just another average day… but I was so wrong. What greeted me at the door wasn’t my teacher, but a substitute. Not much of a big deal, but what really sealed the deal on the colossal disaster this day would become was waiting at her feet. Verde—pronounced: ver-DAY—was a recent acquisition. Fun fact, our sub was also a trainer for Seeing Eye Dogs and Verde was her newest trainee.
It may come as a shock for some, but I hated dogs. I didn’t want them touching me and I did not want them next to me. Their gasping breath and wet, drooly tongues weren’t signs of utter adorable cuteness, but plague and infestation. In fact, when I was younger my mom always warned us that if we didn’t take a shower, dogs would run and attack us. Every night, my siblings and I heard tales of dogs sniffing for young, dirty troublemakers to devour. Twisted? Yes. Effective? Indubitably. Therefore, seeing Verde wasn’t the greatest start to my
morning but, like Destiny’s Child, I’m a survivor, and I was going to make it through this class.
I skirted around the beast and safely made it to my desk. Our first activity was a group project and Verde, who was walking around without a leash because Floridians don’t believe in laws, made his way towards my group. Alert for any sign of the beast, I noticed his sly approach and made a move to leave. I don’t know what it is about dogs but for some reason they’re addicted to my chocolate decadence and, as my luck would have it, Verde followed me. Not only that, he also barked and chased me. Like any reasonable person, I went into full survivor mode—Think Bey in that camouflage bikini and you basically have a mental image of me. I jumped straight into the air, Mario-style, ran three feet horizontally, landed on a desk and screamed for the lord to come save me. Fedner – 0, Verde – 1
It was probably one of the most emasculating experiences of my entire life. This tiny German Shepherd made me completely and utterly lose my mind. Even worse, I ended up using a girl’s head for support after landing on her desk. Whoops. Thinking back on that fiasco I can’t deny that Verde taught me a lot of things about life. Firstly, never turn your back on a dog. They’ll attack first and ask questions later. Secondly, the age of smartphones can turn one embarrassing moment into a gif that would last a lifetime. And finally, awkward moments make great party stories. Awkward moments are only awkward if you make them awkward. I like to quote my favorite comedian, Katt Williams, when it comes to matters of life. “Get your 7 chuckles. Life’s too short, so take this approach in any given situation.”
College, relationships, life—it’s a struggle, and sometimes those awkward moments just make life even harder. Instead of drowning in a watery grave of embarrassment, being the first to laugh can change the entire situation. It’s not people laughing at you but people laughing with you. It’s an approach that’s helped me countless of times throughout my life. In fact, I’m not afraid of dogs anymore! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get wet kisses from animals but at least we can be friends from a distance, because that’s how nature should be observed, from a distance and hopefully in an air-conditioned room with TV. Truthfully, from falling off the bar at Shooters to forgetting to write your Chronicle column, those awkward moments add a little spice to our everyday life. So enjoy them! Preferably with a glass of red wine, but only if you’re 21.
Fedner Lauture is a Trinity senior. This is his final column of the semester.
That awkward moment BrendenMcCartneyA TOUCH OF GINGER
12 | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 www.dukechronicle.com The Chronicle
This message is brought to you by the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Center for Documentary Studies, Chapel Music, Duke Dance Program, Duke Music Department,
Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts, Nasher Museum of Art, Screen/Society, Department of Theater Studies with support from the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts.
December 2 - December 31EXHIBITIONSRauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting. Thru January 11. Nasher Museum of Art. Free.
City Under One Roof. Thru January 24. Center for Documentary Studies, Juanita Kreps Gallery. Free.
Miró: The Experience of Seeing. Thru Feb. 22. Nasher Museum of Art. $12 General Public; discounts for Duke faculty and staff; Duke students Free.
EVENTSDecember 2Duke Chorale Christmas Concert. 7pm, Duke Chapel. Free w/ one non-perishable food item for needy families in Durham.
December 3Film Screening. The New Black. A screening of award-winning film followed by a panel discussion moderated by Melissa Harris-Perry. 6pm, Nasher Museum Auditorium. Free.
Telling Stories for Social Change: Confronting Sexual and Domestic Violence at Duke and in Durham. Performance of monologues on sexual violence. Town hall discussion and reception to follow. 6pm, Sheafer Theatre, Free.
Concert. Duke Symphony Orchestra: Celebrating Richard Strauss (1864-1949) in the 150th anniversary year of his birth. 8pm, Baldwin Auditorium, Free.
December 4Master Class. Jazz saxophone with Todd Bashore. 4pm, Biddle Bldg., 19, Bone Hall, Free.
Recital. Student Chamber Music. 7pm, Nelson Music Room, Free.
December 5Case-Study. Documentary film producer Yvonne Welbon will present a case study of “The New Black,” discussing its journey from development to distribution. 12pm, Center for Documentary Studies, Free.
Concert. Duke Jazz Ensemble with Todd Bashore, saxophone. 8pm, Baldwin, $10 Gen Admin; $5 Sr Cit; Free for Students.
December 6Duke Collegium Musicum. Duke’s ensemble for early music directed by Roman Testroet. 8pm, Nelson Music Room, Free.
December 7Duke String School Concert. Stephanie Swisher, interim dir.3 pm: Beginning Ensembles & Intermediate I. 4 pm: Chamber Music Groups. 7 pm: Intermediate II & DUSS Youth Orchestra. Baldwin Auditorium. Free.
December 9Exhibition Opening of Kabul, Afghanistan. Panorama photographs by award-winning filmmaker James Longley, explores the Jada-e-Maiwand neighborhood of old Kabul, twenty years after the Afghanistan civil war. Power Plant Gallery. Free.
December 11Miró: Visul Poetry. Experience the later works of the artist during readings in English and Spanish of contemporary Spanish poetry. 5:30 PM, Nasher Museum, Same day exhibition ticket required for gallery entrance.
December 12Certificate in Documentary Arts Presentations & Graduation. Continuing education students present their final projects to the public in a special graduation ceremony. 6:30pm, Full Frame Theater, American Tobacco Campus. Free.
December 18Duke Chapel by Candlelight: Christmas Open House. Annual candlelight open house at Duke Chapel, featuring holiday music on all three Chapel organs and the carillon, plus carols sung by members of the Vespers choir. Christmas cookies, ginger bread, and hot spiced cider for the first 200 guests. Noon, Duke Chapel. Free.
December 20Sketching in the Galleries. Newly invigorated sketching program. All levels welcome! 10am, Nasher Museum. Free with admission.
December 24Christmas Eve Service of Lessons and Carols. Traditional service with a community choir conducted by Rodney Wynkoop. Rehearsals: 7pm, December 23, and 9pm, Christmas Eve (required). 11pm, Duke Chapel. Free.
December 28Sardana Demonstration. The sardana is a type of circle dance typical of Catalonia. Exhibition tour to follow. 1pm,
G. F. HANDEL
MESSIAHDuke Chapel Choir & Orchestra Pro Cantores present Duke University Chapel’s 81st Annual Performances of George Frederic Handel’s Messiah
DUKE CHAPEL · FRI, DEC 5, 7 :30PM
SAT, DEC 6, 2 :00PM · SUN, DEC 7, 3 :00PM
Rodney Wynkoop, Conductor$20 GA / $5 StudentsFree for Duke Students
