June 23, 2011 issue

T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

The Chronicle

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Merson to lead Duke’s global vision

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH YEAR, SUMMER ISSUE 6

WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM

NC wildfires prompt air quality alert

Will No. 1 go No. 1?

by Nicole Kyle

by Anna Koelsch THE CHRONICLE

THE CHRONICLE

Dr. Michael Merson, founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute, has been named the interim vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs— managing Duke around the world, from Durham to China.

Merson, also the vice chancellor for Duke-National University of SinMichael Merson gapore affairs, replaced Greg Jones, who stepped down from the position due to health concerns after serving for one year.

“My major goals of the office will be to interact with faculty across the University and with the leadership of each school and discuss how they can best grow their global academic programs,” Merson said.

“It’s a broad mandate, but it’s important to realize that it’s a mandate that spans all of the global activities on campus and internationally.”

Merson was chosen because of his wide background in global academic programs, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations.

“It would be very difficult to find

So much for easy breathing.

Durham residents found themselves walking in hazy, smog-like conditions early this week after southeasterly winds caused smoke from wildfires in eastern North Carolina to drift into the Triangle area. As of last night, the wildfire in Pender County had raged across more than 18,000 acres while another fire blazed through 1,300 acres in Bladen County.

“The main problem we had [Tuesday] was the surface wind right at the ground level coming from the southeast,” said Phil Badgett, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Raleigh. “It was the perfect trajectory for the smoke to come from Pender County to our area—almost directly up the I-40.

The wind flow was just perfect, or I guess you could say the worst case scenario.”

Officials from the North Carolina Division of Air Quality and the National Weather Service issued a Code Red alert late Tuesday morning and a Code Orange alert Wednesday. According to the state Division of Air Quality’s scale, the Code Red warning means that the concentration of particulates in the air is at a dangerously high level, posing potential health risks for

COURTNEY DOUGLAS/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

At the NBA Draft tonight in New Jersey, former Duke point guard Kyrie Irving is projected to be picked first, which would make him the third Blue Devil in history to be the No. 1 pick, after Art Heyman and Elton Brand.

SEE MERSON ON PAGE 5

SEE WILDFIRES ON PAGE 4

State budget passes, Graduate School to expand career services cuts education funding

by Lauren Carroll THE CHRONICLE

In response to students’ growing need for broad career options, the Graduate School is expanding its professional development services.

A Graduate School “task force”— chaired by Jo Rae Wright, dean and vice provost of the Graduate School, and Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta—is in the process of developing an initiative to coordinate and enhance career services for graduate students. The need for a reformed system comes from an desire to apply Ph.D.s to careers outside of research and professorships, Moneta said.

“The number of Ph.D. [students] who are looking for careers outside of

traditional academia is growing,” he said. “For whom there is not a clear path, faculty might not be the best to know where you take their degree into an industry… but there are alternate ways a degree can be applied.”

Moneta acknowledged the effect of the 2008 economic crisis on the job market—particularly for University faculty positions—but attributed students’ desires to broaden their career options to a changing world with a growing need for Ph.D.s outside of the university setting.

He added that graduates might work in multiple professions, and a Duke Ph.D. should prepare them “more than adequately” for every position—but noted SEE CAREER CENTER ON PAGE 12

by Yeshwanth Kandimalla THE CHRONICLE

The North Carolina budget has generated controversy as the legislature aims to reduce government spending while cutting funding for education.

The $19.7 billion state budget—effective July 1—was passed June 15, when the General Assembly overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s June 12 veto. The two-year budget reduces government expenditures but in doing so has reduced funding for textbooks and supplies, janitorial, clerical and administrative staff as well as cut funding to public higher education.

The budget currently allocates $10.99 billion to public schools, including state and community colleges and universities.

This is $248 million less than the amount

Perdue suggested in her February budget proposal.

With her veto in early June, Perdue wrote in an accompanying statement that the budget would cause generational damage in North Carolina based on the cuts to education spending and other programs.

“For the first time, we have a legislature that is turning its back on our schools, our children, our longstanding investments on education and our future economic prospects,” she said.

According to the state budget, local school districts must—at their discretion— save $124 million. The University of North Carolina system is also required to make discretionary cuts totaling $414 million.

SEE BUDGET ON PAGE 6

ONTHERECORD

New initiative helps kids learn to program, Page 3

“Actually, anyone can be called a slut, regardless of how they dress.... So I’m sure that to someone out there, I’m a slut.”

—Indu Ramesh in “We’re all sluts.” See column page 11

Finding items can be tougher when stressed, Page 3

2 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

worldandnation schedule...

“Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser” Nasher Museum,Thurs. 7-8:40p.m.

Part of the “Summer Days, Nasher Nights” series, this film is about the life of Monk, a jazz pianist.

on the

Public Stargazing Duke Teaching Observatory Duke Forest, Fri. 6-8p.m.

Observe the sky through modern 10” telescopes, guidedby Duke physicists

9370

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American Dance Festival Community Day Nasher Museum, 2-3p.m.

Come join the ADF as we celebrate our North Carolina audiences at Community Day.

web

“I was offered drugs three times during my first walk down Hastings. Homeless men with unkempt beards would ask me for cigarettes and then rescue used butts from the sidewalk, hoping that they might have some tobacco left in them. This was Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, today was May 10, and this was my first day volunteering at Insite.”

— From The Chronicle’s News Blog news.chronicleblogs.com

CAROL GUZY/THE WASHINGTON POST

“Eighteen [veterans] commit suicide every day in this country and one animal is put to sleep every eight seconds. They can help save each other,” says David Sharpe, founder of Pets to Vets. Sharpe launched P2V.org (Pets to Vets), a nonprofit group that seeks to link service members and first responders with shelter animals and to help them with related expenses and training.

“

FRIDAY:

TODAY:

Fitness—if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body.

— Cher

”

TODAY IN HISTORY 1989:“Batman” released.

SEC tightens reins on hedge Central America asks US funds, creates requirements for help with drug cartels WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hedge funds are about to become a bit less mysterious.

Many will have to make limited disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission and answer to its regulators under rules the agency adopted Wednesday.

The SEC was acting at the behest of Congress and President Barack Obama, who last year demanded greater oversight in legislation responding to the financial crisis.

The new requirements “will fill a key gap in the regulatory landscape,” SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said.

The funds won’t have to bare their innermost secrets. But they will have to publicly disclose general information about their size and ownership, and who is auditing their books, among other matters. To spotlight practices that might harm investors, the SEC said, the funds will have to reveal potential conflicts of interest, such as whether they pay anyone to send them clients.

off the

wire...

GUATEMALA CITY — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised Wednesday that the U.S. government would spend nearly $300 million this year helping governments in Central America confront the mafias that smuggle cocaine to American consumers.

“The United States will back you,” she said at a regional summit here. “We know demand for drugs rests mostly in my own country.”

On a visit to El Salvador in March, President Barack Obama said the United States would give $200 million to fight the street gangs and drug traffickers.

The increase announced by Clinton represents repackaging of money dedicated to other programs as well as heightened concern among U.S. officials that the fragile democracies of Central America are struggling with surging criminality.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011 | 3

Anxiety can impair ability ‘Alice’ project to introduce to find objects, study shows children to computer science

by Melissa Dalis THE CHRONICLE

Lost and found isn’t so straightforward anymore.

Anxiety and high-pressure environments specifically hinder one’s ability to find a second item in a dual-target visual search, according to a recent Duke study published in Psychological Science June 13. This research has drawn the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, which has requested that the researchers look at how anxiety affects baggage screeners in security checkpoints at the RaleighDurham International Airport.

A visual search is defined as the process of using one’s vision to look for an object, such as a pen on a desk or a weapon in a

baggage screening, said Matthew Cain, a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive neuroscience and a researcher in this study.

“The most exciting thing to me scientifically was seeing how we could affect performance simply by changing someone’s anxiety level,” Cain said. “We could change someone’s performance in a task just by making a suggestion to them, and that was enough to have people perform differently on what were otherwise identical conditions.”

Scientists had previously known about the “satisfaction of search” phenomenon, Cain said. This idea refers to how finding a second target is more difficult SEE ANXIETY ON PAGE 12

TED KNUDSEN/THE CHRONICLE

A Duke study has shown that high levels of anxiety can impair our ability to detect a secondary object in a field after locating a primary object. For example, once you find the mouse in the photo, try finding the BlackBerry.

by Ashley Mooney THE CHRONICLE

Kids have found a new wonderland—not in Disney movies, but in the world of computer programming.

The Adventures in Alice Programming project strives to expose students to computer science by introducing a user-friendly programming language. The project was initially funded by the National Science Foundation and ran in six regions—Durham, N.C.; Virginia Beach, Va.; San Jose, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Charleston, S.C.; and Oxford, Miss.— from 2006 to 2009. Beginning this month through June 2016, Duke received a continuing grant of $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation to introduce Alice in classrooms throughout N.C., S.C. and Miss.

“The [purpose of the] project is to try and integrate computer science into K-12,” said Susan Rodger, professor of the practice in Duke’s computer science department and regional leader of the project. “Computer science is not really in K-12 and a lot of students aren’t really choosing it as a major when they come to college.”

Alice is a 3-D programming language that allows students to create programs visually.

The drag-and-drop steps are then translated into a production-oriented programming language, such as Java or C++, allowing students to animate stories and games.

Rodger noted that Alice is “set up for beginners to make it easier for them. You put these [3-D] objects in there, you make them interact [and] you tell a story.”

Because of its storytelling components, Alice is also a great way to get more girls in-

volved in the predominantly male-dominated field of computer science, Rodger said.

She added that her main targets are middle school students.

“Studies have shown that [middle school is] a place where students are thinking about what careers they’re looking for,” Rodger said. “I’m hoping that by exposing them to programming, they might possibly choose it as a course in high school or college.”

Since 2008, Rodger said, the Alice team has trained more than 120 teachers. Every summer the team runs workshops for K-12 teachers. During the workshops, participants learn how to use Alice, as well as how to integrate the program into their classes. Followup workshops are also offered so teachers can share their experiences using Alice. This year the workshops will be held in June and July.

Students involved with Alice said they are excited to begin working on the project.

“I look forward to helping out at the workshops and more importantly, I want to ask the teachers for their opinions on future projects,” said Chitra Gadwal, a computer science major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a member of Rodger’s student team. “I want to know what math topics are hardest for them to teach and what topics are hard for students to understand.”

Peggy Li, a sophomore at Duke and member of Rodger’s team, shares Gadwal’s sentiments.

Li said she hopes that Alice will “foster a greater appreciation for both computer programming and education,” as well as demonstrating how computer science is integrated into other fields.

4 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

Afghan ‘surge’ troops will return by 2012, Obama says

by Scott Wilson THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama charted a middle course Wednesday for ending the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, outlining a departure plan that will remove troops faster than his commanders had requested but more slowly than many of his political allies would like.

In a prime-time address from the White House, Obama said he will bring home 10,000 U.S. troops by the end of the year and 23,000 more by summer 2012, a withdrawal window that will conclude two months before voters decide whether to give him a second term. The first troops will leave Afghanistan next month.

“Tonight,” the president said from the East Room, “we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.”

In contrast to his 2009 decision to send additional forces to Afghanistan, Obama appeared to give greater weight this time to the growing impatience of a war-weary public and a skeptical Congress, whose members have been demanding a rapid drawdown and a narrower mission after nearly a decade of battle.

Obama was a relatively new commander in chief when he authorized the troop “surge” 18 months ago. Today he is a candidate for re-election at the head of a party deeply opposed to the war, and he emphasized his push to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq to “reclaim the American dream that is at the center of our story.”

“Over the last decade, we have spent $1 trillion on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times,” he said in a 13-minute address that sounded at times like a campaign speech.

“America, it is time to focus on nationbuilding here at home.”

Obama's decision drew a measured response from Capitol Hill, where some Democrats indicated that they will continue to pressure the president for a faster withdrawal.

In a statement, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called the plan a “positive development, although in my view the conditions on the ground justify an even larger drawdown of U.S. troops.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a statement that he is “concerned that the withdrawal plan that President Obama announced tonight poses an unnecessary risk to the hard-won gains that our troops have made thus far in Afghanistan and to the decisive progress that must still be made.”

He added: “This is not the ‘modest’ withdrawal that I and others had hoped for and advocated.”

Obama's plan will also influence U.S. allies in Afghanistan, which now supply about 40,000 troops—about 30 percent of the international forces there. Some European leaders there are as eager as Obama to end their expensive and politically unpopular

WILDFIRES from page 1 anyone breathing in the air, while Code Orange implies that only certain groups of people are subject to risk.

Badgett noted that the smoke particulates and their effects were worse in Raleigh than in Durham, though added that this is the first air quality Code Red to be issued in nearly two years.

Particle pollution can have detrimental effects on people who spend a significant amount of time outdoors, especially those working or exercising, said Tom Mather, a spokesperson for the state Division of Air Quality. The concern, Mather added, is that the particulates are inhaled and then absorbed into a person’s bloodstream, potentially causing a sore or scratchy throat, watery eyes and coughing. Those with asthma or another respiratory condition are at a heightened risk for asthma attacks or shortness of breath. Elevated particulate levels have also been proven to pose a hazard for people with heart problems.

Mather said the smoke from the wildfires coming down into the Triangle greatly exceeded a normal particulate count. Durham’s air quality measured at 111 micrograms per cubic meter Tuesday. According to the Division of Air Quality’s website, the standard is 35 micrograms per cubic meter.

The Occupational and Environmental Safety Office issued an alert to various departments at Duke, such as Facilities and

Maintenance, who often work outside, said OESO Director Wayne Thomann.

“The individual departments manage it, and they have the responsibility of accommodating employees,” Thomann said.

He added that he had not received specific concerns from managers about the conditions Tuesday.

The wildfire in the Holly Shelter Game Land area in Pender began Saturday with a strike of lightning, which set fire to the dried-out swamp area, said Reid Hawkins, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

The Wilmington branch was the first to issue forecasts on the wildfires.

Hawkins added that forest conditions have been particularly dry this summer due to a shortage in rainfall. The region has only seen 55 percent of otherwise expected rainfall during the past six months and has received approximately a half-inch of rain in the last month.

North Carolina does have a history of wildfires, most notably a large fire in the 1980s, which also occurred in the Pender area, Hawkins said.

He added that the wildfires in Pender and Bladen County are still burning, and the weather service is hoping for rain.

“I don’t know when they’ll get them down, but we’re going to need some significant rain, or they’re going to have to break them down some other way,” he said. “There’s somewhat of a chance of rain on Thursday into Friday, but doesn’t look like it may be significant enough to break them down.”

SEE TROOPS ON PAGE 6

COURTESY OF BRAD COVILLE

Wildfires have blazed thousands of acres across Pender and Bladen counties since Saturday.

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THE CHRONICLE

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011 | 5

MERSON from page 1 somebody who had such a broad and deep background in global education,” Schoenfeld said, noting that Merson created the global health institute at Yale University as well as the DGHI. “His entire career has been spent in global health and global education.”

Nora Bynum, director of global strategy in the Office of Global Strategy and Programs, said Merson’s extensive global experience makes him a natural fit for the position. She added that the office has worked closely with the DGHI over the past year.

“I expect Mike [Merson] and our team will make a smooth transition to this new structure,” Bynum said.

Merson’s appointment comes at a time when Duke has partnerships and agreements with more than 300 institutes worldwide, and 48 percent of Duke undergraduates study abroad.

“When we think of Duke globally, we really mean that,” Merson said. “We’ll be resourcing faculty who want to work

internationally and help develop programs on campus that have international flavor.”

Merson said he does not believe his work at the Global Health Institute or at Duke-National University of Singapore will interfere with his new appointment, praising the strength of the staff that Greg Jones assembled and the significance of his work while he held the position.

The work that accompanies his new position is similar to the work he does as director of the DGHI, Merson said. The position will entail communicating with deans and faculty, and leading discussions about how the University should be growing its academic programs.

Bynum said she expects the biggest upcoming challenge for the office as Merson begins his interim position to be the successful implementation of Duke’s partnerships with the city of Kunshan and Wuhan University.

Merson said his work with Kunshan will encourage more discussions about Duke Kunshan University, which he said has recently been taking place at the Fuqua School of Business over which degree programs to host at DKU.

“We should be discussing this among ourselves, whether it Kunshan or anywhere in the globe or whether it’s Fuqua or anywhere else,” Merson said. “It’s a healthy approach.

It’s what we should be doing as faculty.”

Merson emphasized the array of options that Kunshan will offer, such as undergraduate offerings, a master’s program in global health and research programs.

Jones will be missed by the office, Bynum said, emphasizing his strong leadership skills while he served as vice president and vice provost.

“Greg [Jones] has been instrumental in moving Duke’s global work forward over the past year,” she said. “[He] was able to strengthen and deepen our partnerships in many parts of the world, while working to increase cooperation and cohesion across Duke’s schools and units engaged in global work.”

Schoenfeld said the University will begin searching for a permanent vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs in the Fall, adding that the search will vet candidates from within the University, as well as nationally and internationally.

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6 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

BUDGET from page 1 Although the budget favors spending reduction over tax increases, it only differs from Perdue’s proposal by 2 percent in total expenditures, Rep. Ric Killian, R-Mecklenburg, wrote in an email Wednesday.

“Moreover, this budget only reduced spending by 4 percent year over year,” Killian added. “In the end, every legislature proposes a budget for the biennium, so this really is just a two-year perspective.”

Killian also noted that changes to education funding should be framed within a larger context.

“You have to think about whether you agree that spending correlates with performance,” he said. “If you look globally, you will find that the U.S. spends near the top tier but performs in the middle tier.”

Durham Public Schools must also prepare to make some personnel cuts this year due to the mandated cutbacks, said Paul LeSieur, executive director of budget management services. In the past, the school district has deferred to personnel cuts over eliminating larger programs.

“The reasoning is you can give up more dollars that way

TROOPS from page 4 commitments to the Afghan war effort.

Whether Obama's drawdown schedule will prompt others to speed their own withdrawal plans remains to be seen. But hours before Obama delivered his address, he called several European allies, as well as Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, to brief them on his decision.

Obama's plan covers the withdrawal of the 33,000 forces that he ordered to Afghanistan at the end of 2009, when he also set July 2011 as the date they would begin coming home.

That decision, largely consistent with the request of his military commanders, followed a months-long strategy review designed to correct the downward course of a conflict that Obama as a candidate called “the war we need to win.”

The pullout schedule he outlined Wednesday will leave

THE CHRONICLE

in a quicker fell swoop rather than eliminating your programs,” LeSieur said.

Last year, DPS offset state-mandated cuts with funds from local revenue and the federal economic recovery package, he added. The lack of stimulus funds this year may present a challenge for school officials, as he noted that DPS will likely eliminate the positions of 32 “academic coaches.” These coaches were placed into DPS in order to improve student education and better coordinate instruction. The program was created with funds from the federal stimulus package but will likely be cut as it can no longer be sustained with the schools’ reduced funding.

And though the debate about the budget has largely focused on the impact of public education, terms of the budget also make North Carolina the third state in the nation to defund Planned Parenthood.

The provision to eliminate all $434,000 of state government funding for Planned Parenthood, said Melissa Reed, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood. The amount cut covers 4 percent of Planned Parenthood’s expenditures, though Reed noted that the reduction will still impact the program.

“The State Health Department is unable to meet the

primary care needs of all the uninsured and under-insured and rely on Planned Parenthood to provide health services,” she said. “As a result of these cuts, the wait times and quality of care for these individuals will decline.”

Reed added that the provision was approved among a straight party-line vote, noting that Planned Parenthood is considering pursuing legal action.

68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of next summer, and Obama said their departure will continue steadily through 2014, when the Afghan army is scheduled to take over security.

Obama's military commanders had requested that the bulk of the surge forces remain in Afghanistan through the end of next year, giving them another full fighting season at nearly current strength in addition to the one under way.

In the past week, the president met three times with his national security team, sessions that included Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Afghanistan whom he has nominated to head the CIA. Petraeus presented Obama with a range of withdrawal proposals—some, administration officials acknowledged, that would keep the surge forces in Afghanistan far longer than Obama had envisioned. But the adopted plan, those officials said, has the military's support.

“The president's decision was fully within the range of

options presented to him,” said one senior administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the plan.

Military officers had sought the additional time with the surge forces to consolidate battlefield gains that remain, in their assessment, “fragile and reversible.”

They also argued that maintaining pressure on the battlefield would benefit U.S. efforts to broker a reconciliation between Karzai, an unpredictable ally, and the Taliban, which the administration has determined cannot be eliminated as a political force.

But administration officials said Wednesday that the surge has already done its job by bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

“Thanks to the pressure delivered by the surge, we're in active support of Afghan initiatives to reach out to the Taliban and explore what might be possible by way of a political settlement,” said a second administration official.

“And there are openings today that simply didn't exist 18 months ago.”

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Sports The Chronicle

ONLINE

THURSDAY June 23, 2011

The Chronicle is in Newark, N.J., for the NBA Draft!

Check the Blue Zone for breaking news all day long about Irving, Singler and Smith.

www.dukechroniclesports.com

WHO’S NUMBER ONE?

Chronicle Graphic by Chris Dall

by Tom Gieryn THE CHRONICLE

Meet a reporter.

You need not know his name, because he does not know Kyrie Irving’s name.

“KEER-ee,” the question begins, and the smile fades from Irving’s face as he fixed his gaze on the reporter.

“It’s KI-ree,” Irving says, pointedly.

The reporter chuckles nervously and fumbles for an excuse.

Irving has already moved on: “What was the question?”

The reporter repeats, taking care to pronounce the name correctly. Irving answers without hesitation, as if the whole incident hadn’t happened.

But the point is clear: Kyrie Irving is a man who knows what he wants. Wednesday, he wanted his name pronounced correctly.

Thursday, he wants to be the first overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, which takes place at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. In purs uit of that goal, Irving has worked out privately for only one team—the Cleveland Cavaliers, holders of that first pick.

In a broader sense, he wants to play in the NBA, and has wanted that for some time now.

“In fourth grade, I wrote in my closet that I was going to make it to the NBA,” Irving said, “and I put ‘promise’ and I underlined it three times….On the sheetrock.”

One of the final steps in fulfilling

that promise was to choose a college. He chose Duke, but not without the ultimate goal of the NBA in mind. He agreed to play for head coach Mike Krzyzewski, but made it clear to Krzyzewski that he intended to stay at Duke no more than two years.

“Coach [Krzyzewski] knew how talented I was,” Irving said, “and my father knew how talented I was, and we just had to face the reality that I wasn’t going to be in college that long. So when I did commit, Coach said he was going to have me for one or two years.”

Expectations were high for him at Duke, and he met, if not exceeded, all of them. Through his first eight games, he averaged 17.4 points, including a 31-point outburst against then-No. 6 Michigan State. He then suffered an unusual toe injury and missed the next 26 games. After several weeks in a cast, another month of rehab, and wearing a special shoe made for him by Nike, he was cleared to play in the NCAA tournament.

NBA scouts had seen the talent, but were uncertain about his durability, and Kyrie said he “wanted to limit all those questions on [his] health.”

“Once I got cleared to play, they left it up to me to decide to play, and I was all for it,” he said. “I wanted to get back out there with my teammates.”

He used the tournament just as he said he would, to prove the doubters wrong, and after playing well in limited

action in the postseason his spot in the NBA lottery was assured. Though he hinted many times that he might return for his sophomore season, he wouldn’t pass up his NBA dreams for another year as a Blue Devil.

“I talked to the coaching staff almost every single day about my decision, just weighing out both sides,” Irving said. They weren’t leaning me either way. They just told me if you’re going to decide to go to

“We just had to face the reality that I wasn’t going to be in college that long. So when I did commit, Coach said he was going to have me for one or two years.”

— Kyrie Irving the NBA, you can’t have any doubts. Which I don’t. You’ve got to go in full force, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Meet Derrick Williams.

Williams is one of a few players that the Cavaliers are reportedly considering with their first pick, and the former Uni-

versity of Arizona forward will be one of the top picks even if Cleveland doesn’t select him first.

Duke remembers him well from last season, when he dropped 32 points and pulled down 13 rebounds as his Wildcats ousted the Blue Devils from the NCAA tournament. Williams doesn’t lack for confidence—in fact, he’s been described as one of the most confident players in this year’s draft—but he exudes it in a quiet way. He’s unassuming despite his 6’8” frame, and refreshingly self-effacing. When asked how his monster performance against Duke helped his draft stock, he reminds the collected media crowd what a good game Irving had that day, even recalling Irving’s point total from the game.

“I think it really raised my stock a lot,” he said. “A lot of people said I was top ten, and after that game, I moved into the top three. But a lot of people forget what Kyrie did in that game.

Twenty-eight points…. I think whenever you come off an injury like that, and you play so well, you have to be in the talks of the number one pick.”

Irving, though seven inches shorter and far slighter of frame, carries his confidence differently, with a showmanship that instantly draws the spotlight. He’s an instinctive entertainer, effortlessly keeping his listeners engaged while clearly SEE IRVING ON PAGE 8

8 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

IRVING from page 7 enjoying the attention being lavished upon him. The sea of reporters gathered in a ballroom at the Westin Times Square parts for Irving to pass through, in a crisp white shirt and gray slacks. The other players sport plus-size dress shoes, but Irving has eschewed formal footwear for a pair of Converses. The first question of the interview session comes from Irving himself: “How long is this?”

Meet Gerial Gonzalez.

Gonzalez is soon to turn 21 years old, but he’s still enrolled in a Manhattan high school due to a learning disability. One of the assistants with Special Olympics New York describes him as a “huge teddy bear,” and he looks the part, with a pudgy frame and a lively, sincere grin. He’s a participant at the NBA Cares outreach clinic where Irving and several other top draft prospects are giving instruction to Special Olympics New York athletes.

In between drills, Irving poses with former BYU star Jimmer Fredette as dozens of cameras click. It wouldn’t be difficult for these players to write the event off as a press stunt—there are almost as many media members in the gym as there are attendees of the clinic—but neither player is interested in participating halfheartedly.

When the prospects lead their charges in high-knee exercises, some of the other players are barely doing more than jogging. But there’s Irving: shoulders back, arms pumping, knees rising all the way up to hip level with each repetition.

While the 19-year-old Irving participates in each drill, 22-year-old Fredette leads them. The two have starkly constrasting personas; Irving’s palpable charisma is complemented perfectly by Fredette’s impressive maturity. Despite the dozen or so prospects in attendance, few in the media can look away from the unlikely duo.

Irving now stands at one end of the court to lead some of the participants in ball-handling drills. As Gonzalez bounces the ball frenziedly out and around a cone, Irving cheers for him.

“Fastbreak, baby, fastbreak!” Irving shouts. “You’re Charles Barkley!”

But that’s not enough for him. To those attendees who seem more comfortable than Gonzalez with a basketball, Irving playfully steps up and begins playing defense.

He pokes the ball away from another young camper.

“Do I make you nervous?” he asks. The kid would respond, if he could only stop smiling long enough.

Meet LeBron James.

You know LeBron James. Irving names James as one of his top mentors, and at one time Irving was the only college player that James followed on Twitter.

Since the NBA’s most recognizable face unceremoniously left the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat last season, and now the Cavaliers might draft Irving, several reporters feel the need to ask how Irving will handle the expectations of replacing the King.

“I’m not the next LeBron,” he said. “My name is Kyrie Irving.”

And make sure you pronounce it correctly.

CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

Don’t forget about the seniors....

Where do experts predict Singler and Smith will land?

28th overall, Chicago Bulls

NBADraft.net

38th overall, Houston Rockets

24th overall, Oklahoma City Thunder

Draft Express

36th overall, New Jersey Nets

34th overall, Washington Wizards

HoopsWorld

38th overall, Houston Rockets

24th overall, Oklahoma City Thunder

Chad Ford, ESPN.com

41st overall, Los Angeles Lakers

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The Independent Daily at Duke University

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10 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Jones’ replacement must continue mission When Greg Jones became international presence. the vice president and vice First, the Office of Globprovost for the University’s al Strategy and Programs new Office of Global Strat- should increase its focus on egy and Programs, his pri- bringing Duke’s internationmary goal was to “facilitate a al relationships back to camnetwork of repus. Although ciprocal relathe University editorial tionships” with should be comDuke’s programs abroad. mended for bringing gifted After less than a year in the international students to position, it is far too soon to Durham, it may prove benefiassess Jones’ impact on the cial to increase the visibility office, though he was instru- of Duke’s many international mental in the development partnerships. of Duke Kunshan University Although maintaining and the implementation more than 300 educational of the University’s global partnerships internationstrategy. There are, how- ally is a full-time job in itever, several key factors to self, these relationships are consider as the University worth far less if students and launches a search this Fall faculty in Durham do not to find Jones’ permanent know that they exist. The ofreplacement and continues fice must be more present in to develop the office and its the daily lives of students by

“

No surprise here that Duke has world-class departments, and it is great to see the Math department be recognized.

—“observingduke” commenting on the story “Math department earns top 10 world ranking.”

See more at www.dukechronicle.com.

LETTERS POLICY The 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.

marketing the updates from international campuses and centers across different academic departments.

Study abroad programs are already well-publicized, and approximately 50 percent of undergraduates take advantage of those opportunities, representing the highest rate of participation of any top 10 private research university. As students go about making their decisions regarding where to study, however, Duke’s own campuses and partnerships are often not a major part of the conversation.

This point is especially relevant in talking about the new campus in Kunshan, China. Last year students and faculty alike were frustrated by the lack of transparency and

publicity related to the progress being made on the new campus. Without consistent, reliable information, those on campus cannot help but question the decisions being made for programs abroad.

As the day-to-day coordinator of the ongoing project, the Office of Global Strategy and Programs is best equipped to relay timely information from abroad back to campus.

The new appointee—Michael Merson, who will serve as interim vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs—should also consider the strained relationship between portions of the faculty and the Kunshan project. With growing unrest about the nature of DKU, now could be a unique opportunity to extend an

olive branch to those professors concerned with Duke’s future and brand abroad.

Hopefully, the recent decision by Fuqua faculty members to reject the proposed design of two Kunshan graduate business programs will not widen the rift between the administration and faculty but instead highlight the necessity of having more open discussion about the academic programs in China.

We commend Merson for making it a priority this summer to meet with Fuqua faculty members and professors to construct program proposals for Kunshan. We also hope that he considers some of the other factors presented above as the University searches for a more permanent director.

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Linguistic discrimination remains the longstanding policy of our beloved Chronicle’s opinion section—blessed art thou among college publications.

Why, for example, should I be forbidden from using “foreign words” despite specificity or particular connection simply because these words bring forth the uncomfortable but increasingly realized fact of monolingual ignorance?

Despite North josh brewer Carolina’s linguistic durham calling intimidation (English was named the official language of N.C. after 1987), Durham’s linguistic diversity continues to rise. Particularly, those individuals identifying as Latino or Latina continue to shape Durham and add to its intellectualism through, and often beyond, bilingualism (13.5 percent of Durham County responders to the 2010 Census identified as Hispanic, Latino or Latina, and 17.6 percent noted that a language other than English was spoken at home).

These days it is fashionable and usually correct to not only oppose structure but be beyond it. Even though “science” lends its weight in debunking that silly thing we call race or ethnicity, the conversation around gender and language remains somewhat persnickety. Approaching the two similarly, I must begin with a concession: Language, like a biological gender demarcation, exists first and foremost in and of linguistic historicism. Etymologists abound, the nurturing of words of our pet origins might fulfill desires that we are not yet ready to admit. The traditional and usually inefficient method confronts students with an “English-free zone,” dedicated to absolute frustration.

Now, as we move beyond language, I urge you to try something better: Move beyond the academy and into the places where language lives.

In the spirit of an evolved and applied Alfred Whitehead, I propose a spectral linguistic employment. Admittedly, I am neither a polyglot nor a linguistics student, but put down your torches and pitchforks and hear me out. Languages of some historical origins serve specific ends better than others (for example the European Sami People’s, not the Eskimos’, specificity for forms of frozen precipitation, the French academic tradition “ad nauseum,” etc). Further, it is no coincidence that wordsmiths from these primary traditions evolved in the particular manner that they did and that notable polyglots have flourished with uncanny verbosity and control. While I see the need for the mastery of language in linguistic segregation, employment should be judged on merit. If an English word pales beside Marx’s German, Foucault’s French or Salvador Allende’s (pre-9/11) Spanish, then why not ditch it for the latter despite operating in a primarily English syntactical and dictional landscape?

Step one involves admitting—hard as it might be—

our ignorance rather than spouting the excuse that places blame on the “other” language.

With the irrefutable facts that more educated people live among us, why must we continue to deny linguistic progression? Intellectual advice: I suggest you fall in love prior to getting in your first spat over the dishes or, translation, the real education exists beyond the classroom in the application of that information.

Since I am ignorant of a sizable chunk of Spanish and the entirety of almost every other language, I unfortunately must keep my anecdotes corralled to this end.

Further, because it is The Chronicle’s practice that articles are printed primarily in English, I will only describe the wonderful locations to the point where English becomes ineffective.

Growing up I fell in love with Spanish through the food that often accompanied my exposure. Latino Durham—in line with Durham’s phenomenal food reputation—flaunts The New York Times. Gourmet Magazine validated Super Taqueria and locally championed Los Comales. These “taquerias” serve phenomenal handmade corn tortillas alongside their individual specialties. The first touts the best “barbacoa de res” (slow-cooked beef) and “carnitas” (braisedthen-fried pork) that I have ever had. Likewise, Los Comales serves great tacos, “tortas” and pescatarian fare. With a cold “agua de jamaica”—dried roselle sepals boiled, sugared and chilled—and a side of avocado and black beans, these dishes redefine gustatory ecstasy and, if you add the hot sauce, with a kick.

Head over and try your Spanish out. Will they laugh at you? If your Spanish is as bad as mine, yes.

Will you have some of Durham’s best food? Without a doubt, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you might begin to connect with Durham’s growing Spanish-speaking community. Hopefully you will learn specific and appropriate Spanish culinary terms and import them into your vernacular. Beyond the food, connect with the larger Latino community through service programs and social events (Durham Latino Festival, August 6!) supported by Duke and, even better, organically by the Latino community itself. Beyond restaurants, festivals and service, using a variety of words and structures from another language should feel as natural as moving between coined popular music hooks and your “classroom voice.” The point is, just as there is a consciously chosen spectrum of diction and syntax for spoken English, the same should be true within the groups formerly known as languages.

Durham is your classroom, use it. I would have rather written more extensively about the places that I love in Durham and the people who I’ve met there but I (un)fortunately found the English language—in the strictest of interpretations—to be quite lacking in specificity and style.

Josh Brewer is a Trinity senior.

THE CHRONICLE

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Dorms: the new moral battleground Sure to be included in any discussion of college culture are the subjects of sex and drinking. As a college student, and a Duke student in particular, it seems almost every conversation about my identity is swallowed maggie lafalce up by statistics of hooking southern highlander up, binge drinking or the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. And why not? A story filled with tales of revelry is sure to get higher ratings than one full of books, and parents who fearfully tend to their empty nests prove a captive audience.

So it’s understandable that sex and its frequent antecedent, alcohol, often find themselves to be the focus of conversations about the morals of college students.

One of these very conversations was initiated by a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “Why We’re Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms.” Written by John Garvey, the president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the piece lays out the reasoning behind the university’s new policy that all dorms be converted from co-ed to single-sex residences. Garvey points to binge drinking and hooking up as the main reasons for the change. He derives his evidence solely from a Loyola Marymount study that links co-ed housing to a greater likelihood that students will binge drink and have one or more sexual partners.

Of course, the average student who elects to live in single-sex housing probably has different views on sex and drinking than one chooses a co-ed dorm, but I digress.

Garvey’s argument has bigger problems.

His purpose, at least, is clear: to reduce the amount of casual sex and binge drinking in college. But his method of eradicating these student behaviors is ill conceived. Garvey misinterprets the correlative data from a single study as definitive cause. After coming to the simplistic conclusion that students drink and have sex just because they live near members of the opposite sex, Garvey engineered an equally simplistic solution— separate the boys from the girls. I can’t help but wonder if he was inspired by an elementary school lunchroom, where there’s definitely no sex or boozing, and the boys and girls sit at different tables. His logic seems to be that if you make it more difficult for the students to have sex (by making them go through the arduous task of walking to another dorm), then students will be less inclined to have sex in general.

If this line of reasoning actually held true, I’d be less

scared about the sex students were or were not having and more worried about the fact that students seem too lazy to walk from dorm to dorm.

On binge drinking, Garvey expresses disappointment that women don’t have a “civilizing influence” on men’s drinking habits in co-ed dorms. He proverbially shakes his head at all the college women out there who are “trying to keep up” with a drinking pace set by men. Garvey’s tone implies a greater disappointment in college women for not “civilizing” the men than he does in the men, who by Garvey’s own acknowledgement, seem to consciously blur the lines of sexual consent with booze.

Overall, Garvey’s whole argument has an eerie womenneed-our-protection vibe to it that feels like a page of a dusty old gender policy book from the 1950s.

Garvey’s policy is almost certain to be impotent in the face of the problem he hopes to solve. I think he means well. He wants to see women and men make safer and healthier choices in college, and I think we can all agree that preventative measures should be taken to reduce sexual assaults, rapes and alcohol-related injuries and deaths on college campuses. The solution should include increased awareness of the signs of sexual assault and the symptoms of alcohol poisoning, administrative support of rape victims and the development of a campus culture that encourages safer behavior. The solution shouldn’t be an administration that imposes its own moral framework on the student body.

Removing the individual from an inherently personal ethical decision, such as sex or drinking, is counterintuitive to the goal of cultivating virtue in a student body. In fact, the single-sex dorm solution undermines Garvey’s lofty description of virtue, as it assumes virtue can be changed with a simple change of surroundings.

If college is truly a time of independence, then the ethical dilemmas inevitably encountered in a college environment should be solved by the students, not the administration. If we want to see students making healthier, safer decisions, we cannot begin by robbing the individual of the autonomy of his or her own choice. Instead, universities should try to empower students to make the decisions that are right for them by providing the (appropriately) frightening statistics on alcohol poisoning and sexual assault. Informing college students, not infantilizing them, is the right way of encouraging smart decisions.

Maggie LaFalce is a Trinity junior.

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011 | 11

We’re all sluts I have a confession to make: I’m a slut. Or a skank, or a whore—however you’d like to put it.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure what the term “slut” means any more. From my understanding, slut is generindu ramesh ally used as an insult to somehookedoninformation one who appears to have loose sexual morals. Yet I’ve heard many girls called sluts—some who frequent clubs and have an active sex life, and some who don’t do either. Actually, anyone can be called a slut, regardless of how they dress, regardless of their level of sexual activity. So I’m sure that to someone out there, I’m a slut.

The idea of perception plays a big part here. Slut is a term that operates on others’ perceptions of someone’s promiscuity, rather than reality. Moreover, slut-shaming, by women and men alike, can be incredibly hurtful. A 15-year-old girl named Phoebe Prince was bullied to such an extent by a group of students—she was called an “Irish whore,” among other things— that she ultimately hung herself in 2010. While tragedies like this are not the norm, they reveal a disturbing truth about our society: Apparently, if a woman acts promiscuously or has an active sex life, she should feel guilty or inferior, like she’s doing something wrong. Furthermore, to some, slut-shaming could provide justification for rape.

On January 24, 2011, Constable Michael Sanguinetti spoke at York University in a safety forum addressing the topic of crime prevention. During the discussion, he made the suggestion that in order to avoid rape, women should “avoid dressing like sluts.”

In protest, the SlutWalk movement was formed. The first SlutWalk took place on April 3, 2011, in Toronto, Canada, where more than 1,000 people gathered in Queen’s Park, for a march to the Toronto Police Headquarters. The participants were mainly young women, dressed in both ordinary and provocative clothing. The event was so successful that it has spread everywhere from Seattle to Chicago to Brazil to Australia to Scotland. There are more SlutWalks scheduled later this month in New Delhi, India; Auckland, New Zealand; and Morelia, Mexico.

Jessica Valenti, author of “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women” and founder of the Feministing blog, described these SlutWalkers as, perhaps, “the future of feminism.” In a June 3 column in The Washington Post, Valenti said SlutWalkers are changing the face of feminism by “generating excitement, translating their anger into action and trying to change our supposedly respectable society into one that truly respects men, women and yes, even ‘sluts.’”

SlutWalks emphasize an important, relevant point: It is simply not justifiable to use any aspect of a woman’s appearance to explain or excuse rape.

Still, the movement has been criticized in its efforts reclaim the word slut. For activist Harsha Walia, the term’s racist implications are not to be ignored; as she points out, “I personally don’t feel the whole ‘reclaim slut’ thing. I find that the term disproportionately impacts women of color and poor women to reinforce their status as inherently dirty and second-class.” For Gail Dines, an anti-pornography activist, the celebration of the word slut embraces a problematic “pornified consumer sexuality.”

Luckily enough, our society has provided ways to deem the term slut a little less hurtful. Many of us use the term in jest, in a context where it’s not an insult. For one, I’m prone to calling my friends, male or female, “slut toboggan” and “skankmuffin” (obnoxiously so), only because of the sheer absurdity of combining a potentially derogatory term with a pastry or mode of transportation in order to conceive a nickname neither derogatory or food-and-transportation related—one of affection. When I emphatically declare that “I’m wearing something slutty to Shooters tonight!” I’m not trying to be politically incorrect—I’m just being silly. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a slutty outfit to Shooters.

The slut label applies to every facet of our lives—how we think, drink, walk, talk. In some context or the other, every woman fulfills the slut label—whether we have active and fulfilling sex lives, wear tight miniskirts, tell dirty jokes, dance suggestively or voice our opinions. More importantly, there’s nothing wrong with any of these. If SlutWalks are capitalizing on the universality of the term slut in order to fight a victim-blaming rape culture, it definitely encourages us to lessen the power of the word, whether through silliness, humor or marching— scantily or ordinarily clad—in a SlutWalk. If we know we’re all sluts, it sure makes it easier to fulfill Valenti’s vision of a society that respects all women, men and even sluts—it puts us all on equal footing. After all, isn’t the best way to effect social change to change the way we think about ourselves?

Indu Ramesh is a Trinity junior.

THE CHRONICLE

commentaries

Dorms: the new moral battleground Sure to be included in any discussion of college culture are the subjects of sex and drinking. As a college student, and a Duke student in particular, it seems almost every conversation about my identity is swallowed maggie lafalce up by statistics of hooking southern highlander up, binge drinking or the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. And why not? A story filled with tales of revelry is sure to get higher ratings than one full of books, and parents who fearfully tend to their empty nests prove a captive audience.

So it’s understandable that sex and its frequent antecedent, alcohol, often find themselves to be the focus of conversations about the morals of college students.

One of these very conversations was initiated by a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “Why We’re Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms.” Written by John Garvey, the president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the piece lays out the reasoning behind the university’s new policy that all dorms be converted from co-ed to single-sex residences. Garvey points to binge drinking and hooking up as the main reasons for the change. He derives his evidence solely from a Loyola Marymount study that links co-ed housing to a greater likelihood that students will binge drink and have one or more sexual partners.

Of course, the average student who elects to live in single-sex housing probably has different views on sex and drinking than one chooses a co-ed dorm, but I digress.

Garvey’s argument has bigger problems.

His purpose, at least, is clear: to reduce the amount of casual sex and binge drinking in college. But his method of eradicating these student behaviors is ill conceived. Garvey misinterprets the correlative data from a single study as definitive cause. After coming to the simplistic conclusion that students drink and have sex just because they live near members of the opposite sex, Garvey engineered an equally simplistic solution— separate the boys from the girls. I can’t help but wonder if he was inspired by an elementary school lunchroom, where there’s definitely no sex or boozing, and the boys and girls sit at different tables. His logic seems to be that if you make it more difficult for the students to have sex (by making them go through the arduous task of walking to another dorm), then students will be less inclined to have sex in general.

If this line of reasoning actually held true, I’d be less

scared about the sex students were or were not having and more worried about the fact that students seem too lazy to walk from dorm to dorm.

On binge drinking, Garvey expresses disappointment that women don’t have a “civilizing influence” on men’s drinking habits in co-ed dorms. He proverbially shakes his head at all the college women out there who are “trying to keep up” with a drinking pace set by men. Garvey’s tone implies a greater disappointment in college women for not “civilizing” the men than he does in the men, who by Garvey’s own acknowledgement, seem to consciously blur the lines of sexual consent with booze.

Overall, Garvey’s whole argument has an eerie womenneed-our-protection vibe to it that feels like a page of a dusty old gender policy book from the 1950s.

Garvey’s policy is almost certain to be impotent in the face of the problem he hopes to solve. I think he means well. He wants to see women and men make safer and healthier choices in college, and I think we can all agree that preventative measures should be taken to reduce sexual assaults, rapes and alcohol-related injuries and deaths on college campuses. The solution should include increased awareness of the signs of sexual assault and the symptoms of alcohol poisoning, administrative support of rape victims and the development of a campus culture that encourages safer behavior. The solution shouldn’t be an administration that imposes its own moral framework on the student body.

Removing the individual from an inherently personal ethical decision, such as sex or drinking, is counterintuitive to the goal of cultivating virtue in a student body. In fact, the single-sex dorm solution undermines Garvey’s lofty description of virtue, as it assumes virtue can be changed with a simple change of surroundings.

If college is truly a time of independence, then the ethical dilemmas inevitably encountered in a college environment should be solved by the students, not the administration. If we want to see students making healthier, safer decisions, we cannot begin by robbing the individual of the autonomy of his or her own choice. Instead, universities should try to empower students to make the decisions that are right for them by providing the (appropriately) frightening statistics on alcohol poisoning and sexual assault. Informing college students, not infantilizing them, is the right way of encouraging smart decisions.

Maggie LaFalce is a Trinity junior.

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011 | 11

We’re all sluts I have a confession to make: I’m a slut. Or a skank, or a whore—however you’d like to put it.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure what the term “slut” means any more. From my understanding, slut is generindu ramesh ally used as an insult to somehookedoninformation one who appears to have loose sexual morals. Yet I’ve heard many girls called sluts—some who frequent clubs and have an active sex life, and some who don’t do either. Actually, anyone can be called a slut, regardless of how they dress, regardless of their level of sexual activity. So I’m sure that to someone out there, I’m a slut.

The idea of perception plays a big part here. Slut is a term that operates on others’ perceptions of someone’s promiscuity, rather than reality. Moreover, slut-shaming, by women and men alike, can be incredibly hurtful. A 15-year-old girl named Phoebe Prince was bullied to such an extent by a group of students—she was called an “Irish whore,” among other things— that she ultimately hung herself in 2010. While tragedies like this are not the norm, they reveal a disturbing truth about our society: Apparently, if a woman acts promiscuously or has an active sex life, she should feel guilty or inferior, like she’s doing something wrong. Furthermore, to some, slut-shaming could provide justification for rape.

On January 24, 2011, Constable Michael Sanguinetti spoke at York University in a safety forum addressing the topic of crime prevention. During the discussion, he made the suggestion that in order to avoid rape, women should “avoid dressing like sluts.”

In protest, the SlutWalk movement was formed. The first SlutWalk took place on April 3, 2011, in Toronto, Canada, where more than 1,000 people gathered in Queen’s Park, for a march to the Toronto Police Headquarters. The participants were mainly young women, dressed in both ordinary and provocative clothing. The event was so successful that it has spread everywhere from Seattle to Chicago to Brazil to Australia to Scotland. There are more SlutWalks scheduled later this month in New Delhi, India; Auckland, New Zealand; and Morelia, Mexico.

Jessica Valenti, author of “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women” and founder of the Feministing blog, described these SlutWalkers as, perhaps, “the future of feminism.” In a June 3 column in The Washington Post, Valenti said SlutWalkers are changing the face of feminism by “generating excitement, translating their anger into action and trying to change our supposedly respectable society into one that truly respects men, women and yes, even ‘sluts.’”

SlutWalks emphasize an important, relevant point: It is simply not justifiable to use any aspect of a woman’s appearance to explain or excuse rape.

Still, the movement has been criticized in its efforts reclaim the word slut. For activist Harsha Walia, the term’s racist implications are not to be ignored; as she points out, “I personally don’t feel the whole ‘reclaim slut’ thing. I find that the term disproportionately impacts women of color and poor women to reinforce their status as inherently dirty and second-class.” For Gail Dines, an anti-pornography activist, the celebration of the word slut embraces a problematic “pornified consumer sexuality.”

Luckily enough, our society has provided ways to deem the term slut a little less hurtful. Many of us use the term in jest, in a context where it’s not an insult. For one, I’m prone to calling my friends, male or female, “slut toboggan” and “skankmuffin” (obnoxiously so), only because of the sheer absurdity of combining a potentially derogatory term with a pastry or mode of transportation in order to conceive a nickname neither derogatory or food-and-transportation related—one of affection. When I emphatically declare that “I’m wearing something slutty to Shooters tonight!” I’m not trying to be politically incorrect—I’m just being silly. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a slutty outfit to Shooters.

The slut label applies to every facet of our lives—how we think, drink, walk, talk. In some context or the other, every woman fulfills the slut label—whether we have active and fulfilling sex lives, wear tight miniskirts, tell dirty jokes, dance suggestively or voice our opinions. More importantly, there’s nothing wrong with any of these. If SlutWalks are capitalizing on the universality of the term slut in order to fight a victim-blaming rape culture, it definitely encourages us to lessen the power of the word, whether through silliness, humor or marching— scantily or ordinarily clad—in a SlutWalk. If we know we’re all sluts, it sure makes it easier to fulfill Valenti’s vision of a society that respects all women, men and even sluts—it puts us all on equal footing. After all, isn’t the best way to effect social change to change the way we think about ourselves?

Indu Ramesh is a Trinity junior.

12 | THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

CAREER CENTER from page 1 that administrators do not want to steer students away from traditional academic careers.

Wright wrote in an email that the new initiative would bring together several already established services to follow Ph.D. candidates from matriculation to graduation, equipping them with the necessary resources to pursue any career of their choosing—from faculty positions to nonprofit work.

“The plan is to develop an integrated program that coordinates activities in the Career Center, the Graduate School, the departments, faculty and alumni,” Wright said. “This is about preparing Ph.D. [students] for jobs, not preparing professionals for jobs.”

Jacqueline Looney, senior associate dean for graduate programs and a member of the task force, said the skills students learn while pursuing a Ph.D.—such as writing and information analysis—can be easily translated into many careers.

ing m n o C oo S

The professional development services, however, would help students cultivate additional skills that might not come as naturally, including networking and presenting information to a general audience as opposed to an academic one.

Looney noted that these services are currently available, but the challenge is to coordinate them across the many diverse departments within the Graduate School.

“It’s not that the need is not being met because we’ve always focused on some sort of professional development resources,” Looney said. “It’s just making sure students are aware that professional development is important… and we know it’s difficult out there. An integrated structure makes the most sense.”

Daniel Heard, a second-year Ph.D. candidate in statistics who wants to pursue a career in government rather than academics, said he has received significant guidance about preparing for multiple careers, but noted that most of this help has come from the statistics department rather than the Graduate School itself.

He added that Duke could do a better job helping students network and establish relationships with people outside of the University world.

“It seems as if there’s a lot of [graduate] placement in academic jobs rather than in industry jobs,” Heard said. “While some of that is because of people’s desires, a fair amount has to do with placing someone in a professorship in a school where Duke faculty have connections.”

Moneta noted that the Career Center recently created two standing positions for counselors who work with graduate students specifically—a step forward in the process of establishing career and professional development services with a graduate student focus.

Looney added that the task force is currently reviewing a report detailing graduate students’ needs before taking any additional steps.

“We’ve already found the resources and the staff— this is more about coordination,” Moneta said. “We have all the components, and the next step is to tighten the components.”

ANXIETY from page 3 T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

4HE¬#HRONICLE

THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010

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ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH YEAR, SEND HOME ISSUE

Settling in to the Bull City

by Nate Freeman THE CHRONICLE

The Chronicle’s Send Home Issue

For most Duke students, their stay in Durham has a four-year time limit. Senior year ends and the boys and girls in gowns blow Durham a big fat goodbye kiss before they hit the road. The Lucky Strike smokestack tower recedes in the rearview mirror, and they don’t look back. The migration begins in the weeks after the words of the commencement speaker stop echoing in the heads of the cap-wearers: the graduated class packs its futons into rented U-Hauls and leaves behind its Durham digs, moving on to jobs in trendy hubs of culture and commerce. The farther these fresh alums get from the Bull City, the more expansive the Duke Diaspora becomes.

But what about those who stay? The RaleighDurham area is the third most likely place for alumni to end up, behind only New York and Washington, D.C., according to an exit survey of the Class of 2009.

Chris O’Neill, Trinity ’95, who is the assistant director of regional programs for the Duke Alumni Association and the coordinator of the Duke Club of the Triangle, noted that in the past 10 years he’s seen an

uptick in the number of Duke graduates who stick around post-graduation.

“As Durham grows and develops it’s been a more attractive place to live,” he said. “The economy has played into that—it’s a reasonable place to live.”

With the economy still freezing students out of the job market, more people are enrolling in graduate school to help their chances in landing the perfect gig, O’Neill said. And if you’re going to pay for graduate school instead of actually making money, he added, you’ll need to live in a city that won’t bleed you of your money.

Other students have found positions as research assistants for Duke professors, jobs in the admissions office or placement elsewhere within the Duke sphere, according to the Class of 2010 exit survey that was compiled by the Duke Alumni Association. Others who responded to the exit poll—which consists of information from 433 members of the class of 2010—are sticking around to study for the MCAT or other entrance exams, with the intent of leaving Durham after they take the test. In the survey, nearly 50 people said they intended to stay in Durham, Raleigh or Chapel Hill.

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after successfully locating a first target. For instance, if a dentist were to find a cavity in an X-ray, he may be less likely to find additional cavities in the same X-ray.

To show how anxiety partially explains this phenomenon, the researchers built a computer display where subjects were told to identify the T’s among a large group of L’s. Twelve subjects were tested 28 times each, 14 in a control condition and 14 in a variable condition.

The subjects were told that they might receive an electric shock when under the variable condition and hear a noninvasive tone under the controlled condition.

Under the threat of an electric shock, subjects typically showed more sweating and an increased heart rate, said Joseph Dunsmoor, a graduate student in psychology and neuroscience who worked on this study. He added that the threat occupies the subject’s mind, which causes anxiety levels to rise in response.

“We’re academics, and one of the primary goals is to study the mechanisms that [explain] how humans operate in our world,” said Stephen Mitroff, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience who led the research. “Visual search is something we all do constantly—we’re not all looking for tumors and X-rays, but we’re often doing things where it’s quite important [to find] what we’re looking for.”

One such area of importance is national security. The team of scientists will work with the Army Research Office, the Department of Homeland Security and RDU to further test the detrimental effects of stressful conditions on important situations that rely on accurate visual searches, Cain said. The team will soon set up computers at RDU to test the effects of anxiety on baggage screeners’ abilities to find dangerous items in security checks.

“For the [Transportation Security Administration], we’ll hopefully be working directly with baggage screeners this summer at RDU, and that was initiated by the bomb assessment officers at the airport,” Cain said.

“They had seen some of our work previously and said, ‘Hey, we should talk.’”

It is still unclear, however, why anxiety hinders search success in general and also why people have so much trouble finding a second item but not the first.

“The next step is to kind of follow up on why people are impaired at finding multiple targets under anxiety,” Dunsmoor said. “[We’ll look at] what exactly is causing those mistakes [and] if maybe you could in some way remedy them.”

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