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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

OPINION

Why Duke needs the Chronicle, and why the Chronicle needs you a note from our Editor-in-Chief

I

remember my first interview as a reporter for The Chronicle like it was yesterday.

For months, as I applied to different colleges and scholarship programs, I sat on one end of the table, answering questions for interview after interview. Now the tables had turned, and I was the one asking the questions to a professor who had just written a book on America in the age of Trump. I stammered through my questions and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I was finished.

Flash forward to this past May, and I’m interviewing none other than President Vincent Charles York | Photography Editor

Price with the ease of a seasoned journalist—or so I’d like to think.

Journalists, and journalism more broadly, for that matter, aren’t perfect. It’s really difficult to get the whole picture, the complete story. It’s easy to mess up somebody’s name, forget a detail, miss the forest for the trees. Student journalism is even messier. With constant turnover, important and complicated stories are written by students learning to be reporters—and just like that, those new reporters become editors, and then maybe they become Editor-in-Chief with two years of journalism under their belt (@yours_truly).

changes to housekeeping hours, watched Bernie Sanders speak at the Chapel, witnessed a Silent Sam protest at UNC Chapel Hill and written a deep dive piece on how many avocados Duke vendors use (we’re student journalists—aren’t we allowed to have a little fun?).

If you’ve ever dreamt of sitting on the front row at Cameron Indoor Stadium without having to tent in the cold for weeks, our sports department may be the place for you. But we’re not just a basketball paper— we cover all 27 sports, from our national champion women’s golf team to our bowl-winning football

Jake Satisky EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LETTERS POLICY

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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.

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JAKE SATISKY, Editor DEREK SAUL, Sports Editor STEFANIE POUSOULIDES, News Editor NATHAN LUZUM, KATHRYN SILBERSTEIN, Managing Editor s SHANNON FANG, LEXI KADIS, Senior Editors MICHAEL MODEL, Digital Strategy Director MARY HELEN WOOD, CHARLES YORK, Photography Editor LEAH ABRAMS, Editorial Page Editor NINA WILDER, Recess Editor CHRISSY BECK, General Manager CONNER MCLEOD, Sports Managing Editor CARTER FORINASH, University News Department Head MATTHEW GRIFFIN, University News Department Head PRIYA PARKASH, University News Department Head MONA TONG, Local & National News Head ROSE WONG, Local & National News Head MARIA MORRISON, Health & Science News Head EMILY QIN, News Photography Editor ERIC WEI, Sports Photography Editor MICHELLE TAI , Features Photography Editor AARON ZHAO, Features Photography Editor MIHIR BELLAMKONDA, Editorial Page Managing Editor MAX LABATON, Editorial Page Managing Editor SELENA QIAN, Graphics Editor BRE BRADHAM, Video Editor

BEN LEONARD, Towerview Editor JAKE SHERIDAN, Towerview Managing Editor WILL ATKINSON, Recess Managing Editor MIRANDA GERSHONI, Recess Managing Editor JAEWON MOON, Editorial Board Chair OLIVIA SIMPSON, Editorial Board Chair BRE BRADHAM, Investigations Editor BEN LEONARD, Investigations Editor SHAGUN VASHISTH, Investigations Editor BRE BRADHAM, Recruitment Chair SHAGUN VASHISTH, Recruitment Chair MAYA ISKANDARANI, Senior News Reporter JOHN MARKIS, Senior News Reporter TREY FOWLER, Advertising Director JULIE MOORE, Creative Director

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.

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But that’s why student journalism is so important, especially here at Duke. It’s clean and simple to put out public relations materials, and trust me, this university is overflowing with it. It’s more difficult to do real reporting, but it’s so necessary. In case you haven’t followed, there’s a lot of dirt that Duke just doesn’t want to be dug up.

That’s where The Chronicle comes in. Just this past year, we’ve looked into some shady investments Duke made and the reaction to housekeepers being made to work weekends. We asked who really killed Durham’s light rail, and after the news that a professor warned Chinese students not to speak Chinese became a national scandal, we broke the news that she had done the same thing months before.

Why can we do this? Because we are independent of the University (meaning we receive no money or direction from Duke), and we don’t have an agenda. If Duke does something praiseworthy, we’ll report it. In fact, The Chronicle loves publishing feel-good articles, whether it’s about Duke’s sports teams, an incredible student story or groundbreaking research. We want to paint as complete a picture as we can of the University while giving people the truth—not just what they want to hear.

Don’t worry though: we aren’t normally this selfserious. We rate guacamole and profile the dankest food truck in Durham. In our cozy office in 301 Flowers, we watch basketball games, make CookOut runs and host Chronicle formals. I can’t tell you how many thought-provoking conversations I’ve had up in the office. And to relax our minds, a group of us even went to Beach Week together this year.

I joined The Chronicle to be a better writer. I stayed because of the family I’ve found here.

There are many ways to get involved with The Chronicle, and for all the departments except the opinion section, no application is required. You just have to show up to a meeting and bring a good attitude.

In the news department, you can become plugged in to Duke and get a feel for how this university really operates. Reporters write about the news of the day and answer questions that come straight from our readers. In just two years here, I’ve investigated unfair

team. In sports, you can cover games, pen hot takes or even write about the other Coach K. But what if you want to cover top sporting events without having to write about them? Our photographers get right up close to all the action (sometimes a little too close, like when a basketball player falls on them at a game). And when they’re not shooting sports, photographers are memorializing big speakers, protests and all of Duke’s most important moments.

Don’t forget about arts and culture! If you join Recess, you can get the chance to review movies or music, travel to film festivals like Sundance and write about the vibrant arts scene here on campus.

We also have an opinion section, where you can truly spark campus conversations on hot-button issues. Columnists aren’t just yelling into the void—opinion pieces are widely read by people in all corners of the Duke community and can make lasting change.

If none of those sound appealing, there are so many other ways you can get involved. As The Chronicle continues transitioning into a digital-first publication, we need students interested in graphic design, social media, coding interactives, video and podcasting to take us to new heights. Come and get some real world experience!

Student journalism, whether it’s news, sports, arts, photography or opinion, can be messy and challenging. But it’s also one of the most rewarding activities you can do on campus, even if you’re not interested in journalism as a career—which, newsflash, is true of most Chronicle staffers. And if you do want to go into journalism, there’s no better way to learn than by doing.

I speak for everyone at The Chronicle when I say please help us further our mission to hold Duke accountable and tell its best stories. I can’t wait to see y’all next semester.

Jake Satisky is a Trinity junior and Editor-in-Chief of the Chronicle’s 115th Volume.

Considering joining the Chronicle?

Email Jake Satisky at jacob.satisky@duke.edu

2 | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019

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The Chronicle

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H.A.G.S.

here are a couple of things I want to get off my chest in my last column of the year.

The first is that, like every other column, this one is being written at the absolute last minute.

I have been holding this idea in for the last two

even write my first column. in the three months I was away for summer But, I persisted. I came into my fall semester break, I quickly grew exhausted with going ready to experience a side of Duke I didn’t see through the motions here at Duke. Fed up my first year and I hoped this column would with what felt like a stagnant experience, I help me make sense of my renewed experience. asked all of you where to go on campus when However, I quickly learned that despite my you need a bit of a reprieve. desire for new experiences, Duke would not Since early February, I have been exploring every be changing. inch of this campus for an answer. My wandering Duke is still a place that openly struggles took me from the corners of the law school to the with prejudice. Duke is still a place where bushes of the gardens to the common rooms of students have to fight for their right to Trinity dorm, and I have still come up short. I don’t TRINITY ‘21 community—even those who win the lottery think there is a place on campus where you can of rush. Duke is still a place that demands truly disappear and evade everything that comes weeks and have found zero time between then students pay a high price for a meaningful along with being a Duke student. and now to put pen to paper. experience. Having realized little had changed I was all but ready to give up on my search Despite that, the way my life has played out since joining The Chronicle has been nothing short of poetic.

For those unfamiliar with the process, you cannot just wake up and decide you want to write for the opinion section of The Chronicle.

There is an application process. Along with basic background questions, the opinion editor asks you to submit a piece of writing so that they can evaluate what you might bring to the table.

Having never written opinion pieces before this year—my second end of the year confession—I had to come up with something on the spot.

Lucky for me, I applied mere days after Beyoncé’s iconic Coachella performance.

Right on brand, I wrote a jumbled, messy, error-ridden column about what Beychella meant for my academic journey. In it, I reflected on my college application process, what drove me to turn down going to Howard University, and the collective black cultural experience I felt was lacking at Duke. At this point last year, Jeremy Chen | Contributing Photographer I was confused about why I had come to Duke. “So now, as I conclude my finals and pack my boxes, I prepare for my own Homecoming in the hopes that I wasn’t sure I would stay here long enough to three months in Texas will show me just why I sought Duke out in the first place.” -Ryan Williams

Ryan Williams

for an escape, but then she did it again.

Beyoncé re-released Beychella, this time on Netflix. Once again I stayed up until 3 a.m. to watch a performance I had seen over twenty times since its debut. This time, I took a different lesson away from the greatest show the desert has ever seen.

Instead of reflecting on my choice of school, I began reflecting on my sense of belonging in where I call home. The conclusion that has stayed constant over the past year—my third confession—is that Duke is not my home. I will only be here for two more years, and when those years are over, I’ll walk away without looking back. What has changed, however, is that I have come to realize that home is not just a place. Home is found in the people who make you feel included. Home is the couch in my research lab. Home is the long walk to the law school library. Home, here, are the small slices of my day that remind me that it will all be worth it when I walk across the graduation stage in two years.

More than that, though, home reminds me who I am and why I left Houston in the first place. Over the past year, I’ve wrestled with a sober reality in front of all of you: Duke is not home. I lost my sense of self and my sense of purpose in the two years I have been here. So now, as I conclude my finals and pack my boxes, I prepare for my own Homecoming in the hopes that three months in Texas will show me just why I sought Duke out in the first place. My final confession, however, is that no matter where I go, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I belong in a place that isn’t my home in Texas.

Ryan Williams is a Trinity sophomore.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019 | 3

On housing fairness at Duke

I

have lived a Duke haunted by both a coyly expressed frustration with the lack of residential community for all students, and the prominence of exclusive groups granted housing privileges. Selective housing precludes allencompassing residential houses wherein a grounded parity may be nurtured by intentional programmatic efforts.

My ideal housing model guarantees on campus housing for four years, retains a first-year-only campus, and shuffles first-years into randomly comprised houses on West Campus. All houses would have an identity the members define for themselves, distinct traditions, the capacity to host on-campus parties, and not be permitted to exclude students from entering said parties.

At Duke, while students find community in an array of co-curriculars and even academic pursuits, the fact remains: the current residential house model with housing privileges reserved for selective groups is toxic. The model undermines the very principles of an inclusive and diverse undergraduate experience.

As a resident assistant (RA), these issues have been particularly salient in my Duke life. I often hear students call Kilgo Quad, where I have worked as a RA for three years, the “perfect” dorm. We have a history of high performance on the annual Resident Feedback Survey sent to students in October, conveniently after RAs are mandated to host six programs in the first six weeks of the semester. Struggling with the burden of their own adjustment to the semester, RAs put their needs aside to perform this emotional labor.

Kilgo is also known for the RA-hosted monthly “Sunday Sundae” series, which brings together residents of the quad for a waffle sundae buffet. In spite of such programmatic innovations, which have taken off across West Campus, there is a concrete obstacle to community-building in independent houses: selective housing. There will never be parity in our housing model as long as certain students are allowed to exclude their peers from housing.

I say this as a student who joined a selective living group my freshman year and as an RA in an active independent house named Avalon. Students come to Sundae Sunday alone or in their friend clusters, and leave as such. My best attempts to socialize and introduce students to one another have

borne few friendships. “Kilgo Rush,” a month of all-inclusive events to celebrate the Kilgo community amidst the selective group recruitment season, is a temporary symbolic fix to a deeper institutional-level issue.

At the start of the 2018-19 academic year, half the Kilgo team was filled with RAs who had not lived there before; some were new juniors coming out of isolating experiences as sophomores on West. We have had our fair share of team

“

We need radical change in Duke’s culture, and we needed it yesterday.

Sabriyya Pate TRINITY ‘19

”

arguments rooted in frustration over cleaning the waffle iron or how some people were not showing up to Sundae Sunday shifts. We are far, far from perfect, if such a thing exists.

Idealized coverage of our community has masked unfortunate realities. Housing and Residence Life’s expectation that RAs ensure every student feels like they are accepted and belong in their residential house, in as structurally divisive a place as Duke, is beyond lofty.

I have had a sense that upperclassmen on West Campus,

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once graduated from the first-year campus where RAresident relationships tend to be stronger, would rather hide in their rooms than be spotted at an RA program. Do not get me wrong, RAs do their jobs. My role as an RA has been one of my most fulfilling and meaningful experiences as student leader. Still, what the University asks of independent house RAs is unattainable insofar as selectiving living arrangements endure.

Founding Duke Students for Housing Reform (DS4HR) altered the course of my personal development. Through DS4HR I organized panels and roundtables with a diversity of students who spoke to their dissatisfaction. In fact, the founding group of DS4HR included several members of Greek organizations. Still, there is a strong taboo against articulating these sentiments. This is all to say that I know this issue well—I have talked to hundreds of students about their dissatisfaction with the Duke residential experience.

We need radical change in Duke’s culture, and we needed it yesterday.

My hope is that one day, Duke’s social culture will mirror that of a liberal arts college with no selective life presence and greater respectful and productive exchanges between all students, with no barriers to communication at all. One of my best friends is a senior at Davidson College. Each time I visit her, I leave wishing I had applied to her school, where no student groups have selective housing and where social events (that all tend to safely occur on campus) are open.

Future generations of Duke students do not need to experience the exclusive, convoluted, monopolistic, and alienating social experience that so many of us are unable or afraid to call out.

We, alone, are the caretakers of the pens that write our destinies. Culture change begins and ends with brutal honesty at the individual level. As I leave campus an alumna, I carry utmost trust in the Duke students who will drive this change forward.

Sabriyya Pate is Trinity ‘19 and a former Chronicle columnist.

All views expressed are her own and are not intended to represent any group she is a member of.

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4 | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019

Success is overrated

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his past semester, I was hanging out with a friend who had a midterm coming up. Knowing she had been studying virtually nonstop for the past week, I half-jokingly suggested that she could afford to take it easy for a few hours.

“I can’t do that,” she responded. “I’m pre-med, so my GPA actually has to be perfect if I’m going to be successful.”

Ami Wong THE BIGGER PICTURE I knew that she wasn’t completely serious, but even so, I was surprised. Her concept of success was so different from my own. It seemed that she saw it as a final goal to be attained, and that those mini successes along the way (a good grade on a midterm, a perfect GPA) did not naturally mean that she was a successful person. In other words, a successful person is one who has reached their ultimate goal. In my eyes, she was already extremely successful. She was doing very well at Duke, an elite university with a low acceptance rate.

So what do we as a broader culture value as successful?

Successful people do well in their classes, have better internships or have jobs lined up after graduation. They are presidents of clubs or presidents of companies. They are successful academically and professionally. These are the standards outside of Duke too: better colleges or better jobs are reflective of success.

Valuing academic and professional success is by no means a bad thing. However, if we only value academic and professional intelligence, then what are we excluding from our views of success? Some glaring examples include social, creative and emotional intelligence. However much you want to value these things, you somehow always ends up sacrificing a hangout with friends for an extra hour of studying, taking that “useful” stats class over the art class you wanted to take or not having the time to talk with your friend who’s feeling down because you just have to finish this assignment. We can also see this in the way that different majors are valued:

humanities classes are generally seen as easier and constantly accompanied with questions like, “So what job do you plan to get with that?”

In William Deresiewicz’s article “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” he notes that elite universities, no matter how much they advertise their “well-rounded” liberal arts education, ultimately focus on developing and reproducing one form: the analytic. Duke is no exception. Developing a moral identity, mental health or creative ability (to name a few things) always takes a backseat to the storm of preprofessionalism. These skills are not prioritized by the University nor most of its students.

The focus on academic and professional success is not without reason. Good academics presumably lead to better grad schools, better jobs, more money—and thus financial stability. The lure of financial stability in the economy that we live in is an easy way to explain why we might focus more on these measures. However, assuming that only better academic or even better professional success will lead to that end goal can be short-sighted. The workplace doesn’t just want someone with a sparkling resume. Even to achieve professional success, we need other skills.

Ask any recruiter and they’ll tell you that they’re not just looking for someone who has a relevant ex-job title.

Anyone can learn on the job with a pretty basic knowledge of the material. Recruiters also want someone who has the creative intelligence to come up with better solutions, has the social intelligence to work with other people or the emotional intelligence to empathize and lead others. They want someone who they’d like to work with. They want someone human.

Perhaps the reason why we prioritize analytic intelligence is the fact that the measures are so quantifiable. In a math problem, for example, your answer is either correct or incorrect. At the very most, your process is done a little differently, but even then, there may be restrictions on the process. Compare that to ethics, where you essentially just debate whether something is wrong or right and either way, you’re not totally correct. Analytic intelligence is easily graded and progress can be quantified, whereas measuring how much more creative you are or how much better you are

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at writing is much harder.

In the same vein, academic and professional success are more quantifiable than other kinds of success. Your academic success can be measured by your grades, and your professional success can be measured by the amount of money you make.

But how can you measure social success? You could see how many friends you have, but the line between acquaintance and friend can be blurry, and the degree of closeness complicates things even further. How do you measure the fulfillment you get from what you do? There’s no metric to decide how personally expressive and fulfilling something is, so maybe that’s why we’re often drawn to the majors or careers that have quantifiable standards of success.

When we consider our notions of academic and professional success, we may realize that we are neglecting how far we have already come. We tend to have a shortsighted view of where we are—Duke students seen by others are generally seen as already academically successful and on the way to being professionally successful. There are plenty of people whose definition of academic success is making it into college at all, or whose professional success is finally getting a job, even if it’s just above minimum wage.

If we zoom out beyond our immediate bubble, we can see that we are privileged to even consider success as something beyond survival.

What’s the use of considering our definitions for success?

Without well-rounded success, we may not be happy at all.

Imagine your life without family or friends. Imagine your life without integrity. Imagine your life with only work. Are you happy with where you are? Do you see yourself as truly successful? And if not, are there other kinds of intelligence or success you want to cultivate moving forward?

No matter how you define being successful, it’s never too late to take control and move towards that definition.

My pre-med friend, in her quest for a 4.0, sacrificed countless hours of sleep and likely years off of her life from stress and fatigue. This summer, I hope, will prove to be a success for her (and all Duke students’) relaxation and health.

Ami Wong is a Trinity sophomore.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019 | 5

Being part of the Chronicle made me part of everything

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orry, I’m just a little nervous. This is only my second phone interview,” I told my interviewee in October 2015.

I felt my heart pounding in my chest. “Don’t worry about it, just take a deep breath and ask your next question. You’re doing fine,” he assured me.

I’ve got a riddle for you, and I promise it’s one that you’ve never heard before. It goes a little something like this: A Duke firstyear goes to the East Campus Activities Fair seeking to be part of everything Duke has to offer, but can only sign up for one student organization or activity. What is it?

There may be multiple acceptable answers, but I’m just here to tell you about the one that I came up with. Coming out of high school, there weren’t many activities that I knew I wanted to try at Duke, but let’s just say that I wasn’t going to go another four years without giving my campus publication a try. And at every turn and juncture these last four years, The Chronicle has given me a front row seat to more people, places, issues and moments throughout my little block of Duke history than I ever imagined were possible for a student like me.

I still remember the days when I would sit on the sofa with my grandfather Charles (rest his soul) and tell him about all of the people I’ve interfaced with during my Chronicle adventures, from new deans of Divinity, Pratt and Fuqua to Doris Kearns Goodwin and David Rubenstein to dozens— if not hundreds—of Duke faculty, staff, and students spanning all departments and majors and from all corners of the University.

If he were still around today, I’d tell Charles about the time when I interviewed Sylvester Williams, a Durham mayoral candidate on

the eve of the biggest political race of his life, or Rodney Wynkoop, who sat down with me to reflect on 29 years as director of the Chapel choir and retired with 580 concerts to show for his service to the University. But these are not the only stories I remember vividly to this day.

I remember the tears in my eyes after I interviewed Ashlyn Sanders, Graduate School ‘15 (MA in Bioethics and Science Policy), who overcame her neurological disorder to become the CEO of her successful startup, NeuroVice. I remember the thrill of witnessing a group of protestors storm the Sanford School on the night of

manifestations of and available resources for combatting the “sophomore slump”—an article that I hope will go on to benefit Duke sophomores of tomorrow.

Another issue I was passionate about was housing reform, and thanks to The Chronicle, I had the opportunity to speak with campus administrators and student leaders of Duke Students for Housing Reform (DS4HR) alike regarding the issue of tangible, long-lasting housing reform on campus. Two springs ago, when faculty across all departments came together to discuss Trinity curriculum reform at monthly Arts & Sciences Council meetings, I was there too, sitting in the

Rob Palmisano TRINITY ‘19

former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson’s address to the American Grand Strategy program at Duke, and telling friends and family all about my adventure the following day. And no matter how old I am, I don’t think I’ll forget my excitement as I typed this lede: “The ground floor of West Union will open Monday for the first time since July 22, 2013…”

But in addition to all of these interesting “dinner party” stories, the Chronicle gave me an avenue through which to write about topics I was passionate about—topics that had great implications for the future of the Duke student experience. After a trying sophomore fall, I went on to write about the

front row of that Rubenstein or Westbrook auditorium as key stakeholders debated decisions that might affect thousands of Duke students after me.

In one very special case, a story that I covered for The Chronicle went on to shape the future of my Duke experience for the better. In September 2015, I covered the very first Duke Conversations dinner ever hosted by a regular faculty member. I enjoyed the experience so much that I had to go to another one. And another. And another one after that. Now a student organization on campus, Duke Conversations has gone on to host hundreds of similar dinners with faculty across all departments—with yours truly as an outgoing executive board member.

And then there were “fun stories”—usually born out of wild and crazy imagination, like giving up one Saturday afternoon to count all of the cars in Blue Zone or devoting my junior spring toward the sampling and ranking of sixty-five Brodhead Center dishes; gauging student reactions to fads like HQ Trivia and Pokémon Go and interviewing Klaus Teuber, the founder and creator of Settlers of Catan; and sitting down with a current student who invented a Weasley clock replica (I’m really gonna miss Duke) among so many others. Ever wondered why they call Duke’s yearbook “The Chanticleer?”

Yep, I wrote about that too.

During my time with The Chronicle, there wasn’t a topic I couldn’t have written about if I wanted to. And with the bustling, stimulating and ever-changing world of Duke University at my fingertips, I wrote about all subjects, all disciplines and all kinds of campus happenings that meaningfully affected the student experience. In fact, half of the fun for me was that I never really knew what my next story would be about.

But each time, I secretly hoped it would open my eyes to a new corner of Duke that I had yet to explore. More often than not, I got my wish. Being part of The Chronicle was one of the greatest investments of my Duke career, because as far as I’m concerned, it made me a part of everything.

Rob Palmisano is a Trinity senior who graduated with a B.S. in Economics and Finance before going on to work as an equity research associate at Raymond James in Atlanta, GA. He plans to return to campus very soon to reunite with his Duke family.

6 | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2019 | 7

Campus Enterprises: Get business savvy, if you can pay

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addy, buy me a microfridge company, NOW!’’ It may sound unlikely, but it’s a request made with varying degrees of extremity by participants in Campus Enterprises (CE), an organization at Duke that enables students to be shareholders and directors of their own businesses. But CE prompts an ethical question: does its mandatory $7,000 buy-in investment in the company promote and sustain elitism?

Lena Yannella THE UNLICENSED ETHICIST While CE’s Prospectus discusses the long hours and hard work necessary to promote their brand, the hard truth is that the organization could not achieve success without a big fat check from mom and dad. This brings to mind an old adage: he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. In the case of CE, the $7,000 buy-in allows shareholders to advance several bases from the get go. They certainly don’t start in the batter’s box.

This is not to say that the students who run CE do not work tirelessly to promote their company. How many Instagram stories of sushi rolls and storage boxes have you seen in the last few weeks?

In theory, the shareholder investment is useful in some respects. Having “skin in the game” is an incentive for CE participants to be more conscientious in running their business. When they field a complaint about a loose mattress spring, their financial stake in the enterprise is a motivation to be more responsive.

But do they really have skin in the game? One has to wonder how many CE

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shareholders actually saved that $7,000, perhaps by lifeguarding the kiddy pool or deep-frying Chick-fil-A patties. Although there are no hard numbers on this, it stands to reason that parents, not college students, forked over the money.

It’s a huge privilege to step into an established business at the level of CE, instead of working one’s way up from the bottom. A typical aspiring entrepreneur must build a business from scratch, rising up from humble beginnings. She must start out on the ground floor, working as a barista by day to support herself and fund her startup. Alternatively, she may create a persuasive and enticing Kickstarter campaign, seeking money from strangers who are willing to invest in her fine-tuned business model.

Meanwhile, CE participants are afforded the luxury of just calling home, or maybe even texting Dad to Venmo them $7,000.

They enter a lofty realm, where they can run a business at the mere age of 19 without having much to lose.

Like many things in life, if we’re honest with ourselves, it is elitist, even if we would like to be a part of it. CE participants will develop business skills and acumen, which are to be envied. As a matter of full disclosure, my application to join CE was rejected.

Given the wide range of socio-economic backgrounds at Duke, the $7,000 buy-in is a pittance for those at the upper end of the economic ladder and a fortune for those at the bottom. Consequently, the buy-in tends to winnow the pool of potential applicants to those with more resources. To their credit, CE recognizes that a costly buy-in is problematic and is taking steps to make the organization more egalitarian.

Asked whether the investment tends

to draw more affluent participants, CE’s Chief Executive Officer Josh Young candidly replied, “It does, and that’s why we’re really trying to lower it... Our goal is to continue to bring it down over the next 5 to 10 years until it’s close to $0.”

At one point, CE’s shareholder price was over $10,000, which Young acknowledges was not reasonable for college students to afford. Although CE would like to eliminate the buy-in, a shareholder investment is still necessary at the moment so that current members are reimbursed with at least the same amount that they paid to buy in.

According to the CE Prospectus, “In 2019, we have committed to reducing the share price to $6,500. This is the price incoming shareholders of the Class of 2022 will pay to join the company.” However, that did not happen. The final share price in 2019 was $7,000, the same as it was in 2018.

Ironically, one reason that the buy-in was not lowered was that CE gave out more financial aid than ever before to subsidize the buy-in for accepted applicants, who were unable to make the investment.

Refunding the buy-in to graduating seniors and providing financial assistance to new members required revenue, foreclosing any lowering of the buy-in.

Young said, “We offered financial aid to six out of the 15 that got in… We gave out… almost $30,000... which is a pretty large amount.”

The CE Prospectus says, “Please state on your application in the additional information section if the share price is prohibitive so that we can plan ahead to accommodate. This will not affect our consideration of you as a candidate.”

According to Young, the reading of the application is need-blind. But how exactly

is “need-blind” defined? Does it mean that financial need will not be a factor, or that the admissions committee will be completely unaware of applicants’ financial status?

It’s obviously not the latter, because the Google Doc-based application has no way of filtering mention of financial need. But since it’s in the application, how could financial need not be a factor in the decision-making process, even if only subconsciously or through implicit bias?

Young explains that after the thirdround interview, applicants were again asked whether they would need financial aid for their buy-in, and that these responses were not considered on decision day. Although only two students had mentioned financial need in their initial application, several more requested aid at this later stage.

This is evidence that applicants sensed disclosing financial need might be disadvantageous to their prospects of acceptance. This reluctance to ask for aid is further proof that the $7,000 buy-in restriction deters qualified candidates from applying.

For some, asking a parent for $7,000 is no less conceivable than asking Daddy to buy a microfridge company. For others who can afford participation, not only declining to participate, but also boycotting CE’s products and services is the best way to express disapproval. This is not a knock on the qualifications of those selected for CE. It’s an observation about the quality of all the people excluded by virtue of the buy-in.

Lena Yannella is a Trinity sophomore.

Her column, “the unlicensed ethicist,” runs on alternate Tuesdays. To submit an ethical quandary, shoot her an email at lena. yannella@duke.edu.

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Finding your voice in a crowd of Blue Devils a note from the Editorial Editor

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a, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da! If I were the president I would be giving $3 million to starving children. I would also end the war in Iraq. I would try to make everyone happy.”

This is the full text of a journal entry entitled “If I Were the President” that I wrote when I was eight years old. While I was home for a few weeks after this past semester, my mom pulled out my old schoolwork, all of the notebooks and assignments she held onto over the course of my childhood and early adult life. I read through the composition books, occasionally impressed with my writing skills (I used a semicolon correctly in third grade!) or amused at my rhetorical choices.

“Da, da, da, da’s” aside, what interested me most about my childhood writing was my unabashed creativity, my unfiltered belief in easy solutions. In my journal, I could save all the “starving children” with $3 million—a small sum relative to the gravity of childhood hunger. In my journal, I could end the war in Iraq and make everyone happy—perhaps an oxymoron.

I wrote a story called “Magical Sled Adventure” in which I met Santa, who inexplicably carried golden menorahs in his sled. I wrote about turning into a polkadotted sheep, who was still a fantastic swimmer. I used onomatopoeia—which I could spell better then than now—accenting my stories with upper-case exclamations like “BANG!” and “CLANG!” Somewhere along the way, I lost some of that

creativity. I tampered some of that childhood idealism and naivety. I no longer imagine ending food insecurity with $3 million. I don’t even imagine being president.

Usually, this is the part of the column where I lament that loss of imagination and optimism. I could go on a tirade against our education system, which sucks away our sense of self. I could rail against the University for prioritizing standardized test scores over creativity and stifling individual voices.

Leah Abrams EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR But actually, I’m not going to do any of that. In fact, in some ways, I am glad for my tinged imagination. What I have lost in ability to dream up polka-dotted sheep or magical sleds I have gained in ability to synthesize vast swaths of information, analyze it clearly and explicitly, and present it in a public manner.

What I have lost in self-assuredness, I have gained in humility, in thoroughness. Duke has enough self-absorption—it needs humble, careful analysis.

My Duke career—and I suspect most people’s Duke careers—has been full of getting lost in minutia, of over-valuing my own ideas, of reading three articles about a topic and assuming I’m the world’s leading expert in it. In these moments, I am reminded of the third-grader who assumed

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she could solve world hunger. I sometimes get so deep into a problem, so far down into an academic hole, that I forget the people I’m writing about and I neglect to speak in regular words. I think many Duke students are guilty of this third-grade trap—missing the forest through the trees because we think we’re the best cartographers.

Imagination, creativity and idealism are important—essential, even. They play a valuable role in the editorial section.

But the editorial section is not a diary, not like my third-grade notebooks. It should not exist to publish sweeping claims or unfounded ideas. It should not exist to talk about the weather or existential crises or even to wax poetic about student journalism like I’m doing now. The editorial section, above all, is a platform in which to comment on the news of the day. It is a platform for straightforward, persuasive rhetoric on relevant issues that impact real people. It is the pulse of campus conversation, the first place to gauge student opinions on all things Duke.

Many of you will be starting your first semester at Duke this fall. I write on the verge of my seventh. I won’t pretend to have much advice on succeeding in class or balancing your time well, but after six semesters, I know a lot about the Chronicle editorial section. Whether you’re interested in writing as a columnist, becoming an editor or just submitting a letter to the editor once in a while, I hope that you will be not just creative and ambitious in your writing, but relevant, honest and straightforward.

I hope that you will better our political commentary by backing up your claims, interviewing relevant sources and using clear, concise language. I hope that you will advance our social commentary through honest reflection tied to ongoing campus events and news. I hope that the editorial section will be your space to share thorough and well-researched opinions, rather than diary entries.

Regardless of whether or not you have an interest in writing, I think this is useful advice for college. Our thoughts are worth little if they are uninterpretable and vague, detached or unresearched like my ideas for presidency. Ask any Duke student, and they will likely empathize with the experience of coming home from a long semester of school, only to be asked what they studied or what they’re doing this summer and be left speechless. College lets you get so deep into the weeds that you forget how to tell your grandma what you’re working on. And whether you’re writing a column or just at the dinner table, that simple communication is the most important of all.

So, welcome to the editorial section of Volume 115. You won’t find many stories about magical sled adventures and you won’t find a thorough account of my “Summer Vacation Plans”—but if you’re lucky, you’ll find something worth reading.

Leah Abrams is a Trinity senior and the Editor of the Editorial Section. Her column, “cut the bull,” runs on alternate Fridays.

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Letter to the Editor Memories of the 1969 Allen Building Takeover: Adding to the historical record

I

have now read all four parts of the Chronicle’s oral history on the takeover of Allen Building. I was there all afternoon on February 13, 1969 and was involved in the confrontation with the police after the black students left the building.

I’m concerned that the oral history doesn’t accurately capture what happened that afternoon from the perspective of many Duke students who were there at the time.

Nelson Ford TRINITY ‘69 It implies that the confrontation with police was with the black students as they exited the building. It was not. They left, shouting “We’ll be back” and disappeared before the North Carolina State Highway patrol (who entered Allen Building through a tunnel from the Duke Gardens) emerged from the building. A number of white sympathizers, who had positioned themselves on the steps outside two public entrances, shouting, “you’ll have to go through us to get to our black brothers,” seemed confused about what to do next when the police appeared from inside the

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building, behind them.

There were several hundred students looking on as the media set up their cameras.

When the TV camera lights came on, a few of the white student sympathizers shouted “Sieg heil! Sieg heil!” and heckled the police for the cameras, insinuating a connection between the officers and Nazi Germany. When the lights went out, the jeering stopped. This was repeated several times. Nobody was sure what was going to happen but it looked like the confrontation would end in the cool, coming darkness. After several minutes, one young woman walked up to a helmeted and gas-masked officer who held a pepper gas machine (it sounded like a chain saw) and pantomimed a suggestive stroking of his hidden face. He looked confused for a few seconds and then turned the machine towards her and began spraying her.

That started the riot. Several hundred students began shouting at the police and surged towards the building. There was a police car in front of the building and the students attacked it. The police began moving toward the crowd, tear gas was thrown and the students fell back. The crowd and the police surged back and forth across the Main Quad in the dark. When a group of us retreated into the Chapel, there was tear gas in there too. After 10-15 minutes

of chaos (during which the police car’s windows and body work were smashed), the police retreated into Allen Building and the students stood outside screaming. Several students put poles through the door handles to make it hard for the police to get out.

After a few minutes, Dean of Students Bill Griffit walked up to the crowd. He said that the confrontation needed to stop and told the crowd to go to Page Auditorium.

Within a few minutes, all the students were in Page and the shouting died away. Then the talking began. I believe the police left Allen Building through the tunnel and the University regained control of the building and its safe (containing Nixon’s law student records). Who knows.

But an important part of the story is the large number of students whose political views changed that day. Students (frat guys, football players, library nerds and the curious coming back from Chem lab) who were standing around, watching as the black students left and the sympathizers performed for the media, became incensed when the police started the riot. And their anger was palpable for the rest of the year.

Their attitudes were in marked contrast to those on campus following the Vigil (which achieved its success through passive means).

The success of the Vigil may have encouraged

the black students to demand that Duke do more to meet their needs, but there was none of the celebratory mood that followed the end of the Vigil. I wonder if that connection has been lost in the mists of time or it simply doesn’t fit our current expectations about what happened.

Mark Pinsky and I were on the same freshman hall and worked on the Chronicle together. He and many on the Chronicle staff were associated with the small group of campus activists in the late 60’s. As the oral history correctly points out, the Chronicle staff was not disinterested. I was on the fringe of both groups and spent that day trying to talk my friends out of confrontation. But the police came expecting a confrontation and, in the end, they provoked the student violence.

Please accept this as an attempt to amplify the record, not correct it. Each of us who was there that day had a particular experience.

The historical record is not complete without each one of their perspectives too.

Nelson Ford is a Trinity ‘69 former Chronicle staffer. He writes in response to our four-part oral history of the 1969 Allen Building Takeover.

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