April 23, 2021

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Duke says yes to sustainability, no to divestment

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 30

Meet Micheala Lee

By Rosa Golchin Staff Reporter

Duke has made further steps toward sustainability over the past year, but the University has not moved further toward divestment from fossil fuels.

Students have long called for commitments from the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility (ACIR)—which advises Duke on its investments—to recommend divestment, and the matter was raised again at the committee’s November 2020 open forum. Activists at other universities, including Harvard, have made renewed calls for divestment in recent months.

A few advancements in regards to sustainability have been made in the last year and ACIR Chair Lawrence Baxter told The Chronicle that the creation of the Board of Trustees Strategic Task Force on Climate Change is chief among them.

Along with creating that task force, the Board also approved DUMAC, Duke’s financial management company, to “consider the qualification of climate change and the effects of fossil fuels when considering investments.”

Yet Duke remains firm in its decision not to fully divest from fossil fuels after ACIR declined in 2019 to recommend that Duke do so. At the time, President Vincent Price decided to take other steps to address the University’s carbon footprint following the committee’s recommendations.

ACIR currently assesses Duke’s fossil fuel investments based on the Carbon Underground 200, an index of “the top 100 coal and the top 100 oil and gas publicly traded reserve holders globally, ranked by the potential carbon emissions content of their reported reserves.”

As of now, Baxter says that there is little to no direct investment in any of those top 200 emitting companies. While there was a period of time when Duke had such investments due to inheriting shares after a third-party asset manager dissolved, DUMAC has set about unloading them. Baxter previously told The Chronicle that he believes that Duke has already liquidated those shares.

Baxter emphasized that DUMAC has a fiduciary responsibility to “optimize investment”—and the shifting profitability of green energy has encouraged the move See DIVESTMENT on Page 5

Winnie Lu | Features Photography Editor Micheala Lee is best known around Duke for her joyful yet genuine personality. In March, Duke Dining named her a “Dynamite Dining Devil” of the week.

Pitchfork’s cashier lives to bring joy to others

By Maya Miller Staff Reporter

Weekday mornings might seem like a drag, but at Pitchfork’s you’ll see why people call Micheala Lee the nicest person on campus. The beloved cashier is best known around Duke for her joyful yet genuine, personality.

“She only has love and positivity for everybody,” said first-year Tess DiMenna, who goes to Pitchfork’s almost every day.“And I think that’s why she is so beloved by so many students, because it’s such genuine care and love.”

From the moment she started working at the iconic Duke eatery in February 2020, Lee tried her best to learn students’ names. (Her own name is pronounced mih-kay-LAY, not mih-kay-LUH, although she’s too kind to correct people who mispronounce it.) Back then, to know when your food was ready, you’d have to listen for a Pitchfork’s employee to holler out your order number. But instead

of just calling out numbers, Lee made a point to ask each student for their name and to write it down on the order ticket.

“I felt like people were more than numbers, so I’d ask for their names instead and call them out by their names,” she said.

Last fall, she committed to memorizing the name of every student she serves. After just one or two visits, she’ll recognize your (half-masked) face and greet you by name as she locates your order. On the off chance she happens to forget or mistake you for someone else, she’ll effusively apologize and promise to get it next time.

“She loves you all, she talks about y’all all the time,” said Annette Lyons, Lee’s mother. “She’ll tell me, ‘Ma, I forgot one of their names, and I was so embarrassed!’ And I tell her, ‘Mick, if you forgot one name, you’re doing good.’”

Lee’s warmth and friendliness have made her popular with her customers. In March, Duke Dining named Lee a “Dynamite

Dining Devil” of the week, a superlative given to a Duke Dining employee for “for going above and beyond in the workplace.”

Lee exudes optimism and empathy, but at 30 years old, the road that brought her here has been, in her words, “really, really, really rocky.”

She’s a single mother of three children— she had her first just after graduating high school—and they don’t have a very robust support network in the area.

What gets her through each day is the love she receives from her children and from the students she serves.

“I have a few friends from childhood who’ve said, ‘I don’t know how you made it, and even still with a smile on your face,’” Lee said. “I’ve battled the toughest of battles, but knowing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel kept me going. Knowing that I have to be there for my kids kept me going.”

See LEE on Page 5

2 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

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The Chronicle

Duke’s Black leaders reflect on Chauvin murder conviction

By Matthew Griffin

Administrators and the chair of the African & African American studies department reflected on the outcome of Chauvin’s trial Quinton Smith, interim director of the Mary in the Wednesday event. Students and other Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, stood community members gathered on the quad in on the steps of the Duke Chapel Wednesday front of the Chapel to watch. afternoon. He spoke about Derek Chauvin’s The audience stood in silence, listening to Black Tuesday conviction for the murder of George leaders at Duke speak. In their moment of reflection, Floyd, evoking hope tempered with knowledge of they joined Americans who came out into the streets, from George Floyd the challenges that remain.

Square in Minneapolis “For many, the guilty This is one verdict, against verdict in this case symbolizes to Times Square in New not only the achievement one man, for one injustice.

York, to celebrate the of justice for George Floyd The guilt of Derek Chauvin verdict or process a step toward accountability for and his family, but evidence police killings of Black that perhaps our long fight does not signify the end of for liberation is not in vain,” racism in general, or antiAmericans.

Smith said.

Dean of Students Yet the verdict will not Blackness in particular.

John Blackshear recalled waiting for the verdict to help close the racial wealth quinton smith come in. He referenced gap in America, he noted.

INTERIM DIRECTOR OF THE MARY LOU It will not advance equity the the song “Strange WILLIAMS CENTER FOR BLACK CULTURE in schools, address housing Fruit,” about lynchings discrimination, normalize of Black Americans Black hair, reduce the harm the health-care system during the Jim Crow era.

“I thought about the strange fruit that caused does to Black women, fix the criminal justice system.

Matthew Griffin | Contributing Photographer “Sing if you have breath. Dance if you have an uprising in this country … I thought about the mobility. Revel in the victories that we have strange fruit, and this act of seeking accountability Administrators and the chair of the African and African American studies department reflected been able to experience,” Smith said. “But do that was taking place right before us, when the life Wednesday on Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd. so knowing that this is one verdict, against that had infinite possibility was squeezed from the probable,” hoping for “the unlikely.” When the “people intentionally brought to this space, in this one man, for one injustice. The guilt of Derek neck of George Floyd,” he said. guilty verdict came in, Blackshear exhaled. place and time, by something great and divine. And Chauvin does not signify the end of racism in He held his breath while he waited for the It was an acknowledgement that Black people verdict, expecting “the inevitable, the highly were not strange fruit, he said Wednesday, but general, or anti-Blackness in particular.”

See CONVICTION on Page 5 Staff Reporter

Students have gotten more than 9,000 vaccine doses

By Parker Harris Local and National News Editor

Students had received more than 9,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses by April 12, with Duke alone administering the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to more than 1,800 students, according to Vice President of Administration Kyle Cavanaugh.

Cavanaugh wrote in an April 12 message that the total number of vaccine doses is not equal to the number of students who have been vaccinated because some students were vaccinated outside of Duke. Those students may have received the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Duke opened vaccinations to all students April 1, and paused use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine April 13 following federal agencies’ warning about a potential rare risk of blood clots linked to that vaccine, offering students with appointments the Moderna vaccine instead.

Of the students who responded to an anonymous survey sent out by the Duke Student

Government March 18, 98% indicated they were living in Durham and around 70% that they had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to DSG President Tommy Hessel.

“The results were encouraging,” wrote Hessel, a senior, in a message to The Chronicle.

Hessel wrote that DSG sent out the survey during the stay-in-place order to “get a better understanding of just how many students had received vaccinations.

“It was unofficial, anonymous, and voluntary, and just gave DSG a better understanding of if we could advocate for eased COVID-19 restrictions down the line,” Hessel wrote. He also wrote that survey results helped to give an idea of how many students remained unvaccinated and thus eligible for a later Duke-sponsored vaccine.

“Within a period of 24 hours from its send time, we had 1,073 responses across ’21, ’22, ’23, ’24 (25%, 22%, 22%, 31% respectively),” Hessel wrote.

Of respondents who had intended to relieve the vaccine but had not, barriers cited in the See VACCINE on Page 5

Chronicle File Photo

Arts students find new creative outlets

By Amy Guan

Student art groups including DuArts, an umbrella organization for Duke art groups, have committed to providing students with This year, art groups and students in the art engagement activities this year. DuArts visual arts have faced challenges in finding President Krishna Sinha, a junior, said that places to create new pieces and access DuArts has adapted to the virtual setting of materials, even as many have continued to this year, including having more grab-andpursue their passions in more unique and go events. creative ways.

On top of the challenges of online For some students, classes moving online learning, student art groups have had contributes to the overall difficulty of finding challenges in building an engaging the motivation they need to create new works community over the virtual platform. of art. Junior Alana Hyman, a visual arts According to Sinha, DuArts wants to “make major, opted to not take visual arts classes virtual activities more than just another because she feels they “cannot be taught in an hour on Zoom.” online capacity.”

“Students are on Zoom all the time, which While online classes allow her to have can be exhausting, so when we have activities more free time to overload, Hyman feels she is on Zoom we have to think about how to ensure “sacrificing [her] artistic an engaging activity,” she passion.” added.

I haven’t found time or “I haven’t found time Pre v i o u s l y, or willpower to get to willpower to get to my students could attend my projects because I projects because I am always performances, go to am always looking at the the Arts Annex or the computer for most of my looking at the computer for Rubenstein Art Center, classes,” Hyman said. see showcases and spend most of my classes.

Junior Debora Cordero time with friends while alana hyman creating art. However Martinez, also a visual arts visual arts major major, feels “a burnout with virtual platforms, “it from being so busy with is much harder to create online readings and activities, which makes it the same sentiment and level of engagement,” harder for [her] to enjoy art in [her] time off.”

Sinha said.

COVID-19 safety protocols have limited the This year, DuArts continued its annual Arts opportunities for art students to use the Smith Fest tradition—a weeklong programming of Warehouse and the Arts Annex in creating art activities held in April—and is continuing larger art projects. to plan other events for students to enjoy.

“This year, I can’t make larger works in According to Sinha, these events include a larger areas, so I can’t do what I want to do,” virtual conference in a diversity, equity and Cordero Martinez said. inclusivity event, as well as the Mural Durham While larger projects have become less tradition and a collaboration with the Nasher feasible, smaller projects have fueled a new Museum of Art. realm of creativity. Hyman can only paint on Art students and groups have worked smaller things she finds, like pieces of wood diligently over the past year to continue their from the dumpster, instead of the easels she can driven passions of creating and sharing their usually use in painting studios. love of art.

“I think getting my hands on free materials “The pandemic has given everyone more is a really great thing in terms of creating new time, but what you do with your time is different. pieces of art,” Hyman said. “The pandemic has As artists, I feel like we have become more given me more of a perspective of the kind creative with what we choose to do in order to of art I want to make as I have more time to make the most of the unique situation that we contemplate my mental processes.” are in right now,” Hyman said.

Associate News Editor

The Chronicle

dukechronicle.com

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 3

See more Chronicle journalism on dukechronicle.com The last year, through the eyes of the community

Bridging the Gap Ep. 3

Revisiting Aaron Lorenzo Dorsey’s death at the hands of a DUPD officer, 11 years later

Courtesy of Amanda Mason Aaron Lorenzo Dorsey was shot and killed by a DUPD officer in 2010.

Cameron Oglesby | Contributing Graphic Designer

By Mona Tong Staff Reporter

By Cameron Oglesby Courtesy of Antonio Ulloa-Diaz

By Matthew Griffin, Maria Morrison, Simran Prakash and Mason Berger As the year draws to a close, we’ve asked members of the Duke community to send in their photos and videos from a year like no other in Duke’s history.

Take a look at your classmates, professors and friends as they navigated the last year. We hope that this compilation shows you the diversity of experience that Blue Devils had, and at the same time the common elements we share. Regardless of where we were, we were all part of life at Duke.

chron.it/yearatduke

Chris Kuo

Staff Reporter

Enterprise Editor

Welcome back to Bridging the Gap, a collaboration between The Bridge and The Chronicle, two student publications at Duke.

Listen to Episode 3, the first part of our exploration of environmental justice and eco-experiences at Duke.

Host Cameron Oglesby talks about the gaps that exist in environmental spaces at Duke and at large when it comes to inclusion and representation of individuals of diverse racial or socio-economic backgrounds.

chron.it/btg3

On March 13, 2010, Duke University Police Department officer Jeffrey Liberto shot and killed 25-year-old Aaron Lorenzo Dorsey of Durham. The Chronicle’s coverage of the story at the time did not extend beyond interviews with and statements from representatives of Duke and DUPD, and The Chronicle neither covered the legal proceedings nor gave Dorsey’s loved ones a chance to tell their stories.

As a result, The Chronicle is revisiting the incident with the purpose of giving Dorsey’s loved ones a chance to share his story and their own, and of filling in the gaps in the paper’s coverage from over 10 years ago.

chron.it/aarondorsey

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Students do their clerkships and electives in the hospitals in Israel, the U.S. and Canada. One of these hospitals, Sheba Medical Center, was selected

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The Chronicle

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4 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

From the Archives

Keith and Nugget bring joy, relief to campus during pandemic

By Katie Tan Features Managing Editor

Amid the many changes on Duke’s campus necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, one old sight reliably persists: a smiling canine face and her familiar owner.

The beloved dog-owner duo—Keith Upchurch, Trinity ‘72, and Nugget, his 10-year-old golden retriever—have promenaded through Duke’s campus since 2012. Since Upchurch retired from the Durham Herald-Sun in 2016, they have visited the University almost every day.

Their visits have made them many friends on campus over the years; Nugget’s exceptional lovability and infinite desire to be petted have made her a magnet, drawing all sorts of students to the duo to make both dog and man campus hallmarks.

The pandemic has at times altered Upchurch and Nugget’s visits to campus. Ultimately, however, it’s made them essential.

When Duke first locked down in March 2020, Upchurch and Nugget switched destinations.

Instead of interacting with streams of students passing to and from various classes and activities, they spent their outside time alone at the Duke pond, careful to avoid other people.

The pair returned to a sparsely populated campus when Summer Session I began in June, and those visits have continued. If you wait on West Campus in mid-afternoon, you’re nearly guaranteed to spot them.

When I caught up with Upchurch and Nugget on the Monday before the two-day break from classes, they were settled on the bench near the entrance of the Brodhead Center that overlooks Abele quad—Nugget’s favorite.

The on-campus student population has increased dramatically in the spring semester.

That means more people for Nugget to play

with, Upchurch said. And as much as this is a plus for Nugget, the comfort and company that she provides for students is priceless.

Upchurch’s self-proclaimed job description for Nugget is “putting a smile on Duke students’ faces.”

“I usually give her a grade at the end of each day. It’s usually an A,” Upchurch said. “But sometimes if she gets distracted and she plays around with squirrels and ignores the humans, then I have to downgrade to a B or C.” As we spoke, Nugget suddenly jerked her head at a sideways angle. Her ears perked up and eyes fixed on an invisible target ahead. She was looking for a squirrel.

Chuckling, Upchurch released Nugget from her leash to allow her the thrill of a chase. She raced across the quad, momentarily interrupting a nearby spikeball game. There was no squirrel— false alarm. “Come back, Nugget!” Upchurch called out. The golden retriever trotted back to the bench, panting.

A much-needed good girl

While Upchurch enjoys seeing students socializing and playing games on the quad, he understands that behind the dormitories’ stone walls, he cannot see the students struggling from the mundanity of online classes and the intense workload from a condensed school year.

Easing Duke students’ stress is more important now than ever. Upchurch believes the demand to be around Nugget has grown ever since the pandemic began: For many students, playing with Nugget has been the highlight of their day and main reliever of their stress.

“She’s not officially a therapy dog, but in actual practice, I’d say she’s providing therapy,” Upchurch said. “Some students tell me they get more therapy from Nugget than from the Wellness Center.”

As we talked, small groups of students continued

Anna McFarlane | News Photography Editor .

to approach the bench to pet Nugget, their faces instantly melting into smiles as they scratched her chin and stroked her golden coat. Tufts of Nugget’s fur floated in the air—she had gone to the groomer that day, so she was shedding much more than normal.

“It’s like a snowstorm,” Upchurch laughed.

Although Upchurch is in close proximity to so many students, he mostly doesn’t worry about contracting COVID-19 from visiting campus. He received his first vaccine dose a month ago at the North Carolina Specialty Hospital and his second dose last Thursday.

Even before Upchurch was vaccinated, he

was always comfortable sitting outdoors at least six feet away from students. “I always felt safe then, and I feel safe now,” he said.

Visiting Duke gives some structure to Upchurch’s day. He and Nugget are able to get fresh air and exercise, to see the beautiful trees and flowers, and of course, to visit their friends.

Upchurch likes to end each day knowing he has accomplished something worthwhile.

“Generally, this means seeing friends and knowing we made a difference in people’s happiness,” he said. Coming to Duke’s campus with Nugget allows him to do just that.

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LEE FROM PAGE 1

The ‘really, really, really’ rocky road

A native Durhamite, Lee grew up in Walltown just north of East Campus, and her mother Annette worked at Duke in various campus eateries. She fondly remembers going to work with her mother and feeling inspired by all the students on campus. After seeing how much joy her mother brought to the students with her service, and how much love she received in return, Lee aspired to serve others and to brighten their days with that same cheerful energy. Sometimes, during slow parts of the day, she got to stand on a milk crate and serve students at the cash register.

“I wish I could go back to those days,” Lee said.

Growing up wasn’t always easy, though.

Annette’s first marriage was “really rough” on Lee and her older siblings, and the family didn’t have a great support system. Lee was quiet and kept to herself.

When she enrolled at Durham’s Riverside High School, though, Lee started to find herself. She dug into her passion for dance.

She’d been dancing since she was eight years old, but in high school she started taking classes in ballet, hip-hop, modern, jazz and lyrical. Also during her first year, she met her best friend Courtnee Baysmore, who remains her “bestie” to this day.

Baysmore describes her friend as the calm, cool and collected one, whereas she can sometimes get flustered and frustrated. She said Lee has always been the person she could go to for support and advice and even financial assistance or a place to stay.

“She’s the type that would actually, if she could, take her heart out and give it to you,” Baysmore said.

DIVESTMENT FROM PAGE 1 away from fossil fuels. Baxter believes that two years ago, such investments would not be profitable. Now, clean energy funds are achieving higher returns, which allows DUMAC to fulfill its fiduciary responsibility while pursuing funds which reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, DUMAC only exercises control over direct investments, where shares of companies are purchased with endowment funds.

The majority of Duke’s investments are instead managed by asset management funds with which DUMAC signs an agreement, giving managers of those funds discretion over their investment. DUMAC works with “approximately 128 third-party asset managers, which it has selected to assist in managing university endowment assets,” according to its website.

ACIR not has not formally recommended that Duke should divest from fossil fuel companies, and doing so could be complex.

Baxter said that fossil fuel investment and its impacts on the environment are “such deeply systemic issues that it would be a hollow gesture” to divest.

Baxter drew attention to the other actions Duke is taking to address its environmental impacts, saying that the committee “felt that our carbon neutral policies and alternative energy policies were real expensive but genuine ways to get at the problem of greenhouse gases.”

Junior Margot Armbruster, a student climate activist and opinion managing editor for The Chronicle, feels differently. She wants the University to divest from fossil fuels as a signal that holding shares in major polluters is not socially responsible or acceptable. She added that the act of divesting is far more important than the specific sum of money in funds associated with oil and gas companies.

Student groups’ demands—and ACIR’s early recommendations—have previously led

dukechronicle.com

Baysmore also took dance classes with Lee, but she admitted her friend was the more talented of the two of them. They would practice the routines for hours, sometimes late into the night, and Lee would not give up until Baysmore had mastered the moves.

“Don’t tell her I told you, but she was the best,” Baysmore said. “She’s one of the best dancers I know, and she could’ve had any scholarship anywhere she wanted to go.”

Lee had big hopes of going to college, moving to New York City and becoming a professional dancer or choreographer. She dreamed of dancing on Broadway. But despite getting nearly straight A’s in high school and having great relationships with some of her teachers, Lee didn’t apply to college. She couldn’t get a ride to take her SAT exam, and she didn’t know how to fill out financial aid or admissions applications on her own.

“I felt like no one cared at that moment,” she said. She ended up graduating early, the only one of her siblings to finish high school.

Almost immediately after graduating, she fell in love with a man. It felt like a fairy tale, Lee said, and he loved her more than anyone had in months. Eight months later, she was married at age 18 and expecting a child, her daughter Jaiya, who’s now 11. Shortly after, she was pregnant with her second child, her 10-year-old son John. But her marriage started crumbling after they moved from North Carolina to Maryland to be closer to her husband’s family. At one point, it became physically abusive, Lee said, and she knew she had to do what was best for her children.

After their complicated divorce, Lee was left with a newborn daughter and a son on the way. “I can’t remember a time that I didn’t cry myself to sleep when I was pregnant with John,” she said. “I wish I could go back and talk to my younger self and tell her, ‘You can do this. You don’t have to take this.’”

‘Put on this earth to help everyone’

Price to grant $100,000 in seed funding to Duke Impact Investment Group, though some activists were frustrated with the decision not to pursue other policies.

Baxter noted that the fall’s meeting saw a smaller showing from the student body.

He noticed that the meeting was “not as inquiring” as previous meetings where more students were present. The 2019 open forum was itself poorly attended.

Baxter encouraged students to take advantage of this opportunity, as he says that student voices weigh heavily into ACIR decisions. In the past, student protests over investments into companies benefiting from the harvesting of “conflict minerals” led to a swift recommendation for divestment.

Armbruster expressed frustration that Baxter faulted poor student turnout for a lack of pressure to pursue divestments.

Having attended the October 2019 meeting herself, she recalled that this event was poorly publicized.

“The only reason that I found out about it was because they’d sent out an email, a day or two before, and a fellow student had taken it upon himself to create a Facebook event and invite people to it,” Armbruster said.

Not only is there a high barrier to entry, Armbruster said, but the meetings are also dominated by terms and acronyms that many students are not familiar with.

She credits nine years of student activism for divestment for the progress that has been made and categorizes the claim that if students were to work harder, tangible change would be accomplished as a “diversion tactic.”

Baxter himself was shocked by the urgency and severity of the climate crisis after hearing from student groups who presented at past ACIR forums. His own recognition of the gravity of climate change occurred after he began to chair ACIR. “Four years ago, I thought climate change is important but for me personally, it’s not a big deal,” he said. After he became chair and

witnessed presentations from student groups, he began to feel that the matter is “really serious.”

He was inspired to start a course in the Law School on the impact of climate change on financial markets with Sarah Raskin, visiting professor of the practice in law, to explore the intersection of law, finance and climate change.

Baxter stressed that there must be a strong feeling that Duke is invested in harmful industries, and if this conclusion is reached then the ACIR “would recommend to President Price to divest from such holding and he would take that to the Board, and if the Board approves it, DUMAC doesn’t have to worry about failure to meet their fiduciary obligation.”

Armbruster said she hopes to see Duke confront its relationship with Duke Energy and be “more transparent about how it’s using stakeholder power.” Armbruster feels that as a major partner and customer of Duke Energy, the University has the ability to pressure the utilities provider to be held accountable for its role in coal ash spills and emissions.

While disappointed that Duke put the nail in the coffin a proposed light rail project in the past, she hopes to see the University invest in alternative transportation options, given that commuting is a part of the University’s emissions profile.

Baxter argued that though the ACIR can be perceived as not being as forthright as they should be, they do not possess decision-making power and can only make recommendations. He added that he and other members of the committee are grateful for the work done by student groups to shed light on issues of concern to this generation.

Baxter suggested students also pursue other, more direct avenues of effecting change on campus, such as working with the Campus Sustainability Office—as these institutions are set up to make change more quickly than ACIR.

Lee has grown a lot in the last 10 years. She said her divorce and being a single mother taught her resilience. She started to view every challenge as a learning opportunity and every bad day as a reminder of how good the good days were. She valued disagreements, because those were opportunities for her to put herself in someone else’s shoes and empathize with them.

She wishes her children could have had this version of her as their mother when they were babies.

Bringing joy to people through service is now her life’s passion, in addition to raising her children. Before working at Pitchfork’s, she served breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn on Main Street. Many of her customers were patients at Duke Hospital and their families, and some of them were regulars. She kept in touch with some of them long-term, and it was always hard when a family would come back from the hospital without their loved one.

“It was more than just serving breakfast, I was actually trying to be everything I could be for them,” Lee said.

If she found out it was a customer’s birthday or wedding anniversary, she would sometimes leave out the back door and buy cards and balloons or flowers and chocolates to surprise them and make their day brighter. In return, patrons at the Hilton would bring her tokens of their appreciation or leave special notes on their receipts for her. Students at Duke also bring her notes and little gifts, such as candies, to show their love.

“I think she was put on this earth to help everyone, literally, because that’s what she has done since I’ve known her,” Baysmore said. “I’m so blessed to be her friend.”

Her popularity and constant cheerfulness can also make her a target. She was laid off from a previous job for being “too friendly” and making other people “uncomfortable,” she said.

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 5

Even at Pitchfork’s, she sometimes feels unheard or unseen by her coworkers and supervisors, and she’s even thought of quitting her job on occasion when it all feels like too much.

But on her crummiest days, the students are the reason why she gets up and comes to work.

“I appreciate all the love you guys give to me,” she said, choking up with tears. “It makes the biggest difference in the world.”

VACCINE FROM PAGE 2 survey included lack of knowledge on eligibility and trepidation about receiving the vaccine.

The numbers helped provide insight into the scale of student vaccination and “helped influence/ reinforce future campus decisions like ending the stay-in-place order after a week,” he wrote.

The survey also displayed the need for tracking of vaccine doses received off-campus by students, which will take time to be reflected in Duke myChart.

“We communicated the results out to key administrators in Student Affairs and the Provost’s office, among others,” Hessel wrote. “Special shoutout to Thuan Tran ’23 who brought forth the idea and aided in this effort too (along with DSG).”

In addition to undergraduates and graduates who were vaccinated elsewhere prior to April 1, some students were able to obtain their Pfizer or Moderna shots even earlier.

“A number of graduate students who hold teaching assistant and research positions were provided access to vaccinations earlier than April in alignment with State of North Carolina eligibility,” Cavanaugh wrote.

He noted that Duke encourages students to report their vaccinations to Student Health. He also acknowledged that more students are doing their part each day by receiving their shot, and that this provides some encouragement for the Duke community.

CONVICTION FROM PAGE 2 that only happens because we demand it.”

“We are not strange fruit,” he said again.

Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American studies and chair of the African and African American studies department, noted that citizens have captured on video “hundreds” of instances of violence against Black people.

But in many cases, officers are acquitted despite video of what happened.

Chauvin’s conviction was an anomaly, he said.

“When I heard the verdict yesterday, my first reaction was no reaction,” he said, “because just as we’ve seen so many videos in the last decade or so, we’ve seen so many acquittals and nonindictments in that period of time.”

Neal said that he doesn’t find solace in the verdict.

“We still have to address the conditions that bring us to the moment of George Floyd in the first place,” he said. “Why is it that Black and brown people in this country face the possibility of death for inconsequential, seemingly, interactions with police officers?”

Valerie Ashby, dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, reflected on finding strength in the face of injustice, discrimination and hate.

“I just say to all of those students, particularly, who are out there, our people come from the Middle Passage,” she said. “And I am never too tired or too weary to wake up every day and fight this fight for you.”

After Ashby spoke, the Chapel bells began to ring. They rang for nine minutes and 29 seconds. A wind stirred the magnolia trees as the crowd stood in silence.

The bells stopped ringing. Gary Bennett, vice provost for undergraduate education, who also spoke at the beginning of the event, stepped up to speak.

“I hope we can use this moment as an opportunity to connect with one another,” he said. “And as so many of my colleagues have said, recommit ourselves to the fight for justice and the act of supporting one another.”

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6 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

The Chronicle

recess

Recess graduation roundup: Four years of the best culture recs from staff

By Sarah Derris Recess Editor

As a senior painfully close to graduation, this time in my life has prompted some serious retrospection about the last four years I have spent at Recess. One of my absolute favorite things to do with the staff has been compiling our signature Recess culture roundups: yearly ‘best of’ lists, holiday and seasonal playlists and even a hurricane playlist when campus was bracing for Florence nearly three years ago. Because it’s my last layout and last opportunity, I thought I would compile my own ‘best of’ list. That is, I have selected my personal favorite entries from Recess lists over the last four years to compile the ultimate graduation Recess culture roundup. recess picks best of 2017 “Twin Peaks: The Return” When it was announced that, after 26 years, the cult classic to end all cult classics “Twin Peaks” would return in the form of a limited series event on Showtime, perhaps the best that could be asked of the show is that it would attempt to break from the coffee and cherry pie that has defined its nostalgic appeal since we last entered the Black Lodge. Under the full supervision of David Lynch, who directed all 18 hour-long episodes, “Twin Peaks: The Return” does all that and more, actively rejecting the soapopera trappings of the original show. It’s a dark, brutal, sometimes agonizingly boring affair, but it’s full of some of the most indelible scenes this year in TV has brought us (doing to The Platters’ “My Prayer” what “Blue Velvet” did to “In Dreams”). If the summer of 2017 will go down in my memory as the summer I binge-watched “13 Reasons Why,” it was also the summer I found myself waiting in rapt anticipation every Sunday for a new addition to a show that — even in this, the Golden Age of TV —

defies comparison. — Will Atkinson (T ‘20) 10 ways to wait out hurricane florence Alkaline Trio, "Is This Thing Cursed?"

Alkaline Trio released their ninth — that's right, ninth — studio album, "Is This Thing Cursed?" Aug. 31. Amidst the hustle and bustle that necessarily accompanies the start of the semester, it seems likely that others, like myself, haven't yet had a chance to listen. Luckily, Florence is giving us plenty of time to sit down with these 13 new tracks. Given that it's been five years since their last studio release, "My Shame is True," I have pretty high hopes. If this album ranks higher than 2010's "This Addiction," in my personal categorization of their discography, I'll consider it a success. —Lexi Bateman (T ‘19) halloween selection from recess staff “The Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe” Laden with gothic suspense, gruesome murder scenes and masterly storytelling, Poe’s classic works have defined our understanding of horror and detective fiction since they were first published. Such notorious stories as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” or “The Tell-Tale Heart” contain eerily somber insights into the depths of human psychology, and guarantee a proper Halloween scare when read after dark. —Joel Kohen recess picks the best culture of 2018 Mitski “Be the Cowboy” Indie darling Mitski Miyawaki shattered expectations and hearts alike with her stunning fifth studio album “Be The Cowboy,” a record that examines the various absences, voids and losses of modern life and love with a lyricism in turns graceful and brutal. The album’s lead single “Nobody” was the alternative world’s song of the summer, its boppy, expertly crafted orchestration and wrenching lyrics perfectly encapsulating the

melancholy of Mitski’s thematically rich work. More than just a fantastic record from a phenomenally talented artist, “Be The Cowboy” is a masterpiece that made the isolating chaos of 2018 a little easier to bear. —Sydny Long “Game Night” So when“Game Night”came out at the beginning of 2018, I had minimal hopes for the quality of both its comedy and filmmaking, confident that it would be predictable industry fare. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Daley and Goldstein created a movie that is as funny as it is smart, creative and heartfelt. Its laughs are endless, but it keeps you on your toes, too, something that the genre has long cast aside as unimportant. “Game Night” is a reminder that comedies are capable of much more than Hollywood has convinced us that they are, and they certainly don’t need to rely on cheap humor for their biggest laughs. — Nina Wilder (T ‘20) recess 2019 valentine's day mix The Cure “Lovesong” The Cure’s “Lovesong” is a fun and irresistibly groovy track that's perfect for Valentine's Day. The song was meant to express lead singer Robert Smith’s devotion to his wife, even as they were miles apart while the band was on tour. —Jack Rubenstein Strawberry Switchblade, “Go Away” ‘80s Scottish goth-pop duo Strawberry Switchblade are no strangers to lamenting lost love. Their dreamy and ethereal track “Go Away” is a heartbreaking account of betrayal and abandonment. The song seems to bring on a melancholy that is only fitting for such a godforsaken day. If polka dots and heavy eyeliner don’t already speak to you, this track certainly will. —Sarah Derris

NEW PHOTOBOOK FROM CENTER FOR DOC STUDIES UNDERGRAD EDUCATION DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER SIMS!

With an essay by Wells Tower

PUBLISHED BY KEHRER VERLAG IN ASSOCIATION WITH CDS BOOKS ON SALE NOW AT KEHRERVERLAG.COM

STUDENTS TICKETS FREE! DUKEPERFORMANCES.ORG

recess summer quarantine roundup Kelly Stamps on YouTube I can’t tell you exactly why I spent an entire Saturday this July binge-watching Kelly Stamps’s YouTube videos, but considering the fact that she has gained nearly 300,000 subscribers since May, I assume I am not alone. Defying both category and expectation, Stamps’ hodgepodge of fashion, comedy and lifestyle content is just so likable — much like Stamps herself. Maybe I admire her candor and trademark “unbothered” demeanor or maybe I’m just socially deprived and feel a bond over our shared love for tiramisu. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working. —Tessa Delgo “Do the Right Thing” (1989) Just like the boiling heat, the issues and conflicts tackled in this classic Spike Lee joint are as relevant as ever this summer. It’s a perfect time to watch it again to remind ourselves how racism and police brutality have persisted even before this film’s release in 1989, and why we need to keep fighting. Bonus: it’s still a deeply satisfying visual and auditory feat, even in 2020. —Eva Hong recess fall 2020 roundup Joanna Newsom, “Divers” (2015) Like a matchstick burning brightest before it sputters and dies, fall colors are nature’s final battle cry before grayscales descend. “Divers,” like fall, seems to contain something of death while celebrating the cycle of history, knowing that one day the leaves will reemerge. I listened to this album on car rides to school during the fall of my freshman year of high school. Newsom’s alien whimsy, her ornate folk arrangements of harps and harpsichords and flutes, harvested glee out of tough transitions — from summer to winter and from one stage of my life to the mysterious next. — Stephen Atkinson

The Chronicle

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sportswrap

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 7

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Column: Duke’s road to the College Cup After Duke’s longest regular season ever and a nonconference schedule designed to prove the team’s worth, the Blue Devils are in the NCAA tournament for the Em Adler sixth straight year.

The NCAA announced its tournament bracket Monday, with Duke coming in as the No. 9 overall seed, its highest seeding in three years and second-highest since 2012.

Its record included a win against No. 14seed Clemson, a fairly dominating tie with No. 16-seed Vanderbilt, a close tie with playin Virginia and quality losses to No. 1-seed Florida State, No. 2-seed North Carolina and No. 5-seed West Virginia.

Duke (10-5-3, 4-2-2 in the ACC) sits in the Florida State quarter of the bracket, and the Blue Devils’ quality regular season earned them a first-round bye as they await the winner of an Arizona State-Siena play-in.

Should Duke come away with a win there, it’ll play the winner of the match between USC and Mississippi/Bowling Green for a spot in the quarterfinals.

But the real question is: What are Duke’s actual chances of getting to the College Cup (Final Four) at WakeMed Park in Cary, N.C.?

The Blue Devils shouldn’t have trouble advancing to the Round of 16. Arizona State

(8-5-3, 4-4-2 in the Pac-12) is one of three Pac12 teams to be selected for the tournament, despite having been fairly unimpressive all season—the Sun Devils had a -29 shot differential in conference play and their shots on goal differential was barely positive. Their lone top-25 win came against USC, despite Arizona State having been roundly outplayed in that match.

Siena (6-0-2, 4-0-1 in the MAAC) played much better against its conference, but the MAAC is a fairly weak conference, and the Saints didn’t exactly dominate it. They’re going to just their third tournament ever and their first since 2015, and have returned the bulk of a 2019 team that went 4-11-4, all of which is to say that there’s not a track record of big performance.

The Round of 16 is where it’ll get hard.

There’s a very good chance Duke sees No. 8-seed USC (7-3-3, 6-3-2 in the Pac-12), given that Mississippi (6-4-3, 2-3-3 in the SEC) only has one quality win to its name and Bowling Green (6-1, 5-1 in the MAC) only dominated a very weak conference. USC, however, performed extremely well in the Pac12, including playing No. 3-seed UCLA even over 220 minutes.

The Trojans present a unique matchup for the Blue Devils, but one Duke should be well-situated to contain. USC’s offense is built around having two of the best strikers in the

country, and getting them the ball in every way possible. The Blue Devils have arguably the best back line in the country, however, and are quite adept against individual scoring threats—Virginia is a comparable team to USC, and Duke has held the Cavaliers to just two goals in the two teams’ past 310 minutes against one another. And the Trojans are weakest at their back line, which should play up a Blue Devil attack that struggles to finish. Duke may not be favored against USC, but it should be more likely that the Blue Devils are in control for 90 minutes than the Trojans win a blowout.

Should Duke beat USC and make it to the quarterfinals, it would take a historic upset for anyone but Florida State to await the Blue Devils.

The Seminoles are a powerhouse, with eight players between TopDrawerSoccer’s Top 100 and Freshman Top 100, including the No. 1 player in the country—and the only USWNT player in college right now—in midfielder Jaelin Howell. With a couple exceptions, Florida State made a complete mockery of the strongest conference in the country and cruised to an ACC title, before deciding that was sufficient and not playing in the spring.

Florida State (11-0, 8-0 in the ACC) can play nearly any style, but prefers to try quick strikes in the early minutes before substituting its way into its best lineup and then playing extremely methodical possessions while still taking a bevy of shots. The Seminoles play defense as if they’re on offense, actively seeking and destroying possessions in the midfield before they develop. Duke’s defense

Courtesy of Reagan Lunn/Duke Athletics

Sophomore Sophie Jones was named to the All-ACC First Team this past fall. matches up well here, but its offense would be reliant on strong counters and corners to win.

The Seminoles have outshot their opponents by a margin of 12.6 shots per game, including 4.9 on goal, absurd numbers for playing in the ACC. They outshot their opponents in all 11 of their games, and were outshot-on-goal just once: the ACC tournament semifinals, in which Duke posted 10 shots on goal to Florida State’s eight but fell to the Seminoles 4-0.

The Blue Devils earned their way into a winnable side of the Florida State bracket, but if they can actually manage to advance to the College Cup, this could end up being one of the most remarkable Duke runs ever.

COLUMN

Grateful for the opportunities I looked around the empty Dean Dome, trying my best to soak it all in.

I had finished my instant story more than an hour prior, but I wasn’t ready to leave just yet. No, it wasn’t in the front row of a packed Cameron Indoor Stadium. And no, it wasn’t a game Duke fans would care to remember past that night.

But it was still Duke-UNC. Sitting there in the moment, I knew like every other Chronicle sports editor it’d be an experience I remembered for the rest of my life. And I was just trying to stretch that experience out as long as I could.

It’s been a similar feeling over the last several weeks. As my tenure as sports editor has slowly reached the finish line, I’ve tried my best to soak in every moment and realize how lucky I’ve been over these last 12 months, even if they’ve not gone according to plan at all.

While reading previous sports editors’ outgoing columns in preparation for writing this one, I couldn’t help but think of the opportunities I was going to, but didn’t, get. No trip to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis, no courtside seats at the home North Carolina game, no trip to the NCAA tournament (the latter one not because of COVID-19—Duke just didn’t make it), etc.

But then I remembered the one opportunity I did get: My job over the past

Evan Kolin

Evan Kolin | Contributing Photographer

Duke’s blowout loss at the Dean Dome wasn’t a game to remember for the Blue Devil faithful, but covering that game in person was an experience I’ll remember forever. year has been to cover Duke sports.

I still remember making my own weekly college football “magazines” as a kid, typing up 10+ pages of stories and predictions on my mom’s laptop and printing it out for keepsake. I did this for absolutely no reason other than the pride I felt carrying the “magazine” around for the next few days.

I also remember walking into the Duke Athletics offices right before school started my freshman year to interview for a student assistant role in the Sports Information department. I had already planned to join The Chronicle, but my goal was to become as immersed in Duke’s sports scene as possible, and I figured this was yet another way to do it (I was told during the

stronger as my tenure as sports editor continued.

When bored, I often find myself scrolling through the archives of The Chronicle’s website and print issues, finding articles and covers that documented significant moments in Duke, or even Chronicle, history (for example, the early days of when Chronicle sports joined Twitter).

I was enamored by the documenting of all these historic events in one place, and even more enamored by the fact that, one day, someone might be scrolling through the archives and find some of my articles.

It’s these kinds of discoveries that helped me realize that The Chronicle really is bigger than all of us, and I couldn’t be prouder to say I’ve been a small part in its long history.

There are other parts of my time as sports editor I’ve cherished as well.

Even without the in-person component, our department meetings are always a fun time. Our GroupMe is even better. And the opportunity I’ve had to actually spend time with people in 301 Flowers has been even better than that.

I’ve also been able to write some of my proudest stories as well as conduct some of my coolest interviews, from talking to Krzyzewskiville’s first tenter last summer to watching Nolan Smith take the next step in his coaching career just this past week.

So yeah, there weren’t any cross-country trips or packed Cameron Indoor Stadium crowds. But again, I got to spend the last 12 months covering Duke sports.

There’s no better opportunity than that.

interview that working for Duke Athletics and writing for The Chronicle’s sports section was a conflict of interest, something that confused me at the time but I now have a much better understanding of).

What I also didn’t realize at the time was that becoming sports editor of The Chronicle would allow me to combine this passion for telling sports stories with my goal of becoming immersed in the world of Duke athletics. Yes, I wrote for this department for two years prior to my term as sports editor and still have a year to go now, but I quickly realized there’s something different about editing every article for every sport on campus.

Evan Kolin is a Trinity junior. He served as My appreciation for The Chronicle only got sports editor of The Chronicle’s 116th volume.

8 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

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The Chronicle

Chronicling my time at The Chronicle

O

ne morning in the Chronicle office, after pulling an all-nighter to finish a PubPol memo, I saw a squirrel in front of me.

I was laying on the couch with my laptop, and 15 feet in front of me a squirrel was

For my senior column, I decided to share some of my favorite stories, photos and moments from my four years at the paper.

This isn’t a collection of all my best stories, per se, just ones that I’d like to share with you, my loyal readers (hi Grandma!).

Jake Satisky EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, V. 115 chilling in the office. My heart skipped a beat, not knowing how it got in or, more importantly, how I was going to get it out.

Luckily, right after I snapped a quick pic of it, the squirrel jumped back out of the open window through which it came in.

That incident is just one of many incredible and unique experiences I’ve had in 301 Flowers, The Chronicle’s office. The Chronicle has been the most important pillar of my Duke career. I started out as a news staff reporter, rose up to be a university news editor, made a BIG leap to become editor-inchief of the entire organization, and then this year I’ve enjoyed semi-retirement as digital strategy director. I couldn’t have foreseen The Chronicle becoming this integral to my identity at Duke, but I’m so grateful for it.

It all began with my very first story.

Despite having tons of experience (i.e. editor-in-chief of my seventh grade newspaper that lasted a semester), I picked an easy Q&A to start with. Having that first successful interview under my belt gave me the confidence to continue writing.

My first year I also moonlighted as a food reporter. I wrote about which on-campus eateries use the most avocados (spoiler: ABP), and in the first draft I turned in I thought it’d be funny to use a different nickname for avocados each time I mentioned them (spoiler: they got edited out). For some reason, my editors also let me write a food review of Thrive on Central Campus.

That summer, I had the pleasure of walking around downtown Durham with

“

I couldn’t have foreseen The Chronicle becoming this integral to my identity at Duke, but I’m so grateful for it.

”

Phail Wynn, who headed Duke’s Office of Durham and Regional Affairs for 10 years. We talked about Durham’s history, downtown development, affordable housing and his interests in motorcycles and Star Wars. I wish I could’ve talked with him more, but he tragically died a month later.

My first investigative story came during sophomore fall, when I worked on a story about housekeepers getting their shifts uprooted against their wishes. Thankfully, the administration reversed the policy before it went into effect. After that story, I knew that I wanted to run for editor-in-chief and produce more stories like it.

A few months later, I got the opportunity to travel to Washington to see the Supreme Court hear oral arguments for the N.C. gerrymandering case. Well, I didn’t actually see that case’s oral arguments—we accidentally stood at the front of the line for 30 minutes, not realizing we had cut everybody—but I was fortunate enough to witness arguments for the Maryland gerrymandering case.

In the summer after being elected editorin-chief, I produced a pretty darn good baseball photo (even though I had never shot an event with a real camera in my life) and an award-winning graphic for a story about lemurs and cell phones.

I’m extremely proud of every serious, intensely reported Chomicle article I’ve written from the past two years, from Duke’s new head of housing to admin emails to a day with Coach K to reimbursing housing fees to the search for essential belongings to my thoughts on Peaches. Oh, and I’m really, really proud of this one.

One of the perks of being a Raleighbased editor-in-chief was that I got to cover men and women’s basketball games over winter break, despite having no prior sports journalism experience. I even asked Coach K a question!

Finally, my heart swells with pride when

I think about our COVID-19 coverage last spring, when the world closed down so unexpectedly. Anyone on staff could have just shut down when they left campus, but everyone found a renewed sense of purpose to keep our coverage stronger than ever.

Obviously I wish the year didn’t end the way it did, but I will always appreciate how the V. 115 staff stepped up to the plate when the time called.

Favorite story that I didn’t write: Every day of my sophomore year, I passed by the weird Keohane painting, and truth be told, I quite liked it by the end of the year. So when we at The Chronicle heard it might get taken down, I couldn’t wait to get a story written about it. Thankfully, our brave art reporters Nathan Luzum and Carter Forinash laid out the history and controversy surrounding “Untitled 1.” Because of this story, the two of them wound up moderating a panel on paintings at Duke. Treat yourself and read this story.

Jake Satisky is a Trinity senior who served as editor-in-chief of The Chronicle’s 115th volume. He is already missing 301 Flowers, the quote wall, frantic print nights, late-night food runs, sleeping on the office couch, watching reporters and editors improve their skills, deep conversations in the office and the amazing people who made it all worth it. Speaking of, he would like to thank previous EICs Likhitha and Bre for mentoring and inspiring him; Nathan, Stef, Kathryn, Shannon and Lexi for being the best upper masthead an EIC could ask for; Derek, Leah Abrams, Nina, Mary Helen and Charles for leading fantastic sections and livening up the office; Matthew for taking the paper to even greater heights; Leah Boyd for the excellent work you’ll do next year as EIC; Chrissy for just being the best general manager in the country; and Carter for keeping me sane as my roommate and Chronicle partner-incrime for the past three years.

Embracing empathy

M

arch 4, 2020 was a relatively normal print production day. I walked from my evening game theory class in LSRC to Flowers 301 ready to fact-check stories and checklist the layout of the print paper for the next day. Tea from Vondy in hand, I thought I was ready for the late night ahead, but, as the cliché goes in most folks’ memories of the early days of

reporting on the pandemic with care for the past year.

When I checked in on news reporters to see how they were doing over spring break, I was always amazed at how many asked me if there were any new pitches or if there was anything they could do to help.

The news department published more daily content once we shifted online and globally

Stefanie Pousoulides NEWS EDITOR, V. 115 the pandemic, it was unfathomable that that would have been my last print night as news editor.

From that moment forward, my college and student journalist experience has been largely online, but I’ve oddly never felt closer to The Chronicle. When we transitioned the news department online for spring break in 2020, I didn’t expect that shift to remote production to last to the day I would write my senior column. But I’ve also been so proud of what The Chronicle has achieved during the two most difficult volumes we’ve encountered.

Editors already constantly monitored their emails and tweets for any breaking news. And, starting in March 2020, we and the rest of the student body also watched our semester and summer plans crumble away and struggled with our loved ones to cope with the losses during the pandemic.

Empathy was a guiding force in approaching

dispersed during the pandemic, and I will forever be so grateful for our writers’ care for others and dedication to cover the personal stories of members of the Duke community.

But, I still ache for The Chronicle’s inperson community, production nights, events and meetings. I nostalgically remember bringing Matthew food from McDonald’s with Nathan during a DSG budget meeting, visiting a cat café in Chapel Hill with Isabelle and recognizing Leah from a production night and talking with her in line at Sanford’s Saladelia. I treasured the opportunity to get to know our new reporters in the news department over coffee, sharing a meal or just chatting in Flowers 301 office.

Some of my favorite memories with folks in The Chronicle have been outside of Flowers, like walking with Isabelle and Lexi from George Washington University

to the Supreme Court to watch the sunset over the Capitol and adopting my cat Em(Dash) with Preetha. A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined the tear-jerking thrill of being vaccinated, no less my Chronicle mentee Katie and I celebrating getting vaccinated together and taking a selfie with Nugget in the background while leaving the vaccination center.

These in-person moments mark times when I felt that I was able to understand the stories of folks in The Chronicle and in the Duke community, and, this volume, I worried how we would be able to emulate that experience by looking at each other via a screen. I realized that being able to empathize with a colleague or someone you’re interviewing doesn’t depend on sitting across from them. It’s about listening to voices, observing what they place emphasis on and acknowledging the importance of their perspective. Amid the chaos of the pandemic, reporters at The Chronicle were motivated to tell the stories of the community and ask those in positions of authority tough questions, and I’m immensely proud of our work this past year.

We’ve reported more stories focusing on accountability and transparency, like those on Title IX and dining workers, and reevaluated past Chronicle coverage of police killings by focusing on the stories of Danny Lee Winstead and Aaron Lorenzo Dorsey.

We added questions on experiences of the pandemic and voting in the 2020 election to The Chronicle’s first-year survey and

published stories on the disproportionate impacts COVID-19 has had on Black, Latinx, rural and low-income first-years and the political beliefs and voting patterns of first-years. We’ve also featured the stories of students advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, demanding greater support for the AAPI community amid anti-Asian violence, creating the Disability Cultural Center, organizing through the Duke Black Coalition Against Policing and distributing funds to the community through Duke Mutual Aid. As Matthew said in our last V. 116 section head meeting, our reporters were committed to covering Duke beyond the Allen Building.

Empathy is an incredibly important value to me personally, and I’ve aspired to let empathy guide my reporting and roles in the news and investigations departments.

Highlighting student and worker voices in our reporting has been a priority this volume, and I’m so excited to watch future volumes continue this work. It has been an honor to be part of The Chronicle’s team and to be part of a community that cares so deeply about pursuing the truth and serving the public good.

Stefanie Pousoulides was the investigations editor of V. 116 and news editor of V. 115.

She’d like to thank Chrissy, Shagun, Isabelle, Leah, Lexi, Bre, Ben, Nathan, Jake, Mona, Preetha, Nadia, Rose, Hannah, Anna, Katie and Matthew for their humor, brilliance, selflessness and compassion.

The Chronicle

I

’ve been a rather under-the-radar contributor to The Chronicle over the past four years. As the photo editor and audio editor (yes, we have podcasts!), my name has only ever appeared on photo credits or listed as a host or producer for podcasts in a rather small department. This is my first and final written contribution to a paper that has shaped my college

dukechronicle.com

Under the radar frustration as my cutouts for the sports department took much longer than they should have. Eventually, with the help of upperclassmen and those in my year like Henry Haggart and Charles York, I started producing things I was proud of.

As time went on, I started helping other photographers do the same. I continued to rely on those upperclassmen and the

Mary Helen Wood PHOTO EDITOR, V. 115 experience beyond any other organization at Duke. I regret that I didn’t write at times, but as a history major, I think I’ve written enough. I’m thankful I spent my time with The Chronicle and the community it creates in the way I did.

I always tell people that college is a fantastic place to experiment with new things. For me, that was photography. After an interest meeting, I approached sophomore Bre Bradham, who went on to be the volume 114 editor-in-chief and a dear friend. She reassured me that no prior experience or camera ownership was required to work for the photo department: The Chronicle could not only train me but provide me with access to DSLR cameras. Anyone can join, and you only contribute as much as you want. I liked the open invitation. The rest, I tell people, was history.

Except it wasn’t, at the time. I got invested.

I spent hours shadowing upperclassmen, trying to learn how aperture, ISO and shutter speed interact, producing grainy or dim photos that at times were salvageable but often were not. I struggled with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, groaning in

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 9

freshmen and sophomores who kept coming back to our Sunday night meetings when I served as one of the head photo editors for The Chronicle’s 115th volume.

As I grew comfortable with editing software, I experimented with audio production and helped grow a podcast department during my sophomore year.

I’ll admit it floundered: I struggled to turn out our regular sports and opinion content once I became the photo editor. During this atypical senior year, my bandwidth was limited. But I remain proud of the stories we told and expanded on over the past three years, especially thanks to the work of Cameron Oglesby on our collaboration with The Bridge this academic year. If you haven’t listened to “Bridging the Gap”, an exploration of diversity and discrimination at Duke, I highly encourage you to do so.

As a photographer, I got to attend events from across campus that I either wouldn’t have had the credentials/tickets to get into or never would have made the time for otherwise. This lifetime North Carolinian got to travel to New York City to cover the men’s basketball team in Madison Square

Garden. I was run over by Tre Jones in Cameron and have a gif of the pictures to prove it. I photographed Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Gretchen Carlson, Tanara Burke, William Barber II, Zion Williamson and Quinn XCII. These are the things I generally talk about when people ask me about my experience with The Chronicle. It’s what I pitch to first years during recruitment for our little family of photographers: the magic of a press pass.

But I also covered things that seemed minute in the moment. I took stock photos of crests in West Union that most of us never notice. I got a perfectly timed shot of someone yawning in Bostock during midterms. I photographed the beginning of the stickynotes-in-dorm-windows craze (remember the word “NUT” in the window above the arch that leads to Crowell quad from Towerview Road?). I learned to recognize faces in Duke’s administration, from Board of Trustees members to leaders in the Academic Council. My assignments forced me to spend time outside of the Duke bubble and took me all over the Triangle. The dreaded chore of hiking from the office to photograph Duke Student Government meetings on Wednesday nights, typically pawned off to first year associate editors, made me more invested in both their activities and regular, late-night walks across campus.

I spent hours sorting through these photos and those in our archives, organizing, editing, and uploading whatever sports or news or recess needed for the next day’s coverage. I interacted with staff from every Chronicle department at one time or another, asking for specifics of what was needed and brainstorming when we didn’t have the right stock image. We bonded on editing nights, cocooned in the warmth of yellowing

newspapers on the walls, handwritten jokes, and laughter coming from across the office. I became much more appreciative of journalism as a practice and all the work it takes to keep news agencies afloat by watching our reporters. 301 Flowers became a haven for me that provided a glimmer of routine and familiarity during some of the most hectic years of my life.

Looking back, it’s those quotidian events I covered, the countless hours spent learning my way around a camera, and my regular time in the office with friends that I value the most from my Chronicle experience. In the moment, they felt inconsequential. But the photo department has taught me to appreciate perspective. Photojournalism at times felt like another responsibility to juggle. Even so, it was the only one that asked me to slow down and take in my surroundings, if only briefly every week. The Chronicle helped me survive my time at Duke by getting me out of my head and giving me something concrete to focus on: capturing the rhythms of university life for our readers and supporting my friends as they did the same. I will always be grateful for what my quiet roles provided me, and that I had a chance to document our home with people I love.

Mary Helen served as the Photography Editor of the Chronicle’s 115th volume and the podcast editor for volumes 113 and 116. She is grateful to Ian, Sujal and Bre for teaching her everything she knows about photography and is so proud of photo editor Simran Prakash, upcoming editor Bella Bann, and the rest of the photo department for all the work they’ve done this year and will do next. After four years of working for the photo department, she is proud to announce she bought her first camera in April 2021.

You deserve to be here

T

he Chronicle is one of two things at Duke I have stayed with since O-Week.

I wanted to be a reporter to critically examine relevant issues on campus, profile the quirky interests of my peers and tell the stories of everyday members of our community. Being an editor was never on my agenda. The editors of The Chronicle seemed so cool and confident, like they were in on one really big inside joke. Sitting in news meetings made me feel like I could pretend to be on the inside, knowing I was only on the outside peeking in. This metaphor even extends into the physical space, as the The Chronicle office has an alcove of iMacs and swivel chairs that, based on what I saw, were for editors only. I conceived an imaginary line that extended

spent that year pretending as if I belonged in the banter with the other staffers but feeling like I was watching from the sidelines. When it came time for applications again, I did not feel an urgent need to become an editor.

I had always planned to be a reporter, so I confidently sent my application to Jake for the senior reporter position.

Soon after decisions were released, I was added into various Chronicle group chats and bombarded with text messages about training schedules and editing shifts—all of which I ignored because they were irrelevant to reporters. It wasn’t until I was called out in the group messages that I realized something was amiss. I frantically searched for Jake’s announcement congratulating everyone on their new positions. I scanned

“

This small mistake led to some of my most meaningful experiences at Duke. In the short time I was senior editor, I learned so much about myself, the University, and the responsibility of being part of something much bigger than yourself.

”

Shannon Fang SENIOR EDITOR, V. 115 from the vending machine to the couch— and I thought if I could cross that line and sit in those swivel chairs one day, then I’d finally be inside on the joke. I did eventually sit in one of those chairs, but my path there was unconventional. Instead of becoming a section or associate editor for news, I applied to be one of two editors for Towerview, a long-gone relic of our previous features section. Having no experience in editing, factchecking, story-pitching, or putting together a print paper, I took them all on (with the invaluable help of Hank!). During that time, I felt everyone else had suddenly become part of the inner Chronicle circle, spending late nights together every week on editing shifts. I

the list and saw my name—with “senior editor” written next to it.

I wasn’t even aware senior editor was a position. My brain slowly connected the dots: I accidentally applied to be senior editor instead of senior reporter. In my defense, they both start with the word “senior.” Then, I had to make a decision. Should I apologize profusely and get out the group chats while I still can, or should I just go with it? I decided to just go with it.

Looking back at my application, I forgot to rank senior reporter as my first preference.

This small mistake led to some of my most meaningful experiences at Duke. In the short time I was senior editor, I learned so

much about myself, the University, and the responsibility of being part of something much bigger than yourself. I got to know some of the most dedicated, passionate, funny, and inspiring people I’ve met. That being said, I never felt the same sense of community with The Chronicle as expressed by those who have written these senior columns before me. I never felt I knew the right things to say or ways to act. I never understood all the passing references or inside knowledge. I never knew my place to sit. I felt like a spectator to the experience I should be having. However, I remember the first time going into the Chronicle office, crossing the imaginary line and taking my seat in the beaten-down swivel chair.

There was never an inside joke, there was just knowing that you deserve to be there.

It took one mistake, one person to believe I should be an editor, and one decision to understand that I did deserve to be there. I never want someone to forgo the chance to be part of the incredible experience that is The Chronicle because they lack a sense of belonging: This is me telling you that you deserve to be here.

Shannon is a Trinity senior who served as senior editor for V. 115 and diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator for V. 116. She would like to thank Hank for teaching her everything about putting a section together, Bre for being the first person to make her feel part of The Chronicle, Nathan for his infinite wisdom, Stefanie for her dedication, Rose for always being able to put a smile on her face and Jake for his confident leadership.

The Chronicle

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10 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

How Duke has changed me, for better and worse

A

few weeks ago, I posted a humorous TikTok about how my experience at Duke influenced my mental health, where I listed some of the negative aspects of life here: intense classes, exclusionary social scene,

was an environment where no one knew me made me bold and confident. I became addicted to that freedom, and to this day, I have not shut up about being gay.

In my first year, I stopped being confident in my physical appearance.

Nathan Heffernan COLUMNIST unhealthy diet culture, etc. The video reached a decent amount of viewers, many who I realized were prospective students, who were horrified by how bad life seemed here. Students from other universities echoed my comments as well. The issues I joked about in my video were so commonplace to my life here, and shared by all of my peers, that I forgot they were extreme. As a senior, I have an opportunity to look back at my years, to see the campus culture from a different lens, and reflect on the change I have experienced while at this university.

For starters, Duke was the first place I was completely, openly gay. On the first day of orientation, a member of my FAC group asked me “hey, are you gay?” and when I said yes she giggled and told her friend “I told you so.” It was the first time I had come out to a stranger, and it was my point of no return. The fact that Duke

Before college, I generally thought of myself as an attractive person, and really loved the way I looked. I am not sure what decreased my confidence— the inexplicable number of hot people on campus, the body standards of gay dating,or my extended dry periods. But for most of college I didn’t really see myself as desirable. It took a few years and one really good relationship to make me appreciate how I look, and find self worth beyond the fickle validation of men.

My time at Duke has made me feel mediocre—and happy about it. In a column I wrote a few years ago, I talked about the constant rejection I faced from campus organizations and opportunities.

After a few years of even more rejections, I still don’t see myself as exceptional, and I am at peace with that. I understand that any success in life is dependent on an unpredictable mix of effort, skill and luck.

Seeing myself as a mere mortal, and not the exalted Duke student we are trained to view ourselves as, gives me a feeling of agency I didn’t always have. My life is in my own hands, not in my resume. I was an anxious person before, and I am a very anxious person now. It’s a chicken and the egg scenario with elite universities and anxiety: do these places make us anxious, or are anxious people attracted to these places? My constant mental bookkeeping and tendency to overthink made me a successful student, but the pressure of Duke was too much to handle operating at 100%. I learned how to relax a little more at Duke, but am still working on the balance of managing my anxiety and being the hyperproductive person I am expected to be.

Finally, my time here has made me a much better friend. I realized quickly, in my first few months here, that friends are really the most important thing we have to work for in life. Family is important too, but they’re handed to you. Friendship takes effort, especially at a place like Duke.

For the first two years of Duke, it was hard to make time for all of the people I called friends. Schedules got in the way, and I found people slipping in and out of my life. The pandemic eliminated much of my life at Duke as I knew it, but in doing that it created space for the friends that I love.

In the past year, I lost all of the

positives of Duke, and maintained many of the negatives. Never again did I have spontaneous social events, aesthetic library study spots, free rock climbing or intramural volleyball. I still had the coursework, deadlines and pressure to plan for my future.

But in the absence of so much, I filled the time with my friends. I reconnected with old friends, got closer to people I only knew in group settings, and learned how to show love to people I wanted in my life for good.

Duke has influenced my growth so much in the past year, and has changed the way I view the world. The environment was intense, exclusive, and obsessed with achievement—and these traits rubbed off on me. But Duke changed as well in the past year. I was forced to create a happy life without the institution I was immersed in.

And I am so thankful to people in my life who made that possible, and to Duke for bringing them to me.

Nathan Heffernan is a Trinity senior and is done having opinions. He would like to thank Frances and Leah for giving him the confidence to carry out this column, his parents and grandparents for tolerating his absurdity, Charlotte for entertaining all of his ideas and every queer person who touched his life at Duke.

Truth be told A

round this time three years ago, I boldly declared that while college was great, I hadn’t really

Ann Gehan STAFF REPORTER learned a whole lot.

After one year of Duke, I felt like I knew everything—I knew only grad students went to Shooters on Friday nights, I knew that the C2 would usually pull away right as I got to the bus stop after running from Science Drive to try to make it to my next class on time, and I knew to never get stuck in the Vondy line in between the end of your 1:25 and the start of your 3:05.

I had also navigated what I thought were a finite set of struggles limited to the first year of college.

I dropped out of classes, failed exams, embarrassed myself in front of guys I liked, suffered through rush, and ultimately realized that at the end of the day, none of that stuff was really all that important. I had been incredibly lucky to find a group of friends I connected with and who were there to witness, support me through and participate in the chaos that was my life.

With their help, I made it to the end of my first year at Duke in pretty much one piece, prompting my declaration that everything I’d learned in the classroom, including two semesters of Arabic, didn’t really mean much compared to the lessons I had learned about myself.

As my first year rolled into my sophomore year, I thought I had it all figured out. At this rate, by senior year,

I expected I’d be an unrecognizable just have to look for it. superhuman, breezing through life at Duke is a tough place. It is well Duke with no problem at all. I’d answer documented in this newspaper and countless other places that universities, particularly this one, can be relentlessly unforgiving.

Duke literally coined the term “effortless perfection,” a nefarious concept that remains alive and well on our campus, everyone who asked me how I made it all even in the middle of a pandemic. Not work with the words of the feminist icon only that, it’s been a tough year. herself: “What, like it’s hard?”

The arrival of spring has made the 13th Unfortunately, I think both Elle Woods month of March 2020 feel like basically and my first-year self would be a little no time has passed at all. The air is heavy bit disappointed in me right now. I’m again—both with pollen and with the currently a lot more like Warner than I relentless suffering and sacrifice that have am like Elle—graduating without honors, become a feature of our daily lives. without a relationship, and without a One of the most valuable things I’ve full-time job. Despite all that I’ve learned learned from journalism is that sometimes, about myself over the past four years, on when things get tough or confusing, the some level, it feels like I failed. I feel like best thing you can do is sit down and all the good things I’ve fought so hard to compile the truth. learn over the last four years are all about It can be harder than it sounds— to slip away—that as soon as “diploma. emails go unanswered, sources avoid pdf ” lands in my inbox, I’ll be back to tough questions, office phones go straight square one. to voicemail, people you thought were I have a 12-week summer internship, a friends lie to you. messed-up knee and not a whole lot else.

But that’s the great thing about I can’t imagine a post-grad future in a reporting and about life: the facts are new city or with a new job. I can’t look for out there, you just have to find them and apartments near my future office or figure figure them out, regardless of what other out how often I’ll be able to see my friends. people put in your way.

I’ll be in my parents’ house, measuring I’ve spent the last four years figuring time by how long it takes before I can get out facts about myself: I require at least off crutches and out of a brace and how three cups of coffee to even think about long it’s been since I’ve submitted job becoming functional in the morning. applications. It feels like all of the truths of I get really nervous before making the last four years are about to disappear. phone calls—something I’ve learned is However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned difficult when your career path requires from writing for the Chronicle, it’s that frequently calling a lot of strangers on the the truth is never impossible to find—you phone. I use too many em dashes when I

write. Duke basketball hype videos make me cry. (A lot of things make me cry.)

My favorite study spot is on the second floor Bostock bridge, even though you can never find a seat there. I have been so unbelievably lucky during my time at Duke.

No matter what comes my way after graduation, I will hang on to these facts because they are true.

The truth is increasingly hard to come by these days, and I am so thankful to everyone who invests their time and energy into making The Chronicle the organization that it is.

I am so grateful to have found this space that values the truth.

And the most important truth of them all? You should probably delete Tinder. I always had way more fun with my friends.

Ann Gehan is a Trinity senior. She would like to thank Jackson and Leah for taking the first chance on her as a columnist, for their patient edits and for helping her become a meme. She would also like to thank the tens of devoted Dirt readers, most of whom are related to her or are her close friends, Trey and the ad staff for coming up with subject lines to accompany her terrible jokes each week, and Chrissy for her endless positivity and support. She is incredibly grateful to David Graham and Bronwen Dickey for helping her realize that there were more important stories to be told than her own.

Finally, she would like to sincerely apologize to everyone who has sent her an email in the past four years that she never responded to, which, unfortunately, is a very large group of people.

The Chronicle

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FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 11

Almost all of it I

came to Duke without a clue in my mind. The first two years of college was a lot of stumbling—through a toxic relationship, an intense eating

program that now informs every sentence I write and question I pose. I’m here to say a bittersweet goodbye to the latter.

In one of my first visits to the office,

Rose Wong SENIOR EDITOR disorder, and depression that was kept hidden in my childhood bedroom for years but exploded into every corner and crevice of my life as soon as I came to college. The funhouse mirrors of my mind were so large and disfiguring that at times I thought I would stumble forever. But the thing I didn’t know about stumbling is that just as you can cluelessly stumble into darkness, you can stumble your way into the light.

By fall 2018, I was single, binging less and met more friends than I ever had in my life. At the same time, my lifelong attraction to writing, asking questions and scorning institutional powers was starting to pierce through the noise of external and familial pressures telling me a career is about accumulating wealth and prestige. I wasn’t sure what it meant to become a journalist and how one would go about that, but I did have enough sense to stumble into two very fateful rooms: Bill Adair’s office and 301 Flowers. The former welcomed me—with the most open arms—into a journalism

then-Senior Editor Nathan Luzum gave me a tour. I recall being enchanted by every bit of that shabby old place—artworks sketched during idle moments of editing shifts, oxidized newspapers marking notable events in University history, partially slanted ceiling, and in general just stuff all over the place. I loved it.

My first copy—covering a panel discussion about NAFTA—was trash. The next one was too. And the next several. But with each story, I got a little less bad. Cathy Clabby’s Newswriting and Reporting class sped up my progress tremendously. Along the way, I had countless transformative reporting experiences that would not have been possible without The Chronicle.

One of my first stories covered the arrest and deportation of an undocumented Divinity School student. In the week leading up to Samuel’s deportation, his friends tearfully recounted to me their experience barricading the ICE van that held Samuel and the tremendous impact

he had on their lives. I could feel a fraction of their pain and felt sorry that all I could do was retell their story. Two years later, I am still learning to form boundaries between me and my work, but I’m grateful that early on, The Chronicle showed me—a pisces sun and cancer moon—the intense emotional labor that can come with reporting.

In the following semester, I wrote a profile about Duke’s first and only female president, after slowly easing Nan Keohane into the idea of working with The Chronicle again and learning how interpersonal relationships are so central to journalism. In my ocassional musings about life and what it means, I sometimes think back to our hours-long phone conversations and all the wisdom that flowed out of them.

The Chronicle also allowed me to stretch a part of myself that I never knew existed. Matthew needed someone to help him with laying out the send-home issue, which is sent to every student’s home at the end of the year. I told him I didn’t know how to lay out a paper. “You could learn,” he said. I instantly fell in love with the creative aspects of laying out a newspaper and the idea of creating something tangible for readers—so much so that Matthew and I alternated laying out the paper for a semester. I love how anyone in The Chronicle can just decide they want to

learn something new.

These were the easy lessons. The hard ones were hard. I learned the importance of discretion. I learned that sometimes gossip is harmless, but most of the time it’s not. I learned how it feels to live with the consequences of a decision. I learned that when the time comes, I’m able to stand by my principles.

The Chronicle has both been my bane and my saving grace. 301 Flowers took me in when I felt like I belonged nowhere and gave me the space to grow from a confused and lonely child to someone I’m immensely proud of. This paper was also the reason for a few too many sleepless nights, aggressive arguments, and ideological disagreements perhaps too great for compromise. For all that I’ve gained, I would do almost all of it again.

Rose Wong served as senior editor of The Chronicle’s 116th Volume. Even though she’s relieved to be retiring from student journalism, Rose is nothing if not grateful. She would like to thank Nathan Luzum for giving her that tour, Rebecca Torrence for being the absolute best, and Matthew Griffin for all the good and bad times they had together. Milla Surjadi— I’m putting it in writing that you’re forever my Chron mentee so I’ll always be around to talk and watch you shine. To newcomers— The Chronicle has more to offer than meets the eye, so take advantage.

How to turn invisible and back again I

t is truly amazing how many rooftops the average Duke student has access to, if only they’re possessed of a bobby pin, a good pair of climbing pants and a childish contempt for authority. Frankly, even one of the three will do.

we don’t care about illusions, we’re trying to turn invisible) so they make sure to obfuscate rooftop paths behind all manner of cobwebs, crawspaces and disused supply closets. Much like this paragraph, the resultant journey can be jarring. It might even take a few tries.

Mihir Bellamkonda OPINION EDITOR Some of you know what I’m talking about already. Y’all: stop reading. Meet me up there.

For the rest of you, unfortunate enough to have never been to a Duke rooftop (step one of turning invisible), hold on, and hand a friend your dangly earrings, keys and Duke store lanyards. I’m going to tell you what they don’t want you to know. And we can’t have anything getting caught on the windowsill.

First rule of rooftops: be careful by the edge.

Second rule of rooftops: do not bring drunk friends. Third rule of rooftops: do not leave anything, do not take anything. Fourth rule of rooftops: do not get caught. Fifth rule of rooftops: it’s a verb, not a noun.

Ok, yeah, it’s true that ‘rooftops’ is a noun, not a verb. I know that! Don’t you think I know that? I even know it’s plural. Just pretend I am the wise old penguin at the end of a Disney movie. Heed my advice blissfully and uncritically.

Rule six of rooftops: never ask how to find a good rooftop. That’s like asking how to find a cool rock. The answer in both cases is to always be looking for one, and to be unafraid to get your hands all gross.

Seriously, it can get kind of icky. For some reason, the administration doesn’t want people on their beautiful Gothic roofs (probably because the ‘90s-era ductwork up there ruins the illusion everything is a billion years old, (speaking of, did you know the Chapel’s brickwork gets smaller as you go up to maintain the illusion of height? And those stairs next to it were worn down by hand? Crazy!) but

The physical nature of finding a rooftop is predictably challenging—watch your elbows— but there’s also a psychological element.

Security does not want you up there, and they care way more about student conduct than your sore elbows. Like, they do not care at all about your elbows. Stop bringing them up, it won’t help you.

And yet, beyond the grime and fear, there’s a joy to the search: through bathroom windows, up fire-escapes, beyond forgotten attics. I estimate I have been in 40% of West Campus’ storerooms. Most just contain mops.

I am intimately familiar with a certain type of weird alcove that would smell of asbestos and mothballs if asbestos had a smell, so instead just smells like mothballs. But through that weird alcove? Sometimes, only sometimes, there’s a roof.

And what a variety! Every type of roof you could hope for! Big square roofs, tiny sloped roofs, roofs filled with rainwater half the time, romantic well-lit roofs with tables, poorly lit roofs with great Chapel views, gargoyle roofs, roofs you could almost reach but would need a grappling hook that’s taking two months to arrive because your friend ordered on a sketchy website, roofs that are really just paths to other, better roofs.

And sometimes, roofs that are perfect for looking. Roofs where you can gingerly sit down and look: at worn stonework, lights at dusk, people milling around. This may sound a bit creepy, but it isn’t. Unless you have perhaps a more well-adjusted outlook than me, in which

case you may consider it to be a little creepy.

Look long enough at Duke from the right vantage point, and you might get more than a view of a sunset distinguished by the Chapel, series of worn stone crests, or your friend’s oblivious head walking to class. You might turn invisible. *** To be an editor is to be invisible. (This is the part of the column where I try to sell you on the idea that climbing on a rooftop is the same as being opinion editor of The Chronicle.

Strap in, and kindly ignore any associations you may have between height and superiority.

I didn’t fully think this metaphor through. I am definitely an incredibly humble person.)

An editorial job well done is one where the author shines, unencumbered by comma errors, ponderous tangents, or horrible social faux pas, which have all hopefully faded into the distance of Google docs’ track changes function. Their idea is honed, from notes in their phone to something polished, streamlined, and ideally really really clickable on Twitter. It won’t get them sued, it will engage with dialogue on campus, and it will represent not just themselves but the depth and breadth of discourse at this University.

And the audience is as unaware of the invisible team behind the byline as the rich guy in Inception after he’s incepted.

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way.

Some authors, for example, really want the whole thing to be a social faux pas. Go figure.

And it is truly painful not to be able to write a response to every take I think is limited, muddily conceived, or atrociously wrong on the basic foundation of reality. Invisibility has its cost.

But other times? Being invisible rocks.

When you’re not in the spotlight yourself, you can get others in there. You can hire a class of columnists representative of the University. You can work to change the historically white, male institutions of the academy and newsroom.

I can’t always speak my mind as directly as I did as a columnist, but I can work to make sure

that others can. And I’ve been lucky enough for those others to be some of the most eloquent writers and thinkers I’ve encountered. They’ve written about gait, climate, stories in stone.

Everything from the church to char siu.

Ultimately, I’ve learned to love the invisible: the comma error you never read, the clunky title that never makes it to you, the paragraph forever relegated to the depths of google docs.

There’s something nice about being out of sight. There’s something beautiful about the view. *** And now it’s over. I’m visible again, just another Duke student with opinions. I’ve left the rooftop, and soon no one will be the wiser.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the past year ruthlessly bullying this university on everything from racial equity to trademark law. And now that it’s over, I hope you’ll indulge me in one last, guilty hot take: I love Duke.

I love the engineers who get upset when I pretend never to have been to e-quad, I love the biologists studying conch vision, I love the Econ 101 dropouts, the frazzled pubpol socialists. I love the spikeball players, the BC loungers, the professors, the staff. I love the Wayne corridor that always stinks, the magnolia in Kilgo, the service tunnel that leads to McDonalds. I love the Chapel! Pink and orange in the sunset, resplendent in the rain. On a good day, after a few drinks, I even get close to loving the neocons.

I love the gardens in spring, at night, at sunrise, in the afternoon. I love the willow oaks, the buttresses, the greenhouses behind Biosci. I love the tunnels. I love the warm cobblestones on my bare feet. I love my friends.

Even though I’m going now, I’ve loved the view.

Mihir Bellamkonda is a Trintity senior. He served as the V. 116 opinion editor after working as a managing editor and a columnist. He has, on various occasions, violated his own rules for rooftops.

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The Chronicle

recess after the end

By Sarah Derris Recess Editor

I will probably walk alone at graduation.

Unlike some of my peers who have carefully built and sustained solid friend groups since meeting at pre-orientation programs or in their first-year dorms, I never managed to maintain the relationships I formed during my first year at Duke. My first semester was particularly difficult for me. I would often feel isolated and alone; everyone I spoke to seemed disinterested or already established in their arbitrarily organized social factions. At a time when everyone was seeking security, it seemed like very few people had any social vacancies, and I wondered how it was that I got left behind. Eventually, I did find some friends who were happy enough to invite me on outings or to join in on their firstyear shenanigans, but after rush, our loosely fortified group quickly dismantled.

People have walked in and out of my life over the last four years; some friends stuck around for a season, when we either shared a class together or an extracurricular, and quickly lost touch shortly after; some have consistently drifted in and out, both of us happy to spend time when we’re able to come together; others quickly lost interest after realizing I didn’t have much to offer professionally or socially. That’s a reality I am at ease with. After all, relationships

take an exceptional amount of mutual time and effort to sustain, and not everyone can make the cut. Of course, I know now that in my early days as a college student, I was confused, insecure and looking for connections in the wrong places. But with time, I began to form bonds with others who have similarly felt uneasy in the social scene. In fact, some of my most enduring friendships began during my time as a writer for Recess.

Over four years, I’ve been a staff writer, the local arts editor, managing editor and finally, the section’s editor this year. Overseeing the section hasn’t been easy: COVID restrictions, virtual meetings, remote production and overall fatigue created unforeseen difficulty with bonding as a section — which, as The Chronicle’s tightest knit section, is not ordinarily an issue. What I perceived as my neurotic Zoom persona produced a seemingly insurmountable emotional block between myself and my writers that it was at times difficult to motivate myself to lead meetings at all.

I was almost certain that, because of general COVID burnout and tiresome Zoom meetings, most of our new staff writers would not stick around for long, and eventually no one would have the motivation to write. But to my surprise, as the semesters progressed, the writers who had joined Recess’s staff in the fall

were still there — still coming to the meetings, still writing wonderful stories, insightful reviews and stunning profiles and still very much dedicated to the life of the section. When I think about the Recess staff this year — the talented writers and devoted editors — I feel a deep sense of pride and gratitude. Recess could not have endured without the conviction of the writers that make it, and this year, under the most unusual circumstances, Recess has not only survived, it has thrived. In fact, Recess is well-positioned to be the best it has ever been in the coming year.

Although most of them will not walk at graduation on this particular occasion, I’ll always be grateful to the friends I have made at Recess over the years for their support, acceptance and for all they have taught me. I look forward to watching Recess blossom under its new leadership next year. As I finally make my way out into the world, I don’t imagine I will be writing much again for at least a while, but writing will always be a part of myself, and I look forward to picking it up

again when I feel ready. The past year has been riddled with uncertainty, which, for me, will not end after graduation. I don’t have a job or a landing point yet, but I feel excited about my life post-grad: the future is pure potential. For now, I will probably walk alone at graduation. But I know, with big changes on the horizon, that I will not be alone as I start this next phase of my life.

Sarah Derris is a Trinity senior and the outgoing Recess editor. She would like to thank her talented and dedicated Vol. 116 Recess staff, for making an otherwise bleak year bright and pleasant every Thursday. She would also like to extend her immense gratitude to her managing editor, Sydny, for her support, generosity and thoughtfulness in all that she does. She also sends her thanks to Matthew for his help and understanding this year.

And finally, she would like to extend her warmest congratulations and well wishes to Tessa and Skyler, who will be overseeing the section together next year. Recess is in very capable hands!

performing for an imaginary audience on the daily. Correlation, however, doesn’t equal causation, and I soon realized upon arriving on campus that I was not smart. At least, not in the way that I had so slavishly envisioned.

Most of my coursework did not come easily to me; my brain floundered without a stable, structured routine. I failed to perceive the gestalt’s governing subjects while everyone else saw and generated theoretical underpinnings as if they had a conceptual second sight. Without the anchor of intellect, my sense of myself completely dissipated until all that remained was a faceless shell dropped directly on the mean. The death of my former self was finally pronounced one day in an intermediate Spanish course when a fellow classmate looked me directly in the eyes after listening to me struggle through a badly-translated sentence and asked “are you stupid?”

Institutions like Duke posture as if they appreciate and admire every asset that students bring to the table, but at their core, they champion intelligence above all. Newsletters

tout academic achievements and merit scholarships and faculty suggest that “grades aren’t everything” before sorting their students by midterm scores. People are judged not by the presence or absence of brilliance, but by how much more brilliant they are than the rest of the lecture hall.

As my Duke career draws to a close, I still do not know where the bar is or the answer to my classmate’s question. Am I stupid? Is the lack of brilliance stupidity?

When I reflect on my college accomplishments, I inevitably try to sum them up and quantify my worth, clinging to the deep-seated idea that I am smart. The truth is that I am Sydny. My identity is not a collection of standard deviations or a single monolithic trait as nebulous and badly understood as intelligence. Are you stupid? No, I am Sydny. A mosaic of losses and triumphs, lustrous in the correct lighting and compelling to those who linger and see my vibrant entirety.

If she cannot be beautiful, then she is still Sydny. If she cannot be smart, then she is still Sydny. If she cannot be anything, then she is still Sydny.

stupid as a noun

By Sydny Long Recess Managing Editor

Intelligence is not everything. It is the only thing.

The ideal daughter seems to oscillate wildly between stunning beauty and precocious intellectual, arbitrarily flopping from one aspirational extreme to the other according to societal pressures. If she cannot be beautiful, then let her be smart — and make her brilliant. It is increasingly impossible to lead a mediocre existence in a world so staunchly competitive that infants have to audition for preschool and are placed into foreign language courses before they can sit up. An IQ must be above-average, a test score stellar and an ability exceptional or else there is nothing but a bauble-headed daughter trapped in the well of shame that is the center of a bell curve.

I initially lived on those coveted outskirts, two or even three standard deviations from the mean.

Under the impression that beauty was a shallow artifice and brains were the metric by which personal value was determined, I had to stake my claim in that region of brilliance and predicate my entire identity and self-worth on the notion that my strength was intelligence. True to form, I read constantly, took piano lessons and smilingly proclaimed that I loved school, devoting myself to emulating intelligence. I was a smart cookie doomed to crumble, held loosely together by standardized test scores and a precarious self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by parents and teachers.

When I started performing poorly on math tests in elementary school, a massive tectonic shift

fissured my tenuous self-confidence. The whispered conversations and furrowed brows informed me that these scores weren’t just unacceptable, they were antithetical to my very identity. You can do better than this. I couldn’t see where the bar resided, but I knew that I had failed to meet it, and this shortcoming haunted me. A bad grade was a glaring absence, an abscessed cavity where I — the me that everyone seemed to know — should have been. Nobody likes what they can’t see.

This constant pursuit of the bar simultaneously motivated and demoralized me, shredding my self-perception into messy, unloveable ribbons. I studied not to do well, but to prove to the world that I had earned the privilege of existing. If she cannot be beautiful, if she cannot excel at sports, if she cannot lead, then let her be smart — and make her brilliant. Any trait that did not instantly confer brilliance was deemed a shameful hindrance by my brain, especially my tendency to think in haphazard circles rather than clean straight lines. Instead of recognizing my mind’s uniqueness and harnessing its creative cognition, I strangled it back into a conformity that it could not sustain.

I saw getting into Duke as the apogee of my intellectual achievement, a concrete accomplishment that I could cite in my unending defense of my brilliance. Smart people went to Duke, which was the superficial ego-fluff that I so badly needed after years of beating my brain into submission and

The Chronicle

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FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 13

It’s already been four years, huh?

It feels surreal to already say goodbye, but in a way I have lived many lifetimes at The Chronicle.

I came in as a wide-eyed freshman who wouldn’t shut up about sports and would drone on about sports to anybody that would

“

the department was an honor of a lifetime, and I made memories that will last forever. I began my term in Nashville covering the NFL Draft, covered the NBA Draft in Brooklyn a few months later, traveled across the country to report on

My start at the paper was slow, but I learned to fall in love with journalism by studying the Longhorn Steakhouse menu like it was an economics textbook.

Derek Saul SPORTS EDITOR, V. 115 listen to me. Luckily for me, I stumbled into a Chronicle sports department meeting during my first month in Durham, filled with people that felt the same.

My start at the paper was slow, but I learned to fall in love with journalism by studying the Longhorn Steakhouse menu like it was an economics textbook. What started as a joke made during a meeting turned into an article, and I was hooked.

Shortly after that article, my predecessor as sports editor, Michael Model, took a chance on me and made me Blue Zone editor for my sophomore year. I spent that year learning as much as I could, and making memories that truly only the Chronicle sports department could make possible. I covered the absolute mayhem that was Zion Williamson’s sole season in college basketball, a rollercoaster ride that I will never forget. I conducted post game interviews in the home locker room in Madison Square Garden, something a lifelong diehard New York Knicks fan could only dream of.

In April of 2019, I began my year-long tenure as sports editor, and, boy, was it a trip. Leading

Duke football and basketball and capped the year by sitting courtside for the Duke-UNC men’s basketball game in Cameron.

Unfortunately, my time as sports editor was cut short last March, as the world stopped in an instant due to the coronavirus pandemic. My March 11 flight to cover the ACC tournament turned into a rescue mission for the contents of my dorm room, and the news of Duke cancelling all athletic competition broke while I was at a rest stop in Virginia.

My biggest regret during my time with the paper is somehow never getting the chance to cover a men’s basketball NCAA tournament game, becoming the first sports editor in four decades to earn that dubious honor. My sophomore year, Michael audaciously booked plane tickets for us two to cover the Final Four, but a heartbreaking Duke loss in the Elite Eight kept us in North Carolina. The pandemic and a historically underperforming 2020-21 team stripped us all of seeing the Blue Devils compete in the last two tournaments.

It’s hard to not wish my last 14 months at The Chronicle went differently, but I think everybody in the world wants this last year

” or so to be different. Besides, it wasn’t the individual events I covered that made this experience special, but rather the journey.

I learned more from The Chronicle than anywhere else at Duke by far. The respective sports editor and managing editor when I joined, Hank and Mitchell, taught me what it meant to dedicate yourself tirelessly to making our section the best it could possibly be.

If The Chronicle was the best class I took at Duke, then Michael was my greatest professor, answering my constant questions and teaching me all that went into teaching a future generation of reporters what our section values. Winston, you showed that the dirty work could be fun, too, and made everything our section did more fun. Conner, even when we were stuck in the Madison Square Garden rafters or driving back from Atlanta in the middle of the night, you always made our time

running the department enjoyable.

The best part of being sports editor was making others fall in love with the department, too. Evan, it was an absolute pleasure to see what you led our section to this year. Shane, doing the podcast with you was a blast, and I hope Shane-opedia continues to add new entries.

Glen, I hope your wittiness never subsides. And Jake, it’s been amazing to see your fire for The Chronicle and student journalism, and I can’t wait to see what you, Max and the rest of the crew accomplish next year.

The Chronicle molded me in many ways, including inspiring me to pursue a career in journalism after graduation, and it will be extremely strange to no longer be a part of it.

Thanks for the memories, 301 Flowers.

Derek Saul is a Trintity senior. He was sports editor of The Chronicle’s 115th volume.

Call me, maybe? Just not for the next few days In 2020, the year of phone calls, I’ve been on a lot. Around the middle of October I couldn’t wait until a time when I wouldn’t need to pick them up anymore. Now, I find myself wishing I could answer just one more.

I was standing on a balcony in Huntington

The subsequent series of phone calls with Matthew occurred over the next 10 months as I stayed home through the summer and fall semesters. Between the surplus of news, ongoing discussions of how to cover the unfolding events and maintenance of normal

Maria Morrison MANAGING EDITOR Beach, CA, the hotel television announcing the CDC’s new declaration of a pandemic, my email lighting up with Duke cancellation announcements, when Matthew Griffin called me. This would be the first of many, many calls.

The gist of this one was clear: “We’re still going to take over the next volume of The Chronicle,” he said. Or something like that.

I’m a reporter, you can’t expect me to get accurate quotes (for legal reasons, that’s a joke).

I, for one, hadn’t been too worried about the fate of The Chronicle upon learning that the rest of the semester was remote. Because really, what was the worst that could happen?

How difficult could it be to run the paper while we were all apart?

Answer: difficult.

“

editing shifts, I called someone from The Chronicle most every day.

These calls weren’t simple.

I paced outside of the house a lot.

Sometimes, with the cool breeze coming from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I grabbed the blanket from my bed and walked outside, enjoying playing with Quinaldo the dog as I tried to put myself into the shoes of my peers, whose summers were all turning out vastly different from how they intended.

The weather turned colder, my blanket was insufficient for the Western Washington winds, and although the location of the phone calls changed, the content didn’t. Now, I was trying to put myself into the shoes of the students on campus, those in Durham and those at home with time differences

It has been an honor and a privilege to bring you news, tell your stories and learn more about the University that has brought us all together. Thank you all.

much more difficult to calculate than my simple -3 (my elementary math teacher should be proud of me, I’ve never gotten so quick at subtraction).

After 10 months of taking Chronicle news calls from my car, it was time to take them from a Duke dorm.

Coming back to the Flowers 301 office in January brought mixed feelings. Walking in for the first time, it felt at first as though nothing had changed. Then, looking around, the small things started to pop out.

The quote wall was different. The pictures had been replaced. The vending machine was no longer stocked with the cheapest Coke on campus. The bottle of Raid had been substituted for one of hand sanitizer.

Something felt wrong returning to the place that I had frequented the previous year, that I had seen in the background of Zoom calls nearly every day, a stranger in a oncefamiliar land.

The one thing that hadn’t changed was the people. Yes, there were new amazing Chronicle members, but also the same friends that I had so greatly missed.

You see, I had realized over the summer that The Chronicle is my biggest social outlet (please don’t pass judgement on this). Just sitting in the office, being around the people here, is one of the best parts of my Duke experience.

As I try to reflect on the past year, I find that all the memories are still too fresh to be properly digested. All those phone calls blur together. However, some moments from the spring stick out: One, laying out my first paper. It was the retrospective we published on March 8, a year after students were told the University was shutting down, and I hoarded a giant stack of copies to send to everyone I love. Matthew and I were up until 3:43 a.m. deciding between a photo of the Chapel or one of the BC Plaza. I can attest to the time because I’m looking at it right now, where it is written on the door here in the office, immortalized with our signatures in Sharpie. I think we made the

”

right decision.

Two, just last week as we were preparing our last print edition of The Chronicle for our volume. I arrived past midnight, bringing canned peaches from Georgia. We celebrated with half a peach skewered on a plastic knife as we again scrawled our signatures across the office door to mark the occasion.

Three, right now as I write this, sitting in the office on V. 116’s last day. My first draft was being written in the early afternoon.

It then got sidelined by a requisite Chapel photo, iced coffee, editing discussions, Il Forno pizza, more editing discussions and a ping pong back-and-forth (so far). It’s now rapidly approaching midnight, and I’m still trying to preserve this last day as the minutes slip away.

I’m in a messy office surrounded by friends and the soft clicking of computer keys from around the room. I only got one Chronicle call today, which was nice. Tomorrow, I’m going to the Gardens and turning off the ringer. Then, the day after that, I’m turning it back on to be ready for V.117 to call whenever they need something.

I find it fitting that, for my final byline as Managing Editor, I have entirely eschewed formal style and voice. I hope that my predecessor, Nathan, won’t condemn it. I also hope that my successor, Nadia, calls me whenever she needs, because my ringer will always be on (metaphorically, at least) for The Chronicle.

It has been an honor and a privilege to bring you news, tell your stories and learn more about the University that has brought us all together. Thank you all.

Maria Morrison is a Trinity junior. She would like to thank everyone who gave her a call over the past year, for their guidance and friendship. This extends to alumni Nathan and Bre, for their continued investment in The Chronicle and eternal support for its writers; to Jake and the V. 115 uppermast for their guidance and support; and especially my fellow uppermast this year for making V.116 what it was. I love you all.

Moving image W

hile preparing to write this senior column, I thought of several different directions to go in, some beyond the framework of archetypes that has been so useful for me this semester. But having considered other forms of reflection, I’ve realized another series of archetypes is exactly how I want to

I reflect on what four years at Duke has brought me, and see if you connect to them your own moving images of experience. *** CHALLENGING: My first orgo midterm. Retching uncontrollably into a trash can when I had food poisoning for the first time in my first year (does anyone

The little things I

love The Chronicle because everyone is here for their own reason.

Some people stay because they love the business of journalism, the puzzle-solving feeling that comes from

of sophomores at 3 a.m., and a stand of pines that are slightly unusual for this part of North Carolina.

Or maybe that isn’t what those stories were about.

Carter Forinash NEWS EDITOR

Nicholas Chrapliwy OPINION MANAGING EDITOR construct this column.

One of my goals throughout this column has been to improve my ability to write not only in a logical line of analysis or with the precisely expected chronology of academic style, but rather in words that paint images, composed layer upon layer with form and proportion in mind and bending into spirals the lines of logic and time to create a more realistic vision of what I’m trying to communicate.

To the readers it is given to decide whether or not I have achieved as much in my prior columns, but I know that the landscape and fresco a series of archetypes can paint is how I want to compose my senior column, because no one moment or image can comprehend my experiences at Duke so far. To communicate the whole picture of my time at Duke would take volumes, but short of that the best I can offer is a moving image of archetypical experiences that have been present in every year, every semester, and nearly every day of Duke for me. The contours of these categories have imprinted their shape on me and on my experiences here, filling me with all the bitter and sweet emotions of their challenges.

Written as gerunds to communicate their ongoing and perpetual nature, these categories overlap and fracture into smaller ones and so are inexhaustive, but nevertheless serve to illustrate the story of the past few years. So walk with me through another series of archetypes as Est. 1905

The Chronicle

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14 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

remember the E. coli strain in romaine in Spring 2018?). Confronting fraternity brothers as an resident assitant.

FAILING: My first orgo midterm.

SUCCEEDING: A moving image of me projected onto a wall of the Louvre.

CREATING: Writing for The Chronicle.

Composing. TikTok. Visual Arts. Design with Duda/Paine. Films.

CONNECTING: Professors; mentors; giants; unknown saints; and, most importantly, friends.

HURTING: A sincere trust broken irreparably. My body recalling something I had tried very hard to forget and sending me into violent panic attacks.

HEALING: Learning to run and eat again. Learning to trust someone again, and still be okay if they break the trust, as imperfect people sometimes do.

LEARNING: Now I can do things I never could before. *** In choosing the title of this particular column, I’m attempting to express not only the collage of flashing memories that project into my mind when I reflect on the last four years but also the tone of the overall image—moving not only in the sense that it is in motion, but in that it moves you the reader as well to a place of understanding you didn’t occupy before.

Nicholas Chrapliwuy is a Trinity senior.

The Chronicle

Inc. 1993

LEAH BOYD, Editor JAKE PIAZZA, Sports Editor NADIA BEY, Managing Editor ANNA ZOLOTOR, News Editor CHRIS KUO, Enterprise Editor PREETHA RAMACHANDRAN, Senior Editor MARIA MORRISON, Digital Strategy Director SIMRAN PRAKASH, Digital Strategy Director BELLA BANN, Photography Editor MARGOT ARMBRUSTER, Opinion Editor TESSA DELGO, Recess Editor CHRISSY BECK, General Manager OOHA REDDY, Opinion Managing Editor

SHANE SMITH, Sports Managing Editor

MARINA CHEN, Opinion Managing Editor

MADDY BERGER, University News Editor

NAIMA TURBES, Opinion Managing Editor

MILLA SURJADI, University News Editor PARKER HARRIS, Local and National News Editor GAUTAM SIRDESHMUKH, Health and Science News Editor ALISON KORN, Features Managing Editor

CARRIE WANG, Opinion Managing Editor DEREK DENG, Recess Managing Editor AMIYA MEHROTRA, Community Editorial Board Chair BEN WALLACE, Community Editorial Board Chair

KATIE TAN, Features Managing Editor REBECCA SCHNEID, Sports Photography Editor ANNA MCFARLANE, News Photography Editor WINNIE LU, Features Photography Editor

ASHWIN KULSHRESTHA, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coordinator MONA TONG, Director of DEI analytics MATTHEW GRIFFIN, Recruitment Chair

LYDIA SELLERS, Photography Social Media Editor

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.

One copy per person; additional copies may be purchased for .25 at The Chronicle Business office at 1517 Hull Avenue. @ 2021 Duke Student Publishing Company

putting together a story.

Some people stay because they love Duke, and want to tell the story of the school and its students.

Some people stay because they know that they’re already great writers, or because they want to become better ones.

That isn’t why I stayed.

When I wandered into 301 Flowers as a sophomore, I knew nothing about journalism. I didn’t know what a lede was and I was a little iffy on AP style. I might’ve picked up The Chronicle a couple times— probably to skim its basketball coverage— but I’m certain that I had never glanced past that.

Then why did I stay? Well, I stayed because of Gilmore Girls.

I’m not from a small town in New England, I didn’t go to Yale and I hadn’t joined a secret society, so I really only had one option left to live out my Rory Gilmore dreams: I had to become a student journalist.

I didn’t really know what that entailed, but I didn’t have a choice. I was going to see my name in print.

I was going to be the hot-shot reporter who broke the big investigative stories.

Maybe I was even going to climb the ranks and order people around from the lofty heights of editorship.

Wherever the specifics were, I wandered into 301 Flowers because of a TV show, with all of the grand dreams that came along with it.

Really, I accomplished a lot of that.

I saw my name in print more times than I can count, I had the honor of serving as news editor through seven months of a global pandemic and I might’ve even written an important story or two.

I’m genuinely proud of all of that, but in the end it isn’t why I stayed.

Instead, I think that I stayed because of the little things.

In my three years here, I wrote about Duke Student Government’s rejection of a “selective social group,” followed up by a court case in the DSG Judiciary.

I moved on to the removal of an anxiety-inducing painting in a Keohane dorm. I rounded out my portfolio with a thousand words about a patch of notable trees on campus.

Coming in, I’m not sure what I would’ve thought about that trio of stories.

I probably would’ve found them goofy, maybe trivial.

After all, it was a set of stories about an application-only friend group, a comicsinspired painting that scared a handful

“

Maybe one of them was about the ways that we all have a say in the issues that shape social life on campus.

Maybe another was about how students turn a temporary dorm into a lasting home. Maybe the last was about understanding our school’s place in Durham and North Carolina.

Maybe it was a set of stories about the little things that make Duke tick.

When I look back on my time in The Chronicle, those are the stories that stick with me, the ones that you really have to look for.

The ones that take something trivial—a painting, a Wednesday-night DSG meeting—and figure out why it really matters.

The ones that didn’t have to be written, but that tell the story of life at this school.

The Chronicle and the people in it have also taught me so many things in my three years here.

I learned more about AP style than I’ll ever be able to use, dedicated more hours than I’ll ever be able to count and met people who I’ll never be able to forget.

I accomplished many of my big, Rory Gilmore dreams.

This last year has also been full of big things. I’ve personally helped cover a landmark national election, students pushing Duke to reform its investments and the endless COVID-related news cycle that’s given us all an unfortunately memorable senior year.

But now that I’m leaving 301 Flowers, it isn’t the big dreams or the big things that stick with me the most.

When I walked out of the office on Wednesday night, at the end of my last editing shift, I wanted to stay because of the little things.

Carter Forinash is a Trinity senior who served as news editor of The Chronicle’s 116th volume, wrapping up three years in the news department. He would like to thank Jake for bringing him to his first Chronicle meeting and Nathan and Bre for being the reasons he stuck around. He is grateful to Leah and the rest of V. 117 for a stress-free last few months, with the knowledge that the paper will stay in great hands. He would like to specially thank Anna for her soon-to-be tireless work keeping the news department running, and more importantly for being the only other person in this newspaper who’s watched Gilmore Girls. If he didn’t respond to your emails on time, he’s very sorry.

hot take of the week

“Help, I’m stuck in a hot take factory and I can’t get ou–”

—Mihir Bellamkonda, Opinion Editor, on April 21, 2021

”

The Chronicle

dukechronicle.com

A marathon, not a sprint

I

f I ever finish writing this column, it will run on the last day of classes, at the end of a very strange year. A year ago I was talking to friends on Zoom while nervously getting ready to publish my first story as editor-in-chief. This year I’ll

housing policy or lock down the campus.

Few things made me as proud as lifting up the voices of international students who feared they would have to leave the country and of workers who demanded hazard pay and better communication. Few things were

Matthew Griffin EDITOR-IN-CHIEF once again be on campus for LDOC, which as interesting as learning the random skills brings to mind the half-joking phrase Duke it takes to put out the news, from laying students say as a reminder to pace oneself out a print paper to taking and editing while celebrating the day: “It’s a marathon, photographs.

The job wasn’t always enjoyable, though. not a sprint.”

I’ve been thinking about that phrase Sometimes we screwed up a story, or breaking lately, as I look back on the past year. news threw my schedule into disarray, or I Running The Chronicle is the most barely slept for days on end. What kept me rewarding thing I’ve ever done. We covered going in those moments were the people who huge stories: the pandemic, the movement were working alongside me.

Carter Forinash, our news editor and for racial justice, the election, fraternities’ decision to disaffiliate from Duke. I’ll later editor-at-large, cracked jokes and never forget the feeling of documenting convinced us to play Geoguessr or throw a baseball around instead of working. history.

This year was also the hardest of my Opinion Editor Mihir Bellamkonda put life. Covering the constant barrage of news on music and waxed poetic with me while was exhausting. What’s more, we had to we put the print paper together. Managing cover it while we worked remotely from our Editor Maria Morrison mailed us cookies childhood homes, far away from our lives from across the country while she studied and friends at Duke; while we navigated the remotely last fall. I spent election night return to an unfamiliar campus; while we in the office with the writers and editors wondered whether our loved ones would get leading our coverage, our conversation sick. I often felt overwhelmed. I wondered taking my mind off the knot of stress in the some days whether I had the strength to pit of my stomach.

In between the highs and the lows, the keep from falling apart, let alone to run a breaking news stories and the late nights newspaper.

This year was a marathon, not a sprint. goofing off in the office, were moments It was long and hard, and that’s part of of calm. After everyone else had gone what made it meaningful. So I want to take home on election night and I’d gotten an some time to talk about the things that hour of sleep on the couch in my office, I kept me going when I needed to recharge, watched the sun rise over campus, the sun or when I needed a reminder that it was painting the Gothic buildings gold while all worth it—to torture the metaphor, the the country waited to learn who the next little tables with water bottles along the president would be. I often walked back to my car late at night, watching my breath roadside of this year.

Sometimes the day-to-day work of fog the air and stopping to look around at the campus.

I made time when I could to running the paper keptThe meNew energized.

Few York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620breaking Eighth Avenue, York, aN.Y. 10018or get a meal with friends watch movie things matched the high of the New For Information 1-800-972-3550 the paper. news that Duke planned to change its fallCall:outside For Release Friday, May 22, 2020

Crossword ACROSS

25 Raise one’s glass

1 Beaut 6 “___ go!”

11 Castilian knight in medieval Spain, with “the” 14 One who needs to go 15 Having limited focus 16 Do-do connector 17 Binary code bit

31 Product of a teachable moment 32 Ceilings

I N A N I N S T A L A H A N N O T

S K Y E S W N A I T H A T D I M M A D R O P M E A R L E E G R E T

E S K E R

U N K H Y D E Y B E A I L

17

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58 1936 Summer Olympics icon

20

61 Finish on a diamond?

53 People who place

D O E S O K

57 Printed fabric

37 Say yes to without saying “yes”

I C T L A R E P I N E M B T E C I S S S H A M L A M E P O W N S W A L E G E L I N E L I A C E I G H

P A T E L E T U D E S

A N O R A K E R E T H E A

S T A T I S U C H R A W R E C R U I T S

E T T E A X S O A R E R S

T Y P E S E T

2

25

26

8 All ___ (really cool) 9 Fox in “The Fox and the Hound” 10 Food for a giraffe 11 Retire 12 Words following “Huh?” 13 Brake components 19 Arcade achievement

27

7

8

9

10

11

29

36

33

34

40

45 47

53

48

54

49

50

51

52

55

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PUZZLE BY ROBYN WEINTRAUB

21 Criminal charge?

24 Horror star Chaney

33 Crown 34 [Never mind]

25 Get off the street, 37 “Just ’cuz” in a way 39 Palindromic animal 26 Replete 27 Unable to stick the landing, say

40 A kid drinks from one

28 Dope

42 Wetland predators

29 Holding 30 Enters without looking, say

Is not retiring: ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� leah girld Student Advertising Manager: �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Rebecca Ross Account Representatives:................... Juliana Arbelaez, Emma Olivo, Spencer Perkins, Sam Richey, Alex Russell, Paula Sakuma, Jake Schulman, Simon Shore, Maddy Torres, Stef Watchi, Montana Williams Marketing Manager:.................................................................................................................. Jared McCloskey Student Business Manager............................................................................................... Dylan Riley, Alex Rose

The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Saturday, May 23, 2020

43 Raw spots 44 Unavailable, say

Crossword ACROSS

30 Old parent company of NBC 31 Reward for a bad N.B.A. team

47 Home to zero winners of the FIFA World Cup, surprisingly 48 Empty 49 Fuzzy berry 50 Bad place to go apple-picking?

51 “La Vie Bohème” musical 52 Winner’s accessory 54 School of the future?

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

33 Monet’s “Train in the Snow” or “The Magpie”

1

48 “Sure, we can chat now”

13

50 Coconut-covered snack cakes 53 Women’s soccer powerhouse

34 Hack job?

2

3

4

5

6

16 20

23

20 Criminal patterns, in brief

42 Hangs in the balance

2 Border collie, by nature

31

DOWN

35 40

36 41

44 48

37 42

45

44 Strange

4 Nero’s zero

26 Joint venture

46 Chang-___ Lee, 2011 Pulitzer finalist for “The Surrendered”

5 Fizz

PUZZLE BY RYAN MCCARTY

6 Shrunken head?

17 Relatives of accordions

7 Certain hand-held … or hand-holding

P L O W S O R E S

E L I A

L E T S R R O P O I F E L F F A L E B B A R E I L A G N A I R U N N E S C T E E S

G A R A G E S A L E

O D O R

A R S O I E A

N U L L

T A S E E W E

A S S E T

T T A C H O C A A D A T L T C O L L I P I T O A S T O N C A U N O D C T O R A H E R E Y T A E Y T A K E P S I D E O W E S N I N

I S A I D

D I S C S

P A T E

S T E T

R E N T

S A S H

43 46

49

24 Flat fees

W I G S

39

33

23 Word after Christmas or fur

E X I T

38

30 32

3 Runner-up to Affirmed in every 1978 Triple Crown race

J E D I

12

26 29

43 Swimmer Torres who medaled in five Olympic Games

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

11

34

1 Obsolescent music holder

28 Tank tops?

10

22 25

28

55 Cloth dealer, in Britain

40 “The Sound of Music” character who’s “17 going on 18”

27 Stumble

9

18 21

24

27

8

15 17

19

No. 0418 7

14

54 Seems crooked

19 Contribute to the mix

22 Searches (through)

Edited by Will Shortz

47 Sets right

52 Pouty cry

35 Bashful friend 15 Member of the 36 Isotopes of Scooby-Doo gang element #88 16 Warn of disaster 37 ___ lane 18 Source of college credit, informally

42

44

Turning my ringer off: ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ mattyg

7 Little pointer

37

39

What we’re looking forward to in our retirement:

13 Distressing character in the Bible?

30

Matthew Griffin is a Trinity junior who had no idea what he was getting himself into when he ran for editor of The Chronicle’s 116th volume, but who still thinks that running is the best decision he ever made. He would like to thank Maria Morrison for being his first phone call in a crisis; Carter Forinash for keeping both the office and our coverage fun and interesting; Mona Tong for her fierce dedication to accountability journalism; and Rose Wong for her loyalty to student journalism through thick and thin. He would like to thank Jake Satisky, Bre Bradham and Mark Stencel for selflessly taking the time to answer his endless questions. He would like to thank the community for giving feedback on The Chronicle’s coverage and telling us how the paper can better cover all voices at Duke. Finally, he would like to thank all of The Chronicle’s staff for doing more than was asked of them, in a hard year, in service of this school.

Sleep: ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������carti b

1 Who said “Fashion changes, but style endures”

24

me as much time as I’ve needed to reflect on living through a pandemic. I need to get some sleep for once.

But first I want to enjoy being at Duke without the mantle of editor-in-chief. I want to spend time with the friends I’ve made during this long, crazy, wonderful journey.

I finished the marathon. I’m proud that I did it. Now I’m ready for what comes next.

The Chronicle

13

19

32

41

12

16

22

28

38

46

7 Noted characteristic of a corpse flower

6

35

2 “___, pursued by a bear” (Shakespearean stage direction)

5 “Time to blow this popsicle stand”

5

31

43

4 Kazan of film

4

23

1 Movie knight

3 Freaks (out)

3

Those moments helped me keep going because they made me realize one of the reasons it all mattered: I love this school.

Maybe that sounds strange, given the amount of space The Chronicle dedicates to holding the administration’s feet to the fire. But that love is not loyalty to the people in charge or a naive belief that this place is perfect. It’s a dedication to the community and a desire to push it to be better.

As I see it, at its best The Chronicle is a love letter to Duke. It’s an affirmation that the experiences of the people who call this place home are important enough to be part of the first draft of history. It’s an argument that we are better than our worst moments, that we can become a more equitable and just community.

I lived in my childhood home in Charlotte for five months last year. I didn’t see some friends for ten months. Coming back to campus, pausing to take it in, reuniting and spending time with the people who make Duke what it is—they all reminded me of how grateful I am to be here. They also reminded me that with so much at stake, The Chronicle’s loving-yet-critical voice is more important than ever.

Now that my term as editor is over, I’ll have a lot more moments when I can stop and think and rest. I have some processing to do—running a newspaper hasn’t given

No. 0417

21

DOWN

6 Weekend shopping venue

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE B A S E M A N

15

60 Closes up for good

22 New parents’ woe 45 ___ Bo 46 Radio station 23 Tune with alert syncopated rhythm 47 “So ... who’s in?”

O R I G A M I

14

36 Sun Devil Stadium sch.

43 Fermented feed

24 Triglycerides, e.g.

1

56 Abbreviation near a tilde

59 Meet at a poker game

38 Lucy ___ Hayes, 1800s first lady

Edited by Will Shortz

55 45’s better half

35 Some nose-totail cuisine

18 It’s bound to show you the way 39 Seasonal pickers 41 Impatient kid’s 20 “Some progress whine is better than none”

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021 | 15

47 50

52

53

54

21 Best in class

51

55

33 John ___, English philosopher and theologian who made an early translation of the Bible

43 Reality show staple

47 Tower on a mountain

45 Masculine name that sometimes follows Mac-

8 Knocks

24 Dump

9 Part of FiOS

25 Espionage gadgets

34 Stereotypically lenient parent

28 One who’s finished

35 Spots for snakes

29 Technical data

38 Ominous phrase

31 Ad ___

11 Shelved, for now?

39 One of the Seven Sisters

32 Press coverage

41 Unbroken

12 Upscale provider of grooming services

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

10 “A mixture of what appears to be ESP and early Christian faith,” per a 1977 New York Times film review

14 1800s migrant

37 Call to account

49 Workplaces for L.P.N.s 51 Its “concise” version has almost 1,700 pages: Abbr.

16 | FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

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