The Chronicle T h e i n d e p e n d e n t d a i ly at D u k e U n i v e r s i t y
FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH YEAR, Issue 124
www.dukechronicle.com
WVU
DUKE
NCAA TOURNAMENT FINAL FOUR • SATURDAY • 8:47 P.M. • CBS
THE FINAL FRONTIER by Vignesh Nathan The Blue Devils have made a habit of cutting down nets this season. Their first opportunity was after embarrassing rival North Carolina at home in March, the Cameron Crazies screaming the entire time. They had an encore performance soon after, when Jon Scheyer’s late 3-pointer helped them secure the ACC tournament championship. But it was the last net the Blue Devils cut down that was most unexpected—the one they earned after booking a trip to the Final Four for the first time since 2004. But they aren’t satisfied yet. There’s one net they have left to cut down, and it is located in Indianapolis. For this Duke squad, the season will not be a success unless the Blue Devils can don shiny championship rings and watch as the school’s fourth championship banner ascends into Cameron’s rafters. “It’s definitely exciting, making it [to the Final Four],” senior guard Jon Scheyer said. “But, for us, the goal’s not complete.” That determination is befitting of a team that has overcome disappointment over the past few years. The oldest scholarship players See FINAL FOUR on page 11 Ian Soileau/Chronicle file photo
Tifft remembered for passion, grit THE CHRONICLE
Journalist and former professor Susan Tifft passed away Thursday morning at her home in Cambridge, Mass. after a two-and-ahalf-year battle with uterine cancer. She was 59 years old. Tifft, Trinity ’73, returned to her alma mater in 1998 as the Eugene C. Patterson professor of the practice of journalism at the Sanford School of Public Policy, where she was a beloved teacher and a cherished colleague for a decade. “Susan was a great writer and journalist, but the thing that she came to believe that was most important in her life was teaching at Duke,” said Alex Jones, her husband of more than 20 years, in an interview Thursday night. “The thing that was most rewarding, the thing that really mattered more to her than anything else was teaching the students she had at Duke and Susan Tifft maintaining those genuine friendships.... She spent untold hours in working and doing right by them.” Tifft died at 8:30 a.m. Thursday with her family by her side, a week after she entered hospice care. “Her brother Doug was holding her hand,” Jones wrote Thursday in the online journal where Tifft chronicled her battle with cancer. “He said she left like a candle going out, and her great spirit was released.”
The Chronicle looks at Duke’s title chances, FINAL FOUR SUPPLEMENT
by Kevin Lincoln THE CHRONICLE
THE CHRONICLE
by Naureen Khan
Pharell, Cudi rock Cameron
Susan Elizabeth Tifft was born Feb. 14, 1951 and grew up in St. Louis, Mo. She graduated from Duke in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in English and was selected the University’s second-ever Young Trustee. Ann Pelham, Trinity ’74 and Tifft’s classmate at Duke, said all who knew her were thankful for the privilege. “Unlike many of us, she didn’t have to grow up. She was very together already,” Pelham said. “She was really, as a student, the same smart, together, warm person that she was later as a professor.” Tifft had an illustrious career as a writer and a journalist after her time at Duke. In the 1980s, she served as the press secretary for the Federal Election Commission and as a speechwriter for the campaign of Jimmy Carter. After receiving her master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University—where she met her future husband—she took a job with Time magazine. She also co-authored with Jones two critically-acclaimed accounts of newspaper dynasties—the Binghams of Louisville and the Ochs-Sulzbergers of New York City—uncovering their storied histories with painstaking detail. Friends and colleagues said Tifft left a piece of herself at Duke— a place she believed changed her life. When offered a teaching position with the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy See tifft on page 5
ONTHERECORD
“This initiative was all about faculty renewal, not budget cuts.”
—Provost Peter Lange on the faculty retirement incentive program. See story page 3
With the men’s basketball team already in Indianapolis gearing up for the Final Four, Kid Cudi and N.E.R.D. brought a different kind of crazy to Cameron Indoor Stadium. The two artists performed Thursday night as a part of Cameron Rocks, an event sponsored by the Duke University Union. The performance reinvigorated a concert series that had been dormant since 2007, when rapper T.I. played with support from indie-rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Cleveland rapper Kid Cudi, who was nominated for three Grammy awards this year, opened the concert around 8:15 p.m., and his performance lasted for about an hour. He played a set that included hit singles “Day ‘N’ Nite,” “Memories” and “Soundtrack 2 My Life.” After Kid Cudi, the hip-hop group N.E.R.D.—composed of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and vocalist Shae—took the stage along with a handful of instrumentalists. The group ran through tracks from its three prior albums, interspersed with stage banter that frequently encouraged audience members to get louder and more raucous. The performance even saw some crowd participation when the group called up about 20 women from the audience up as dancers for their 2002 single “Lapdance.” See concert on page 6
maddie lieberberg/The Chronicle
Pharell Williams, of the hip-hop group N.E.R.D. performs in Cameron Indoor Stadium Thursday night. Kid Cudi also performed as part of Cameron Rocks.
By invitation only Lange to give financial updates behind closed doors, PAGE 3