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 22, 2011
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH YEAR, Issue 140
www.dukechronicle.com
Record debts loom after graduation
academic council
Survey reveals happy faculty by Lauren Carroll THE CHRONICLE
Duke faculty satisfaction is relatively high compared to that of its peer institutions, Academic Council members learned at their meeting Thursday. At the meeting, Provost Peter Lange shared the results of the 2010 Faculty Survey Report, a survey administered to faculty members last Spring. The report detailed survey results in terms of school and department within the University as well as faculty rank, gender, race and ethnicity. The report also included comparisons to a similar 2005 Duke survey and a 2010 survey of faculty satisfaction at other highly-ranked colleges and universities. According to the 2010 report, female faculty at Duke are less satisfied with salaries and access to teaching assistants than their male counterparts, though men and women are both highly satisfied with most other aspects of their professional lives. Women also found it more difficult to balance career and family life. Also, more women than men found scheduling and “scholarly productivity” to be stressful. Lange noted that these patterns can also be found at other schools. “In general, the differences that show up at Duke between genders show up as well at our peer institutions,” he said. Lange added that overall satisfaction of professional life is similar among faculty members from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. He noted, however, that black and Hispanic faculty members believe that they have to work harder than their colleagues to convince people that they are equally qualified as scholars. Some of the results, when compared to the 2005 findings, reflect how faculty response has changed due to both
by Caroline Fairchild THE CHRONICLE
Duke is incoming freshman Lionel Watkins’ dream school, but the debt he will incur during his four years almost kept him from attending. Watkins is part of a national trend among college students who are subject to severe student loan debt after graduation. The New York Times reported last week that student loan debt will likely exceed $1 trillion this year as Congress considers cuts in government funding for federal aid. For the first time in U.S. history, student loan debt will exceed credit card debt, according to The New York Times. The Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit research and advocacy initiative, reported last year that the average student loan debt was $24,000, up 6 percent from 2009. With the House of Representatives proposing cuts to the Pell Grant Program, around 1.7 million See loans on page 5 chronicle graphic by ted knudsen
See council on page 4
Q&A with Richard Brodhead The rapidly approaching end to classes presents an opportunity for the Duke community to reflect on a year that at different times attracted desirable and unwanted national attention. In the same year that a PowerPoint raised questions of what values define student culture, the University received the largest donation in its history— an $80 million gift that will allow Duke to overhaul central gathering areas for students. The Chronicle’s Julian Spector sat down with President Richard Brodhead Thursday, focusing in particular on his role in helping students shape campus culture. The Chronicle: There’s been a lot of talk this year about campus culture and redefining campus culture. How would you define campus culture as it is currently? Richard Brodhead: Let me take a step back. Duke is peculiarly a school that loves itself. People at Duke love Duke to a degree that’s quite remarkable among universities. At the same time, people at Duke also sometimes love to criticize Duke, and especially the culture of Duke. The things that are criticized here are really not that peculiar to Duke. If we talk about alcohol issues, if we talk about gender issues and even issues of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, many of these questions came up this past year, but
See the DSG Senate Election results, page 4
you know these are not questions peculiar to Duke in any way. But Duke takes them as if they were. I thought what was so useful about this past year was the extent to which students understood that rather than just grumbling about campus culture and wondering why administrators don’t change it, students understood that campus culture is student culture and the ones who will make it will be students in significant part, with our support to be sure. And I thought there was lots of evidence this year of people stepping forward to become the creators of campus culture. TC: What specifically stood out to you? RB: I thought that the Greek Women’s Initiative was a very striking fact. I thought the Duke Student Government took a very proactive role this year on questions of campus culture— the night I went to the forum, the very high level of discussion that was already going on in a pretty intense way. TC: If you were a student at Duke now, what steps would you take to address campus culture? RB: That would depend on what student I was. The best culture for Duke or any school would be the one See brodhead on page 8
melissa yeo/The Chronicle
President Richard Brodhead sat down with The Chronicle to discuss the nearly finished school year, campus culture and dealing with press coverage.
ONTHERECORD
“I lost the mayorship of Shooters II. There are no study rooms left in Perkins. LoYo ran out of punch cards.”
—Senior Margie Truwit in “#dukegirlproblems.” See column page 14
Blue Devils battle UVa for the second time in a week, Page 9