The Chronicle THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
MOMMY. OCTOBER 27. 2008
AOII to
10
disband at Duke by
QNK 111 M)KKI> \M) KM K i ll VK\K. ISSI K l.~>
(hjl
BACK ON TRACK
Lax father may pursue legal action From Staff Reports
Julia Love
THE CHRONICLE
THE CHRONICLE
Members of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority have decided to disband their chapter on campus, said President Celia Glass, a senior. The decision was put to members of the sorority for a vote about two weeks ago, and the chapter will officially close Oct. 31. Although current sisters will be unable to join another sorority in the Panhellenic Association, they were initiated as alumnae members Saturday and will remain active in the Triangle Alumnae Chapter, Glass said. “[Being in AOPi] has been a great experience for me all the way throughout,” Glass said. “We’re looking forward to remaining close friends, lifelong sisters.” AOPi extended nine bids during 2008 formal recruitment, the only chapter that failed to meet the 32-member quota set for all Panhel sororities that year, according to previous reports by The Chronicle. The sorority has fallen far short of the membership target since at least 2005. To account for the loss of AOPi, Panhel may increase the new member quota for 2009 Formal Recruitment by one to two women per chapter, members of Panhel confirmed. Panhel will revisit the possibility of bringing another sorority to campus in the Spring, and AOPi hopes to recolonize within the next few years.
Four Blue Devil defenders converge on a sack in Duke's 10-7 upset win over Vanderbilt Saturday in Nashville.The victory snapped a two-game losing slideand was Duke's first win over an SEC team since 1991. by
Gabe Starosta THE CHRONICLE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Earlier this week, linebacker Michael Tauiliili challenged his teammates to put Duke’s 4931 loss to Miami in the past and rally around a senior class going through the final stretch of its last season. And while some of the usual suspects —Thaddeus Lewis, Eron Riley and Vince Oghobaase—responded to Tauiliili, it was two relative unknowns who answered the call and changed Saturday’s
game at Vanderbilt. Sophomore running back Tony Jackson scored Duke’s only touchdown and sophomore cornerback Chris Rwabukamba grabbed an interception in the last minute to close out Duke’s 10-7 win at Vanderbilt Stadium, giving the Blue Devils their first win over an SEC opponent since 1991. The game was ugly, littered with 10 penalties, seven fumbles and multiple SEE FOOTBALL ON PAGE SW 6
Philip Seligmann, father of wrongly indicted lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, released a statement Thursday denouncing Crystal Mangum’s assertion in her memoir that she was assaulted in March 2006. “We are presendy evaluating all available legal options. If Ms. Mangum and those associated with her continue to slander Reade, we will have no choice and will not hesitate to utilize those options,” Seligmann said in the statement, which also reiterated the state’s findings that no crime had occurred. Mangum’s memoir, “The Inst Dance lor Grace,” was released Friday. In the book, she says a sexual assault involving three members of the lacrosse team occurred at a party on 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in March 2006. She does not name any alleged assailants. “I want to assert, without equivocation, that I was assaulted,” she writes. “Make of that whatyou will. You will decide what that means to you because the state of North Carolina saw fit not to look at all that happened the night I became infamous.” Charges against the three former lacrosse players were dropped in April 2007, when N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper declared them innocent. At the press conference Thursday, Mangum and her co-author and agent Vincent Clark said they stood by Cooper’s decision but wrote the bookfor closure.
Some setbacks follow early voting in swing states by
Jared Goodman THE CHRONICLE
ZACHARY TRACER/THE CHRONICLE
Although earlyvoting at Duke has proceeded smoothly, some students at other colleges inbattleground states have faced problems at the polls.
Early voting has been under way for 11 days in North Carolina, but the process has been a source of confusion for some voters in an exceptionally competitive election year. At the one-stop voting site in the Old Trinity Room in the West Union Building, 4,498 citizens have voted. Student participation in the election has been historically high, but some of these voters have found it difficult to make it to the ballot box, said Heather Smith, executive director ofRock the Vote. Some out-of-state college students in battleground states like Virginia and North Carolina said they decided to register to vote in the swing states, where their votes may help tip the scales. A few political observers, however, said they are worried that students are being discouraged to vote in these “purple states.” Some students have been misinformed about their ability to vote at college, Smith said. Many out-of-state students attending schools in Virginia and Pennsylvania have received letters from local Boards of Elections officials saying that they can lose their financial aid ifthey do not vote
in their home states, Smith added. In addition, some out-of-state students have had difficulty providing proof of residence in states in which they do not have a driver’s license or other forms of identification, said Robert Brandon, president of the Fair Elections Legal Network. Without proof of residence, registration forms can be rejected. Students have also been turned away from voting at some sites around the country if their licenses do not match their campus address. At Duke, however, election officials and campaigns have been able to eliminate many potential barriers facing student voters. Voter registration drives in North Carolina have prompted hundreds of thousands to register to vote. But almost 3,000 voter registration cards in Durham have been put on the “reject queue,” including more than 50 Duke students, according to a list provided by Project Vote, a nonpartisan nonprofit. The most common issue was that voters forgot to put down vital information such as their date of birth or did SEE VOTING ON PAGE 2