November 12, 2009

the independent

daily

at duke unive

SITY

The Chronicle Merger elicits student outcry Lighter Joanna CHRONICLE THE

More than 150 students convened Wednesday night to express their dissatisfaction with the impending merger of the Multicultural Center and the International House.

In response to the announcement of the merger earlier this week, the Center for Race Relations organized 'an emergency meeting to provide a forum for student reaction.

“We had no input as stu-

dents,” said senior Aileen Joa, a member of the Mi Gente Counsel Board. “The bigger issue here is the fear. Duke students should be alarmed.... You too can be swept under the rug.”

Zoila Airall, assistant vice president for student affairs, announced initial plans for the new combined Global Cultures Center—as it is currently being called—Monday night in a meeting with the Council of Cultural SEE MERGER ON PAGE 5

Faculty retirement plans remain vague Lindsey Rupp THE CHRONICLE

by

Administrators have provided few details about the recently introduced retirement incentives for faculty, and it remains unclear how the incentives are being discussed with professors and how much money may be offered.

In an e-mail obtained by The Chronicle, Srinivas Aravamudan, dean of humanities and professor of English, gave some department chairs guidance about the faculty retirement incentives.

“Please make sure that your

faculty is aware of this program,”

Aravamudan wrote. “While there is no faculty retirement target list and theoretically any faculty member who fits the Rule of 75 is eligible, chairs should not ap-

proach anyone.”

In order to be eligible for the University to supplement their retirement packages; faculty have 79 days left to decide whether to commit to retire by June 30, 2011. The value of the incentives is unknown. They SEE

ON PAGE 6

MICHAEL

NACLERIO/THE CHRONICLE

A fallen tree obstructs traffic on Chapel Drive Wednesday night.The inclement weather, caused by Tropical Storm Ida, brought down several trees on campus, including one in front ofWilson dormitory on East Campus.The rain is expected to continue through Friday.

Storm uproots tree blocks buses 9

by

Jessica Julia Love

Chang and

THE CHRONICLE

The remnants of Tropical Storm Ida raged through campus Wednesday, uprooting trees and felling ceiling tiles in its path.

A pine toppled on West Campus at around midnight, landing squarely between two gateposts near the traffic circle and blocking the entrance to ChapelDrive. A C dodged the tree by several minutes and was trapped on Chapel Drive.

Driver Mike Eubanks said he

4

by

thought the pine was bound to ily pose more of a threat, but noted that there is “always a danger fall, noting that it had been leaning significantly. He pointed to with older trees.” He predicted several other trees along campus that the debris would be cleared drive that have also grown with a within a few hours at a cost of slant toward the road and suggestabout 11,500 to the University. ed they should be removed.

Several motorists who had “These things are unpredictbeen parked near the Chapel were able, but I’m concerned thatDuke forced to drive through foliage to has not had common sense,” he circumvent the fallen tree. With said. “This tree has been leaning the C-4 stranded, one of the two for a long time.”

C-l buses in operation transported students living on Central Campus Roger Conner, a senior member of the groundskeeping staff, said slanted trees do not necessarSEE STORM ON PAGE 3

DUKE STUDENT GOV'T

DSG OKs sweeping

YT reform by

Matthew Chase THE CHRONICLE

In what is perhaps Duke Student Government’s most significant move of the year, Senators approved a Young Trustee bylaw that will open the final selection of the Young Trustee to the undergraduate student body.

Although DSG approved an amendment that SEE DSG ON PAGE 4

WarhUlß mes MasKer with'Big iJSSS. RECESSi

ontheRECORD "I think we've made, objectively, tremendous strides in Durham in the last five to eight years."

—Councilmember Eugene Brown on Durham's development. See story page 3

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Yemen rejects Iranian ‘interference’ in its internal affairs

U.S. actions raise doubts Dissent over troop increase about Zelaya’s restoration WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the last week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, said senior U.S. officials.

Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's memos were sent in the days leading up to a critical meeting Wednesday between President Barack Obama and his national security team to consider several options prepared by military planners for how to proceed in Afghanistan. The proposals, which mark the last stage of a months-long strategy review, all call for between 20,000 to 40,000 more troops and a far broader American involvement in the war.

WASHINGTON, D.C. Less than two weeks after U.S. diplomats announced a historic agreement to reverse a coup in Honduras, the accord is in danger ofcollapse and both Honduran officials and U.S. lawmakers are blaming American missteps for some of the failure.

President Manuel Zelaya, who was expelled by the military in June, said in a telephone interview that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had assured him as recently as last week that the U.S. government was seeking his return to the presidency. But he said U.S. pressure had eased in recent days, and that he no longer had faith in the agreement.

Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, which is helping implement the accord, said negotiations between Zelaya and the de facto government had fallen apart.

TODAY IN HISTORY

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

Jane Wagner

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The .Yemeni govSANA'A, Yemen ernment lashed out Wednesday against what it described as Iranian "interference" in its affairs, escalating tensions in a civil conflict pitting Yemen's army against Shiite rebels that has drawn in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and raised fears of a regional proxy war.

"We affirm that Yemen categorically rejects any interference in its internal affairs by any party whatsoever," a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told the government-run Saba news agency. "Yemen also rejects any attempt by any party to represent itself as the protector of sons ofthe Yemeni people."

The comments came a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki publicly warned that countries in the region should not inter-

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"Those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows," Mottaki declared in what many viewed as a veiled threat by the Shiite theocracy to Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers.

Saudi Arabia launched an offensive last week inside Yemen after Shiite rebels, known as Hawthis, staged a crossborder raid, killing a Saudi border guard and briefly seizing Saudi territory. Saudi fighter jets crossed its 930-mile border with Yemen and bombed the rebels' northern mountainous havens.Tuesday, Saudi officials said the kingdom had imposed a naval blockade on northern Yemen's Red Sea coast to prevent weapons from reaching the rebels, who accuse Saudi Arabia of backing Yemeni forces against them.

Diane Scalia (back) leads a group Of tourists through the Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles.

Founded in the summer of 2008 by Scalia and her sister Lisa, Melting Pot Food Tours—a food tasting and walking tour company—allows visitors to take part in tastings at pastry shops, seafood restaurants and gelaterias in the Original Farmers Market area of Old Pasadena in Los Angeles.

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Post-election, council stays on course by

Ciaran O’Connor -THE CHRONICLE

After the incumbent mayor and three of its members swept the general election last Tuesday, the Durham City Council hopes to build off its momentum.

Now that voters have given City Hall their seal of approval, the Council will begin developing a strategic plan for the next term.

Much of its agenda, however, promises to reflect the continuity assured by an election in which most voters decided the Council has been moving on the right track. In the upcoming term, councilmembers will continue to focus on economically revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods and efflciendy delivering core services in a deep recession.

In interviews, councilmembers highlighted both the overalldecrease in crime and some of the economic development projects in downtown as evidence of progress the Council has made in Durham. Councilmember Eugene Brown cited the renovation of the historic Durham Athletic Park and the new Durham Performing Arts Center as examples.

SEE CITY COUNCIL ON PAGE 6

STORM from page 1 residents. Students had to walk up Chapel Drive to meet the buses at the traffic circle.

Earlier in the day, a live oak was uprooted in front of Wilson Dormitory on East Campusjust before 2 p.m. No students were injured, but a vehicle narrowly escaped the fall. Groundskeepers arrived quickly on the scene to remove the tree within two to three hours after it fell.

“It’s a ginormous tree. The wind knocked it down and itcrushed our bench that we just painted,” freshman Camila Vignaud said.

Freshman Jess Jalufka said she was nearly struck by the fallen Wilson tree.

Later that night, her return to East Campus was interrupted by the fallen pine on Chapel Drive. She said the incidents left her feeling cursed.

“I think Em going to die in the process,” she said while walking to the C-l. TTI fly away like Mary Poppins to my final demise.”

The wind and rain felled more than just trees. Junior Lindsay Voorhees was watching “Gossip Girl” when a ceiling tile fell onto her bed Wednesday.

The tile is one of many that have fallen in dorm rooms in Crowell Quadrangle on West Campus since Tropical Storm Ida—which is expected to continue pouring down rain Thursday and Friday—made its way to Durham Tuesday.

Leaves piled up in some residence hall gutters causing leaks in rooms, which made ceiling tiles wet and more prone to falling.

Residence Life and Housing Services called in a service request for gutters to be cleaned, but not all gutters were able to be cleared out Tuesday, said Shawhan Lynch, West Campus residential facilities manager for RLHS. “If there’s a problem in the room, we send maintenance guys up there to take the damaged tiles down, and we send house-

Wednesday's rain storm uprooted the tree in front ofWilson Dormitory on East Campus and caused floods in locationsall across campus.The rain, caused by Tropical Storm Ida, is expected to continue through Friday.

keeping up to assist the student,” she said.

Lynch added that the tiles can not be replaced until the rain stops, because the water in the ceiling has to dry out first.

“It’s just a slight annoyance, but nothing horrible,” said sophomore Ben Demarco, a Crowell resident.

Duke Facilities Management Department has been monitoring the strength of the storm for over a week, said Joe Jackson, assistant director of Grounds, Sanitation and Recycling Services. In order to prepare for heavy rain, contractors with more efficient equipment have been called in to assist groundskeepers in cleaning up the campus and managing areas that have erosion problems. Jackson said chain saws were also made readily available in the event that large trees fell down.

For most of the day, the rain did not affect most students’ daily routines. C-l bus driver Michael Holmes said the buses were able to keep with their regular schedules

and that many students still rode the bus to make their way to classes.

“I’ve seen some people wipe out on the stone,” sophomore Chaele Akerfield said.

“It’s slippery out there.”

Some students have complained about clogged drains that caused flooding in some areas on campus. Obstructions caused by the buildup ofleaves and litter kept the water from draining, slowing traffic on Campus Drive and the corner of Duke University Road and Anderson Street.

“Our system is certainly not deficient under normal situations in accommodating regular waterfall, like two to three inches, but this is not a normal situation,” Jackson said. “No drainage systems are in place anywhere that are designed to carry five to six inches ofrain like we’ve gotten in a short period of time.”

He added that he would not be surprised if more flooding occurs in the next few days.

Zachary Tracer contributed reporting.

THE

6 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12,2009

CITY COUNCIL from page 3

RETIREMENT from page 1

“I think we’ve made, objectively, tremendous strides in Durham in the last five to eight years,” Brown said.

Still, there remains much economic development to be done outside of downtown.

“At the top of my list is neighborhood revitalization all across the community,” said Councilmember Mike Woodard, Trinity ’Bl. “We need to start by focusing on those urban neighborhoods in proximity to downtown.”

Specifically, Woodard noted that the Council plans to work closely with the Durham Community Development Department to identify projects for funding and with private developers to revitalize neighborhoods.

The Council must also grapple with the realities of a depressed economy where funding may be in jeopardy.

“Our goal is to do more with less,” Brown said, noting that the city’s revenues were down roughly 8 percent.

Regardless of the economy, Councilmembers promise to continue providing essential services in an efficient manner.

“Sewers, streets, fire protection, police protection, recycling... they are the core services we are responsible for,” said Mayor Bill Bell, who presides over and votes with the Council.

The details of allocating funds to provide these services in the future will be fleshed out in the Council’s strategic plan for the next term. City Manager Tom Bonfield, who is responsible for compiling the budget, said the Council has always adapted its agenda to meet the needs ofits citizens and it will continue to do so. The development of this plan could take “several months,” Bonfield added.

Even so, councilmembers expressed optimism that the Council’s continuity will enable it to work more efficiently as a body.

“I’d say that we work very well together,” Woodard said.

“We agree on the direction the city is moving in.”

Woodard added that he believes the re-election of the four incumbents will help the City Council prepare its budget.

“At the top of our list is having a solid budget and doing careful analysis of the services we provide, while being mindful of the needs of our citizens as related to the economy,” Woodard said.

can be offered to professors in every school, except the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, who meet the Rule of 75.

To fund the offers, schools will borrow money from the University’s central fund and then pay it back over five years, Provost Peter Lange said.

Lange said he has not budgeted the money yet because he cannot predict what offers will be made during individual faculty negotiations with deans. He declined to say whether schools will have to repay the loans with interest.

The decision to create the incentive stemmed from discussions with deans that suggested some faculty had been planning to retire before the recession decreased the value of their investments, Lange said.

He noted that he hopes this offer could allow those faculty members to retire, adding that “some deans have had some conversations that may be fruitful” with professors.

The retirement incentives are, “not fundamentally a budgetary move,” Lange said.

George McLendon, dean of the faculty ofArts & Sciences, said he does not expect a large number of his faculty members to accept the incentive. Still, he noted that some Arts & Sciences faculty members are currently in discussion with their department chairs about retiring. He said he will meet with a few department chairs throughout the week who wish to talk about packages for their faculty.

But there has been some confusion about how faculty members are being made aware of the offer. The incentive was first announced by Lange in the sixth paragraph of an Oct. 23 Duke News release. Some department chairs said they had received e-mails about the offerfrom administrators.

Lange said each dean will publicize the offers to their faculty members individually.

Tom Katsouleas, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering, and Bruce Kuniholm, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, said Nov. 2 that they had not initiated conversations with faculty about retirir>g, but would do so in the upcoming weeks. Kuniholm wrote in an e-mail Thursday that nothing has changed since Nov. 2, and declined to comment further. Katsouleas was traveling and could not be reached for

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comment.

Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the

Environment, and David Levi, dean of the School ofLaw, declined to comment. Blair Sheppard, dean of the Fuqua School of Business, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Some Arts & Sciences chairs said administrators want interested professors to drive discussions about the retirement incentive.

Orin Stam, chair of the cultural anthropology de-

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partment, said he was advised not to approach specific eligible faculty members “because it can be insulting” Rather officials thought eligible professors would learn about the incentive through circulating e-mails and the Duke News release.

“I certainly didn’t go to any faculty member and say ‘Hey, how about retiring early?’” Starn said.

Several other department chairs said they had not heard from interested faculty.

Chairs and deans now have more time for facultymembers to come forward and talk with them about a package. Lange announced Monday that, after discussions with the deans, the deadline would be extended from Dec. 14 to Jan. 30. He said he and the deans agreed it would be beneficial to let professors consider the incentive over Winter Break.

“If somebody’s been a substantial contributor to the learning and intellectual life at Duke for many years you’d like them to feel good about whatever transition they’re making,” McLendon said. “It’s not a given that all retirements will improve the college, there are some cases in which the holes are never filled. Nevertheless the individual has the right to choose the path that is best for them.”

Helping faculty retire could allow the University to hire new professors, Lange said in the Duke News release, He added in an interview that he anticipates the initiative will save Duke “maybe a little, but not a lot” of money because the University is still hiring.

McLendon said there is “not much” room for recruitment in the Arts & Sciences budget. He said Arts & Sciences’ growth over the last five years means there is not a great need for recruitment.

“Here’s the reality —this year we will probably recruit half as many faculty as we would in an average year,” McLendon said. “Some of that is because of reduced turnover.”

Because fewer universities are hiring professors this year, Duke is more appealing, McLendon said. Currently, about 300 candidates are competing for one tenure track assistant professor position in Duke’s sociology department, said Kenneth Spenner, chair of the sociology department.

Stephen Jaffe, chair of the department of music, said faculty searches are targeting young professors.

“It used to be that when you were granted a search, it was granted at open rank—you could get a full professor or an associate professor or an assistant professor,” Jaffe said.

Jaffe added that he does not think the economic incentive will convince professors to retire unless they were already considering leaving Duke.

“No one would retire in a faculty rank, I don’t think, just because there is some economic incentive that arises in two weeks,” he said. “It’s something that you would have planned to do.”

Zachary Tracer contributed reporting.

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12, issue 13

utter glory

the lower d's theater studies updates a classic play in a green fashion

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November 12, 2009

urban bush women Duke Performances presents exciting works from the NY group

PAGES

lambchop/escovedo two kings of their fields come to Reynolds for one huge bill

PAGE

4

November 12. ?nnt)

HHBi I [excessivecompulsion] wanted clown Ever since The Parent Trap, I have

to sleep with Lindsay Lohan.

Last week an ABC salesman pro-

posed to me. This is the first of several signs I may have overstayed my welcome

in Durham. In an instant, that shameless Southerner melted my dreams of white damask tablecloths, half-empty glasses of Chateau Lafite and an emerald-cut Harry Winston into a linoleum countertop and a handle of Rebel Yell. 800. Too much of a good thing. Thus, without further ado: 12 ways you know you’ve out-Durham-ed yourself: 1. You were proposed to in an ABC because you’re a chick who drinks bourbon straight. Three-and-a-half years ago, you couldn’t tell the difference between whiskey and Everclear. This explains a lot.

2. Bill the Bouncer tells you so.

3. Your signature tribal beer-rain dance not only caught on, it spread faster than Soulja Boy circa fall ’O7.

4. You still request “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” whenever the coast is clear, assuring the DJ that “it’s for the kids!”

5. You swear there are some days you

would give your first-born for Just one more Francesca’s chicken marsala.

6. Horace doesn’t give you high-fives, you give high-fives to Horace.

7. You finally unlocked the secret to a Saturday night booth at Red Lobster. You never used all your food points anyways.

8. Grabbing the bull by the horns isn’t just an idiom. It’s a Saturday night reality.

9. You shrugged and continued to enjoy your breakfast after the Waffle House waiter informed you the razor blade “wasn’t [his].”

10. You have graced the pages of The (Raleigh) News & Observer as both sinner and saint. All publicity is good publicity, right?

11. If the State Fair fries it, you’ll eat it.

12. Shooters has been there on the sidelines ofyour football games, for your debut into society, there for your first arrest and will be there for. your last. Let’s be honest, it isn’t just a place, its your family. Might as well just say “I do.”

—Emily Ackerman

■ [recesseditors] MHL: A Different Kind ofVeteran

Andrew Hibbard Eugene Wang Claire Finch Charlie McSpadden Kevin Lincoln Jonathan Wall Maddie Lieberberg Will Robinson

your pillow top 40-fo yo birfday .....bring back xmas for the non-supeijew Chapin was its own war do you believe in life after love?

KS made me write you an opus The Scents ofthe World who’s maddie? what’s recess? tears on

.

:

Maybe it was

the red hair or the freckles or the fact that she was 11. I like to think it was because she was young, ready for stardom and also there were two of her. My editor’s telling me that underage sex jokes aren’t funny, and I agree. The previous statement is actually a serious point from my application for associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. Some guy namedFrank beat me out for the job.

Lindsay has certainly blossomed since then, starring in such cinema classics as Herbie: Fully Loaded and / Know Who Killed Me. These films were so popular that rumor has it Lohan signed with Vivid Video to make Lindsay: Fully Loaded and I Know Who Drilled Me. But whether or not her drug and penis addictions have ruined her career and forced her into porn has no bearing on my unrelenting love.

Sure, she had a rough patch in there. She got really into drugs and scissoring, especially when she was dating the very ambiguous Sam Ronson. But how could you not fall for Sam’s music? Wait, Sam is Just a DJ. She doesn’t make any music, she just plays it.

What’s the point of paying a DJ when you have an iPod? With Bobby, I got to live through RFK, which works out well seeing as Lohan is a regular Marilyn Monroe —except not a sexual icon, not tattooed on Megan Fox’s arm and not banging Mr. President. I’ve always thought of myself as a Kennedy, minus the money, dead sons and alcohol-induced car accidents/murders. When all else fails, throw the body in the river.

And now, information has surfaced supporting the idea that %ohan was dating Heath Ledger when he died, which not only makes me jealous of both of them—it’s not

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gay if you’re wearing make-up-h also scares her mother. “Because when she’s drunk or takes an Adderall with it, she will do something like Heath Ledger did in a second without thinking.” Wait, Adderall?

Is this an eighth-grade bar mitzvah? Her mother is upset because she drinks and occasionally takes Adderall? I’ve had a prescription since second grade! When I started getting—how did my father put it?-—“f—ing annoying,” he would ring a bell and go, “Medication Time.” Thanks, Nurse Ratched.

Prolonged usage of amphetamines hasn’t been linked to any health problems, right?

Ozzy Osbourne seems fine. So does Billie Mays. Oh wait.

Most recently, it has been reported that my unicorn Lindsay has been cutting herself. That sounds like a deal breaker, unless of course you take into account my vampire fetish. Then it sounds like a match made in heaven—or I guess in this case, eternal damnation.

Speaking of eternal, let’s talk about Lindsay’s beauty. This knock-out has been aging like a fine rose, getting more beautiful by the cigarette, and the competition for her hand in marriage has started to pile up. And by “competition for her hand,” I mean “court-ordered appearances.” Lindsay, why do you have to be so perfect? Smart, talented, not to mention pasty-skinned and freckled—God, that really tugs me the right way.

Also, I have this friend who was wondering if you happen to have a sister. You do? Is she jaded, from a broken home and headed down a path of self-destruction?

She is? I think I smell a double date coming on.

Jack Wilkinson is a Trinity senior. His column

runs

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every other Thursday.

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November 12, 2009

recess

PAGE 3

Nasher highlights Warhol’s star power with ‘Big Shots’ by

Claire Finch

THE CHRONICLE

KIM

SOLOW/THE CHRONICLE

'Lower D's'applies Gorky's 1802Russian play to modern day Nigeria.

‘Lower D V revitalizes old Gorky

People wanting to see Warhol’s actual paintings shouldn’t bother coming to the Nasher’s new exhibition of the artist’s Polaroids. Indeed, what stands out is not the aesthetic quality of the many photographs displayed, but rather the glimpse that they seem to offer into the enigmatic icon’s psyche—or at least his scintillatingly vibrant social life.

The show, titled Big Shots as a shout-out to the style of Polaroid camera that Warhol notoriously toted, presents hundreds of the artist’s snapshots. Often used as studies for his larger paintings, the photographs

numerous poses of a single subject. Displayed in sterile rows, the seemingly identical shots invite a closer inspection, their nearly unremarkable differences inviting the viewer into Warhol’s visual process.

Paired with the paintings of the Nasherfamily that stand at the exhibition’s entrance, all of which are positioned next

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Polaroid, the photographic studies reveal the mythic, celebrity status imbued in each Warhol work. The Nasher daughters, though formidable in largerto a corresponding

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Director Jay O’Berski’s modem interpretation of Maxim Gorky’s famous play, The Lower Depths, follows a large group ofmisfits in a Nigerian homeless shelter—a Real World: Lagos, if you will. Largely improvised by the student actors, The Lower D’s jumps off from the British script with non-PC dialogue, intermittent musical numbers and assorted musings on the human condition.

Throughout the play, characters enter and exit frantically and dreamily, in irascible mobs and ponderous solitude, in self-righteous triumph and deep, palpable dejection. The set ebbs and flows organically and hilariously. A gypsy traveler named Izabel (senior Danya Taymor) is the newest addition to the shelter, and she regales the modey crew with her travels and stories of optimism and spirituality—to debatable effect.

The large cast is impressively distinct and acts with an artful balance between uninhibitednaturalism and not-quitecaricature slapstick. Characters careen from one emotional extreme to another—in one scene, former millionaireMalcolm (junior Will Sutherland) moves from throwing tantrums to professing his love to leaving quietly.

In another scene, a character laments, “What am I supposed to do?” “Lie down and sleep,” a girl tells him, “there’s nothing you can do.” Read: break out in song instead. Technically, he takes up his guitar and a frosty-lipped crack addictloitering in the background pops up to belt on cue.

The students’ interpretation juxtaposes Gorky’s lofty existentialism with madcap irreverence that is at once intensely alive and entertainingly meaningful. The direction gives detailed attention to all background activity, such as offhand humping in a window upstage or derelicts shooting up behind a draped curtain while an impassioned monologue is delivered downstage.

Come for the wild rumpus, for the intellectual ponderings or, if nothing else, the crack addict’s rap rendition of “Party in the U.S.A.”

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The Lower D’s runs Nov. 12-15 and 19-21 at Theater.

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p er sonalities.The standouts are the subjects that were as charismatic outside of Warhol’s frame as within it. A cuttingly sleek Grace Jones stretches through one of the images, her sharply madeup eye catching viewers as she escapes from the shot in a billow of purple fur.

A similarly arresting image shows the tragically short-lived Jean-Michel Basquiat pinned against the photograph’s stark, white backdrop, his eyes sizing up the viewer in a measured gaze. .

Also displayed are numerous larger black-and-white photographs, all of which are candid, intimate displays of Warhol’s famously uninhibited social scene. Grayscale figures jump in and out of the frames as the focus snags on the famous or famous-looking, making the photographs look like evidence of epic, bygone parties. .

is not to say xhibition does its share of shots—one show’s main is its ability to surprise flashes :ognition as a ig Diane Lane Carly Simon \es into focus.

What resonates rough the exhition is Warhol’s /e for capturing and reprosubducing jects, his Pop Art iterations of the photographs building upon alidy .masterfully reductions of

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Want to share your work with top scholars from UNC, Duke and N.C. State, and with top technology companies in the RTF?

Ever hoped your work would be seen by a national audience?

Submit a proposal for a DIGITAL MEDIA PROJECT and become a part of the CHAT Festival (Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology), scheduled to take place Feb. 16-20, 2010, on the UNC campus. Work that embodies the CHAT festival spirit of collaboration and multidisciplinarity is especially welcome.

Submission Deadline: November 24 at 5

p.m

For full details, including submission information, visit http://iah.unc.edu/chat/festival/studentprojects.

Please note that projects must be endorsed by a faculty member to be eligible for consideration

PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

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Andrew Hibbard THE CHRONICLE

Alejandro

Escovedo says that the last time he played a bill tvith Lambchop, the two bands covered a Buzzcocks track together.

It’s not an expected choice for either Escovedo or Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, but it’s not surprising either.

It’s this paradox between predictable and surprising that defines these two musicians, much as it does the pairing for their Friday Duke Performances show.

Musical titans, Escovedo and Lambchop (die band’s numbers are ever in flux, but its core is Kurt Wagner) represent different musical upbringings and even more different sounds.

Genre-defying in their own ways, there is a conceptual tie dial, however abstracdy, makes perfect sense.

Both musicians come from a specific place, and their sounds respond to that location. But the sound is not necessarily what anyone has come to expect from that region.. Take Wagner, who, along with his bandmates, hails from Nashville, Tenn., the careerist capitol of country music.

Wagner says that during Lambchop’s foundational years in the late ’Bos and early ’9os, the band was taking some cues from the Nashville soundscape but bringing its own ideas, too. This approach is apparent on any Lambchop record, 1994’s I Hofie You're Sitting Down especially.

“We took that idea that [what we’re doing] is basically the same thing that they’re doing, it just sounded different,” Wagner says.

“That may sound strange, but at the time and conceptually, it all seemed to fit into place.”

Escovedo, like Wagner, was raised in the place he still calls home: San Antonio, Tex. He was reared in a noisy household on a healthy diet of everything: Latin jazz, swing, rock ‘n’ roll and ranchera, to name a few, all of it figuring into his songs.

“Just very early on, I got a sense that it wasn’t about genres, it was about the quality of the music,” Escovedo says.

“What was moving and what wasn’t, what was swinging and wasn’t and what was rock and what wasn’t.”

What complicates—or, rather, enriches—Escovedo’s musical sensibili-

...ONE ties is his punk background. Playing with first-wave act the Nuns and later True Believers, the musician says that the punk mindset has continued to inform his musical, sensibility.

“It’s always with me,” Escovedo says of punk. “Not just philosophically—creatively it’s always what drives me.

It’s always what make me want to push myselfa little more each time I make a record, each time I write a song.”

Director of Duke Performances Aaron Greenwaldsays it’s this nebulous relationship to genre that drew him to pair Escovedo and Wagner—whom he calls “commanding” front men.

“I thought that relationship to genre was something that made them contemporary,” he says. “That seemed to me to be a hallmark of something contemporary, that it was related to genre and that it existed outside of genre.”

Greenwaldadds that this notion of

understanding what it means to come from a place and engaging that in a

way that is not old timey is central to what this season is exploring.

Factoring in these backgrounds, it becomes even more difficult to describe what either sounds like. Both could be lumped into any number of genres, none perfecdy fitting. And perhaps this is what makes them vanguards of contemporary music.

In drastically different ways, Escovedo and Wagner are challenging the musical establishment, pushing boundaries and even questioning their own notions of what music can be.

“Rock ‘n’ roll has a cyclical sense to it,” Escovedo says. “When I listen to the radio and try to keep up with jwhat’s happening... and maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, I don’t hear anything that defines any

new sound and approach to the music.”

And maybe what Escovedo is doing isn’t new. Perhaps the same goes for Wagner, even when he’s adding lush orchestral backdrops to Lambchop’s live show. If this is. the case, then it must be said that what both artists are doing is certainly inspired.

And after years of plugging away—Escovedo released his first solo album in 1992, Lambchop’s first studio album arrived in 1994—it’s even more remarkable that they’ve endured in an age when bands with original sounds can come and go in the blink of an eye.

For Wagner, his answer to why Lambchop has survived evinces his modesty about the project.

“We’re not the most ambitious group on the planet,” he says, laughing. “Our ambitions lie in just trying to

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make better music. It seems like we’ve steadily progressed in our own way without trying to overextend ourselves by virtue of ambition or whatever.”

Wagner adds that this very modesty—resisting the hyperbolic nature of music journalism that pushes acts into a quick ascent and even quicker fall, he says —keeps the band grounded and allows them to continue.

But what’s clear about Lam behop and Escovedo is that in pressive decades of music-making, they’ve maintained a remarkable level of quality, whether the masses have taken notice or not.

They might have a lot in common, or they might not. But they’re both dam good. And that should be enough.

Lambchop and Alejandro Escovedo play in Reynolds Industries Theater tomorrow night at S p.m.

November 12, 2009

by

In

Aziza Sullivan THE CHRONICLE

1984, one woman, grown weary of a choreography world dominated by men, created a dance company dedicated to addressing controversial issues and insightful life stories through movement. The woman was Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the company was Urban Bush Women. Based in Brooklyn, the 25-year-old company completes its three-day residency at Duke with to-

night’s performance.

The company opened its residency with a day of dance workshops, which is how founder and choreographer Zollar found some of her earlier dancers. The seven-person company is currendy comprised of seven black women, though the company has never been exclusively female or black.

“I never said, ‘I want African American dancers,’” Zollar said. “I said, ‘I want dancers ofAfrican culture,’ and I let ople interpret that.”' on aesthetics, L other dance companies, but on communication “

W

are sto-

rytell-

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ers,” said Catherine Denecy, a dancer i with the Urban Bush Women. “We are focuses on an undertold story from the African diaspora. It’s really about telling don’t often hear.”

The evening’s performance consists pieces: “Give Your Hands to Struggle,” friends,” “Walking with Pearl: African Diai and “Naked City.” The latter is a newer laboration by Zollar and Nora Chipaumin based on the ‘sos film noir television serie; of the same name. It explores life in New York City, drawing inspiration from Tonf Morrison’s Jazz and paintings by artist Er nie Barnes. All the pieces focus on diaspora and African American life in the US. “[We have] a piece called ‘Shelter’ orig inally performed in the ‘Bos about homelessness in the city,” said dancer Keishr Turner. “In 2006 Jawole adapts ....Wha ally drew me to the company idea of being storytellers posed to movers tha dance for dance’ ing these stori a perspecti’ resonates

company apart.”

The dancers in the company work hard not only to tell stories of the African diaspora, but to raise general awareness of the African American condition across the country by bringing it to their audiences in relatable ways.

“Urban Bush Women tells stories, specifically the untold stories of people who don’t have a voice,” said dancer Samantha Speis.

“That was something I didn’t do prior to entering Urban Bush Women. I was not that kind of dancer. We all have our own experiences and were given ission to bring those to the work. niT)

-

eve and ways to relate.”

Zollar prefers to include the company in the production and choreography of individual pieces.

“I feel that it is an opportunity to find oneself on the stage,” Turner said. “The stories draw me in where I can find myself, connecting to whatever story is being told.

Urban Bush Women offers a lot of entry points for people to make that connection.”

The company also strives to promote social activism and thought.

“Rather then sitting down and enjoying some pretty lines and some nice turns and then going home, this is an opportunity to open lines for conversation,” Turner said. “[The] piece called ‘Give Your Hands to Struggle’ is based on a sermon called ‘What’s in Your Hands’ from the civil rights movement. It talks about the power indiviuals have in their hands. Whether your personal struggle as a viewer is that ofcivil rights or any other struggle, you can find an entry point, away ofrelating and finding your own personal power.”

Urban Bush Women is well aware of their unusual duty in the arts community.

“We don’t try to look pretty or right,” Denecy said. “We try to be as we are. We don’t try to pose and look a certain way as we live. I want dance the same way.... Every time I do a piece, I go on a nice ride. A real one, and I want to bring people with me.

Urban Bush Women perform in Reynolds Industries tonight

at Bp.m.

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WALE ATTENTION DEFICIT INTERSCOPE

� ���� Buzz has been building for almost a year for the arrival of D.C. rapper Wale’s full-length debut, Attention Deficit. Hiphop is all about posturing, and Wale delivers a bold, fresh pose to his audience. His assured swagger, however, often devolves into a self-congratulatory ramble that wears on the listener.

A few themes quickly emerge. The whole album is fraught with references to pop culture. Kanye West is mentioned in the first track, which isjust the harbinger of more name-dropping to come. A few failed references like “You are the slumdog/I am the millionaire” are almost laughable. In the end, reference-rap has been done before and done much better by artists like Eminem. Attention Deficit often feels like a newbie’s attempt at being the cool kid.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

The beats are solid on every track, but

they lack variety, marked by a production that is consistently bland but acceptable.

DIR. G. HESLOV BBC PICTURES

The exception is “Beautiful Bliss,” which falls so far short of blissful that it seems like a misstep in an amateur rap battle.

Wale does deserve praise for his bravery in terms of subject matter. “90210” deals with the problems of being an impressionable girl in Los Angeles, while “Diary” is a reflective look at unrequited love. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have catchy moments. His lead single “Chillin’” has been a hit for months, though it is held aloft by the vocals of Lady Gaga. Wale’s savvy for pop music shows in his hooks. Songs like “Mirror” and “TV in the Radio” will get stuck in your head with their simple, repetitive and irresistible choruses.

Wale is sitting in the back of the hip-hop classroom playing the unruly, yet promising student. The attention he’s lacking is only to detail, and, with a little focus, he could soon be on the honor roll.

—Nathan Nye

BRITNEY SPEARS THE

November 12, 2009

SINGLES COLLECTION

JIVE � ���� Britney Spears’ supposed fall from innocence seems awfully imaginative. Even her first single in 1999, “...Baby One More Time,” presented the barely legal star in a fetishized school-girl fantasy.

In 2009, she might be even more gratuitous—check “If U Seek.

Amy”—but the decade-long narrative has consistently been sex.

Her newest offering, The Singles Collection, offers a fairly compel-

ling retrospective ofAmerica’s favorite transgressive pop star.

By 2001, she dropped the last name for self-titled Britney, her weakest album. The record was still significant for its inclusion of “I’m a Slave 4 U,” produced by megastars the Neptunes. This pro-

ducdon team would come to leave their mark on an insane number of chart-toppers, and the choice marked the 2000s’ Zeitgeist of super-produced, hip-hop-inspired pop singles. 2003’s “Toxic” is the zenith of this trend. Her singing is inconsequential; rather, her role is offering sex appeal and star power to sell vocoded vocals,

�����

detuned synth blasts and that infectious violin sample.

The Singles Collection succeeds in sticking to what she does best—blessed few of her soul ballads are included. The exceptioin is “Everytime,” the clear champion of this group. She doesn’t overextend her vocal ability hereand sounds less cloying than usual, probably because her pained deliveryactually feels authentic (the song was written soon after her breakup with Justin Timberlake).

Somehow, Britney managed to nail back-to-back post-traumatic stress releases: Blackout in 2007 and Circus in 2008. The six songs included from these albums hold their own against older work, propelled by club-ready production and more sex. “Piece of Me” even succeeds in straying from the lechery, instead taking jabs at the paparazzi, a topic she may well be the world authority on.

The sole new inclusion is “3,” a song that sells the virtues of threesomes in a “1-2-3” chorus. It’s already topped the charts.

Britney’s “comeback,” expertly orchestrated by pop gurus like Max Martin, has validated this new compilation, and The Singles Collection is certainly more essential than 2004’s My Prerogative. In fact, it might be the only Britney Spears album you ever need.

—Brian Contralto

.

Whoever made the trailer for The Mm Who Stare at Goats deserves an award. The viewer is treated to an unhinged, riotous minute-and-ahalf. The theatergoer is not so lucky.

The film starts off with an enchanting premise, based on a true story in the mold of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In 2003, freshly cuckolded journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) ships off to Iraq in order to impress his estranged wife only to be indoctrinated by a contractor (George Clooney) into the fanciful world of the New Earth Army, a secret government project fronted by a hippie mystic (Jeff Bridges) to develop psychic soldiers.

Tragically, little comes of this wonderful premise. The film comes across as something between Coen brothers magical realism and a straightforward buddy/road movie. But here, it feels hollow, lacking the charm, mastery and humanity of the films it emulates. There are funny moments, but also emotional ones, which are painful.

The performances come close to redeeming the film at times. Bridges essentially recapitulates his Big Lebowski role, while Clooney delivers his tried-and-true charming, if unstable, scoundrel. Kevin Spacey is pleasantly snaky as fellow “Jedi” Larry Hooper, and McGregor does a perfecdy serviceable impression of Jason Batemari in Protestant, nebbish mode.

Beyond the considerable charm of the plot and the abilities of the actors, however, there is little else to enjoy. The characters are paper-thin, the film is rushed at 90 minutes, the plot is deceptively by-the-numbers and any eccentric charm is undercut by pervasive preciousness and sentimentality.

To reword the tagline: few goats, few redeeming qualities.

—Asher Broum-Pinsky

Picasso and the Allure of Language On view through January 3,

2010

The Nasher Museum presents a groundbreaking exhibition examining Pablo Picasso’s lifelong relationship with writers and the many ways in which language transformed his work Picasso and the Allure of Language was organized by the Yale University Art Gallery with the support of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Pablo Picasso, Dog and Cock, 1921. Oil on canvas, 61 x 301/8 inches. Yale University Art Gallery. Gift of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903. ©2009 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Tickets:

919-660-1701

www.nasher.duke.edu/picasso

Duke students FREE (1 ticket per ID) NASHER MUSEUM OF ART AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

November 12, 2009

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basic level, the film is a story about how all of this goes wrong.

Taking the roles of rabbi, Hashem

A SERIOUS MAN DIRS. COEN BROS. FOCUS FEATURES

*���� Throughout the Coen brothers’ new near-masterpiece, A Serious Man, it is made very clear that Larry Gopnik (played to perfection by Michael Stuhlbarg) is not the figure of the title. Gopnik is a hapless professor and a bumbling, panic-stricken cuckold, seeking tenure and anticipating his son’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah. At its most

by

sions to Hashem’s will acting as reminders that just as the Coens wrote these clueless characters and their calamitous lives, God could, might or does write yours.

Joel and Ethan take core aspects of their childhoods—the languid Hebrew lectures, the advent of marijuana in the suburbs, the mythic goyim—and inflate them from the inside until they are misshapen and exposed.

Gopnik’s little town is a world where dreams of having his head slammed repeatedly against the uncertainty principle and crewcut father-son Jew-hunting squads are almost

(God) and dybbuk (a demon) —these last two being examples of the film’s colorful hyper-Judaic landscaping—are the Coens themselves. They have, by means of a terrific acting ensemble, lingering cinematography and the latest of their consistently brilliant soundtracks, created a manic Jewish dystopia wherein no character has control of anything. Their film is an allegory ofreligious belief as a method, the constant allu-

That Evening Sun: Producer Terrence Berry

PAGE?

wills a dream into film

THAT EVENING SUN

reality

DIR. S. TEEMS DOGWOOD ENTERTAINMENT

Charlie McSpadden THE CHRONICLE

At a quiet apartment complex Monday, Durham played host to the North Carolina premiere of an indie festival favorite. That Evening Sun, a Southern Gothic tale of a Tennessee farmer returning home that has garnered Oscar buzz for star Hal Holbrook, screened this past Monday to a class ofDuke students.

Producer Terence Berry took a quick break from the film’s hectic promotional schedule to screen the film for his close friend and graduate student Bart Keeton’s ISIS class “Media Remix.” Berry, who started his career as an investment banker in New York, eventually found himself jumping from the macro level of film finance to film producing.

“When I started working on these film finances, I realized I love talking about film more than pure finance,” Berry said.

“I decided I don’t want to be up here. I want to be down here on an actual film.”

Berry, who had also taken a screenwriting course at New York University, met the film’s eventual writer-director Scott Teems in 2004 and began producing his short films. The two eventually found themselves in Los Angeles and embarked on the search for a Southern tale to make into their first feature.

“They are all from the South, and they want to make authentic Southern films,” Berry said of Teems and his crew.

“They feel that Hollywood might get it wrong.”

On a quick plane trip in August 2005, Teems read William Gay’s short story “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down,” and their hunt was over. As the two began optioning the story, however, they found some difficulties in selling the script to Hollywood.

“It doesn’t fit into what is perceived as a commercial film: your lead actor is an 84-year-old man with no real name recognition, and it’s a drama set in the South,” Berry said. “[Producers] would say it’s the indie film of yesteryear, and it won’t get done.”

But luck was on Berry and Teems’ side. Their first break was getting Hal Holbrook, fresh off his Oscar nomination for Into the Wild. And their next was finding Tennessee-based Dogwood Productions, a documentary company looking for

as believable as reality—and equally as vivid.

Gopnik is easily the Coens’ most convincingly disintegrating protagonist since John Turturro’s Barton Fink, though Stuhlbarg—and the film—never quite reaches those lofty heights. This isn’t a fault, though, just as a gangster film’s failure to match The Godfather could never be held against it. Rather, A Serious Man is an insidious dark comedy that ranks with the best of its filmmakers’ oeuvre and, arguably, as this year’s best movie yet.

—Kevin Lincoln

That Evening Sun is a rare example of a film that captures the true essence of the South.

Feeling trapped in his retirement home, Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) flies the crumbling coop to return home to his farm only to find a family of three has moved in. Abner quickly learns he has been “betrayed” by his lawyer son Paul (Walter Goggins), who signed the lease over to old family enemy Alonso Cheat (Ray McKinnon), an out-of-work drinker collecting insurance checks and trying to turn his family’s fate around with their new home.

Too stubborn to leave what is “rightfully his” and return to wilt away with his peers, Abner resides in the property’s sharecropper shack, which he protects with his old handgun and newly acquired noisy guard dog, Nipper. Amidst his squatting, he interacts with Cheat’s frightened butfaithful wifeLudie (Carrie Preston) and develops a friendship of sorts with her restless daughter Pamela (Mia Wasikowska), $ll while witnessing an a Tennessee-centered script that could be made for under $2 unnerving family dynamic on the brink of collapse. million as its first foray into features. The film, shot on 35Writer-director Scott Teems is particular with the mm wide-screen anamorphic film, ended up costing approxi- film’s pacing, often employing still landscape panoramas of the Tennessee backdrop. His camera movement mately $1.7 million.

But shooting in Tennessee means dealing with the swel- parallels the pace at which Abner lives, only breaking tering Volunteer State heat, which was of some concern with the style during nightmarish dream sequences involving their aging star who appears in almost every frame.

Abner’s dead wife. Teems successfully creates an omi“We shot in July and August in Knoxville, and [Holbrook] nous simmering to the story’s admittedly slow narrative, is 83 years old,” Berry said. “I don’t want to be known as the making the extremely violent acts that boil out of the characters even more dark and powerful. producer that killed Hal Holbrook.”

As the narrative builds, the meaner side of MeeThe production finished—sans casualties—and the resulting film has won numerous audience and narrative awards at cham emerges, as does the agonizing regret he feels the South by Southwest and Atlanta film festivals, among oth- for his past. Holbrook is the film’s shining prize, alers. It premiered in New York this past weekand is opening in ternately making the audience laugh and empathize.

Holbrook is perfectly perseverant, forever scowling as Los Angeles in two weeks.

As for now, the production team is working with Freestyle he witnesses the new generation’s values deteriorate.

Hypnotic and atmospheric, That Evening Sun is a Releasing to market the film to distributors.

“Everyone that I wanted has gotten to see it,” Berry said. resonating look at aging in America.

—Charlie McSpadden “At some point, that’s all you can ask for.”

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PERSONALS

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Students in the Teacher Preparation Program also qualify for the Minor in Education. Applications for admission are now being accepted. For elementary licensure, contact Dr. Jan Riggsbee at 6603077 orjrigg@duke.edu. For high school licensure, contact Dr. Susan Wynn at 660-2403 or swynn@ duke.edu.

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Matt Levenberg THE CHRONICLE

On his 16th hole of play Monday, Duke freshman Julian Suri teed up his ball on the 190-yard downhill par 3. Little did he know that a few seconds later, the crowd would erupt, applauding his fourth career hole-in-one.

Suri’s ace set the tone for the Blue Devils at the three-day Gifford Collegiate Championship in San Martin, Calif. He fired a 3-under 69 on Day One, followed by a 5-under 68 in his second round of action, tying him for the individual lead. Suri finished with a final-round 74 for a 5-under 211 total, good enough for eighth out of 88 participants in the tournament. Duke finished in fifth place as a team in the event, which featured Oklahoma State and Stanford, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, respectively. teammate, Suri’s fellow freshman Brinson Paolini, also played extremely well in the first two rounds, shooting 71 and 70 before carding a 3-over 75 in the final round at the par-72 CordeValle Golf Club. Paolini and Suri have been golfing together for several years, and they fed off each other during this tournament.

“Julian has played fantastic. It comes as no surprise to m€,” Paolini said. “I’ve been playing with Ju-

MM

November 12,2009

Suri leads Duke to sth at Gifford by

v

ursday

MEN'S GOLF

lian foralmost eight years now and he has always been great.”

Suri’s stellar play had the Blue Devils sitting at second place on the team leaderboard entering the final round of play.' The Blue Devils were just one shot off the lead with nine holes left Wednesday, and head coach Jamie Green and his team knew that a first-place finish was within reach.

“It was our destiny if we chose to make the right decisions and hit the shots that we can hit,” Green said.

Unfortunately, the Blue Devils did not execute all the shots they were capable of hitting, but there is reason to believe in them for the coming spring season. The emergence of freshmen Suri and Paolini is a very encouraging sign for Duke.

The Gifford Championship ended the fall season on a high note. The Blue Devils’ fifthplace team finish ties their best this season. Duke proved it can hang with the best programs in the country, and it looks to be an even better team in the spring.

Green expects much improvement this winter.

“These guys are not at all afraid to work hardwhen they know what they are working on and why they are working on it,” Green said.

“They all have the desire and when we sit down with them, they will make the necessary adjustments.”

ONLINE

Watch a Veterans Daythemed interview with Mike Krzyzewski about his experience at Army, or justread the highlights on The Chronicle's Sports Blog

MEN'S SOCCER

OLLY WILSON/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

Josh Bienenfeld helped the Duke defense shut downBoston College Wednesday, but the Eagles scored an overtime goal for the win.

Eagles down Duke again Blue Devils await NCAA tournament seeding decision by

Chris Cusack

THE CHRONICLE

For the third straight year, Duke was sent home in the opening round of the ACC tournament, this time 1-0 “ng U DUKE -yri to Bo Ston

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College in overtime.

After 95 minutes of scoreless play through the heavy rain and wind of Tropical Storm Ida, the Eagles scored with a header to advance to play No. 20 N.C. State—which defeated No. 2 North Carolina—in the tournament semifinals.

After a 30-minute weather

delay, the Blue Devils kicked off under a downpour with strong, blustery wind blowing around the pitch. From the beginning, it was clear the game was to be defined by the extreme conditions.

“There was heavy rain coming into your face,” head coach John Kerr said. “The wind was swirling and that made it difficult to get anywhere and get a clear sight of goal.”

Also, Duke played without junior defensive anchor Christian Ibeagha, who was suspended after receiving his fifth yellow card of the season against Wake Forest Friday. Ibeagha will return

for Duke’s NCAA tournament games if the team is selected for the postseason.

B\it Wednesday, the first half was an even battle between the squads. Both the Blue Devils and Eagles experimented with different ways to move the ball around the field as they found their game plans rendered ineffective by the inclement weather.

In the second half, though, Duke found its rhythm. For the opening 25 minutes, the Blue Devils controlled possession and earned several SEE M. SOCCER ON PAGE 8

FOOTBALL

First-year defensive starters making impact by

Jason Palmatary THE CHRONICLE

Junior Damian Thornton, a linebacker and first-year starter, is recognized for his emotion on the field.

On the eve of this season, head coach David Cutcliffe and defensive coordinator Marion Hobby were uncertain as to what they could expect out of their defense with just four full-time returning starters. Nine games into this year’s slate, they have a much better idea.

While the first words that come to mind when describing the Duke defense would never be dominant or stingy, the unit has made great strides this year. Up to this point in the season, the defense has been yielding a respectable 23.6 points a game, right on. pace with last year’s total of 23.4 points an outing.

Considering that all-conference performer and last year’s leading tackier Mi-

chad Tauiliili departed along with consistent contributors Glenn Williams and Greg Akinbiyi, much of this success can be attributed to the emergence of a handful of first-year starters.

“These guys have been providing what we expected,” Cutcliffe said. “I’m very pleased with the way these guys have stepped into their roles and thrived.”

Sophomore safety Matt Daniels has been a force in the secondary after not recording a start in his rookie campaign. Linebacker Damian Thornton and nose guard Charlie Hatcher have each started in eight of Duke’s nine games after making just one collective start the previous year.

SEE DEFENSE ON PAGE 8

THE

8 [THURSDAY'NOVEMBER' 12,2009

DEFENSE from page 7 Another item that Cutcliffe has put particular emphasis on is the progress' that his defensive newcomers have been making from game to game. A certain portion of this improvement is a general by-product of getting consistent snaps in live action, but the influence of holdovers such as Vince Oghobaase and Vincent Rey cannot be underestimated.

“Vince and Vinny bring a lot to the table,” fellow returning starter Catron Gainey said. “More than just their individual performance that we have come to expect, they do a lot in terms of motivating and coaching up the

Christian Ibeagha's suspension for Wednesday's ACC quarterfinal contributedto Duke's elimination at that stage for the third straight year.

M. SOCCER from page 7 opportunities, including three consecutive corner kicks. Boston College was able to generate few shots throughout the half, but simply weathered the Duke storm until the. end of regulation. In the end, the Blue Devils’ inability to finish would come back to haunt them.

Early in the first golden goal overtime period, Duke dominated play, finding openings all over the field. However, momentum was lost when defender MatthewThomas left the game with an injury, and the Eagles seized the opportunity. Within minutes, Edvin Worley headed a cross past Blue Devil goalkeeper James Belshaw for the win.

Boston College outshot Duke 12-7 on the afternoon, but the Blue Devils earned more corner kicks, 7-4.

“They ended up having one chance, and we didn’t defend well enough to prevent them from scoring,” Kerr said. “We paid the ultimate penalty for slack defending.”

Despite the loss, the Blue Devils will stay focused on their season’s last and most important test: the NCAA tournament.

“Right now, it really hurts. But tomorrow’s a new day,”

senior defender Josh Bienenfeld said. ‘We’ve got to look forward. There’s nothing we can do about the result now.”

younger players.”

Although the defensive unit hasn’t consistently made game-breaking plays, with the exception ofLeon Wright’s two interception returns for touchdowns against Army, it has become increasingly opportunistic.

A perfect example of this sense of increased aggression occurred late in the game Oct. 31 at Virginia with the Blue Devils protecting a slim lead. Defensive end Ayanga Okpokowuruk got to quarterback Jameel Sewell, jarring the ball loose, and Hatcher was there to scoop

up the fumble and rumble into the end zone to kill any Cavalier comeback hope Thornton also has a habit of making plays when they count most. On the season, he has recorded 5.5 stops in the backfield, several of which have come on key third downs. The linebacker has caught his coaches’ and teammates’ attention with his intensity.

“Damian is emotional to say the least,” Cutcliffe said.

“That’s great so long as you can still read and react. He keeps getting better as the season progresses; he’s just a competitor,” This mentality of performing when it counts most is something that the coaching staffhas been stressing. So far this year, the opposition has moved into the red zone 30 times and only scored touchdowns on 57 percent of those possessions. Also, Duke put an end to five of those trips without giving up any points.

This weekend, with Georgia Tech and its prolific triple-option offense rolling into Wallace Wade Stadium, getting stops on third down will be crucial. Last week, North Carolina victimized theBlue Devils on third down and ended up with a huge advantage in time of possession. By the fourth quarter, Duke was worn down, and the floodgates opened.

To guard against this fatigue, Cutcliffe will have to

CHRDNICLT

rely on other players who have seen their responsibilities expand this year. Lee Butler and Chris Rwabukamba will continue to play most of the snaps in the secondary, while Patrick Egboh and Adam Banks will help spell a front seven depleted by injuries “We have the same rotation, but we could see some cir-

cumstances from a health standpoint,” Cutcliffe said. “And someone may have to step up.”

The theme of an individual stepping up on the defensive side of the ball will be nothing new for the Blue Devils. Sophomores Daniels, Butler and Hatcher have all carved out theirroles this year and will be expected to help younger players develop in the future.

“Actual playing experience is huge,” Cutcliffe said.

“It will certainly serve some of these younger guys well down the road.”

MELISSA YEO/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

Sophomore safety MattDaniels started one gameas a freshman, but has taken ownership of the position in his second season with the Blue Devils.

SOCIAL MEDIA fom page!

Duke Blue Planet is a site maintained by the Blue Devil program that showcases the Duke basketball team, its players and coaches.

Both associate head coach Chris Collins and Duke Blue Planet are active on Twitter, but the two have just 2,446 and 3,011 followers, respectively. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski has no presence on Twitter save for a fake account with his namesake (©MikeKrzyzewski) whose only two updates are “I could eat cheese for every meal” and “how else can i explain that calipari’s a little bitch?”

That isn’t to say, though, that the Blue Devils are not active on the Internet. In addition to the Duke Blue Planet website, the program has a channel on YouTube. The video entitled “Great Moments in Cinematic History,” in which players reenact scenes from movies Associate head coach Chris Collins isactive on Twitter, but hehas many fewerfollowers than John Calipari. including “Titanic” and “The Godfather,” has Recruiting and the Internet 43,915views. Additional interviews and videos “It was the worst I’ve ever seen it in terms the stories.

More Before YouTube and email, a college articles, to outsidof all the negative that, humanize a team with players than just negative, just pure hate, it was just coach hearing rumors about an amazing ers, can sometimes appear standoffish.

For the Blue Devils, interacting with fans strong. There were a lot of people telling our recruit playing in a cramped gym at some far-flung location would have to make the on the Internet was a project that grew out story well, too, but we didn’t have a voice.” of necessity. By the end of the 2006-2007 Just over two years since the Duke Blue difficult decision of whether or not to dediPlanet website launched, the Duke Departcate a few days to see the prodigy. It was season, the negative attention surrounding that its Interrecruiting of Athletics maintains by hearsay. to coorment the program, according recruiting Now, those days are as antiquated as net presence has been effective. dinator Dave Bradley, had become unbear“I think there’s been less Duke hate, teams taking the train for West Coast road able. The Blue Devils had gone 22-11, lost swings. In today’s new age of recruiting, to speak,” associate athletic director round of the ACC Tournament so in the first for communications Jon Jackson told The players can simply upload videos showing and fizzled out early in the NCAA TournaChronicle in February. “It’s still out there. off their skills onto YouTube or, better yet, ment at the hands of Virginia Commonemail the clips to coaches across the counFor media’s critical even us to say it’s just going to magically discoverage, wealth. The not best on try. The availability of footage makes the Duke is the appear strategy fair, was sure wasn’t probably bolstering it if at recruiter have to work a little less road-weary, but the exour part. It’s something you Basketball’s reputation.

“The haters were out in full force, and it consistently, and one of the key ways to do cess of information coming in takes time to sift through. was taking its toll on our guys,” Bradley said. that is through Blue Planet.”

“We get email and people mailing us DVDs,” Bradley said. “We probably get, over the course of the year, 500 [people

us], at least, whether it’s a coach or a player or a parent. But the major conference programs oh a given year are only going to look to bring in between one and five in a class.”

Hasheem Thabeet—the second pick of last year’s NBA Draft and a current member of the Memphis Grizzlies —would have had a hard time catching the attention of college coaches without the capabilities provided by new technology.

“He was in Tanzania and he went into an Internet cafe in Dar es Salaam and just started emailing American colleges,” recruiting analyst Adam Zagoria said. “It kind of makes the world a smaller place and enables people from all around the world to make themselvesknown.”

While the new breakthroughs allow talented players to take the recruiting.process into their own hands, it is unlikely that recruiting will ever be done completely online.

After all, there are some things in the process that simply have to be done in person.

“You don’t get a feel of what a person is like until you sit across a table from him, new media expert Paul Levinson said. You also get something more from going to a game. In the future, the Internet will be an important, growing ingredient in recruiting, but it will not be all of recruiting.

Recruits will still take their on-campus visits, and no matter how widespread the sport s Internet presence becomes, the games wil still be played on the hardwood. But for a program looking to stay current, social media has emerged as an essential tool. contacting

the chronigle:'

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Last year’s financial crisis licly stated their commitment truly hit home this week at to avoid layoffs at all costs, alDuke. though they were careful not The University instituted to rule them out altogether. its first public layoffs Monday, In the past months, however, eliminating two staff positions this strong language has bein relation to gun to fade, giving way to the merger of editorial the recognithe International House and the Multition that jobs may need to be eliminated. cultural Center.

Based on estimates released As other elite research universities like Harvard by Executive Vice President and Princeton have already Tallman Trask, the University experienced, layoffs are. an shed the equivalent of4oojobs unfortunate reality in today’s through early retirement incurrent economic climate, centives and other initiatives, and more will be necessary and 600 more jobs need to be to close Duke’s $125 million eliminated over the next two years to balance the budget. budget gap.

While these looming cuts But the administration’s lack of communication about may give Duke the opportunity these inevitable personnel to “right-size” and trim admincuts is troubling. istrative fat, they will place the future of University employees Since last Spring, upperlevel administrators have pubin uncertainty.

I am really sorry that two loyal and outstanding Duke employees have lost their jobs. Mr. Harris provided valuable service and advice to me when I was an undergrad and a professional student at Duke.

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—“doubledukie” commenting on the story “International House to merge with Multicultural

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Center.” See more at www.didcechronicle.com.

LETTERS POLICY purposes of identification, phone number and local address, letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial

department for information regarding guest columns.

The Chronicle will not publish anonymous or form letters or letters dial are promotional in nature. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit letters and guestcolumns for length, clarity and style and the right to withhold letters

based

on

Direct submissions

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TheChronicle 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 thoseofDuke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the

administrators should release the University’s plan going forward, detailing priorities and potential areas for cuts.

In the past, Duke has taken measures to keep its employees informed about cost-cutting measures through various “Primetime” forums with key administrators. Moreover, the clear information available to employees about early retirement packages introduced earlier this year was laudatory, and it is the type of communication the administration should strive for as it moves forward.

Not only would a campuswide statement help to inform the University’s workforce, it would also reassure important stakeholders that the administration is confronting financial challenges proactively.

This is particularly imp or. taut, as Duke’s cost-cutting strategy thus far has appeared a bit piecemeal, with budgetary changes left to the discretion

of individual departments.

Moving forward, such a decentralized strategy—compared to a holistic approach—seems more likely to produce harmful cuts in key academic areas. Along these lines, bringing in an external consulting firm to evaluate the University; as was done at Cornell University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, could be a step in the right direction.

There is no doubt that Duke faces challenges ahead.

But in adapting to troubled times, the administration should recognize the need for transparency, communication and comprehensive

planning.

So why am I here, again?

onjinecomment

The Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form ofletters to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for

Given this situation, faculty, staff and students deserve a frank explanation of the University’s plan going forward before the axe is dropped on hundreds of jobs. That’s why it is particularly disconcerting that Monday’s layoffs came without any notification or warning.

The process of cutting jobs will be extensive and require politically unpopular and difficult decisions, but open communication from the Allen Building is the first step to ensure that layoffs are made prudently.

That the administration’s overall strategy for eliminating jobs has not yet been outlined to the community at large raises doubts about where the policy is headed. To counter these concerns, President Richard Brodhead and other

editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of theauthors.

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With

my semester in Glasgow winding down already, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I wanted to study abroad in the first place, and why I ended up in Scotland of all places.

It’s strange to think about what I wanted to accomplish so many months ago when I was first applying for programs.

(But what else are you going to do on 8-hour layovers spent waiting for the train station to doris jwo open in the only two points for shelter around, honesty i.e. a 24-hour MeDonald’s?

Sidenote: if you are interested in people-watching, you will be most entertained between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m.)

There are plenty of cynical reasons out there for spending a semester abroad, some of which are the undoubtedly the sole reasons that convince students to pursue such programs. Resume-boosting, the allure of partying all over Europe, escaping the stress that can accompany a semester at Duke. Or earning the right to identify yourself as a backpacker, along with all the mystical romanticism which that culture implies.

Christian Lander, author of the blog “Stuff White People Like,” would probably say that study abroad is solely for the purpose of bragging about it later on. Granted, there might be some of that involved upon return to Duke; for example, “When I was in Spain last fall, I had the most amazing tapas at this one bar with the freshest ingredients caught just that morning from the Mediterranean....”

Still, there are multiple other reasons, ones that are probably more worthy and ultimately more valuable, like learning a new language, immersing yourself in a different culture or pursuing a course of study that Duke doesn’t offer.

At the same time, I realized when I got here that whenever someone would ask me, “Why Glasgow, of all places?” I’d be hard-pressed to provide an answer, despite the countless choices available. I thought I knew at first. My reasons were simple, really. The Duke public policy program with the University of Glasgow fits my major and I’d be able to travel around continental Europe easily. It was a simple option to go abroad, so I took it.

But after spending some time here, despite

whatever reason I had to go in the first place, I realized that, rather unwittingly, I was going to take back much more than I expected. It’s just about asking yourself how much you want to make of it. And what you learn can really come from the most unexpected of sources. So here goes, a selection of odds and ends: Lesson No. 1; We have all been pronouncing “Duke” wrong our entire lives. If in fact we are to trust the British, a.k.a. my Irish, Scottish and English flatmates, who admittedly probably have greater claim to the English language than we do, then Duke is actually pronounced with a “j” tossed in there for greater sophistication. The end result sounds more like “juke,” and apparently our American pronunciation is quite amusing to theBrits.

Lesson No. 2: Free university tuition. Free healthcare. Reputable public housing projects.

And it all works. Just think about it.

Lesson No. 3: Great things can come from teatime, particularly late-night chats with a cup of hot tea and a bit of toast to go with it. The most interesting things come from just talking to people. Conversation topics range from discussing the phenomenon of Neds (non-educated delinquents, aka the gangsters of Britain), the failure of the American soccer team, the intricacies of Northern Irish politics and the wonderful vocabulary ofBritish slang.

Lesson No. 4: Student unions can be a major part of social life. At Glasgow, there are two student unions, each complete with pubs, clubs, eateries and study space. And everyone hangs out together in them, regardless of social cliques or stereotypes. You can be friends with whoever you want to be friends with. Imagine what such a space might look like at Duke.

Lesson No. 5; Explore wherever you are. Here in Glasgow, it’s all about finding spots with beautiful views of the horizon or little eclectic tea nooks and restaurants. In Scotland in general, exploration means getting in touch with nature and seeking out hiking trails. There are plepty of things to do everywhere, Durham included.

Make plans and-keep busy. Time everywheie flies by faster than you think it will.

So there you go. Some gems from abroad, don’t know how applicable this is to everyone, but the overarching lesson is this, I think: take what you can from the things you do and the people you meet, and hope that the time you spent anywhere changes your life in some sma way.

Doris Jioo is a Trinity junior. Her column runs a ery other Thursday.

the chronicle

What the merger means for Duke

Just

when I began to appreciate and value what my experience here at Duke University stands for, the true colors of the University and the system that governs it became all too clear.

I think it is time that someone places accountability where it is due for both the prospective and already applied changes to minority issues, such as the criticism of the Black Student nana asante Alliance Invitational and Latino guest column Student Recruitment Weekend and the recent merger of the International House with the Multicultural Center. As humans, we are often inclined to justify and rationalize our decisions and behaviors, no matter how unreasonable they are. Itis these mental processes that allow the Duke administration, and groups such as One Duke United, to move forward with carrying out their misguided plans in the “best interest” ofDuke.

It was one thing for One Duke United to voice its opinions on a matter that does not negatively affect them or other members of the Duke community. One Duke United is comprised largely of members who have no stake in the goals for BSAI weekend, which is in place to recruit prospective students of black descent through a weekend that exposes them to both the general student life and black culture here at Duke. It was quite another thing for members of this group to assert that BSAI and LSRW, among other minority recruitment weekends, be eliminated based on their misrepresentation of the unity of Duke and the notion that they have outlasted their usefulness.

Just as one cannot expect a person from a high socioeconomic background to truly understand and internalize the needs Of a person who lives in poverty, the arguments of people who are mostly not active or even participants within the black community cannot be considered in making tangible decisions about such issues.

More importantly, Duke’s administration has incessantly failed those concerned with BSAI and LSRW by not advocating on our behalf or taking the reasonable stance against ideas that strive to create a false sense of cultural and racial unity, such as those of One Duke United and numerous other affiliated students. For the administration to remain indifferent toward this issue is disgraceful.

It speaks to the fact that Duke’s desire to foster a diverse community needs to be labeled as what it is: a pretentious facade.

Now that Duke seems to be comfortable with its numbers pertaining to minority representation among the student population, is it time to get rid of events that strive to foster a true sense of economic diversity? It has become all too clear that this false dedication to promoting diversity is superficial and simply follows the status quo.

If this was not the case, why has the University not taken a stance in support of minority recruitment weekends such as BSAI? These events have had an evident and positive impact on the official numbers for minority recruitment here at Duke, and more importantly, a strong and positive impact on the students who decide to matriculate at Duke. So, because Yale University was successful in canceling its Minority Scholars Weekend during President Richard Brodhead’s time there, that legacy should continue here? I think not. These misguided politics that govern Duke University and its administration are distasteful.

The recent merger of the Multicultural Center and the International House in conjunction with the ongoing debate surrounding BSAI begs many other questions, among them, what is Duke really trying to do with the minority population here at Duke? Why is it that Duke seems to expect such establishments to compromise the essence of its existence? The Merger implies that mutually exclusive minority groups can be consolidated. This pervades a certain level of carelessness and

indifference.

This desire and determination to consolidate or eliminate

minority affinity organizations is shameless. If a primary con-

cern surrounding such issues is a financial commitment that can no longer afford, the University may want to think twice about a significant source of its financial contributions alumni. If the administration thinks making such irrational decisions fosters strong and genuine relationships between the

Duke

—

University and its minority alumni,

it is mistaken.

I am angry and disappointed that such decisions are being Made without a genuine interest in what is best for the communities that are involved. This is all such an incredible insult to the minority population here at Duke, who, believe it or not, are aUo dedicated to fostering unity among themselves. These two issues expose a deeper disconnect between the Duke system ar> d the minority population.that the administration is evidently

unwilling to address.

A ana Asante is a Trinity sophomore.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12,2009

I

commentaries

11

Why pass/fail needs reform

If

Duke wishes to maintain its academic reputation, it must encourage academic rigor and true interdisciplinary thinking. A more liberal pass/fail policy would do just that.

As Duke students enter the adult world,4he lessons learned and skills acquired matter most, and exposure to difficult classes can hold more utility than playing it ' safe for an easy A The

satisfactory/unsatisfac-

GlGllcl botdla

tory system would make gUOSt Column viable the opportunity or a istory major to leam organic chemistry, or an electrical and computer engineering student to take a 200-level philosophy course. We leam and grow as individuals by testing our limits and moving outside of our comfort zone.

T-Reqs aim to create a student body with a liberal, diverse educational background, but the current system disincentivizes students from attempting rigorous courses unrelated to their primary academic focus. How often do we hear about students using Math 103 to fulfill their QS requirement, Bio 118 to fulfill their NS, or Econ 110 to fulfill SS? A lack of regard for GPA couldjeopardize a law school or med school student’s professional future—this pragmatic reality results in pandering and intellectual complacency. Duke can combat this by increasing academic flexibility and giving students room to explore.

The late deadline for students to declare if they wish to take the class on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis (a month before the end of the semester) makes the proposed changes extraordinarily powerful. Giving students ample time to decide on satisfactory/unsatisfactory status comes with a variety ofbenefits. The student who decides to take a difficult class in an unfamiliar subject area has an incentive to work hard throughout the semester, because if she achieves an A, she will be able to keep it. .

This is especially meaningful if the academic risk has resulted in the student realizing she has an interest in a major or minor in the new-found discipline—pass/fail classes are not acceptable as major requirements. If instead the student realizes her weakness, she will have nevertheless have learned about herself and about a novel subject. Students should have the time to adequately familiarize themselves with the discipline (including their aptitutde at the discipline) before they make their decision.

The Oct. 9 Chronicle article, “Proposed changes to pass/fail policy elicit debate,” reported that Dean George McLendon argued that the late deadline would encourage students to take classes pass/fail “just to boost their GPAs,” but in reality the opposite is true—clearly, just taking an easy A course would best boost a student’s GPA. Simply put, the students McLendon imagines manipulating a pass/fail system do not, under the status quo, take difficult classes outside of their major anyway.

Reasonably, the new policy should include limits on the total number of classes one can take pass/fail, and pay close attention to the use of pass/fail classes in majors, minors, or certificates—this meaningfully restricts the possibility ofabuse. Forcing students to decide at the beginning of the semester the pass/ fail status of the class only discourages risk-taking, or alternatively, discourages students to strive for an A+ in a subject at which they could potentially excel.

Contemporary challenges will require an entrepreneurial spirit and interdisciplinary thinking among students. The proposed policy changes will help ready students to meet these challenges by providing. them with more freedom to take academic risks and more incentive to synthesize complex ideas.

Elena Botella is

a

Pratt

freshman

lettertotheeditor CRRalumni respond to merger Merger decision lacked transparency, student input We were shocked and saddened to read about the This week, the financial crisis hit close to home.

I discovered that my home away from home and my merging of the International House and the Multicultural Center, and about the loss ofjuanitajohnson current employer, the Center for Multicultural Afand Julian Sanchez in particular. fairs, will be merged with the International House Some of the most meaningful experiences from this January, and that two ofmy mentors at the center will be let go. No one at the center received word of our time at Duke (and maybe even our lives to date) have come from the Centerfor Race Relations, which this merger until after the decision has been made. is run out of the Multicultural Center. We sincerely None of the student leaders, whose groups depend hope this merger will not prevent other students on the center for guidance and support, were confrom having similar experiences. Juanita was an insulted. valuable resource to the various programs that came I understand that the University is in dire financial trouble, but it is precisely this type of non-transparent out of the Center, and Julian was a much beloved and admired mentor to so many of us. They will be greatly political process that landed the country in this mess. missed, and they are irreplaceable.

The fact that Duke made this decision behind closed The International House and the Multicultural doors casts severe doubts in my mind on the UniverCenter provide equally vital services to two distinct sity’s commitment to fulfill the needs of its minority communities. Diversity work is rendered meaningless students. The lack of input from students and faculty and ineffective if it is not treated as a nuanced issue, also leads me to doubt the wisdom of such a merger. and given Duke’s history, this type ofwork should not I also take umbrage with the concept of the Globbe taken lightly. We hope that the decision to remove al Cultures Center. Ethnic minorities on campus are two distinguished staff members who have shown not just another exotic group to enrich the cultural much loyalty to the university was not made flippantexperience of other Duke students. Racial minorily as an “easy” way to deal with budget constraints. ties outside of the black-white binary already struggle Their contributions to our university community far against the socalled perpetual'foreigner complex. outweigh their salaries. You cannot put a price on di- Ask an Asian-American friend if they have ever been made uncomfortable because someone said or imversity.

We would greadyappreciate an explanation of why plied that they didn’t“look American,” I’m sure they this happened, and how the University plans to keep have plenty of stories. In merging the Multicultural its diversity planning at the same level. We are deeply Center with the International House, Duke contribconcerned about what this plan means for the future utes to the alienation ofnon-white and non-black raof diversity and student programming at Duke. cial minorities.

The Multicultural Center is not a showcase of miOlivia Singelmann, Trinity ’OB nority cultures, it is a space where minority students Alumnus, Centerfar Race Relations can explore and celebrate their unique identity.

Please remember that the center is not just a delivery CammieErickson, Trinity ’OB mechanism for programs and services, it is a comAlumnus, Center for Race Relations munity. While this merger may reduce costs, it does nothing to improve programs and services. In fact it Boyu Hu, Trinity ’OB does a great disservice to a university that claims to Alumnus, Centerfor Race Relations care about diversity.

Miho Kubagawa, Trinity ’O7 Alumnus, Centerfor Race Relations

Jack Zhang Trinity ’ll

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