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‘GROWING PAINS’

By KATIE TAN April 23, 2023

As QuadEx approaches the end of its inaugural year, the new residential system has been met with mixed reviews from both firstyears and upperclassmen. While some believe QuadEx is a step in the right direction, others are frustrated at being caught in the transition.

But mostly, students have speculated whether QuadEx will be the resounding success that administrators hope it will be.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we came back in 50 years and QuadEx was this whole big success,” first-year Harrison Kane said. “We’re the unlucky people who have to deal with the growing pains, you know?”

The new living and learning initiative aims to move from a previous “culture of selectivity,” brought forth by Greek life and SLGs, to a “culture of belonging,” according to several administrators. Each dorm on East Campus, which incoming first-years are randomly assigned to, is now linked to a corresponding Quad on West Campus. The goal is to have each Quad build its “own identity, traditions and social events.”

Students have noticed similarities between QuadEx to housing systems at other schools, and for good reason — as Duke looked to create QuadEx, it turned to schools like Harvard, Yale and Northwestern for inspiration, according to administrators.

Grad union demands recognition

The Duke Graduate Students Union is holding its second unionization campaign, the first being in 2017.

By AUDREY WANG Feb. 27, 2023

The Duke Graduate Students Union held a rally demanding voluntary recognition from Duke administration Friday afternoon.

According to Anita Simha, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the biology department and a DGSU co-chair, the union has “around 1,300” cards signed by the current 2,471 students — this number is over 50% of all doctoral students and above the required 30% threshold to go forth with a National Labor Relations Board election. Since a majority of doctoral students indicated that they were in favor of a union, the University may also voluntarily recognize the union, thereby negating the need for a formal election.

Each of the three schools’ housing systems has undergone similar changes as QuadEx in the last few decades, placing students in a single residence hall, college, or area for their undergraduate years with an emphasis on creating distinct communities. Yale adopted their current model in 1962, Harvard in 1996, and Northwestern in 2019. Each school’s challenges, traditions and student reception — from the fanfare of Harvard’s Housing Day to dorm t-shirts made by a Yale student — provide a glimpse into what QuadEx could look like at Duke in four, 30 and 60 years down the line.

History of QuadEx and creating identity QuadEx was several years in the making. The Next Generation Living and Learning Task Force, which was active between 2018 and 2019, reviewed living and learning structures and spoke with leaders from 14 schools, according to Dean of Trinity College Gary Bennett, who co-chaired the task force, and Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost and vice president of student affairs, in an email to The Chronicle. These schools included Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Rice and Brown.

McMahon tracked these schools’ efforts in renovations that foster community, incentives to enhance faculty-student interaction and student-led house councils. In November 2020, Duke announced it would move to a “residential community” system. The newly created Next Generation Living and Learning 2.0 Committee would aim to “build a joyful and intentional fouryear residential experience that promotes growth, meaningful inclusion, and health, and that is distinctly Duke,” administrators announced. It also stated it would not diminish or eliminate Greek life and selective living groups.

According to McMahon, the committee was asked to make sure any new living and learning design intentionally preserved the core elements of Duke’s own student culture, which meant a “broader concept that encompasses all the ways that students talk about, perceive, and experience campus life.”

So far, QuadEx has implemented several new initiatives that seek to do this. The Quad Identity Project was created and spearheaded the Quad

Duke announces Climate Commitment

By

Duke administrators and alumni gathered in Page Auditorium on Thursday evening to formally announce the Duke Climate Commitment, an initiative addressing climate change supported by $36 million in initial gifts.

Thursday’s formal announcement featured Duke President Vincent Price and conversations with University alumni and climate leaders. Also featured were pre-recorded videos of prominent figures, including John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Fuqua ’88, Durham Deputy City Manager Bertha Johnson and Mike Krzyzewski, former head coach of Duke’s men’s basketball.

The announcement for the Duke Climate Commitment focused on university-wide, national and international climate and sustainability challenges, emphasizing Duke’s commitment to addressing them.

“We’re developing Duke as a living laboratory to study and solve climate and sustainability challenges,” Price said. “And perhaps, most importantly, we are supporting environmental sustainability in the community and advancing our understanding of the critical impacts of climate on social and racial equity.”

Duke aims to unite its education, research, operations and public service missions while addressing four focus areas: energy transformation, climate and community resilience, environmental and climate justice and data-driven climate solutions.

Duke’s 2011 Sustainability Strategic Plan and 2009 Climate Action Plan previously laid out the University’s approach to climate change.

The new commitment, according to the event’s speakers, aligns with previous plans.

Giving at Duke, the University’s alumni donation organization, broke down Duke Climate Commitment’s $36 million donated initial funds. $5 million come from the Duke

Endowment, $25 million from the Nicholas family and over $6 million combined from five donor families.

The event also featured three live alumni discussions, which touched on a variety of topics including bipartisan climate policy, the clean energy transitions, environmental justice and leveraging entrepreneurship and venture capital to solve the climate crisis.

Krzyzewski, during his remarks, spoke about Duke’s “offensive” and “defensive” roles in addressing climate change and called for unification across “the whole Duke team.”

“Together we have the opportunity today to chart a different course at Duke,” Price said during his closing remarks. “We have the talented students and staff. We have the global network of extraordinary alumni. And we have an obligation as an employer and history has prepared us for this moment. And that is why we must succeed and that is why we will succeed. Duke is in it together for life.”

In an open letter addressed to President Vincent Price, the union is asking the University to “choose the path of collaboration” by March 3. If the University rejects the proposal, the union will file for an NLRBrecognized election.

The drive for recognition

The union crossed the halfway mark at least by Feb. 10, according to Simha. Although the 30% benchmark is not a requirement, Simha stated that the union aimed for a 50% benchmark to “give Duke the opportunity to voluntarily recognize [them].”

This is not the first time the DGSU has pushed for NLRB recognition. In 2017, doctoral students held an election to be NLRB-certified, but ultimately withdrew their petition to be formally recognized after 502 ballots were challenged. The DGSU has since functioned as a direct-join union without official NLRB recognition.

Without official recognition, the University is not legally required to bargain with or recognize the union. Union leaders have previously pointed to a lack of direct recognition paired with a pattern of indirect recognition through Graduate School responses to DGSU demands.

In August, the DGSU demanded paid parking passes and the distribution of a $500 payment promised by The Graduate School. Five days

INSIDE

‘Not in this alone’

Black students reflect on the significance of the Mary Lou Williams Center as it prepares to reopen in fall 2023. PAGE 3

Duke’s postgrads

Have you ever wondered where undergraduates end up after Duke? Read more about it in our data study. PAGE 6

Meet the next provost

Alec Gallimore looks to work “across the entire range of scholarship” as Duke’s incoming provost. PAGE 9

Here’s what housing at Duke’s peer institutions tells us about the future of QuadEx, Duke’s residential system implemented in fall 2022.

KARIANNA KLASSEN Sept. 30, 2022

gary bennett dean of trinity college

“We want students to hear the quad names and immediately understand the kind of traditions that they’re about to become enmeshed in — in a way that’s really distinctly Duke.”

EXPERIENCE THE WORLD AT DUKE

The Duke Global Education Office (GEO) offers international and U.S.-based study away opportunities granting academic credit toward graduation for students from any major. Learn more about GEO: globaled.duke.edu.

Duke Immerse is a semester-long program in which undergraduates enroll in a cluster of four courses designed by Duke faculty. Programs include experiential components, travel, and engagement about the program's theme. Learn more about Duke Immerse: immerse.duke.edu.

The Rubenstein-Bing Student-Athlete Civic Engagement Program (ACE) provides student-athletes with opportunities for immersive summer service experiences. Learn more about ACE: ace.duke.edu.

Duke Summer Experiences (DSE) aggregates all undergraduate summer opportunities into one easily searchable database. Learn more about DSE: experiences.duke.edu.

The Office of Undergraduate Education’s Experiential Education offices and programs provide a unique and valuable opportunity for learners to gain real-world experience and develop important life skills that will serve them well in their future endeavors.

undergrad.duke.edu/experiential-education/

Black students reflected on

By SEVANA WENN

The Mary Lou Williams Center was a place that exuded safety and warmth, sophomore Tiana Clemons said, sitting on a bright blue bench on Abele Quad. She described a typical weekday. A gentle light would stream in through the windows. Some students studied diligently; others filled the space with laughter, absorbed in lively conversation. Familiar BET shows and music played in the background. It was a place, Clemons said, that felt like home.

Housed on the first floor of the Flowers building, the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture — known to many simply as “the Lou” — has been a cornerstone of the Black community at Duke since its founding in 1983. Named for the renowned jazz artist and humanitarian, its mission is to “foster a safe and affirming community that supports the diverse needs of Black-identified people.”

On the morning of Sept. 26, a fitting broke on a chilled water line in the Flowers building. The water leaked into the first floor and basement, damaging ceiling tiles, flooring, drywall, furniture and finishings. According to Vanessa Roth, communications specialist for Duke Facilities Management Organization, the target for re-occupancy is next fall.

“It was honestly just kind of shock,” said Clemons of the moment she learned about the burst water line. “In the sense of, I was literally just there maybe a day or two ago … I was just there.”

She recalled the last conversation she had in the space, describing a sense of joy that was at the heart of the Mary Lou Williams Center.

in this alone’

Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture as it looks to reopen in fall 2023

Adjusting to a temporary space

In the aftermath of the incident, MLWC staff has been working around the clock to provide resources and support for the Black community.

The MLWC has been temporarily relocated to conference rooms in the Bryan Center, in rooms 105 and 109. Events such as Wednesday Night Jazz and Theology Underground, as well as Black affinity organization meetings, have shifted to various locations on campus.

It’s been a challenging transition, wrote Dawna Jones, MLWC director at the time and assistant vice president of Student Affairs for identity centers and community development, in an email to The Chronicle.

“Like the community we serve, we have felt the emotional impact of losing our gathering space and the disruption of our normal routines, which include welcoming students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors into our space to create joyous moments and opportunities for respite,” Jones wrote.

She is encouraged by the support of campus partners, local alumni, parents and friends of the center.

“What I am missing most,” she wrote, “is the sound of students greeting each other and laughing together as they made themselves at home in the space.”

Sophomore Brianna Johnson, who works at the MLWC as an Abele Ambassador, spoke to the staff’s efforts over the past month. They’ve experimented with several ideas to make the temporary location in the Bryan Center feel more like home, from hanging up Polaroid pictures to installing a bulletin board with announcements and events.

SHAPE hosts ‘Reclaim the Night’ Walk in solidarity with survivors

pressing issue at this university. And we encourage people to let out those feelings here in this space as we walk in whatever way feels most comfortable for you,” said senior Amelia D’Agaro, SHAPE’s Greek life and SLG director.

D’Agaro then led the crowd in a 48 second moment of silence, to honor the results of the 2018 student experience survey that found 47.8% of female respondents and 13.5% of male respondents reported being sexually assaulted since matriculating to Duke.

Chimbanda said that SHAPE wanted to do something to make a statement.

“We are tired of sitting around, and we are willing to walk, and we are willing to write, and we are willing to engage students in the way that we have been engaging students for many years,” she said.

While this was the first time many of the participants engaged in a walk for sexual assault, this was not the case for Dawn Obeidallah Davis, Trinity ’90.

called a striking difference from the tranquility of this walk over three decades later. Still, the message has remained the same: unity, anger and determination as students call attention to sexual violence in the community and demand a safer campus.

For sophomores Phoebe Ducote and Morgan Guess, attending the walk meant showing up for their communities.

“This is really the power that we have to take the power back,” Ducote said, noting that the Duke community rarely talks about the statistics of sexual assault.

Guess, who has three sisters, said she walked to raise awareness so they “don’t become part of the statistics.”

“The fact that Duke continues to avoid [conversations about sexual assault] is just so aggravating and frustrating for me, especially seeing all of this movement and seeing how many people actually care for this,” Guess said.

By KATHRYN THOMAS April 15, 2023

On Thursday evening, nearly 150 students gathered at the West Campus bus stop as the evening light gave way to dusk. Buses passed by, but no one got on.

Here, they stood ready to walk for the next hour in the humid air — down Campus Drive, by the Karsh Alumni Center, Nasher Museum of Art, Smith Warehouse. Students talked to one another in low murmurs as they walked. There was no chanting, no shouting. Mostly, the group stayed quiet. By the time they gathered on East Campus near 9 p.m., it would be dark.

Organized by student group Duke Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention & Education (SHAPE), Thursday’s “Reclaim the Night” Walk marked the end of SHAPE Week, during which the group spreads awareness, fundraises and educates the community about Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Before departing, executive members of SHAPE stood atop the benches and spoke to

the crowd. Students drew quiet, the silence only interrupted by the low hum of the buses pulling through the loop.

Rhea Tejwani, a senior and co-director of SHAPE, welcomed everyone to the event and outlined the goals of the “Reclaim the Night” Walk.

The first was to pay respect to Duke’s history of sexual assault activism and recognize the progress made by those students who came before them. The second goal is to “protest and demand action from Duke University to further invest in sexual assault prevention.” And the final goal is to “stand in solidarity with the survivors that are [both] here and not here tonight.”

There have been three previous marches raising awareness of sexual assault on college campuses at Duke — first in 1987, then in 2006 and again in 2017, according to Sophia Chimbanda, a senior and one of the co-directors of SHAPE.

“We stand in solidarity with the survivors that are here tonight. Sexual violence is a

Davis, who attended Thursday’s walk with her daughter Grace Davis, a first-year, participated in the “Take Back the Night” March in 1987 when she was a student at Duke. At the time, The Chronicle reported that over 300 students attended that walk — which started at the Bryan Center Walkway and ended on East Campus.

Davis remembered the night being rowdy, full of drums, chants and signs — what she

When Ducote gives tours to prospective students, she noted that they always make note of the “big community” at Duke.

“I think tonight shows that there’s a lot of things that this community really needs,” she said. “And if Duke wants to continue to attract as many students as they can, they have to take care of the students they already have.”

‘‘A reflection of what the student body wants’: Meet incoming DUU

President Jess Chen

BY MIA PENNER | 05/23/2023

As DUU president, Chen hopes to foster collaboration between internal committees, refine its operations in the post-pandemic era and humanize DUU in the eyes of the student body.

‘‘With confidence and hope’: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver tells story of Secret Game, impact of Duke experience in 2023 Commencement address

BY ADWAY WAKEKAR | 05/14/2023

Silver encouraged graduates of the Class of 2023 to use the lessons they learned attending Duke and living in the South to take on complex issues as they leave the University.

‘Not

the

See MARY LOU on Page 20 SAMANTHA OWUSU-ANTWI

ABIGAIL BROMBERGER

COURTESY OF DAWNA JONES

Former Israeli PM speaks at Duke, protestors organize walkout

By ANISHA REDDY and MILLA SURJADI March 22, 2023

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett spoke at Duke Wednesday evening in Page Auditorium, where nearly a hundred students and Duke community members walked out in protest.

Bennett served as prime minister from June 2021 to June 2022. Before rising to this position, he served in various cabinet positions, including minister of defense and minister of economy.

Critics say Bennett, who rejects the idea of an independent Palestinian state and had committed to a “shrinking of the conflict” between Israel and Palestine, perpetuated previous Israeli leaders’ intentions to expand Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and withhold a reversal of the 54-year occupation.

Bennett previously led the Jewish Home Party, which promoted Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The talk, hosted by the Center for Jewish Studies in conjunction with Duke’s Program in American Grand Strategy and Jewish Life at Duke, also featured Bruce Jentleson, William Preston Few distinguished professor of public policy.

Laura Lieber, professor of religious studies and smart director of the Center for Jewish Studies, introduced Bennett. Lieber focused on the importance of “fostering lively civil and challenging conversation” at a university. She noted that the event “has already proved contentious, just in its anticipation,” and she “took hope” in the fact that no one had approached the organizers to cancel the event.

When Lieber asked the audience to welcome Bennett, she was met with both cheers and booing.

Bennett opened by tracing his career from serving in the Israeli military to founding and selling a software company. Then, when he returned to military service in the Lebanon War, his best friend died, and Bennett said he felt that the “leadership in Israel had let us down,” and volunteered to be then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff.

Jentleson asked about Bennett’s time as director of the Yesha council, an organization of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the contested West Bank and Gaza territories. The council’s mission is to “ensure Israel’s right to the land” in what the United States and international law considers to be “occupied territories.”

Bennett said that Jews and Palestinians “better figure out how we’re going to get along.” He argued that Israel tried the Palestinian state

Professors, students look back on AADS minor’s first year

By MICHAEL RAMOS Jan. 31, 2023

One year ago, the Arts and Sciences Council approved the Asian American and Diaspora Studies (AADS) minor.

The first of its kind in the American South, the minor is led by Esther Kim Lee, AADS director and professor of theater studies, international comparative studies and history. The minor requires four electives and one introductory course — either Introduction to Asian American History or Introduction to Asian American and Diaspora Studies.

Lee shared how, after only a year, the program has not only captured national attention, but been embraced by Duke students and alumni.

approach twice before, and the consensus view is that this approach doesn’t work.

“You hand over land, you give them everything, and you get out of their area and they’re just shooting rockets at you all day,” Bennett continued, before being interrupted by an audience member who shouted, “It’s a prison!” in reference to Gaza.

Bennett described his policy as providing Palestinians with “the opportunity to better their lives.” He noted that under his government, Gaza citizens were allowed to enter Israel during the day to work and return to Gaza at night. “They earn in Israel 10 times the salary they earn in Gaza,” he said.

According to Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, Gazan workers earned an average of 6 times more money working in Israel as they had when they worked in Gaza.

“Be tough on terror and open with the community,” Bennett said. “That’s my approach.”

Throughout the first twenty minutes of the talk, Bennett was interrupted multiple times by audience members shouting. Some attendees shushed the protestors in response.

As Jentleson started on his next question, around 100 attendees stood up and walked out of Page in protest. As they filed out, some shouted at Bennett, calling him a “war criminal” and “murderer.” Others yelled, “Free Palestine.”

The protestors, some carrying Palestinian flags and others wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, chanted as they left the building.

“From the river to the sea!” organizer Dana Alhasan called out. After the crowd repeated

the phrase, she continued, “Palestine will be free!” echoed by the crowd. She then repeated the chant in Arabic.

“I’ve learned that screaming is not the best method,” Bennett said as attendees left the auditorium.

“Our goal here as a university is to have a dialogue of expressions and views. Freedom of speech is of course a right, but with every right comes responsibility. I think we all have a responsibility to try and express our views in ways that don’t trample on the rights of others who are trying to engage in discussion,” Jentleson said. He was met with applause from the remaining audience.

Bennett said he supports the right to protest, but added, “Does that change anyone’s minds? No. A better approach would be to engage in dialogue.”

On Abele Quad

Meanwhile, protestors gathered on Abele Quad. Other organizers had set up a folding table, a speaker and a microphone. One organizer addressed the crowd, explaining that they had catered dinner on its way. “We definitely don’t have enough food, we didn’t think this many people would come,” the organizer joked.

The gathered crowd spanned all ages, including a group of students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and several community members in addition to Duke students and faculty.

See BENNETT on Page 19

Students react to new alcohol policies

By ISHANI RAHA

Nov. 15, 2022

Students both over and under 21 years old expressed varying opinions about Duke’s new alcohol policies, which aim to increase oncampus social gatherings.

Called Fun @ Duke, these policies are a part of QuadEx and include allowing Student Organization Finance Committee-approved student groups to use up to $7 in SOFC funds for alcohol per undergraduate over 21 years of age at an event. There must be one social host — “sober, active bystanders that assist in promoting safe, social behaviors for all those attending” — for every 25 attendees for an event with alcohol. Students can also now reserve campus spaces to hold social events.

In conversations with “hundreds of students,” Student Affairs found that “oncampus social events are safer, more convenient to attend and more inclusive due to their costless nature,” according to a Student Affairs guide to holding events with alcohol.

These policy changes only apply to West Campus spaces. East Campus remains a dry campus and alcohol is not permitted, which remains unchanged from the previous policy.

Practical concerns

Though appreciative of new on-campus opportunities, junior Thomas Freireich thought

some important topics were left out of the policies — namely the burdens placed upon social hosts.

“There are issues, like you don’t know who’s going to be at a party if it’s an open event. When people are drinking and some people can’t control their alcohol consumption, there’s liability with that,” Freierich said. “You’re placing a lot of responsibility on the one sober person to handle all of that.”

“It seems like [administrators] think it’s going to go all happy-go-lucky. And, you know, trial by fire isn’t necessarily the best thing for something like this,” he continued.

Sophomore Jillian Jacobs also expressed some confusion at the practicality of new policies, worrying that strict restrictions for which events students could purchase alcohol through Duke — notably Orientation Week — would essentially make the rules void.

“I feel like since the rules are so complicated, it kind of reduces how frequently they will be used … if no one’s really able to capitalize on the new policies, then I guess they’re not really doing much,” Jacobs said.

Crowell Quad Co-President Robert Sprung, a junior, wondered about the cost of holding events with alcohol through a licensed service or host-provided vendors and questioned how many student groups would pay that fee, even with SOFC’s assistance.

“I don’t think there are a lot of 21-plus people that are here [on-campus],” Sprung said. “I feel like if we were going to do something drinkingwise, I could already legally purchase my own alcohol. I don’t really see why [an organization] would pay the upcharged rate for a bartender when they could just have older people buy their own alcohol for themselves.”

According to Lee, all four of the new AADS courses have filled up for spring 2023 — some even have waitlists. Lee said that the courses’ popularity is a promising sign that student demand for AADS is high. While there are only five students pursuing the minor, Lee anticipates an uptick in the near future.

One of those five is junior Huiyin Zhou, an international student and Chinese feminist organizer. Zhou believes that the minor would benefit from a boost in faculty hires. She would also like to see funding for students to pursue projects and attend conferences.

Moving forward, Zhou is curious to see the balance AADS will have with meeting institutional needs as well as student ones. The approval of the AADS minor was a result of generations of student activism, including the Chinese Student Association, founded in 1971, and the Asian Students Association (ASA), founded in 1981.

In particular, Zhou is interested in the roles AADS and the Asian American Studies Working Group (AASWG) will play in advocating for Asian American students. Since its inception in 2016, ASSWG played a crucial role in the creation of the AADS program and has pushed for the establishment of an Ethnic Studies department.

“[AASWG] was trying to serve the gap when we didn’t have AADS, but now that AADS is getting more and more institutionalized … what [are] ASSWG’s positions?” Zhou said.

Nevertheless, students like Zhou are excited about the minor’s future.

See AADS on Page 17

Duke lifts classroom mask mandate

By KATHRYN THOMAS and

SURJADI

Sept. 16, 2022

MILLA

Duke will no longer require current and new students, faculty and staff who do not work in a healthcare environment to receive the primary or booster vaccinations for COVID-19, per a Thursday email.

This change is effective May 11, when the federal Public Health Emergency ends, and is consistent with Duke’s peer universities, according to the email. Duke will continue to offer the primary and booster vaccinations free of charge to all students, faculty and staff.

And as an underage student, Jacobs questioned the motives behind every student paying for an amenity that only some — namely those above the legal drinking age — would utilize.

“It might not really be the University’s responsibility to fund essentially providing a drug to students,” Jacobs said. “I feel like it would be [the University’s] responsibility to allocate those funds in a different area. But again, I do understand and appreciate their goal of making

See FUN @ DUKE on Page 17

Duke’s previous vaccination guidelines required “up-to-date vaccination against COVID-19 for all students, faculty, and staff” unless an individual has an approved medical or religious exemption. Duke also required all students and employees to provide proof of receiving the COVID-19 booster shot in February 2022.

Over the last two academic years, Duke has gradually rolled back its COVID-19 protocols. In March, Duke no longer required masks on buses and vans. In March 2022, Duke removed the mask requirement in indoor facilities other than classrooms and on Duke transit. Then in September 2022, the University ended its classroom mask mandate.

See COVID-19 on Page 17

Naftali Bennett, left, who served as Israel’s prime minister from June 2021 to June 2022, speaking in Page Auditorium on March 23, 2023. ABIGAIL BROMBERGER

“It seems like [administrators] think it’s going to go all happy-golucky. And, you know, trial by fire isn’t necessarily the best thing for something like this.”

Where do Duke students continue their postgrad education?

By NADIA BEY Oct. 13, 2022

Have you ever wondered how many people decide to get a second or even third degree after Duke?

The Chronicle sought to report a breakdown of which graduate and professional schools Duke undergraduates end up attending, but soon learned that information is hard to find.

Some alumni plans are widely known because they received a competitive scholarship. For example, Duke’s 52 Rhodes Scholars indicate that at least that many people attended the University of Oxford. Likewise, 17 Gates-Cambridge Scholars and 20 Churchill Scholars have gone to the University of Cambridge, and at least four Knight-Hennessy Scholars have gone to Stanford University.

However, multiple academic departments contacted by The Chronicle couldn’t give specifics on what schools their graduates ended up attending.

Dean Bruno, graduate business school advisor and academic dean for Robertson Scholars, wrote in an email that he’s not aware of any campus offices tracking what graduate and professional schools alumni matriculate to.

Two departments identified Alumni Affairs as a potential source of information. The association does not track post graduate data related to graduate study, according to Tracey Temne, associate vice president of marketing, communications, and stewardship of Duke’s Alumni Engagement and Development.

What departments know

Susan Rodger, director of undergraduate studies for the department of computer science, wrote that it’s hard to track students’ postgraduate plans.

“Some [computer science majors] go to graduate school, but many get a job in industry,” Rodger wrote.

The timeframe in which students apply to schools can also impact data collection.

“One of the challenges with graduate business school admission information is that traditional MBA programs have a requirement that applicants must work for 4-5 years before applying,” Bruno wrote. “We seldom hear from an alum

when they apply years down the road.”

Every academic department has a selection of alumni profiles on their websites, which can give a glimpse into what some students do after graduation.

For example, African and African American studies graduates matriculated to schools of business, medicine and law, as well as traditional research programs. Meanwhile, art, art history and visual studies sent students to art schools and other graduate and professional schools.

Some areas of the University conduct more robust surveys.

The Pratt School of Engineering highlights results from its Class of 2020 exit survey on its website. Overall, about a quarter of respondents said they planned to go to graduate or professional school.

Schools attended by biomedical engineering graduates include Oxford, Harvard Medical School, Baylor College of Medicine, Columbia University and Stanford Law School.

Schools attended by civil and environmental engineering graduates include the University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Southern California and the University of California Berkeley.

The romance studies department provided The Chronicle results of a 2021 alumni survey showing what career path Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and romance studies majors took after graduation.

Welcome Class of 2027!

About a quarter of the 41 respondents were full-time students at the time of the survey, although the survey does not specify at which institutions. The department was unable to say which class years were represented in the survey.

The chemistry department provided data on postgraduate plans going back to the Class of 2008, although there are some years missing in the data.

“We’re piecing together what we have found and cumulatively hope this represents a trend in chemistry placement data,” wrote Meg Avery, assistant to the director of undergraduate studies for chemistry.

The data shows that medical school, graduate school and fulltime jobs are the most common outcomes for chemistry majors.

While data is difficult to find, academic departments’ alumni profiles and surveys offer a glimpse into where alumni go after their time as undergraduates.

COURTESY OF KIM TRAVLOS, assistant to the director of undergraduate studies for the department of romance studies

The biology department combined information from its annual senior exit survey, public records and pre-health matriculation data to understand where the Classes of 2017, 2018 and 2019 ended up after graduation.

About 84% of those alumni are represented in the data, said Ron Grunwald, director of undergraduate studies for biology. The data includes what students did immediately after graduation as well as what they did years later.

Nearly 60% of respondents matriculated to M.D. or M.D.Ph.D. programs, with another 9% saying they intended to go to medical school. Another 9% went to graduate school.

Top choices for medical schools

The School of Medicine was the most popular choice for Duke graduates over the last three years, according to a list provided by Alyssa Perz, director of the health professions advising office.

The list included medical schools where 10 or more students matriculated from 2019 to 2021. The second and third most popular schools were the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard Medical School, respectively.

Other schools with 10 or more attendees over the last three years were:

• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

• Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

• Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

• University of Virginia School of Medicine

• Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

• Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine

• Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine

• Weill Cornell Medicine

• Tufts University School of Medicine

• University of Florida College of Medicine

• Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

• New York University Grossman School of Medicine

• USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

The exact number of students that continued on to each school wasn’t specified, but Duke’s popularity is also reflected in student-generated data.

The Duke Medical Mentorship Advisory Program created a database of M.D. students available to mentor medical school applicants. The database shows that out of 219 people who attended Duke for undergrad between 2007 and 2020, one in five continued their studies at the School of Medicine.

DATA VISUALIZATIONS BY NADIA BEY

Meet Alec Gallimore, Duke’s next provost

Gallimore will replace interim Provost Jennifer Francis and former Provost Sally Kornbluth, who has taken up her new role as the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

By ANDREW BAE March 22, 2023

After years of pioneering work in aerospace engineering, Alec Gallimore, the current Robert J. Vlasic dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, will begin his new role as Duke’s next provost and chief academic officer on July 1.

As provost, Gallimore will be responsible for the academic mission of the University, overseeing Duke’s 10 schools and six institutes, as well as admissions, financial aid, libraries and other facets of academic and student life. He will succeed former provost Sally Kornbluth, who is now president at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gallimore joined Michigan’s College of Engineering as a faculty member in 1992 and was appointed the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering in 2016. Under Gallimore’s leadership, Michigan Engineering unveiled an Office of Culture, Community and Equity and the Teaching Engineering Equity Center. Gallimore also started People-First Engineering, an initiative within the College of Engineering focused on fostering diversity within education, research and practice.

Gallimore was selected following a national search conducted by a committee of faculty, students, trustees and administrators. Amy Herring, Sara and Charles Ayres distinguished professor of statistical science, global health and biostatistics and bioinformatics, chaired the search committee.

Herring applauded Gallimore’s emphasis on community, his thoughtful approach to Duke’s vision and ability to respect situ-

ations before jumping in. She pointed to how he thinks of community as making a place where people want to thrive at the faculty, staff and student levels.

“We wanted somebody that had a lot of enthusiasm for the places we’re already going,” Herring said. “But we also wanted somebody who was creative and could help think of new ideas and new initiatives as we move into the future.”

best food on any planet

Transitioning to Duke

Gallimore described Duke as “comprehensive,” with the “breadth and across-theboard excellence” that allows it to tackle society’s major problems. He pointed to his desire to explore interdisciplinary pursuits, existing leadership at Duke and the University’s ambition as the three of the reasons the role of provost appealed to him. He is also excited to

be part of the Research Triangle Park, calling it an “amazing confluence of academics.”

As Duke’s next provost, Gallimore is excited to explore elements of scholarship in the academic enterprise beyond engineering.

“[The provost] is just a multifaceted, really complex leadership opportunity. And that appeals to me. That seems like the next stage, the next challenge of my career to sort of elevate to that level. And it’s wonderful,” he said.

Gallimore is enthusiastic about working in a variety of fields and cooperating with students and faculty “across the entire range of scholarship.” His natural curiosity drew him to a job that would require him to lead not only the engineering aspect of Duke, but also literature, science, the arts, divinity and “everything in between.”

Jerome Lynch, current Vinik Dean of Engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering, was a former colleague of Gallimore’s at the University of Michigan. He highlighted Gallimore’s ability as a “natural bridge builder across disciplines.” Lynch also noted the “strategic partnerships” Gallimore formed between the College of Engineering and schools in the arts and sciences, medicine, information, education, environmental sciences and public policy.

“Underpinning the strategic vision is Gallimore’s belief that universities must remain focused on the advancement of the common good including making our academic communities inviting to all,” Lynch wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

See GALLIMORE on Page 17

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

‘A mix of purpose and serendipity’ Class of 2023 graduates give guidance to incoming Blue Devils

By ISHANI RAHA

The Class of 2023 has gone through the entire range of the college experience. After almost a full year of normalcy, the COVID-19 pandemic changed campus life drastically, forcing Duke’s recent graduates to adapt, reflect and succeed despite all obstacles. The Chronicle asked three members of the Class of 2023 to share what they learned from their Duke experiences. Here’s what they said.

What would you say to first years at O-Week who are just getting their bearings in this huge new place?

Nellie Sun: It’s okay if you don’t remember the names of everyone you meet during O-Week. Stay in touch with the people who celebrate you for who you are and with whom you feel comfortable being unabashedly yourself. For me, joining a club was one of the best ways to do this. I joined mock trial my first year and met people who I know I will remain friends with for a long, long time.

Skyler Graham: If there’s anything you’re interested in, check it out! Don’t worry too much about how a certain club will look on your resume, since your passion and dedication from any activity will shine through. I was interested in journalism and the arts, so I went to a Recess meeting freshman year. I don’t know if I’m going to keep writing for a living, but I do know I met my best friend from that experience.

Kaleb Amare: Everyone is in your shoes. Everyone is nervous about making friends, doing well in school and making a place for themselves, so just relax. You’ll figure it out, even if it seems like other people are figuring it out quicker than you are.

How did you know that you were pursuing something (a major, for instance) that was right for you?

Amare: I realized I really liked philosophy and political theory when I found myself talking about it with friends, reading books about it and just generally doing it for its own sake, not for a grade. I consider it to be a part of my life, and I want to keep on learning about it, even after graduation.

Sun: It’s a two-way street of understanding your own passion and being open to your interests changing. My first major, political science, was a natural fit for me because I was politically engaged in high school. It provided a great framework as I went on to do

democracy, election and voting rights work in college. I didn’t expect to also pursue a history major but decided to after taking classes that reignited my interest in the field. And now, I’m so glad I did because history is a necessary tool for understanding how ideas, practices, laws and institutions came to be. So I’d say my journey was a mix of purpose and serendipity.

Graham: I knew psychology was right for me when I was eager to share what I learned with my friends. My psych classes gave me so many “Did you know?” topics that deepened every casual conversation I had. I also saw a lot of myself in my professors and could tell they were passionate about the subject.

What is something you wish you could have done or known more about before you graduated?

Sun: I wish I took more time to fully appreciate the beauty and history of the place I was living in. I wished I studied more in the Gardens, visited more exhibits at the Nasher and explored more restaurants, shops and museums off-campus.

Graham: I wish I looked more into financial aid provided by Duke. As a first-gen student, sometimes paying for college is difficult just because you don’t even know what resources are available or how to access them. In my case, I didn’t even really know how

many resources were available.

Amare: I wish I went to more basketball games and cleaned my room more.

Has there been a big life lesson that you’ve learned in your time at Duke, or any words of wisdom that you’ve carried with you throughout these past 4 years?

Amare: There’s very little that you know about love, friendships, politics, religion and the world. College is the process of trying to figure all that stuff out, but you can’t do that if you think you already have all the answers. Be willing to admit when you’re wrong.

Sun: Ask questions. In high school and college, we’re programmed to demonstrate what we know — to prove that we’ve grasped a concept on a test, in a paper or through a project. But learning should equally be about asking ourselves what we don’t know about the world and what we would like to find out.

Graham: Each person is on their own timeline. Don’t compare yourself to where your friends or peers are right now. Comparison in general often feels unavoidable, so if you have to, compare yourself to where YOU were last year or two years ago. Have you learned something, tried something new or met someone new recently? Then you’re on the right path.

SAMANTHA OWUSU-ANTWI

On containing multitudes

A note from The Chronicle’s editor-in-chief

By AUDREY WANG June 1, 2023

When I stumbled headfirst into 301 Flowers my first year at Duke, I wanted two things out of my experience at The Chronicle. First, I wanted to learn how to write well. Secondly, I wanted to learn more about Duke.

I’m still working on the first one. But I know a heck of a lot more about Duke than I did before — and thanks to The Chronicle, I’m still learning.

Duke is a chaotic place. You’ll go into classes with a future Marshall Scholar sitting on your right and a promising politician on your right. Oh, and it just so happens that the basketball star is sitting directly in front of you.

You’ll also learn that these same people are the ones at the heart of Duke. Your TA might be campaigning on behalf of the Duke Graduate Students Union, while your roommate is managing a DSG project. Your professor is a Faculty Fellow under QuadEx, and you yourself might be advocating for anything from improved sustainability efforts to better sexual assault prevention.

In a place as massive and influential as this University, it’s easy to get lost. The Chronicle is here to guide you through the gates of Duke — to not just tell the stories of the people around you, but to show what it means to be a part of it and to find one’s place here.

Over the summer, we followed the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the implications of the ruling upon women in North Carolina and across the United States. As the Bryan Center began organizing its renovations, we spoke to cultural affinity groups as they called for more transparency and communication from administrators.

We returned in the fall to the implementation of QuadEx and its introduction of a slew of new programs and positions. As we followed up with selective living groups, alumni advocates and first years, we painted a picture of the implications of the program from every corner of campus. Our reporters were at the polls early in the morning and in the office late at night describing the scenes and results of a monumental election season.

It was a year where Duke unraveled the last vestiges of its COVID-19 policies and tailgaiting returned — just in time for football Head Coach Mike Elko’s unprecedented season and the first year of Jon Scheyer at the helm of Duke men’s basketball. Our reporters were were there, oftentimes traveling to see the games live.

Throughout the year, we followed the progression of the DGSU’s campaign, from Labor Day demands to the movement towards a NLRB-certified election as the University looks to challenge an instrumental NLRB decision about the right for graduate students to unionize. We’ve followed demands from climate activists about the limitations of the University’s Climate Commitment, interviewed student groups about the faltering rollout of Center for Gender Violence Prevention and Intervention and repoted on the Center for Documentary Studies’ programmatic overhaul.

The work’s important, but it wouldn’t be possible without the people. If you walk into the office during the school year, you’re bound to see a friendly face or hear the sound of laughter and conversation bouncing off the walls. We’ve had election watch parties combined with birthday celebrations, countless Polaroids capturing scenes from our newspaper-wide events and print nights where we went back to our dorms at 1 a.m.

As Duke looks to celebrate its Centennial, I cannot imagine a better team of reporters and photographers to cover it with. If you want to join us in covering Duke’s multitudes, the door to our office is always open. There’s no application process to join, apart from the opinion section — so be bold, be brave, come to a meeting and pick up something. We all did it, so there’s 119 volumes of proof that you’ll survive.

If you’re drawn to Duke’s sports, consider making your way into our office’s sports hall, where you’ll find the opportunity to cover our 27 varsity sports teams and students just as passionate as you are. We don’t just cover games — you’ll have the opportunity to write columns about women’s soccer, features on the men’s lacrosse team and your takes of the week as the basketball season progresses.

If you’re interested in hot takes and commentary, stop by and apply to be one of our opinion columnists. Dish out some of your greatest critiques or share your most profound experiences — the world’s your oyster. If you have a bit of a funny bone, consider applying to be our next Monday Monday.

More into Duke and Durham’s arts scene? Try writing for Recess, which covers both campus and local arts. If you have something to say about the last show or movie you watched, Recess has a culture section for you to review all the films in your Letterbox or give your album recommendations.

As a digital-first newspaper, we’re always looking for videographers, podcast creators and graphics designers to broaden the diversity of our content and how we present it to our audiences. If you’re more into statistical analysis, there’s a place for you at The Chronicle as well, as we look into finding more stories to tell and more ways to tell them through data.

When I say that it’s our responsibility as student journalists to map out Duke, I never expected that The Chronicle would be my constant and my own guiding light in its special way.

There’s a beauty in having a space where you spend nights up until 3 a.m. finishing up a print edition, the walls plastered with stories from years, decades ago — proof that we love and still love this University. There’s treasure in that office in 301 Flowers and in the gem of a community that accepted me with open arms two years ago and gave me the honor and privilege of serving you for a volume.

I hope that this newspaper is a constant for you, just as it was for me. The Chronicle will be there through thick or thin, scandal or celebration, breaking news and long-form investigations. No matter what, we’ll be there by your side. Through this issue, I hope you get a glimpse of the appreciation that we hold for our community.

I’m excited for us to work together. We’ll have so many stories to share with each other.

Arches program, which are visual icons designed to incorporate particular characteristics of West Campus Quads. The Faculty Fellows program intends to bridge the gap between the classroom and the Quad community. And the Bricks to Stone event last week served as a symbolic transition to mark first-years’ move from the brick dorms on East Campus to the stone Quads on West Campus.

Part of creating a culture is experimenting with and engineering traditions and symbols for each quad that don’t yet exist, said Lee Baker, professor of cultural anthropology, sociology and African and African American Studies.

Baker, a QuadEx faculty fellow for Keohane Quad, has been at Duke for over 25 years and studies how cultures are “appropriated and fabricated.” He also teaches the class Anthropology of Design and User Experience, which he adapted for the Quad Identity Project.

“[Duke administrators are] using authentic elements of each of the quads — the symbolism, they’re thinking through [that] very carefully. And then the traditions may or may not come from those symbols,” Baker said. Creating the elements for each quad, however, are still mainly student-driven.

McMahon said that each Quad’s identity didn’t come out of “thin air.” Student leaders from each Quad dove into documents and artifacts from Duke’s history to learn what sets each Quad apart. According to McMahon, each Quad’s cultural identity is inextricably tied to its physical presence.

She noted that Keohane’s fauna was a shorthair cat, in reference to Peaches and Mamabean, and Edens’ motto was “Descending and Ascending,” a nod to its staircases.

“Students in Edens have been bonding over that walk for decades, just as many students in Keohane have been bonding over their Quad’s penchant for taking care of some beloved stray cats,” she wrote.

Student reactions to the quad arches have largely been mixed.

“It’s vanity just to have a design,” first-year Kaylee Ruth said. “I think what the [Quad]

Councils themselves do to create community will create community itself. I don’t think these designs will inherently create a community, but more so the policies and the events that they plan that really will build one.”

Bennett has previously said that through these quad identities, traditions and paraphernalia, he envisions a future 10 to 20 years from now where, if you encounter another Duke graduate, “the second or third question will be, ‘What quad were you in?’”

“We want them to stand on their own. We want students to hear the quad names and immediately understand the kind of traditions that they’re about to become enmeshed in — in a way that’s really distinctly Duke,” he said.

theirs — similar to how QuadEx aims to build University-wide communities, distinct from those of Greek life and SLGs.

Since that change, the randomized system has killed off any House’s personality, according to Nowak.

“I think that some of those traditions are just either vestigial or being rethought at this point. But I, as an external observer, don’t see a huge difference between the houses in personalities, because the whole randomization system mitigates against that,” Nowak said.

Nevertheless, even without defined house identities, he said students remain passionate about their assignments on Housing Day, a university-wide celebration where first-years find out what House they’ve been placed in.

Greek life does not play a large role on Harvard’s campus, but there are final clubs, which are exclusive social organizations independent from Harvard. These clubs have houses for gatherings, but members do not reside in them, according to Nowak.

Yale

How other universities’ identity-building compare Harvard

Like Duke, Harvard students are placed into one of its 12 houses randomly. The school boasts that its house system is one of its “best known traditions.”

But it wasn’t always this way — between the 1930s and 1980s, House assignments were based on an “interview system,” according to Zach Nowak, an environmental and spatial historian and a lecturer at Harvard University. This allowed each House to develop its own personality; for example, Adams was a safe space for queer students and was known for being the artsy house, Kirkland for being athletic and Lowell for being studious.

But in 1996, housing became completely randomized in an effort to expose students to peers with interests and backgrounds than

Like Harvard, each college in Yale’s residential system used to be attributed to various reputations, but first-years have now been randomly assigned to colleges since 1962.

When Paul McKinley, Yale’s senior associate dean of strategic initiatives and communications, was Saybrook College’s dean, one of his students printed out shirts that read, “Our randomly assigned students are much better than your randomly assigned students.”

“They would recognize that it was a random game, but that they nevertheless loved Saybrook more fiercely than they loved any other college,” McKinley said.

Each residential college has a head, who is in charge of defining the “character” of the college, according to McKinley.

For example, Jonathan Edwards College has had a long tradition of supporting the arts, and the college has hosted photography exhibits and sculpture shows, McKinley said.

“That didn’t mean that if you didn’t do the arts that you were outside of that culture, but the head of the college took it upon himself and said, ‘Well, this is a feature of college life that I really want to promote,’” McKinley said.

He also said that students and alumni within the college have a very strong bond. The first question they ask each other is, “What college were you in?”

Like most of Duke’s fraternities and sororities, Yale’s Greek life is independent from the university. Participation is about 10% but is estimated to actually be larger, according to a 2016 Yale College Council survey.

“Because students need to live on campus for their first two years, it’s not really until their junior or senior year that they would live in one of the Greek houses,” McKinley said. People also have other communities they’re a part of, such as various performing arts groups, as well as secret societies.

Northwestern

Northwestern has varied housing models — the two prominent ones being traditional residential halls, which have their own “character, spirit, and unique advantages,” and residential colleges, some of which are academically themed, multi-thematic or non-thematic.

The residence halls have existed since the start of on-campus living at Northwestern, according to Amanda Mueller, director of residential and academic engagement at Northwestern, whereas residential colleges are about 50 years old.

“We also know not every student wants to build that strong affinity. We want them to have connections, we want them to have resources,” Mueller said. “But we also recognize that sometimes students are finding that thing that is going to be their connection to the institution may be in a student organization… [or with] Multicultural Student Affairs, [or] maybe it’s with our Religious & Spiritual Life team.”

In 2019, as part of creating a shared “Northwestern experience,” the university rolled out its new Residential Areas. Lines

“I, as an external observer, don’t see a huge difference between the houses in personalities, because the whole randomization system mitigates against that.”

were drawn across campus, resulting in four clusters of “buildings with common features, services, and staffing,” “character, leadership and amenities,” a Faculty-in-Residence, and a student-voted mascot.

“It really kind of was focused on proximity to a dining hall [for each Area] met with a little bit of the identity of campus,” Mueller said. South Campus may have more of a “humanities vibe” because the journalism and communications schools are located there, so students studying in those areas may opt to live nearby, and North Area may have a more “STEM vibe” because of the same reasons.

Unlike Duke, Harvard and Yale, students are assigned to an Area based on preferences they share for which building they’d like to live in.

According to Mueller, it takes about a four-year cycle for institutional changes to become the “norm.” However, she believes that COVID-19 expedited Residential Areas’ acceptance by students.

“By the time students came in fall of 2020, they felt that Areas had been around for years,” Mueller said. “I actually talked to a student at the beginning of this year and [she] was surprised to hear that it was only a year old when she started [at Northwestern].”

But students have had mixed reactions on how much Faculty Fellows are making a difference in their Duke experience, with some feeling indifferent towards the program and others saying that it’s a resource they should take advantage of.

At Yale, each residential college has a dean, who lives in the college with their families and is in charge of academic advising. For McKinley, who was previouswly Saybrook College’s dean, it was a much more “pastoral” role that went beyond academics. He got to know his students very well — by first, middle and last name.

“Since I lived there, and I saw students all the time, I got to know them through all four years,” he said. “If you were a first-year student, we might start a conversation about anything. Over those four years, I would come to know you.”

Similarly, each Harvard House is led by Faculty Deans who live in the House, who “help set the tone and culture of the House community.”

Sue Wasiolek, adjunct associate professor of education who previously spent 40 years serving as the University’s dean of students, said that it would make “such a big difference” if faculty could live in the quads, like East Campus’s Faculty-in-Residence Program.

She mentioned that Duke attempted a quad system in 2003, where there were faculty associates that were the “same thing” as QuadEx’s faculty fellows. But the program “fizzled” out quickly because the faculty felt there was no natural way for them to interact with students.

“The reason why faculty in residence works is because, as their name suggests, they live in the dorms, so they feel like part of the community,” Wasiolek said. “But I think they also contribute on a daily basis to creating that community, to creating an identity for the dorm.”

Faculty engagement

Through the Faculty Fellows program, Duke hoped to promote academic engagement by strengthening relationships between students and faculty through residential life. Students would be able to connect with professors through social programming at the Quads, including meals and special events.

Baker said that finding the right method and amount of student and faculty interaction within Duke’s quads is like “alchemy.”

“We’re not going to show up for the drinking parties or whatever,” Baker said. “But so how can we show up? You know, what would be appropriate? How can we get high-

level engagement? We’re still working on that,” Baker said.

assignments under QuadEx. Upperclassmen have said that they believe Quads are simply just a place to live, noting that they feel no identity towards their Quad.

Built environment

While Harvard and Yale’s Houses and residential colleges each have their own amenities, including a dining hall, library and fitness center, Duke’s Quads do not.

Baker acknowledged that Duke’s built environment leads to design constraints for QuadEx.

“The fact that [Duke has] two campuses that are used a lot is really going to dictate a lot of this. So I think it was pretty clever to assign first-year residences with second-year Quads,” Baker said.

While Northwestern has amenities in each of its Areas, Mueller acknowledged that there were difficulties in drawing lines across campus.

“Students still feel that pressure of [walking] all the way down Sheridan Road and crossing the street to get to Allison Dining Hall. I think sometimes you can have the best intention, and you can draw the lines in the best possible way, and there’s certain points when the geography of campus is going to work against you, ” she said.

In Wasiolek’s mind, QuadEx is not a residential college system, but she thinks Duke has done its best given its facilities.

“We don’t have faculty living in all the Quads, we don’t have dining halls associated with a Quad. But we’ve done the best that we can do with what we’ve got,” she said.

What’s next for QuadEx?

Some current students have complained about unideal and discontinuous housing

However, the Class of 2026, the first class to fully experience QuadEx, may feel differently — 80% of first-years reported feeling at least some sense of community within their East Campus dorm, according to The Chronicle’s annual firstyear survey. In addition, the percentage of those who found QuadEx either somewhat or strongly favorable jumped from 22% for the Class of 2025 to 41% for the Class of 2026.

Both Wasiolek and Baker understand that new ideas are often met with strong opposition. They were at Duke when East Campus became housing for first-years in 1995. This idea, which originally received much backlash, became a cornerstone of the Duke undergraduate experience, according to them.

“I was not convinced that President Keohane, who ultimately made that decision, would survive, not because of her, but because of the negative pushback,” Wasiolek said. “The faculty felt by making East all freshmen, we were … infantilizing East Campus.”

But a survey completed by the first class who lived on East Campus as first-years, the Class of 1999, showed extremely positive feedback, according to Wasiolek.

“I vividly remember much of the feedback from students being, ‘Administration, you finally did something right,’” she said. “They spoke so positively about their experience that it sort of drowned the concerns from other students who hadn’t lived on East.”

Baker believes QuadEx will be “baked” into Duke’s culture within the next four years.

“Hopefully these traditions stick, and they’ll last for the next 100 years,” Baker said. Wasiolek preached patience.

“We need to give this model several years to try to grow some roots,” she said. “So that we can see if there are some trees and branches down the road.”

“If you were a first-year student, we might start a conversation about anything. Over those four years, I would come to know you.”

“They would recognize that it was a random game, but that they nevertheless loved Saybrook more fiercely than they loved any other college.”

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after the DGSU released demands, the Graduate School announced a new parking payment plan and the $500 distribution by October.

A little over a week after the union’s Labor Day rally for $40,000 stipends, the Graduate School announced that it would combat rising living costs by increasing stipends, changing parking rates and providing another one-time stipend of $1,000.

Administrators’ responses

The DGSU sent their formal letter to Price after the rally, which reads that “a growing majority of [doctoral students]” have signed cards in favor of a union and requests a voluntary recognition of the union as “allies rather than adversaries.”

“Duke works because we do,” the DGSU wrote. “Despite this, we face poverty wages, incomplete healthcare, racial and genderbased inequities, and housing and food insecurities. Many of us are routinely overworked and international students especially have minimal support in navigating these issues.”

Erin Kramer, associate vice president for university communications, wrote in an email to The Chronicle that the University received a request from a group of doctoral students asking for Duke to voluntarily recognize the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as the representative for all Ph.D. students.

“We value our graduate students as part of the Duke community and have a long history of working collaboratively with them to reach their academic goals during their time at Duke … We are in the process of assessing the request and will respond to the group as appropriate,” Kramer wrote.

The union previously delivered a letter to Price announcing their campaign in September. It called upon the University to voluntarily recognize the group once a majority of doctoral candidates signed union cards. Administrative staff ultimately declined the letter.

The ‘path of collaboration’

If the University voluntarily recognizes the union, both parties will move directly to bargaining — and the slew of issues facing doctoral students in the process.

At the forefront of doctoral students’ minds are cost-ofliving-adjusted (COLA) stipends. On Sept. 14, the Graduate School announced an 11.4% increase in stipends from $34,660 to $38,600. However, doctoral students are still demanding a COLA stipend due to the rising cost of living in Durham.

Zhang Jingxuan, a third-year doctoral candidate in the music department who attended the rally, noted that while the University increased their stipends in September, the University has “no obligation to change it” in coming years.

For Felix Borthwick, a second-year doctoral candidate in the cultural anthropology department who spoke at the rally, healthcare and stipends are especially important. As a doctoral candidate, he spent months putting off doctor’s appointments because of additional costs — a situation where “those hungry nights and those little things” make “you feel like you have no control over your situation.”

Meanwhile, international doctoral candidates face additional burdens. International students, who comprise 39.5% of all doctoral students, are subject to multiple required fees and visa difficulties.

International students are required to take a $1,660 summer “paper course” to take off-campus summer internships, an English placement exam and two or three semesters of remedial English classes.

Miao Hu, a first-year doctoral candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment and an international student from China who spoke at the rally, pointed out how most doctoral candidates have

one-year visas. If students wish to re-enter the United States, they must undergo a “very tedious and very expensive process” to return to their home country to renew their visas — with flights that she notes may cost up to $3,000 and take four to eight weeks to process.

Zhang, who acts as a liaison between the DGSU and Chinese doctoral students, believes that the Duke visa office could send letters of support sooner to support international students facing extended wait times and provide financial support for students’ relocation fees.

Amber Manning, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the gender, sexuality and feminist studies department and a parent, pointed to a lack of support for doctoral candidates raising children. As a unionized high school teacher in Oregon, Manning was given 4 months of paid leave and supported by a union “leave bank” where teachers could share sick leave across the union. At Duke, the parental accommodation period is nine weeks for the primary caregiver and two weeks for the secondary caregiver — when “most [nine-week-old] babies have a hard time still holding up their heads,” he said.

‘Who thinks that Duke is going to recognize us this afternoon?’

Matthew Thomas, a third-year doctoral candidate in the English department and DGSU co-chair, and Aeran Coughlin, a second-year doctoral candidate in the biology department and a member of the DGSU organizing committee, anticipate active opposition from the University based on its responses to their 2017 drive. In 2017, students received emails from groups such as the Duke Independent Thinkers Collective and Students Against Duke Unionization and several messages from anonymous senders stating that the union would “come between [international students] and [their visas],” as well as between students and their research, according to Thomas.

When Thomas asked the crowd at Friday’s rally about the chances that Duke would voluntarily recognize the union, he was met with a few scattered “No’s” and a few chuckles.

Thomas stated that they’re “prepared for the worst.”

“So next week, when they don’t recognize us. What are we going to do?” he asked. “When they start saying that union is gonna come between you and your research, or you and your visa, are we gonna give up? No, we’re not gonna stop until we get a union on this campus — not gonna stop until we get a contract on this campus.”

“We’ve given Duke the chance to do the right thing,” Thomas said. “And we’ll see what happens.”

Editor’s note: This story has been edited and condensed for print.

VISHAL JAMMULAPATI

The DGSU held a Labor Day Rally demanding a $40,000 stipend. VISHAL JAMMULAPATI

Drinking culture on campus

Junior Shreya Joshi, vice president of the Duke Student Government Campus Life committee, saw Fun @ Duke, which was designed by multiple groups including DSG, as the perfect opportunity to “level the playing field” in terms of access to alcohol. She feels hopeful towards the success of the initiative on campus.

As a student under 21 years old, she believes that providing on-campus places to drink would be beneficial for students of age.

“I feel like part of the problem has always been that you want to host something with your friends, or you want to do something in a space, but you just don’t know how,” Joshi said. “The issue is that right now, because people are having to go off-campus to get access to alcohol, it’s only people that can afford to put it on their own credit card that can get it — it’s an equity issue.”

Jacobs had more significant worries about the effects of such an initiative on the culture of drinking on campus.

“I could see [Fun @ Duke] being used, and it being successful,” Jacobs said. “I feel like it’s more significant, just in terms of the statement it’s making about the role that alcohol plays [in] Duke’s social scene, rather than like the actual policy itself.”

Sprung agreed that Fun @ Duke was very much a “step in the right direction.” As someone who is over the legal drinking age, Sprung appreciated the heightened freedom.

“I’ll get to hang out with my friends in clubs, and it’s great that I’ll be able to drink in a legal way on campus with alcohol,” Sprung said.

As someone above the legal drinking age, Freireich hoped that students his age would get to enjoy on-campus experiences in a new way.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction, making Duke itself have more responsibility for students’ actions, and I think that that’s a good thing for now,” Freireich said. “I guess we’ll see how it pans out. But I’m not opposed to the idea of going out to my quad and drinking and having a good time.”

COVID-19

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

This most recent change in COVID-19 follows a series of rollbacks as campus COVID risk continues to decline, according to the email.

“This decline is attributable to two key factors: our community has about 95 percent immunity (through vaccination or previous infection) and weaker variants of the virus evolved that cause less severe illness,” wrote Carol Epling, executive director of employee occupational health and wellness, John Vaughn, assistant vice president for student affairs & student health director and Cameron R. Wolfe.

Duke Health, which includes the Duke University Health System, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the Private Diagnostic Clinic, and Duke Health Integrated Practice, recently announced that its faculty and staff are still required to receive the primary series of the COVID vaccination, but booster vaccinations are no longer required. All health science students will continue to follow the same protocols as Duke Health, according to the email.

Newly hired Duke Health employees will be required to have received at least a single dose of a World Health Organization approved COVID-19 vaccination or a Duke-approved medical or religious exemption prior to their start of work date. Employees receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines will be expected to complete the initial series within 30 days from their initial dose.

The email still strongly recommends members of the Duke community to receive up-todate vaccinations against COVID-19, especially for those with conditions that place them at higher risk.

“Should any new variants or novel viruses emerge that may create a public health risk for our community, we will consider reinstituting protocols, including masking and required vaccination,” the email read.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited and condensed for print.

GALLIMORE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

For his first year, Gallimore believes that it is important to spend time with University leadership and understand Duke culture before leaping into decision-making. Prior to his meeting with the search committee, Gallimore mapped out the themes of Duke’s strategic vision to answer the question “What is it that I have experienced at Michigan that maps onto it?”

“I’m a big fan of gathering a lot of information, talking to a lot of people, working with scenarios, and experimentation,” he said. “It really has to do a lot with reading a lot, a lot of listening and a lot of visiting.”

Farewells and the future

Gallimore considers his departure from the University of Michigan to be a bittersweet one. As a part of Michigan’s faculty for 31 years, he is as excited to be a part of Duke as he is sad to be leaving Michigan.

“You know, it boils down to the people, the people, the people. My leadership team in particular,” Gallimore said. “I will miss the camaraderie that comes from working together, going after some major efforts.”

Gallimore looks forward to integrating his previous experience at Michigan with the academic and student life culture at Duke, and most importantly, “establishing a rapport with the community.”

While Gallimore is currently a Michigan fan, he looks forward to attending basketball games in Cameron Indoor Stadium and watching his love for sports can amplify at Duke.

Lynch mentioned that he learned a “tremendous” amount from Gallimore when both of them were at Michigan, which included an “academic leadership style that is about serving those you lead — in short, it is about tirelessly working to support students, faculty, and staff to do their very best work,” he wrote.

“Duke is so fortunate to have recruited this inspiring and accomplished academic leader to our community — it is not everyday you get to work with a ‘rocket scientist,’” Lynch wrote.

AADS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

“It’s been really great to be able to take AADS classes because it feels like AADS is starting to offer a very diverse set of classes in different disciplines,” she said.

Looking forward, Lee would like to have more course offerings in the social sciences and hopes to hire more faculty, with hopes of establishing a more interdisciplinary curriculum. Lee also pointed to the need for a center on campus for Asian American students.

“I think there’s gonna be so much synergy between the center and the [AADS] program, the academic and the student affairs, that it could be a great partnership between the two,” she said.

In the meantime, AADS is attempting to leverage its position in the South and raise awareness for Asian American studies in the region. For instance, this past fall Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted the inaugural southeastern regional conference on Asian American studies.

Lee views the minor’s existence in the South as an exciting opportunity to re-envision Asian American studies in a region with an increasing Asian population. She noted that the AADS program can influence other initiatives to make Asian American students feel more seen and welcomed at Duke.

Vanderbilt University recently launched its own AADS program, which includes both a major and minor. While Duke was not directly involved with Vanderbilt’s efforts, Lee said the inception of Duke’s AADS program may have pushed Vanderbilt to adopt its own.

“I have a feeling that when a major school like Duke does it, then people pay attention,” she said.

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As soon as the food arrived, it was snatched up, as protestors set up picnic blankets to eat and wait for the talk to end.

Durham resident Burhan Ghanayem, co-founder of the North Carolina chapter of the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, said that it is important to educate students in “the true face of Bennett and Israel.” He argued that Israel has occupied Palestine for over 70 years, and has been denying “every right for the Palestinian people.”

Ghaneyem recounted that when he visited his family in Palestine, “it was nothing that [Bennett] is describing. It is a complete denial of basic rights, of the freedom of movement, a denial of ownership — they confiscate and steal the land at any time, they shoot and execute people in the streets with no responsibility, detentions and arrests, blowing [up] homes.”

He went on to say that his family’s farmland was stolen 10 to 12 years ago, and called out the Israeli government for uprooting hundreds of olive trees in the West Bank.

The more people know about Israel, Ghaneyem said, the closer people can get to a peace settlement in the Middle East.

Even as the chants continued — “Resistance is justified, if people are occupied” — the mood of the gathering was closer to a party than a solemn occasion.

With Palestinian music playing, groups of friends eating on the lawn, and some teaching each other the traditional Palestinian Dabke dance, spirits remained high through the evening.

After walking out of Naftali Bennett’s talk, protestors gathered on Abele Quad, with some teaching each other the traditional Palestinian Dabke dance.

Bennett’s time as prime minister

Bennett continued to explain how he formed his government, which was the most diverse in Israel’s history, and noted that his political inclination is

right of center. Bennett’s cabinet included nine female ministers, two Arab ministers, two openly gay ministers, and a minister with disabilities.

He described how he met with Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Islamist party Raam, and although he was suspicious of Abbas, he was open-minded.

“He told me, ‘Look, I’m not Zionist, I recognize Israel as a Jewish state. And I’m not out to fight Israel, I’m out to improve the lives of 2 million Arab Israelis.’ And I said that’s exactly what I want to do,” Bennett said.

Bennett invited Abbas to join his government, making Raam the first independent Arab party to enter an Israeli governing coalition in 2021.

Bennett spoke on the success of his government, citing a reduced unemployment rate of 4%, but noted that this success only lasted a year because of “the pressure of [Abbas’] base on his party members and the pressure of my base on my party members.”

“I think the only way forward is a moderate middle,” he said.

He noted that during his tenure he utilized what he called the “70-70 rule,” in which 70% of Israelis agreed on 70% of the issues. Agreed upon issues include better public transportation, security, jobs and education. The other 30% included Arab, Israeli or Palestinian issues, religion and state. As prime minister, Bennett decided to “shelve [the 30% issues] for a while ... Now let’s just do the rest ... And when you pull out the ideologically tense issues, suddenly all the walls and moats around each other evaporate.”

“We got so much done. It’s said that in one year we got four years of work done, and that’s true,” he said.

Jentleson then asked how Israel “got from the successes of [Bennett’s] government, to this current government, which has extreme elements in it?”

Bennett answered that he believes Israel is experiencing “its biggest domestic crisis since its establishment” in 1948. Israel’s current political climate, Bennett said, is not just due

to the government’s proposal to reduce the power of Israel’s Supreme Court, but a broader question of the future of Israel as people were “taken aback” by “government overreach.” But he also said he sees Israelis “fighting for Israel’s future because they care ... And I’ll give you a spoiler, democracy will prevail.”

Audience questions

An audience member asked what Bennett would do if Palestinians refuse to be part of his favored one-state solution. Bennett responded that Palestinians are already governing themselves and should continue to do so.

“They should have their own elections, which they have not had until [2006], their own flag, everything, barring two things,” Bennett said. He continued that Palestinians should not have their own military, and Palestinian refugees shouldn’t be able to move into the land of Israel, because this would create a “demographic nightmare.”

In response to another audience question about balancing Palestinian rights and Israel’s security, Bennett explained his policy of “saying yes unless there is a good reason to say no” regarding Palestinian demands.

Bennett then addressed Israel’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in response to a question on why Israel has not supported economic sanctions against Russia. He recounted a meeting he had with Vladimir Putin before the war started.

“We were supposed to have a one hour meeting in Sochi,” Bennett said, “I came over and we spent five and a half hours. In fact, he took me on a walk on the beach of the Black Sea.”

Once war broke out, Bennett said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked him to use his relationship with Putin to negotiate an end to the conflict. “During that [negotiation] process, there was considerable progress on both sides,” Bennett said.

Israel’s first consideration is the high number of Jews who live in both Russia and Ukraine, so Bennett wanted to make sure that Israel could help refugees from both countries. He also noted that

Russia is allied with Syria, while Israel continues to attack the Iranian presence in Syria. Had he taken a strong stance against Russia, Bennett said he would have put his military in harm’s way.

Bennett’s last question was about whether there’s room in the Jewish American community for those who may be critical about various aspects of Israeli policy.

“Absolutely,” he answered. “When you care about something, you’re also critical of it.”

He acknowledged that Israel is an “imperfect nation,” but asserted that even as “the most threatened country on Earth … we’re a thriving democracy doing good for the world.”

‘We live in the heart of the empire’

As Bennett’s talk wrapped up nearly an hour later and attendees began to leave the auditorium, the remaining fifty protestors gathered to hear Alhasan speak. After wishing the crowd Happy Ramadan, she said that “Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the world.”

“Shame!” the crowd yelled back.

She discussed inhumane conditions faced by Palestinian residents in the territory, connecting Palestinian activism to the United States. American police officers train and exchange officers with the Israeli Defense Forces, she said.

The crowd applauded when she noted that Durham became the first city in the United States to ban exchange between the city police department and the IDF.

“We live in the heart of the empire, the belly of the beast,” Alhasan said, calling on the United States to reinvest the $3.8 billion provided annually to the Israeli government in domestic programs for impoverished minority communities.

“Palestine will not be free until people everywhere, until the workers of the world are free,” Alhasan said to cheers.

As attendees walked past the demonstration as they left Bennett’s talk, she resumed leading chants.

“Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, Palestine will never die! Gaza, Gaza, don’t you see? Palestine will be free!”

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Staff has seen more traffic from students in the past few weeks, according to Jones.

“We appreciate [the staff] because they genuinely love us and care about us. And I think that’s why they’re working so hard to just try to make do with what we have right now,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to lose the community that we had just because we’re in a different space.”

The MLWC also played a central role in hosting events for Black student affinity groups, such as the Black Women’s Union, Black Men’s Union and United in Praise. These groups have since relocated their meetings to other areas on campus, such as the Bryan Center and the Keohane Atrium.

Johnson is the choir director of United in Praise, one of the oldest student organizations on Duke’s campus. Rehearsals typically took place in the bottom floor of the MLWC twice a week. Thanks to her rapid organizing after the incident, the gospel choir’s practices have now moved to Goodson Chapel.

However, Johnson stressed, “it’s not the same, because you’re not in the Lou.”

‘A place where you can let go of that mask’

In addition to hosting organizations and programming, the Mary Lou Williams Center, with its vibrantly colored walls, artwork and comfortable couches, was a safe space for many Black students, especially at a predominately white institution. According to Johnson, having a cultural space on campus “really allows people of color to be themselves to the fullest extent.”

“Being surrounded by people that you share a cultural background with, it’s really uplifting, and it just facilitates much-needed personal connections,” she said. Johnson described the experience of being the only Black person, or one of few Black people, in her classes at Duke.

“Then I go to the Lou, and everyone’s Black. So it’s just like, okay, I’m not in this alone,” she said.

It was a feeling that many students shared in the week following the announcement.

Sophomore Rani Jones grew familiar with the MLWC and its programming during On the Way, an orientation program for incoming first-years. Jones, who was also hired as an Abele Ambassador shortly before the water line burst, described the community she found as “very welcoming.”

“Having spaces where we can just be with other people who are like us and have common experiences, just makes you feel safe. We want to get to a place where you don’t have to kind of put on a front for everyone. But we’re just not there yet. At a [predominately white institution], that can be kind of stressful,” she said.

Jones described the MLWC as “a place where you can let go of that mask.”

The MLWC provided her with not only a supportive community, but a study space and an ideal napping location. She smiled as she recalled hours spent on the couches.

First year Joe Asamoah-Boadu Jr. emphasized the historic legacy of the space, especially on the eve of its 40th anniversary at Duke.

“Places like the Mary Lou have not always existed. And I think that it’s important to have spaces like that for Black students,” he said.

Institutional support and University response

In light of the event, Director Dawna Jones wrote that MLWC staff received “great” support from Duke administrators, who helped them secure temporary office and programming spaces within the week. Jones also appreciated the efforts of colleagues in dining services, University Center Activities and Events, Conferences and Event Services, and Student Affairs leadership during the transition.

The days before staff secured a temporary space “felt like an eternity,” Johnson said. “We were [in the MLWC] almost 24 hours of the day. Unless I’m sleeping, I was here.”

Several students said they would have liked to see greater support from Duke administration. The only university-wide communication after the water line burst was an email from Student

Affairs — one that was written and signed by Jones and other members of MLWC staff.

“The only sort of communications that we received was from the Mary Lou team, which I felt sends a particular message to the community,” wrote junior Isaiah Hamilton, president of the Black Student Alliance, in an email to The Chronicle. “One in which suggests that problems facing Black Duke aren’t of high priority to the university, and that these problems should be handled by the same community that faces them.”

Hamilton wrote that he hasn’t seen an official timeline on repairs or what the renovations will look like, but that “anything less than a complete renewal is insufficient.”

Visions for a renovated MLWC

Students have differing visions for a renovated space next fall. Some hope that it will stay as true to the original as possible. Rani Jones spoke to the MLWC’s ability to reflect the diversity of Black students on campus through artwork.

“I think [the space] did a pretty good job of incorporating a lot of different elements of cultures across the diaspora, without feeling too like a museum or too cluttered or tacky,” she said. “My biggest concern is [that] I don’t want it to be super modernized. I don’t think that would really work. We have tons of buildings like that at Duke.”

Others wish to see the space revitalized. Though they too want to retain the MLWC’s atmosphere, they hope for updates like newer furniture and a more modern television. The MLWC staff is actively seeking student input for the redesign, according to an Oct. 31 newsletter.

Roth wrote that “the renovation cost will be determined once the design is complete and construction bids have been obtained.”

‘It’s about the relationships and the love’ Hamilton wrote that in recent years, the Black community has faced several issues at the University, ranging from the tearing down of Central Campus to multiple instances of targeted hate speech and bias.

The community’s response to the incident “showcases the level of resiliency and bravery of the Black Duke community to continuously weather these storms,” he wrote.

“A lot of community-building has fallen on the shoulders of student leaders in response to these changes, and I think there should be a serious conversation to determine where the responsibility of the students should end and the responsibility of [the] University starts as it pertains to DEI work,” he wrote.

But above all, students emphasized that, despite the temporary loss of the space, the meaning of community transcends the physical.

To Johnson, community now involves a renewed sense of intentionality. Without a physical space, it takes more effort to connect and coordinate busy schedules. Yet, she hopes that people will work to maintain the deep friendships and bonds fostered within the MLWC.

“I don’t want people to lose sight of the community that has been built and developed and poured into for so long just because we don’t have our usual physical space,” she said. “Because community is not about the space. It’s about the relationships and the love, genuinely.”we had just because we’re in a different space.”

“We want to get to a place where you don’t have to kind of put on a front for everyone. But we’re just not there yet. At a [predominately white institution], that can be kind of stressful.”

opinion

Your disdain for Durham is embarassing

Pilar Kelly April 11

Last week, I was sitting at Pitchforks when I overheard some students talking about Durham. “There’s just nothing to do in Durham,” one said. “It’s so boring.”

I had heard these sentiments countless times before, but I immediately felt a wave of anger in my chest. I wanted to say something, call them out for their contempt, set them straight. But that’s not what I did. Instead, I thought about why I cared so much about someone else’s opinion about a city that I’m not even from. Why did I feel so strongly about Durham? Why do I hate it when Duke students speak poorly about it and what has made me want to defend it like it’s my own?

A few months ago, a Duke graduate student’s tweet rose to infamy within the niche Durham Twitter world. The tweet read, “might’ve found my tribe: well-dressed city kids and Marxists (NYC, Shanghai, L.A., Bogotá, Rio, London, etc.) and bonding over about how underwhelming and small Durham is/how bougie the Duke undergrads are…grad school’s not that bad!” With over 520,000 views, 277 quote tweets, and hundreds of comments, the tweet generated heated discourse. One user responded, “duke students complaining about Durham’s lack of culture.. The call is coming from inside the ivory tower.” Beyond the cognitive dissonance of his tweet (bragging about nice clothes and

LETTERS POLICY

disparaging the locals is not the most coherent “Marxist” take), it seemed to generate so much antipathy because he exemplified the Duke student archetype present since the birth of this university: a Yankee transplant, privileged and entitled, thinking themselves above the city that has welcomed them.

Throughout my first two years at Duke, I rarely ventured farther than Ninth Street. COVID during my freshman year kept me securely behind our three-foot stone walls. And my lack of a car during my sophomore year complicated any journey that wasn’t walkable. I didn’t know much about the GoDurham public transit system and didn’t try to find out. Anyway, why would I want to leave this place, so designed to fulfill our every need, so safe and sublime?

The summer after sophomore year, I stayed in Durham to work for an affordable housing non-profit. I stayed in an apartment complex just off East Campus. But those few blocks of distance changed everything. It felt like I no longer lived at Duke. I lived in Durham.

During my first weekend, I hadn’t set up the Wi-Fi in my place yet, but I desperately wanted to watch the NBA playoffs. It was 10:30 p.m. I realized that Durham’s Central Park was a 35-minute walk away, and surely there would be fast LTE there. So I walked — I had nothing better

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to do. Sure, this might not have been the smartest idea as a young woman walking after dark (sorry Mom and Dad!) But the walk was pleasant and I became lost in thought as I walked past the remnants of tobacco refineries, the old Durham Athletic Park, and the Pauli Murray mural. I arrived at Durham Central Park for the first time after 2.5 years in Durham. I laid down on a park bench and watched the game on my phone, but I was soon distracted by the stars.

I spent the rest of the summer exploring Durham. I fell in love with Taqueria La Vaquita on Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., The Dankery on Fayetteville, the Flea Market on Pettigew, Country Night at the Pinhook and Trivia Night at James Joyce. I went to the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice and learned about Durham’s legacy of civil rights and Black activism. I went to EnoFest and discovered that the environmental justice movement originated just a few miles from here.

That summer, I also worked as a tour guide for Duke Undergraduate Admissions. On each tour, without fail, a parent would either raise their hand or quietly come up to me and ask, “What’s the crime like in Durham?” An innocent enough sentiment; though when paired with a suggestive look and follow-up questions about the “bad parts” of the city communicated much more. I was never asked about the arts scene or even the burgeoning tech scene, never about fun things to do on the weekend or good places to eat. It left me nauseated because I knew

what they really wanted to ask: Is it safe for my child to walk outside Duke’s gothic walls, or will they stumble upon the wrong place, the wrong people?

Of course, there is crime in Durham. There is crime in every American city, largely due to economic and educational disadvantages. Coming from Chicago, I know well that a city is much more than its worst qualities, just as a person is more than their worst qualities. How can you say that Durham is “dangerous” or “boring” or “small” if your preconceived notions make you too fearful to explore it?

When we Duke students leave our big cities and subdivisions behind and then complain about Durham, we reek of the entitlement and prejudice that has soured our relationship with this city and earned Duke names such as New Jersey University. Durham isn’t New York City, and it’s not trying to be. It only needs to be Durham: full of art, full of generous and kind people, full of beautiful parks and restaurants and history. This city has given everything to us, and we have taken even more. To sit behind these stone walls and disparage it is cowardly, and our disdain is palpable.

There’s a world beyond Ninth Street. And if you’re brave enough, there’s even a world beyond Brightleaf Square. You should check it out someday; until then, beware of the cloaked prejudices behind your remarks. Beware of the narratives your complaints reveal.

Pilar Kelly is a Trinity senior.

What are you doing with your dash?

Luke Powery March 6 wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.”

Inc. 1993

Death has been all over the news recently. Causes? Earthquakes. Gun violence. Suicides. War. The list is innumerable. The spiritual is right again: “Death ain’t nothin’ but a robber.” Yet, facing the fact of our mortality, of our dying, can help us in our living.

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Ancient wisdom tells us that “we brought nothing into the world, [and] we can take nothing out of it” (1 Timothy 6:7). This means that we live in between the bookends of nothing. The in-between life has been described as the dash between our birth date and death date. The dash represents our life on earth, so I have a question for you: What are you doing with your dash?

I still remember the phone call when I was 13 years old. The phone rang in my bedroom. It was a friend from my church youth group. He didn’t say “hello” or “what’s up” or call me by my nickname ‘Luke Skywalker.’ All he said when I answered the phone was, “Susan is dead. Susan is dead.” Our 12-year-old church friend had died, rushed to the hospital because of stomach aches only to find out that her intestines had twisted. Susan was dead. Her funeral was my first one ever.

In more recent years, I received another phone call. This one on December 23, 2021. It was news no one expected. My Uncle John had suddenly died. The youngest and strongest of my mother’s siblings. His death was a reminder that the dash between our birth dates and death dates is never too long. A poet of the Bible’s psalms puts it this way (Psalm 103: 15–16):

“As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the

The renowned surgeon and writer Atul Gawande reminds us of this in his book, Being Mortal. He notes his initial shock of “seeing medicine not pull people through.” He says, “I knew theoretically that my patients could die, of course, but every actual instance seemed like a violation.” New medical technologies and discoveries do not destroy the reality of our mortality.

Recognizing your mortality raises the question of morality — what is worth doing with the something you’ve been given in between nothing? What are you doing with your dash? As the grandfather of Howard University professor Kenyatta Gilbert once asked, “Are you making a living or making a life?”

We do a disservice to our dash, the time we’ve been given on earth, when we thirst and hunt for everything when our beginning and end is nothing. We can gain so much materially and economically and still be so discontent. Remember, we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. We all will end up in a box like Queen Elizabeth II. This is true for queens, kings, princes, priests, and paupers.

In the face of the stark reality of mortality, there isn’t an easy answer that applies to everyone, but we can pause and follow the encouragement of the theologian Howard Thurman to “sit quietly and see one’s self pass by.”

The dash of life is short. Our mortality should shape our morality. So as you see yourself in quiet, what are you doing with your dash? I hope you are making a life.

The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery is Dean of Duke University Chapel.

The dash of our life is short. Our mortality should shape our morality.

Intellectually undisciplined

This past semester, I participated in the Laboratory Art in Practice: Building a Model for the Art/Science Lab at Duke Bass Connections team.

Now, that title has a lot of words, and within it a lot of hefty goals. Multiple universities have founded new Art/Science working groups, labs and even full institutes dedicated to the advancement of this interdisciplinary space (or maybe disciplinary interspace?), a colorful gray area between two monolithic fields of thought. Art/Science embodies a rich diversity of practices, media, and theoretical frameworks, and we’re in the midst of a massive movement of art-scientists, science-artists, or some other linear combination of the two, developing all sorts of novel creations that far exceed the length of any singular article.

Truthfully, if you asked me what I did for 2.5 hours every Friday this semester, I’d struggle to give you a good answer. Yes, I took an Art/Science class, but you’d probably ask, what does that even look like? Does it look like staining agar plates with various bacteria to make paintings with a sequenceable genome? Reading science fiction short stories, nonsense poems, or books by Bill Nye the Science Guy? Talking to various people who do artsy or science-y or artsy-science-y things? Or maybe it’s none of those at all, and for 12 weeks we instead engaged in rigorous debate about the positives and negatives of Art vs. Science — by which I mean, of course, the famous Australian electronic dance band.

But then I’d say you’re not really asking the right question. Sure, we covered, created and contested a great deal, but we also barely scratched the surface of what Art/Science can be, let alone established an official lab space for its study. We still don’t have a real lab space; in fact, we still don’t really know what constitutes a “lab” versus a bunch of people screwing around in the Bio 202 classroom.

I think what was most important about this class was not what it instructed, but what

it represented. It was not about trying to make pretty microscope images from dissected fruit fly ovaries (although that did happen), but about creating a space where students can harmonize their scientific and artistic interests, or explore new creative processes entirely. It was a space where artists could learn science and scientists could learn art in a way that was non-judgemental and epitomized the sense of curiosity that characterizes both fields. Where one can think critically about what it means to conduct “research,” devise an “experiment” or work in a “lab,” and consequently envision alternate methods of teaching, communicating, or learning in either field.

Again, all of these grand idealisms do not deter from the fact that most of the work I produced was of pretty low-grade quality, and much of the course’s best-laid plans fell to the whims of postpandemic logistical fiascos. I still don’t really know what the end result of this project will be; four months in, I find myself even more confused. I could write pages on the stark dichotomies between the management strategies of science vs. art classrooms and labs. I could write an entire opinion article about our campus’s overwhelming STEM superiority culture that debases the arts to the “elective,” the “easy class,” the “release” from the grueling monotony and rigor of a STEM degree. But this only reinforces the ever-puzzling question of how to blend these two opposing institutional systems to build a sustainable Art/ Science space at Duke, where both science and art can be taken equally seriously.

Last year, one of my teachers called me “intellectually undisciplined,” and while I initially was offended by the statement, I don’t take much offense to it anymore. Duke prides itself on its commitment to “interdisciplinarity,” but often its approach to doing so can be narrowminded, and still operates on the mindset of using art to “humanize” or “popularize” STEM endeavors. For example, previous and current Bass projects center around topics like art/music therapies for dementia patients or medical anthropology/humanities courses. But it rarely works in reverse, where STEM is used to improve artistic work, although I do think that culture is slowly changing, especially in the computational media sector.

Sometimes, it’s not enough to work at the intersection between a select few academic subjects, the bridge connecting distant islands. Sometimes, the things you are truly passionate about may not even partially reside in one of these islands altogether, and that’s totally okay. Sometimes rather than building bridges (no offense civil engineers), it may be more beneficial to navigate on a boat, to explore not only what lies between these disciplines but also what lies around and beyond each academic field in this rich, vast ocean known as the Duke Endowment. Sometimes, you have to get the lay of both lands if you want to build stronger, more inclusive ones, and reimagine what it means to learn effectively at Duke. Sometimes, you have to be a little intellectually undisciplined.

Monika Narain is a Trinity junior.

in support of students’ right to unionize

Duke Graduate and Professional Student Government March 9

On September 15, 2022, the Duke Graduate Students Union (DGSU - SEIU Local 27), composed of graduate student workers across departments of Duke University, publicly announced a union authorization campaign. This campaign has since achieved a clear and growing majority of graduate student workers who have signed authorization cards, and DGSU has thus filed on March 3, 2023, with the National Labor Relations Board for a secret ballot election, pursuant to Section 9(e)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

In response to this union authorization campaign, Duke’s Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG), unanimously passed a resolution on September 20, 2022, calling for “Duke University to maintain a stance of true neutrality, refraining from efforts to dissuade students, and particularly international students, from signing union authorization cards” and for “Duke University to voluntarily recognize the Duke Graduate Students Union if it achieves a majority of signed union authorization cards.”

To build a home

It’s my fourth year at Duke and one thing’s stayed the same: my dorm walls are bare. My dorm has changed three times; my walls have always been bare. And in the corner where two walls kiss, my laundry basket is full — laundry basket as in dirty pile, full as in towering. I’ve never minded, not until recently at least. I’ve never understood the point of domestic work. Why do people make beds? Well, for the same reason people wipe their ass after they shit, is what I’ve been told. But I wipe my ass after I shit because if I don’t, then my asscrack itches. I don’t itch if I don’t make my bed. In fact, I can roll under the mess of crumpled sheets and right into tomorrow without a pause. And I often did.

I’ve also never minded when people treated me bad. That’s not a joke, that’s just the truth. I had a best friend in childhood who used my heart as their punching bag (we’re still friends, by the way); I had a homoromantic queer awakening in high school who frequently seemed to mistake my number for a social worker’s (she ghosted me, actually); I’ve had my fair share of bendmyself-backward on heartbreak avenue (I mean, it’s college). I know it wasn’t my fault, but at one point, I had to ask — am I the problem? Maybe Miss Americana really was onto something with her anti-hero jazz.

All the self-help books I’ve read told me to take a closer look at my childhood — and I’ve read just about a total of three, so I figured there must be some merit to the claim. But I turned up with nothing, so I turned to the next best option: TikTok. And TikTok told me that perhaps I’ve been searching for a way to fulfill my needs through other people, which — to the armchair psychologist’s vindication — only seemed obvious once it was said. Now the question is, of course, which need.

Thank goodness I’m an avid chronicler, in that I word-vomit into my notes app every

time I’m overcome by angst. Some quotes from college alone:

“watching the Chinese dance team makes me homesick for a home I’ve never known”

“I think when we’re older, all we search for is the feeling of home.”

“I moved so much I had to find home in other people, because the tangible things always changed. And relative to those things and places, the people stayed longer.”

“I feel exiled and I wish he would let me come home into his arms again, into his heart again”

I’ve never really settled down in any place I’ve lived. Part of it was because I moved a lot, and part of it was because I expected to move a lot. Living in anticipation of my next relocation made it a waste of time to turn the physical space I occupied into my own. My walls have always been bare — not just in college, but in life — or if they were decorated, they were hung with the belongings of others. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I never felt an abstract sense of belonging, either.

There is a relation between the sensual and the spiritual. Of domestic bliss, bell hooks says: “When we intentionally strive to make our homes places where we are ready to give and receive love, every object we place there enhances our well-being.” When I touch my tongue to my teeth in sorry attempts to dislodge the iceberg lettuce stuck between, I can’t deny that I am from a material plane. And when I speak to a person just right and the space between us glimmers, I can’t deny that I must extend beyond it, too. I am the place where material and immaterial meet. I am shaped by things I can touch and things I can not. So it follows that my belongings might contribute to my sense of belonging as deeply as food might contribute to my fulfillment. So it also follows that preparing a space with loving care might equip the space to lovingly care for me, too.

I could roll under the sheets and into tomorrow without a single pause, and maybe that

was the problem: that I never paused because I never thought to pause; that I never thought to pause because I never had a space to pause; that I never had a space to pause because there was a feeling of impending alienation lurking in every place that housed me and kept me and cared for me due to reasons beyond anyone’s control; that when a person offered me a place to pause, I rushed to make them my home.

And there it is. Domestic work is more than chores: domestic work is the labor and then the craft and then the art that turns a room into a home. Chores are the acts through which the transformation occurs. Perhaps that’s why some people refer to domestic work as home-making.

The responsibility of home-making has largely fallen onto the shoulders of women. But it is not just women who need a home, nor is it just the people living with women who need a home. Everyone needs a home. Without the ability to create a home for myself, I relied on others for a sense of home — a kind of disorienting co-dependence that carried devastating consequences.

What would independence look like if everyone knew how to make a home, most importantly for themselves? What would interdependence then look like? And what would motherhood entail if mothers were no longer alone in home-making? What would fatherhood entail if fathers knew how to make a home, too?

Recently, I’ve started to make my bed — regularly, every morning, for the first time. Because my bed is my own, and if it’s a mess then it can’t be a loving home. And I must have a home, a place where I can take pause and be still for as long as I desire and as often as I need. I must have a place where I can ground the love that only I can guarantee to myself.

Victoria Wang is a member of the Trinity Class of 2023.

On March 6, 2023, the interim provost of Duke University, Jennifer Francis, sent an email directed to Ph.D. students included in the proposed bargaining unit. This email states that the “productive channels for shared governance would change for our graduate students if a non-academic third party were to serve as their representative” and “a union would become the sole representative of all current and future Ph.D. students.” Currently, graduate workers at Duke University are represented by GPSG in an advocacy capacity only — without the ability to collectively bargain for a contract pertaining to pay, hours and conditions of employment. As stated in our resolution, a student government and a union serve distinct and complementary roles. GPSG’s actions are not legally binding, and thus current and future gains for pay and fees are not secured. There is room for GPSG’s advocacy on climate, DEI, academic affairs, events, external advocacy, affordable housing and other aspects of university governance, which will not be excluded by a union.

Furthermore, on a Duke-hosted website linked in this same email, it is suggested that “the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 27 is seeking to represent graduate students on Duke’s Campus,” despite a majority of graduate student workers at Duke petitioning for an election to be held to authorize a union. The unit seeking representation is made up of our colleagues, not of outsiders. In the email, Interim Provost Francis states, “In 2017, following extensive consideration and debate, Duke’s graduate students voted to reject SEIU unionization by an almost twoto-one margin. I believe they were correct in doing so.” While ignoring context on the 2017 election, this statement violates the neutrality requested by the GPSG resolution, and we ask that the administration refrain from making future statements concerning the correctness of graduate student workers’ choices to vote.

We urge Duke University administration to remove misleading information from their website on graduate student unionization, to bargain in good faith if graduate student workers should authorize the designation of a union as their representation, and to ... not interfere with the upcoming union election.

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hot take of the week “Sandwiches are best eaten when taken apart”

—Katie Tan, Digital Strategy Director, on May 16

Victoria Wang Feb. 2

Students sing in all of the Chapel’s choirs. Course credit and scholarships are available.