T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
The Chronicle
XXXDAY, MONTH TUESDAY, APRIL 9,XX, 2013 2013
Cuts may hit Duke Lemur Center soon
ONE ONE HUNDRED HUNDRED AND AND EIGHTH EIGHTH YEAR, YEAR, ISSUE ISSUE 132 X
WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM
Stigma deters undergrads from nursing
A never-ending list
Sequester threatens Center’s NSF funding
by Amy Cheng THE CHRONICLE
by Lucy Hicks THE CHRONICLE
Government budget cuts may decrease available funding for research organizations such as the Duke Lemur Center and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, along with basic research at Duke. The government spending sequester, which came into effect on March 1, imposes across-the-board reductions to the federal budget, likely affecting federally funded research organizations such as the National Science Foundation which funds many Duke research projects. The Duke Lemur Center, which hosts the largest collection of lemurs outside of Madagascar, currently receives about 20 percent of their annual budget from the NSF, and uses this federal funding for maintaining facilities as well as supporting its employees. The funds are used for salaries, food, uniforms, vet care and supplies and have a large impact on daily operations, said Greg Dye, operations manager of the Lemur Center, adding that not a lot of information is yet available about the impact of the impending cuts. Though the center does receive 50 percent of its funding from the University and generates its own revenue through tours, Lemur Center Director Anne Yoder emphasized the importance of this federal funding. “It would be analogous to you losing 20 percent of your salary, from which you pay your living expenses,” she wrote in an email Thursday. “In our case, it would mean the loss of jobs, and consequently, our ability to care for our lemur colony would be compromised.” Both and Dye and Yoder noted that though the next one to two years of operations may be unaffected by any cuts, longer term research by the center could be impacted greatly. The Lemur Center is currently conducting around 20 different research studies, which include locomotive studies as well as non-invasive neural imaging with mouse lemurs and flat-tailed dwarf lemurs, to study the affects of aging and Alzheimer’s in primates. “For the first time, we can see in the primate brain... the plaques and tangles that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” he said. The Lemur Center is trying to obtain funding from the National Institutes of Health with these more health-based research projects, although the probability of receiving this additional funding is unclear. SEE LEMUR ON PAGE 4
Concussions likely end Wigrizer’s career, Page 7
NICOLE SAVAGE/THE CHRONICLE
Students read the names of Holocaust victims into a microphone on the Bryan Center Plaza Tuesday afternoon as part of Yom Hashoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day.
For all the interest in pre-med studies at Duke, undergraduates interested in health-related professions rarely consider nursing as a field of interest. Although the U.S. News and World Report ranks the School of Nursing seventh in the nation, most undergraduate students have never considered nursing as a career option because of associated stigmas. Students lack an interest in nursing because it is considered less prestigious than other medical career paths, a perception which may be reinforced by the type of academic advising students receive. This perception, however, may be changing along with broader trends in health care delivery. “Across the country, especially in elite schools, health professions advisors often do not address nursing because of their own limited understanding of the career possibilities in nursing,” School of Nursing Dean Catherine Gilliss wrote in an email Tuesday. “Popular stereotypes, reinforced by television portrayals of nurses, work against many capable students’ understanding of how nursing could be a fulfilling career.” Gilliss said a recent graduate of the SEE NURSING ON PAGE 5
Alum helps students fundraise for college by Emma Baccellieri THE CHRONICLE
A Duke alum has created a venture to help students raise money for college. Andrew Wilkinson, Pratt ’08, is the executive director and co-founder of StudentDonate.com, a nonprofit that gives college students a platform to crowdsource micro-donations to help them afford tuition, books and other school expenses. Students create Andrew profiles on the website Wilkinson with information such as their school, academic interests and future plans, and donors from around the world choose how much money they would like to give to a particular student. Wilkinson was inspired to start the nonprofit after a conversation with a friend who worked as a teacher. His
friend loved his job but was thinking of quitting due to his struggles to pay off thousands of dollars in student loans. “Everyone has some sort of social cause to care about,” said Wilkinson, who launched the website in 2012 and currently works fulltime at a technology startup in Los Angeles. “This is just how I give back to the community.” Student Donate is run entirely by volunteers and gives all of the donations directly to the students. To recruit his team of volunteers, Wilkinson relied on skills he honed at Duke. “At Duke, nothing’s ever by yourself— you can’t be an expert in everything,” he said. “Interactions with classmates prepared me to recruit a team of individuals, which is especially important in nonprofit. You’re not really paying them, so you have to be a really good convincer.” Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy and economics, said Student Donate’s nontraditional method of garnering money for college is fitting, given
ONTHERECORD
“Despite it all, there’s too much good about North Carolina to leave it for good...” —Samantha Lachman in ‘A home that wasn’t’ See column page 11
recent increases in tuition. “A crowdsourced merit scholarship program is the way I would describe it,” Vigdor said. “Ordinarily with a merit scholarship, you apply, and the application is judged by a panel of experts. But this is turning that model on its head— you make a case for yourself and see what happens.” To date, Student Donate has helped about 150 students, with some receiving a few hundred dollars and others getting thousands, Wilkinson said. He noted that the website is especially popular in Los Angeles—where he lives—but students from all over the world have benefitted, including some at Duke. “It’s a cool concept,” said senior Alyssa Fowers, who received a donation a few weeks after creating her profile on the website. “It can really help students out.” Over the past generation, college SEE DONATE ON PAGE 5
Professor pens book about her dad’s mental illness, Page 2