The Chronicle T h e i n d e p e n d e n t d a i ly at D u k e U n i v e r s i t y
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011
Discussion connects feminism, greek life by Sony Rao
THE CHRONICLE
As part of the first-ever Feminist Week, students gathered Wednesday night to discuss ways to increase awareness of feminism and its relation to greek life on campus. The discussion, “Peeling Back the Letters,” was sponsored by the Women’s Center in an effort to bring together members of the greek and independent communities to encourage universal acceptance of feminism. “The purpose of this event is to increase the visibility of feminism on campus, but also to cultivate the already existing community,” said sophomore Sunhay You, a Women’s Center intern. “We want this to be a community building and networking effort.” You said the idea for the discussion and Feminist Week as a whole stemmed from a perceived lack of feminist outlets on campus. Although different student groups regularly discuss women’s issues— including the Center for Race Relations and the Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life—You felt there was no specific outlet for feminism or collective ef-
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH YEAR, Issue 119
www.dukechronicle.com
fort on part of the University to address this issue. During the discussion, participants were asked to stand in a semicircle and step forward if they agreed with various statements such as, “I think men and women are equal,” “I feel shy calling myself a feminist” and “I felt discriminated at a greek event because of my gender.” The participants also discussed common stereotypes associated with feminism such as masculinity, lesbianism and having extreme beliefs. A large portion of the meeting focused on how greek life affects perceptions of feminism on campus and how these views have evolved over time. Junior Nathalie Herrand, president of the Greek Women’s Initiative and member of Omega Phi Beta, said fraternities and sororities are often perceived as misogynistic institutions due to their unequal power dynamics— particularly in the social sphere. “Before I was greek, I wouldn’t have said that I was a feminist,” Herrand said, adding that she now views herself as one because of her involvement in her sorority. “So it’s interesting
dsg
Through Katrina’s eye
Senate reviews survey Students largely happy with Duke by Anna Koelsch THE CHRONICLE
rachel fleder/The Chronicle
Alex Harris, public policy professor and founder of the CDS, gives a talk on his exhibition of post-Hurricane Katrina photos. See the story at dukechronicle.com.
See feminists on page 4
The numbers are in: Students love Duke. Sophomore Michael Habashi, a student affairs senator, shared the results of the Duke Student Government Survey Commission with the Senate at its meeting Wednesday. Nine hundred and ninety-six students completed the surveys, which were intended to gather knowledge about a breadth of University issues—ranging from Tailgate to the Career Center. The Survey Commission—led by Habashi; athletics and campus services senators junior Christina Lieu and sophomore Dillon Buckner; junior Yue Jiang, a Durham and regional affairs senator; and freshman Daniel Pellegrino, an academic affairs senator—yielded responses that confirmed an overall satisfaction with the University. See DSG on page 4
Revamped course numbering to be implemented Spring 2012 by Lauren Carroll THE CHRONICLE
caroline rodriguez/The Chronicle
The Women’s Center hosted a a forum Wednesday to encourage the discussion of feminism in greek life as part of the first ever Feminist Week.
Duke faces Derrick Williams and the Wildcats in the Sweet 16 , Page 5
Students will have to begin removing several words from their Duke-related vocabulary—one year from now, classic courses such as Math 31, Econ 55 and Psych 11 will be known by different names. Next Spring, a new course numbering scheme will go into effect during the registration period for Fall 2012 courses. Planning and development of the new numbering system began March 2009 to be ready by registration for Fall 2011 classes—but the implementation was delayed due to University budget cuts. “The early retirement incentives and overall reduction and turnover in support staff has made this past year difficult in many respects,” wrote Ingeborg Walther, a Trinity associate dean and director of the Office of Curriculum and Course Development, in a May 2010 memorandum. “[This] has also substantially increased the workload of my office, the faculty committees on curriculum and courses and the Of-
fice of the Registrar, which has been operating with reduced staff.” The Course Renumbering Committee, composed of faculty, students and administrators, has not met in more than a year since each department and academic program began submitting spreadsheets of its respective renumbered courses early 2010. However, the process of putting the numbers into effect has proven to be a “monumental task,” according to the memorandum. In addition to changing the numbers that appear on ACES and the Bulletin of Undergraduate Instruction, the office of the registrar’s limited staff has to update course descriptions that contain pre-requisites, advising materials and department brochures, among many other projects. “Well, I don’t think that much has changed in the past year—the delay in the whole process was a manpower delay,” said James Bonk, a chemistry professor
ONTHERECORD
“And when I speak authoritatively on behalf of others without their permission, I may foster silence.”
—Senior Sandeep Prasanna in “The Psychological Network.” See column page 11
See renumbering on page 4
Prothero argues against universality in religion, Page 3
2 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle
worldandnation onschedule...
Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way Sanford Rhodes, 5:30-7p.m. Steven Radelet, USAID Chief Economist, discusses examples of innovative development in Africa.
on the
Taking Root Film Screening Perkins Rare Books, 7-8:30 p.m. Taking Root is a compelling and dramatic film examining the life of Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai.
7034
FRIDAY:
5940
Men’s Basketball CBS, 9:45 PM #1 Duke faces #5 Arizona in a “Sweet 16” matchup located in Anaheim, Ca.
web
“When Patrick asked what reasons Irving might have to not returning for his second year, the freshman replied: “Right now there is no reason I wouldn’t come back for my sophomore year.” He backed off seconds later, though, in response to a followup question about his future in a Duke uniform. “Honestly, I’m not sure right now,” Irving said.’” — From The Chronicle Sports Blog sports.chronicleblogs.com
Jahi Chikwendiu /The Washington Post
Thomas Haynesworth plays with his great niece at his mother’s home in Richmond, Va. Haynesworth was wrongly imprisoned for 27 years. Haynesworth was exonerated after new DNA evidence showed that he did not commit the rape he was accused of. Genetic testing has led to 267 exonerations across the country.
“
TODAY:
When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat? — Chuck Palahniuk
”
TODAY IN HISTORY
1837: Canada gives blacks the right to vote.
Donald Trump plans visit to Iowa fundraising event
Pentagon expenditures examined by lawmakers
CHICAGO — Real estate developer Donald Trump, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, will speak at a June 10 fundraising dinner in Iowa, traditionally the first step in the nomination process. Trump, 64, will appear at the annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, marking his first potential campaign trip to the state, Matt Strawn, the Republican state party chairman, said in a statement Wednesday. “We are excited to have Mr. Trump share his vision for a better America through his experiences as an individual who has made a career as an entrepreneur and job creator,” Strawn said. Other Republicans considering a challenge to President Barack Obama’s reelection bid have already been traveling to Iowa and other early voting states.
WASHINGTON D.C. — The U.S. military operations in Libya will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and force Congress to seek help next week for the cashstrapped Pentagon, which is operating on a short-term funding resolution. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that he had asked the Defense Department for an accurate estimate of the cost of the mission since the ballpark numbers being circulated, including one of nearly $1 billion, seemed too high. House Speaker John Boehner, ROhio, also raised the funding issue with the administration Wednesday in a letter to President Barack Obama. Noting that Obama had said the mission could be paid for with money already appropriated to the Pentagon.
off the
wire...
Japan issues radiation warning on tap water
R E G I N A L D O H O WA R D MEMORIAL SCHOLARS 35th Anniversary Celebration
Celebrating the life and memory of Reginaldo Howard: The first black president of the Duke student body
Remarks by Reggie’s sister Tanya Lee and Dean Caroline Lattimore
• Exhibition of Howard’s Life & Legacy • Live Jazz Band • Light Refreshments Served • Business Attire Preferred
Memorial Celebration & Reception Thursday, March 24th at 6:30 pm Frederic Jameson Gallery of Friedl Building Duke University East Campus
m n i o n i t e a d n r i u t yo des 1000 west main street • durham, nc 919.428.4965 • www.uniquities.com
the chronicle
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 | 3
Scholars discuss religious commonality China set to
build new nuclear plant
by Praveen Tummalapalli THE CHRONICLE
Religions are not all rooted in the same fundamental truth, at least in the opinion of bestselling author Stephen Prothero. Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, was critical of religious unification Wednesday evening at the Divinity School’s Goodson Chapel. “[The universality of religions] is a lovely sentiment, but in my view it is wishful thinking,” Prothero said. “It is untrue, it is condescending, and it is even dangerous.” Prothero’s book, “God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter” discusses—and argues against—universality in religion. While in graduate school, Prothero noticed the common view that all religions have the same basic ideas. Prothero noted that scholars who attempt to reconcile faiths are “blinded to the unique beauty of each religion.” Academic interreligious debate usually consists of more liberal members of different faiths only discussing religions’ similarities, Prothero said. He added that this does not accomplish much, calling instead for interfaith discussion that assumes— rather than denies—differences. Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Seshagiri Rao, former chief editor of the University of South Carolina’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism project, joined Prothero for the discussion. Rao emphasized the importance of diversity and described the commonality in all religions. “All spiritual literature concerns the
by Dinakar Sethuraman THE washington post
chelsea pieroni/The Chronicle
Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University and bestselling author, discusses the importance of religious differences Wednesday evening at the Divinity School’s Goodson Chapel. search for truth,” he said. “There are sects that say that there is no God, but there is no sect that says there is no truth.” Although Prothero cited the number of gods as one example of differences between religions, Rao disagreed with Prothero’s characterization of Hinduism as polytheistic, adding that the different deities were part of an omnipresent reality. Safi said religious differences are important, but he also disagreed with Prothero’s main point that religions are intrinsically different. “There is an absolute, and we give different names to that absolute,” Safi said. “Different religions are paths, distinct paths...
that are the ways to that absolute. I want to separate the notion of the absolute.” The unification of religions, however, can potentially blind people to the realities behind religious conflict, Prothero said. Rao agreed with Prothero on that point, noting that society needs to understand the fundamental differences in beliefs between the groups engaged in these conflicts. “What we need on this furiously religious planet... is a realistic view of religious conflict,” Rao said. “What we are seeing is not only an acceleration of interreligious contact but also interreligious conflict. We need a new way of thinking to ensure the continuity of our species.”
SINGAPORE — China will start building a nuclear power plant next month using fourth-generation technology that may be less susceptible to meltdown than Japan’s damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The “world’s first high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor” will be installed at Rongcheng in Shandong province, Cui Shaozhang, deputy general manager at Huaneng Nuclear Power Development Co., a unit of China Huaneng Group Corp., the nation’s largest power group, said in an interview this week in Singapore. “There are differences between the Japanese and Chinese reactors,” Cui said. “Japan’s Fukushima plant was using old technology while Chinese reactors are more advanced.” Japan is trying to prevent a meltdown at Fukushima, where the oldest reactor started operating in 1971, after cooling systems were knocked out by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The Rongcheng plant will use helium, an inert gas, in its cooling system, and reactor cores will be able to withstand temperatures exceeding 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit) for several hundred hours without melting down, China Business News said this week. “The Chinese government has encouraged us with the pre-condition of safety and efficiency,” Cui said, standing next to a model of the high-temperature reactor.
What is the Duke woman? A. Pre-med fashion guru B. Professor by day, pro wrestler by night C. Freak in the sheets and a geek in the stacks. D. All of the Above The Office of Health Professions Advising is proud to offer
Health Professions School Fair Meet and Greet Meet with Admissions Representatives from MD, DO, DDS, PharmD, PA, and MS Programs! March 29, 2011 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Bryan Center – Von Canon B
Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to obtain valuable information from the following Medical Schools: Duke, UNC, George Washington, Rosalind Franklin, Wake Forest, Uniformed Services, and more!
thursday, march 24 at 7 friday, march 25 at 6 saturday, march 26 at 7 sunday, march 27 at 2 209 East Duke
4 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle
dsg from page 1 For example, more than 80 percent of students said they agreed or strongly agreed that their major is a subject in which they are genuinely interested. Habashi noted that although only one-fourth of the Senate is made up of women, female students expressed positive opinions about DSG. “There is an overwhelming majority of men in the Senate, but women find that DSG effectively represents them as students,” Habashi said. Although more than 80 percent of students agreed that they love Duke, the survey exposed some shortfalls of the University. More than 60 percent of students agreed that they are unsatisfied with the media’s portrayal of Duke. About 65 percent of students also expressed disconnect with the Durham community. Additionally, the survey collected a broad array of opinions regarding the future of Tailgate. “The only positive thing about Tailgate is that it brings lots of people out to have a good time,” said one survey respondent. “Tailgate should be a family-friendly event
feminists from page 1 to hear that being in a sorority and being a feminist is like an oxymoron.” Senior Becki Feinglos, president of Delta Gamma sorority, added that events like progressive parties have enhanced the misogynistic perception of fraternities, as in the past, women were encouraged to provide sexual favors to new fraternity recruits. Feinglos said Panhellenic Association sororities effectively combatted this negative image in creating a petition to eliminate progressives—which resulted in the cancellation of many of these parties earlier in the semester. “I considered myself a very empowered female in coming to Duke,” Feinglos said. “[But] I think that the Greek scene in some way pushed me down as a feminist and I had to rediscover myself.” Despite some negative stereotypes, participants emphasized that many sororities were fundamentally founded on feminist ideals and sisterhood. Freshman Flora Muglia, a Baldwin Scholar and member of Alpha Phi, discussed how her sorority originated as one of the first women’s fraternities, but added that historical roots often fail to translate to the present. “In the past, the sorority was strong in the feminist concept, but in actuality its not,” Muglia said. “It can be
with cooking hot dogs and hamburgers, not crazy getting trashed and being rude.” The official survey report will be made public to the Duke community within the next couple of weeks, Habashi said. In other business: Amy Li, a junior, was elected by the Senate as next year’s Student Organization Finance Committee chair. Li was selected over sophomores Alikiah Barclay and Yang Zeng. Li said some of her top priorities as SOFC chair include cutting the organization’s costs and further auditing student groups. The Senate unanimously approved the Greek Women’s Initiative for recognition and Duke Asian American Working Group for chartered status. By a vote of 28-4, the Senate allocated $1,500 from the Surplus Account Trustee Fund for the Students of the Caribbean Association’s Caribbana event. The Senate also allocated $5,237 for 15 framed color prints to decorate the walls of the DSG office. DSG President Mike Lefevre, a senior, said the prints will feature significant moments in the University’s history, such as students being teargassed in the Allen Building during the Civil Rights movement.
kind of scary in a sorority to say you are a feminist.” The members of the discussion also specifically discussed the ways in which Interfraternity Council organizations have affected women’s roles on campus, especially in relation to freshmen students and social relations. Participants referenced the two emails sent last semester by members of Sigma Nu fraternity and Alpha Delta Phi,
“Duke’s hookup culture is nationally famous; I think it would be different if so much of the social scene was not dominated by fraternities.” — Simon Ho, sophomore the off-campus fraternity. “I think a lot of fraternities on campus emphasize hook-up culture, which is misogynistic and degrading to women,” said sophomore Simon Ho. “Duke’s hookup culture is nationally famous. I think it would be different if so much of the social scene was not dominated by fraternities.”
renumbering from page 1 and committee member. “[The committee] hasn’t done anything. We didn’t need to, our work is done.” Although the implementation of a new number scheme has been challenging, the administration believes the end product will benefit students, faculty and administration by making course registration much easier to understand. The current numbering system reserves numbers zero to 99 for introductory-level courses, 100 to 199 for the advanced level, 200 to 299 for seniors and graduate students and 300 to 399 for graduate-level courses only. The new numbering system assigns numbers zero to 99 to courses directed at freshmen, such as first-year seminars, 100 to 199 to the introductory level, 200 to 399 to undergraduate courses above the introductory level, 400 to 499 to the advanced level, 500 to 699 to graduate courses open to undergraduates and 700 to 999 to graduate-level courses only. The current numbering system poses a challenge to departments that teach more courses than they have course numbers available, Bonk said. Additionally, students are potentially disadvantaged when applying to graduate schools because most other undergraduate institutions do not assign such low numbers to advanced level courses, which could make a Duke student’s curriculum look misleadingly easy. Sophomore Sadhna Gupta said that the current numbering system is illogical, and a new one is much anticipated. “There is no cohesion in the course numbers, it’s so arbitrary,” Gupta said. “The transition might be frustrating, but in the end, it will be super beneficial.” Although the transition might be difficult for students, Bonk said it will be more difficult for faculty, noting that some courses in the chemistry department have had the same numbers since he began teaching at Duke 53 years ago. But the new system will help his department organize courses either by vertical structure—grouping upper-level courses with their pre-requisites—or by subject matter. He added that when students register for Fall 2012 classes, they will see both the old course number and the new course number on ACES in order to ease the transition. Walther wrote in a Wednesday email that the new numbering scheme, which she noted is similar to the scheme at many other universities including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—will allow departments to be more deliberate when numbering their courses and to have a chance for them to rethink their entire curriculum. “For students, I think it’s important to know that departments are using the new numbering scheme in meaningful, yet different ways,” Walther wrote.
New Course Numbering System Number 0-99
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Recess
volume 13 issue 25 march 24, 2011
DOPPELGANGER
After five years, the Strokes return with a new album, and Recess reviews
PAGE 6
photo illustration by chelsea pieroni/The chronicle
bad plus
jazz trio reinterprets Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring
page 3
your highness
Danny McBride and David Gordon Green talk new film
CENTER
30 americans
NC Museum of Art exhibits African-American artists
page 7
recess
theSANDBOX. So I finally got a Twitter account, but because my Facebook statuses read like neo-Beatnik keyboard ejaculations, I’m too self-conscious to actually tweet, lest potential employers doubt my social media savvy or ability to #writelikethis. I’m furthered saddened by Anderson Cooper’s tweets, which are just professional news snippets, and not like, “Just hit up Karaoke Kweens night at Eastern Bloc!” But worst of all, Twitter led me to Rebecca Black, a self-confident 13-year old from Anaheim Hills, a SoCal suburb on steroids. And if it wasn’t enough that this girl’s upbringing is going to stunt her path to self-realization, her parents thought it prudent to gift her (Super Sweet Bat Mitzvah?) with a professional music video, replete with P.G. rap verse. Now after 40 million views and counting, everyone is apparently captivated and very disturbed by the thing, which is absolutely hilarious. Watch the Good Morning America interview with the Katie Couric lookalike: using the same concerned voice and eyebrow furrows she dropped on Charlie Sheen, she
asks a series of condescending questions apparently intended to make the little girl slit her wrists. I guess she was on a roll assisting public figures in self-humiliation, but fortunately Rebecca’s too chipper to notice. At one point, she makes Black sing the national anthem, as evidence of what I’m not exactly sure—her vocals sounds exactly as good as they do on “Friday.” But sillier than the pissed-off detractors are the highbrow critical apologists. I’ll go no farther than stating that I’d simply place Black at the end of the merit spectrum, with Lady Gaga inhabiting the opposite side and Bieber somewhere in between. That said, all three stars are more legitimate for fueling ‘social media’ chatter than they are for their actual music (yeah, “Born This Way” didn’t fool anyone). The only solution is to un-follow all the celebrities spewing unwanted noise into my headspace. Except Anderson Cooper, who’s been too preoccupied with Japan to respond to my tweets asking if he needs a boyfriend or a date or a social media intern. —Brian Contratto
[recesseditors] graduating with distinction in... Kevin Lincoln.........................................................................................the Blue Jays Lisa Du...............................................................................................cat impressions Ross Green.......................................................................Wednesday night Shootas Andrew O’Rourke....................................................................................South Park Sanette Tanaka.................................................................................google calendar Nate Glencer..................................................................................photo name puns Lindsey Rupp.................................................................................computer servers
March 24, 2011
[DUKE HORIZONTAL]
Page 2
I don’t understand people who don’t like giving oral sex. Perplexed, I label them under the same category as individuals who abhor melted cheese, Disney World or driving with the windows down. In a similar fashion, an aversion to head seems as illogical as hating all that is good and wonderful in the world. Go pout through Christmas and drown some puppies while you’re at it. As an aspiring therapist, I recognize that I should take an accepting approach to all manners of sexual expression and desire. But seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? Ignoring the mindset of the fellatio-phobic, it’s remarkable how much oral sex has evolved to precede “full-on sex” on the scale of sexual appropriateness. In the teenage years, oral activity dominated the amateur dating culture. At my high school, no one could really judge your sexual character if you were merely giving head, unless you did it in public places or with school employees. During college, many a technical prude uses blowjobs as her M.O., and casual oral sex doesn’t quite qualify as a one-night stand. As one friend recently encountered a proclaimed male oral-sex virgin, the rest of our group approached this confession with a healthy dose of skepticism. In an environment of frequent and informal intimacy, head may be arguably more common than kissing, turning the inexperienced into a rare and unlikely specimen. And one can’t doubt the potential of this boy’s claim as a source of heightened motivation for anyone waffling over the issue. If he’s telling the truth, it’s an opportunity for sexual immortality. He may have just found the most brilliant line ever.
After all, speaking for heterosexual women in particular, giving head often forms the most unselfish type of sexual activity and plays directly into an emphatic desire to please. From an obvious perspective, there are probably a lot of things you’d rather have in your mouth for an extended period of time. Ring pops would certainly rank higher on my own list. Still, giving head has an aura of validation and, arguably, empowerment. Through only your sheer skill and will-power, you have created ecstasy. This probably explains why there is a direct correlation between how good one perceives her oral skills and one’s enjoyment level in providing oral sex. Then again, I rarely encounter many women who admittedly deem their head prowess to be lacking. I personally believe that I am an oral-sex maestro and the external accolades form my basis of proof, my inflated ego too big to entertain questions of validity or sincerity. I guess this compares to most men’s exceedingly high faith in their own penetrative sexual mastery. Keeping in mind the role of confidence and the illusion of being an excellent headgiver, I’m left wondering whether a universal standard can be applied to defining good oral sex. Practice makes perfect, but in the interest of human variation, even experience can’t prepare you for the element of personal preference. A long-time friend claims that our illustrious technique must be identical after years of swapping notes, but now I question how we both could equally please our separate sampling populations. Is there really such a thing as the perfect blowjob? I could go on. Oral sex is an endlessly interesting topic. Unless you’re one of those people who finds it unappealing. In which case, I don’t judge you. But I do feel bad for you. Brooke Hartley is a Trinity senior.
2010-2011 gRaDUatIOn wIth DIStInctIOn In the aRtS THE STUDENTS
Benjamin Bergmann
Lisa Gao
James K. Lee
Andrew O’Rourke
Kristina Warren
vISUal aRtS
aRtS OF the MOvIng IMage
theateR StUDIeS
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Sarah Goetz
Joshua Lim
Danielle Potter
Heather Wiese
Kevin Lincoln
Anna Handelman Ruddle
Nina Wu
Julia Love
William Sutherland
Caroline Xie
Kimberly Nettles
Brendan Szulik
Bruce Xinyang Xu
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Mark Thysell
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vISUal StUDIeS aRtS OF the MOvIng IMage I centeR FOR DOcUMentaRY StUDIeS
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The Graduation with Distinction program in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences recognizes academic excellence achieved by highly qualified advanced students who successfully complete a substantive project demonstrating sustained effort and deemed distinguished by a faculty committee of review.
THE PROGRAM Vice Provost Office for the Arts
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artWOrK: Sarah Goetz, a gentle brain washing (details), sewn mesh, pages from the Encyclopedia americana: Burma-Cathay, and guitar strings. the Mary Duke Biddle Building, 2010
March 24, 2011
Bad Plus unveils new Rite of Spring for DP
recess
Page 3
by Josh Stillman THE CHRONICLE
The Bad Plus have covered everyone from Aphex Twin to Black Sabbath to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Next up: Igor Stravinsky. On Saturday, the popular jazz trio will present the world premiere of their reinterpretation of the Russian composer’s most controversial ballet. On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is the latest installment in Duke Performances’ series “The Sanctified,” which showcases modern artistic explorations of traditional forms—past shows this season include the SFJazz Collective and a lecture by venerable music journalist Greil Marcus. Director of Duke Performances Aaron Greenwald said the Bad Plus’ treatment of Rite of Spring is particularly exciting because the ballet was itself rooted in tribal and Russian folk idioms. “It’s [significant] that the Bad Plus is interested in the notion of folk music; Stravinsky was interested in that as well,” Greenwald said. “But they’re also engaged in making music of a degree of nuance and complexity.” Stravinsky’s original ballet is hailed as one of the most influential compositions of the 20th century. Its complex, unorthodox use of dissonance and polyrhythms defied classical conventions and listener expectations—in fact, the music, along with Vaslav Nijinsky’s primal and sensuous choreography, was so radical that at its 1913 debut in Paris, the audience broke into a riot. “I don’t think you could hear that piece and not think it was changing the world of music,” Greenwald said. There were obvious difficulties in arranging the piece— which was written for more than 100 instruments—for a jazz trio. The group has been developing the composition for eight months, with final preparations taking place through Friday of this week. Channeling the original’s massive sound requires more than a little intensity, a task to which the Bad Plus appear equal. They are often portrayed by the media as the rock stars of the jazz world; not only do they display an uncharacteristic affinity for showmanship, but much of their repertoire consists of rock covers, such as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” “We are willing to push things as far as we can; we’re interested in the full spectrum of music,” said Reid Anderson, the band’s bassist. “We do definitely try to give off a certain kind of performance energy.” The show will also feature an interactive, dramatic multimedia presentation developed by New York-based architect Cristina Guadalupe and filmmaker Noah Hutton, which will function as a music video synchronized with the performance. Saturday’s premiere will be the culmination of the Bad Plus’ multifaceted residency at Duke this academic year. In addition to composing the arrangement, which was commissioned by Duke Performances, the band have engaged in public conversations and listening sessions. They are also working with four Ph.D. students in musical composition, and the plan is to soon go into the studio and record these pieces. “We wanted these guys to be engaged with our campus and community for a year,” Greenwald said. “It lets people know we’re an institution that is serious about supporting and developing new work.” The performance will give listeners a chance to hear Rite of Spring as they’ve never heard it before. But don’t expect 1913. “Hopefully [the audience] won’t riot,” Anderson said, joking. “But if they do, it’ll be because of the pleasure of what they’re hearing.” The world premiere of The Bad Plus’ On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring will take place at 8 p.m. in Reynolds Theater on March 26. Tickets can be purchased for $34 or $26 by the general public and $5 by Duke students at the Duke Box Office or tickets.duke.edu. For more information, visit dukeperformances. duke.edu.
special to The Chronicle
The Bad Plus, a jazz trio known for their tendency to cover rock and other genres, will present a reinterpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, commissioned by Duke Performances.
Thursday, March 24 The Bad Plus: Conversation and Demonstration • moderated by UNC Professor Mark Katz Reynolds Theater, Duke’s West Campus, 7 pm • Free & open to the public.
Q
Presented in conjunction with The Jazz Loft Project on view through July 10, co-sponsored by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies.
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recess
dir. david gordan green universal pictures
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Your Highness is like Pinapple Express, except with a medieval quest and more d*** jokes. Danny McBride, both the screenwriter and main character in the film, has teamed up with screenwriter Ben Best and director David Gordon Green to deliver a raucous parody of the traditional medieval film. In Your Highness, the apathetic Thadeous (Danny McBride) and his quest-seeking, attractive brother Fabious (James Franco) embark on a journey filled with helpless damsels, brave knights and forest people in an attempt to save Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), Fabious’ bride-to-be. The two brothers are joined by the fearless and talented Isabel (Natalie Portman) as they continue their hunt to find Belladonna’s kidnapper, the evil wizard Leezar (Justin
Theroux). The film relies on the medieval damsel in distress cliche, the crude and contemporary writing will pull young audiences into the heroic story. The cast exhibits tremendous chemistry, even through simple facial expressions and hand gestures, and the actors portray their characters perfectly. Although Franco’s attempt at an English accent is merely satisfactory, his portrayal of the undaunted, passionate poetry-writing knight works as a perfect foil to McBride’s disinterested and tactless Thadeous. Green’s direction lends the film perfect tone and pace, maintaining a witty and intelligent air and at the same time employing seriously graphic and vulgar action sequences. While remaining loyal to both the knightsand-swords genre and their own comedic roots, Your Highness utilizes its strong cast and crew to re-energize the Middle Ages. —Jenna Gates
RECESS REVIEWS
your highness
March 24, 2011
RECESS INTERVIEWS Recess’ Ross Green met with Your Highness star and screenwriter Danny McBride and David Gordon Green at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, North Carolina, and discussed the trappings of big-budget filmmaking, their HBO series Eastbound and Down, and their meteoric rise through the comedy world. The two were promoting the film with advance screenings at North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and North Carolina State University. Recess: You’ve worked with James Franco before, on Pineapple Express. What is it that makes him such a versatile actor? Danny McBride: Everything he does is funny. He’s one of those great actors that has such sincerity and looks like he’d be just the good-looking dude. But he doesn’t take himself too seriously. David Gordon Green: And he’ll do anything. The crazier it is, the more excited he gets about it. I thought [the Oscar telecast] was hilarious. And he wasn’t [stoned]— he’s a totally clean, straight-edge guy. Who knows what’s going on his head, but it cracked me up when he said [after the Academy Awards awards], “Congratulations, nerds.” DM: It was like the everyman’s take on the Oscars, and the Oscars are…I mean, they’re usually boring. DGG: It wasn’t the big, song-and-dance Hugh Jackman or Billy Crystal type of spectacle. It was like, if a normal guy hosted the Oscars. R: Discuss the challenge of filming a period-piece fantasy as opposed to a film like Pineapple Express: DM: One thing about this film: it looks like it cost double what it ended up costing. Movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which we love and are hilarious, make jokes about how they don’t have the money to make it a big period-piece movie. They’ll simulate the sound of horseback riding with coconuts being clapped together. We wanted Your Highness to feel like it’s as big as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but obviously if you have the budget of those films, you can’t make as many dick jokes as we can. For us, the question was how do we get that big-budget feel without the actual budget. R: You shot Your Highness in Belfast, North-
ern Ireland; how did you choose that location? DGG: We went there because it has this great natural beauty, these great landscapes and rock formations and castles that we could take advantage of. One thing about Pineapple Express—and I’m very proud of that film— is that a lot of it was shot in someone’s living room. It’s really small in scope; this was an opportunity for us to make all that explode, to take what we thought was funny and put this huge landscape behind it. R: Can you speak to the risk of doing a period-piece comedy, after the Jack Black/ Michael Cera vehicle Year 1 bombed. DGG: [Year 1] was really helpful because it came out right before we made this movie, and it was a spoof; people spoke like modern-day Americans. It helped us illustrate why we wanted to go 100% legit on making a big adventure action movie, play it totally straight, and have the comedy come out of the absurdity of the characters, rather than making a goofball sketch-comedy version of it. DM: David and I constantly feel like we’ve snuck into the party and at any moment we’re gonna be thrown out—that we’re not really supposed to be here. So when we’re given an opportunity to make something together, we don’t want to waste it making something that was safe or down-the-middle. For better or worse, if the movie tanks, we can say that we took a chance and made something totally unlike anything else out there. R: Five years ago, you guys were making low-budget films like The Foot Fist Way. Do you look around at your cast of Oscar nominees and indie darlings and wonder how you got here? DM: I’m always surprised. Whenever you see a shot of Natalie, it always trips you up. You’re like, “Wow, that’s a real movie star in our movie.” There are some of those moments that will probably always surprise me. DGG: I definitely get kind of overwhelmed with how awesome the opportunities we have are. You wake up during production and you think “Oh my god, we’re gonna go fight monsters today and I have this unbelievable cast to work with.” But even [on the promotional
tour], I wake up an getting paid to make I definitely still wak entitlement, withou and thinking about DM: We didn’t ge spa] but we took ou DGG: I definitely bit (laughs). DM: It is fun t people, even to sne theater and see wha I tend to never watc comes out, so this i enjoy what you’ve d actions to it. R: You guys have ture-length comedie with HBO. What typ ing to move on to? DM: I went to fi tor and a lot of my I would love to focu camera a little bit m DGG: I just finis I’ve been working o three kids on a cok And I’m hoping to little different; there wanna make. Your H lot of genres—the a that I haven’t explor ing independent d right out of the gate running around in h except for Your High DM: Although y dude running arou one, so… DGG: I still got m But audiences want week, to see somet wants to do the sa again? R: You recently season of Eastbound expect from Kenny DM: We’re goin I think you’ll see a from the first season
recess
nd I’m in this fancy hotel, e and promote this movie. ke up without a feeling of ut feeling like its old hat, what can I do next. et a massage [at the hotel ur time in the pool. y pissed in that pool a little
to share the movie with eak into the back of the at people are reacting to. ch the stuff I’m in after it is the time when you can done and see people’s re-
e done a number of feaes and a television series pe of projects are you look-
ilm school to be a directraining is in the field, so us on getting behind the more. shed up a new movie that on; it’s Jonah Hill taking ke run in New York City. o twist into something a e’s a horror movie I really Highness opened me up to a adventure, the romance— red yet. I started out makdramas. Although I guess e I’ve had a shot of a dude his skivvies in every movie hness… you do have a shot of a und without a dick in this
my track record (laughs). to see a new movie every thing different, and who ame thing over and over
started writing the next d and Down. What can we in the third season? ng back to Myrtle Beach; lot of the cast members n back for this one.
Your Highness
March 24, 2011
e
s s
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pusha t fear of god re-up gang records
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“I can’t be bothered with paying homage to forefathers.” That’s how Pusha T starts Fear of God. His first release since the Clipse’s ‘Till The Casket Drops—after “Malice found religion,” as Pusha figures it on the mixtape’s “Blow/Funk Flex Freestyle”—Fear of God is also his inaugural effort as a member of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint. And this intricate rhyme, seeping defiance and delivered on the knife-edge of his deft flow, both flashes the skill Pusha’s always had and hints at the grander scale of his new position. A mixture of freestyles over recycled beats, including Lil Wayne’s “Money on My Mind” and Soulja Boy’s “Speakers Going Hammer,” and a handful of original tracks, Fear of God consistently hovers between good and great. In the former camp, there are the freestyles, which wed Pusha’s signa-
ture “talk[ing] coke for nine years long” (from “Can I Live”) with boasts and subtle wordplay; that line on the tape plays out as, “That means my rap sheet is more than nine years strong.” The true highlights of Fear of God are the originals. “My God” kicks off with that searing first line and, over rolling snares and stabs of guitar, Pusha weaves between the notes of a freewheeling organ. “I Still Wanna” is beautiful and huge, sporting a baroque choir and Rick Ross’ gruff braggadocio. “Raid” reunites Pusha with longtime collaborators the Neptunes—Pharrell even sings the hook, sounding like a kid playing soldier in the backyard—and the song’s piano riff floats above the gritty rapping. And the Kanye production “Touch It” is gleefully insane, with both Pusha and Kanye spitting out goofy come-ons over a skittering, soulful beat. As a mixtape, Fear of God is an upperechelon release, and it puts to rest any worry that Pusha might wilt in the shadow of Kanye’s grandiosity. —Kevin Lincoln
March 24, 2011
feature review
the strokes angles rca
eeeEE
People generally consider the Strokes’ 2003 sophomore effort Room on Fire an inferior follow-up to their relentlessly hyped 2001 debut Is This It; I’m one of the few who disagree. The reputation of the latter always seemed to be shaped as much by the band’s image—their precociously stylish nonchalance—as by their infectious proto-punk songcraft. When Room on Fire appeared two years later, the conversation about the Strokes was so preoccupied with their role in the early-’00s rock revival that few bothered to notice, hey, Nick Valensi had learned some killer guitar leads. So it’s appropriate that almost a decade after those impossibly cool kids were first unleashed on an unsuspecting popmusic press, the conversation still has more to do with the Strokes themselves than with newest LP Angles. In truth, Julian Casablancas and company have always been defined as much by what they are not—neither saviors nor destroyers of rock music—as what they are—a flawed, but talented outfit that once performed the rare feat of catching lightning in a bottle not once but twice. The inevitable exposition about whether or not rock is dead or alive (and whether Casablancas and Jack White resuscitated it, killed it or both) is unnecessary. Suffice it to say that Angles, like its lesser 2006 predecessor First Impressions of Earth, fails to capture that lightning a third time. Instead, it’s the dysfunctional yet promising work of five undeniably different individuals—different not only from each other, but from the swag-
gering early-twenties versions of themselves. The first thing anyone heard from Angles was how dissatisfied the band were with the process of making it. The idea was that unlike the first three albums, which Casablancas wrote for the most part by himself, the songwriting on this one would be a collaborative project. It shows, and the resulting LP could never be mistaken for cohesive. There’s some head-scratching influences at work here: the arena-rock theatrics of “Two Kinds of Happiness,” the new-wave slickness of “Games,” the proggy, meandering darkness of “Metabolism.” And though all of these tracks are recognizably Strokes, none even bother trying to be Is This It. Casablancas’ vocals are often frustratingly low in the mix, nowhere more so than the abortive “Call Me Back.” At the same time, a good portion of Angles bears more than a passing resemblance to their earlier masterpieces. Closer “Life Is Simple in the Moonlight” sounds pretty vintage, except for Casablancas’ singing the verses in an inquisitive falsetto. Twin standouts “Taken for a Fool” and “Under Cover of Darkness,” the album’s lead single, take the band’s former confidence and add a layer of world-weary humanism that might be the best possible addition to the Strokes’ arsenal. On the latter, Casablancas sings, “I’ve been around this town/ Everybody’s singing the same song for ten years,” a lyric more than a few critics have singled out as particularly ironic. But it’s his admonition, “Sister, don’t you forget my number,” on “Taken for a Fool” that really lands. Angles won’t cement the Strokes’ legacy, but it won’t ruin it either. —Ross Green
Thursday, March 24th “A Glenn Gould for the 21st century” -Los AngeLes Times
KURTÁG’S GHOST
SUNDAY, MARCH 27 7PM REYNOLDS THEATER GET TICKETS
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recess
March 24, 2011
Page 7
Top contemporary African-American art collected in exhibit by Andrew Hibbard THE CHRONICLE
With 30 Americans, the North Carolina Museum of Art enriches the local dialogue on contemporary art by African-American artists. The Raleigh museum’s presentation of this show from the Rubell Family Collection is a slightly abridged version of what the Rubell family first presented in 2008. Per the reputation of the Rubells, the work is smart, sharp and cutting edge, especially in its setting at the NCMA. The NCMA has ably handled the show. Some of the most exciting work—a series of drawings and video from the very queer Kalup Linzy, as well as two stunning, textbased works by Glenn Ligon (currently the subject of a much lauded Whitney Museum retrospective)—is prefaced with a content warning. A suite of magnificent, largerthan-life works by Jeff Sonhouse and Kehinde Wiley are brilliantly grouped together, demanding reverence usually reserved for the Old Masters. Wiley’s wall-spanning “Equestrian Portrait of the Count Duke Olivares” from 2005 inspires awe from its sheer size alone. The show does more than simply present these works; it places them in dialogue. Short quotations from many of the artists line the walls of the exhibition, announcing the theoretical concerns present here. A sense of history emerges as we see how the younger generation of artists like Mickalene Thomas, Xaviera Simmons, Hank
Willis Thomas and Rashid Johnson were informed by their predecessors—Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lorna Simpson, David Hammons, Carrie Mae Weems and Barkley Hendricks. Many of these artists ask about the role of representation, especially in painting, and the history that emerges is indeed an important one largely ignored by many mainstream institutions. And though this millennia-old question of representation and portraiture is always important, some of the most interesting work are those that resist such explicit identification. Rodney McMillian’s “Untitled” from 2005 (beautifully juxtaposed with a large Leonardo Drew sculpture) is an oddly cut, heavily used and deeply stained carpet. Hung from the wall, it spills onto the floor—unfortunately, the old galleries of the NCMA are still carpeted, diminishing some of the effect of the work. McMillian offers no answers to this work and refuses to identify its source. The work is radically open, brilliant in its elevation of the banal, demanding us to question the association between persons and environments. Individual works and inevitable omissions aside, 30 Americans is a remarkable assessment of the state of contemporary African-American art. 30 Americans will be on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art from March 19 to Sept. 4. Tickets are avaible for purchase at www.ncartmuseum.org
paul
dir. greg mottola universal pictures
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He looks like a typical alien: three feet tall, big eyes, green skin. But when Paul pulls out a joint and starts dropping fbombs, it’s clear that he is anything but. Paul is a sci-fi comedy that follows a pair of British geeks (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) as they embark on a road trip from San Diego’s Comic-Con across the U.S., determined to see a few alien hot spots along the way. As the two friends near Area 51, an explosive car accident introduces an unexpected guest: an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) who has just escaped a 60-year government imprisonment. The two nerds welcome Paul into their RV with open arms—after removing the “Alien on Board” bumper sticker, of course—and an epic chase en-
sues, with the government hot on their trail. On their quest to return Paul to his home planet, the eccentric trio encounters some interesting characters, including a one-eyed Bible-beater (Kristen Wiig) and her possessive redneck father. While there are a few overdone creationism jokes in the scenes that follow (Wiig’s character even sports a shirt of Jesus Christ gunning down Charles Darwin), the science-fiction references are even more widespread. Every scene contains some allusion to sci-fi culture, ranging from Star Wars to E.T. When Paul requests Reese’s Pieces at a gas station, for instance, I couldn’t help but chuckle. And while many of the more obscure references eluded me, I still found the film funny, quirky and even heartwarming. How did the film end? Let’s just say that it may or may not include a phone home. —Holly Hilliard
Experience the brand new invention guitar players are raving about-(See our review in Feb 2011 Guitar Player Magazine)
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Among the artists included in 30 Americans are Mickalene Thomas, Xaviera Simmons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Hank Willis Thomas, and the exhibit features work in a variety of different mediums.
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recess
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March 24, 2011
The Joy Formidable to play Coffeehouse by Jeff Shi
THE CHRONICLE
Welsh indie rockers the Joy Formidable released critically acclaimed debut LP The Big Roar in January, and will perform at the Duke Coffeehouse tonight with the Lonely Forest and Mona. Recess staff writer Jeff Shi spoke with bassist Rhydian Dafydd about their new album, their touring schedule and the songwriting process. Why did your LP The Big Roar take so long to release? Well, we’ve been real busy, and it just happened that we haven’t taken a very traditional path and we celebrate that. We’ve been touring incessantly for the past year and a half or two years. To be honest, A Balloon Called Moaning was kind of a happy accident, just a collection of songs we had at that point. But we always had in our minds an idea of a more proper debut album, and that’s what The Big Roar was. How do you guys feel all the touring time has changed you as a band? I know a few of your older songs have been tweaked for the full LP, especially “Whirring.” Was that a conscious, stylistic change? Not exactly: you know, on A Balloon Called Moaning, Ritzy (Bryan, vocals and guitar) and I played a lot of the drums ourselves. Adding Matt (Thomas, drums) added a new dynamic to our shows that we really wanted to capture on the new record. But we’ve never been really interested in sticking to a particular kind of style or genre: I think there’s a lot of different directions throughout the album. The main thing for us has always been trying to capture the story, and the souls of what the songs are about, really. On that note, what were those overall directions and concepts you had for the full album? We record everything ourselves, so a lot of the music is really immediate and spontaneous. But it’s also a very personal process, and the songs range from being really intimate to being social commentary or being really joyous. We just wanted to make sure it was all very truthful to ourselves—empathetic, without being indulgent. I watched the official, revamped “Whirring” music video recently. It’s really chaotic, with its rapid vantage shifts and blurring colors. How did that concept come about? It was really quite a process. We always have our own ideas to try out. To be honest, we’ve had tricky experiences with videos before. A lot of them have real fantastical elements and often they don’t work out, whether it’s a budget issue or just not having the right director to click with. We’ve always reveled in the charm of these kinds of weird, stylized videos, and there’s always a world that we have in mind to create. But this time around, our director, Chris-
special to The Chronicle
Welsh indie rockers the Joy Formidable have been touring extensively in support of debut album The Big Roar, which was released in January to widespread critical acclaim. They play the Duke Coffeehouse tonight. topher Mills, was quite an individualist and he was really about collaborating with us. It was a really good experience. How has the tour been so far? Is this the first time you’ve toured America this extensively? We hadn’t been in the States in too long, to be honest. It’s all kind of blended together—we did the U.K. for a couple weeks, Europe for a couple more, then we came straight here to do South by Southwest [Festival in Austin, Texas] to start our U.S. tour. We’re really looking forward to getting out to new places and meeting new people; we’ve done the coasts before, but we’ve never really dug into the Midwest or the South before. And then we really get to look into some of these up-andcoming bands in these local territories, as well, which we really enjoy. What are we looking at in the future for The Joy Formidable?
Always being busy is the way we work. We’re writing in the van, and writing lyrics, thinking about the next album and new songs—it’s just kind of our lifestyle. We’ll be going on more legs of this tour after this one, and we’ve got some festivals in the U.K. and Europe, then yet another leg in the U.S. But we’re making sure to squeeze in some more writing and remixing whenever we can. So what is the songwriting process in general like for the band? It’s mainly me and Ritzy, but we certainly jam ideas out in rehearsal with Matt and we like to change things up to keep ourselves stimulated. Sometimes it’s just me bringing ideas to Ritzy or vice versa; just one lyric, one melody, whatever. It always comes back to making sure we get across the feelings and stories at the core, and our songs take shape around that.
967-9053
300 E. Main St. Carrboro
March 29–30 Nederlands Dans Theater
April 1–2 Woyzeck on the Highveld – Handspring Puppet Company 5 St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra 12–13 BeijingDance/LDTX 14 Bach and Beyond – Jennifer Koh, violin 19 Tony Allen’s Afrobeat Orchestra 21 Branford Marsalis, saxophone, with the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra Showing at UNC’s Memorial Hall. Visit website for full season offerings.
MIKE POSNER
Woyzeck on the Highveld – Handspring Puppet Company Apr 1–2
@ DISCO RODEO
Thursday, april 17
PETER, BJORN and JOHN THE BOOKS
BeijingDance/LDTX Apr 12–13
Nederlands Dans Theater
@ CAT’S CRADLE
FRIday, april 29
INTERPOL @ DISCO RODEO
wednesday, May 4
Mar 29–30
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Advance sales at CD Alley (Chapel Hill) Charge by phone at 919-967-9053 Or on the web at WWW.ETIX.COM www.catscradle.com
Sports The Chronicle
THURSDAY March 24, 2011
>> INSIDE
A recap of the last games between Duke and Arizona
ONLINE
Arizona’s student newspaper, the Daily Wildcat, penned a blog post for us on why Arizona will win
www.dukechroniclesports.com
ARIZONA
DUKE SWEET 16 • TONIGHT • 9:45 p.m. • CBS
Duke set for ’01 title rematch How Duke copes with pressure by Vignesh Nathan THE CHRONICLE
regular season championship this season and advanced to the conference tournament championship game. In the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend, Williams, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, led Arizona to heart-stopping victories over Memphis and Texas with key plays in the last 10 seconds of each game. Against Memphis, Williams sealed the Wildcats victory with a game-saving block on the Tigers’ Wesley Witherspoon. Against the Longhorns, Williams again came through by converting a three-point play on a drive to the basket to give Arizona the win and its second ticket to the Sweet 16 in the past three years. But Williams, who Krzyzewski considers one of the best players in the country, is not the Wildcats’ only threat. “We appear to be a one-man team,” Arizona head coach Sean Miller said. “[But] you can’t win 29 games and be
Put yourself in Nolan Smith’s large shoes. What if you miss the shot that would bring home a championship? A long-anticipated bonfire would be cancelled. Fans will go to sleep feeling empty. Countless bloggers will criticize your downfall. This sure seems like a lot of pressure. In public, though, Duke players are careful to play down any notion of such a mental burden. “Yes, there is pressure [to succeed],” senior Kyle Singler said. A second later, though, he was quick to clarify what he felt pressure meant. “Well, it’s not really pressure, it’s just wanting to do well.” Greg Dale, Duke Director of the Sport Psychology and Leadership Programs, would disagree. He said that while pressure does exist, basketball players can work to alleviate its negative aspects. “Some people just say, ‘It’s no big deal’ or, ‘Just ignore [pressure], it’s no different from a regular season game.’ Pressure is real. Expectations are real,” Dale said. “You have to let go of what people’s expectations are—the media’s, the crowd’s.” Dale explained that standard psychology tells us that allowing yourself to feel the burden of these pressures will only negatively affect your performance, leaving you more likely to disappoint the very fans that levy them. In order to perform optimally, an athlete needs to adopt a “winner’s personality.” He shouldn’t be concerned over meeting the expectations of fans, the psychologist said. Doing so will allow the athlete to focus on the basics and the task at hand. Athletes aren’t playing for an audience—they are playing for themselves and their team. Similarly, in such a mindset, basketball players in high-
See arizona on page 6
See dale on page 7
nate glencer/The Chronicle
For the first time since 2001, Duke—led by senior Kyle Singler—will face Arizona. The Wildcats boast a star center in Derrick Williams. by Jacob Levitt THE CHRONICLE
The last time Duke and Arizona met, the Blue Devils came away with an 82-72 victory to earn head coach Mike Krzyzewski his third national title. Today, the two teams meet again in the West Regional semifinal in Anaheim, Calif., at 9:45 p.m. with a place in the Elite Eight at stake. The ten years since that loss have not been good ones by the lofty standards of the Wildcats, a former basketball powerhouse under the reign of Hall of Famer Lute Olson. In 2009-10, head coach Sean Miller’s first year, the team finished only one game over .500 and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years. But behind the stellar play of sophomore Derrick Williams, a 6-foot-8 forward whose athleticism and 3-point accuracy have NBA scouts salivating, Arizona won the Pac-10
swimming & diving
Johnston recounts her nat’l title victory by Tom Gieryn THE CHRONICLE
Abby Johnston concentrates on the music playing from her headphones as she prepares to jump three meters from a springboard into 18 feet of water in Austin, Texas. It’s the third of her six dives, her hardest dive, and although it’s been in her repertoire for years, it’s still the biggest hurdle in her program. Earbuds removed, she steps up on the board and waves to her mother, as she does before every dive. She jumps, then falls.
Three and a half somersaults later, she hits the water. When she re-emerges above the surface, she’s not sure how it went. She looks to Drew Johansen, who has coached her since she was 12 years old and transitioning from gymnastics to diving. Johansen’s reaction will tell her everything she needs to know. She’s used to getting a relatively mild cheer, just a simple double fist pump. But she can tell right away this fist Special to The Chronicle
See johnston on page 7
Abby Johnston poses with her national championship trophy after winning the three-meter jump Friday.
6 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle
arizona from page 5 where we’re at if that’s the case.” The Wildcats lack other big names but are stocked with capable shooters and stand at eleventh in the country in three-point percentage. Their depth—they’ve played at least 10 players in every one of their games—allows them to take advantage of a good night from anyone of their role players. Most recently, forward Solomon Hill and guard Lamont Jones have come up strong for the Wildcats, with Hill scoring 16 points against Texas and Jones dropping 18 against Memphis. For Duke, much of this week’s media attention has focused on the return of freshman Kyrie Irving. Irving played last weekend after missing three months with a serious toe injury, and while he was on the court for significant minutes in both of the Blue Devils’ Tournament wins, questions remain about whether his role on the team will interfere with existing chemistry. But nobody on the Duke sideline has
expressed any doubt that his return will be anything other than an enormous boon. “You get better if you add talent, as long as it doesn’t hurt chemistry.... We’ve kept up, pretty much, our chemistry,” Krzyzewski said. “The other thing is, he’s really good.... He’s not at the level he was when he got hurt, but the guys know he’s good, so they want him.” Irving, who was able to penetrate almost at will before his injury, could be crucial against an Arizona team that plays excellent defense along the perimeter—holding opponents under 30 percent from behind the arc—but has had trouble containing quick guards like Washington’s Isaiah Thomas, who burned the Wildcats’ defense for an average of 20.3 points and nine assists in their three matchups this season. If Irving has recovered enough of his quickness to drive to the basket, this could be a good matchup for the Blue Devils. And if Duke is able to slow the Wildcats on defense and bring its offense into the paint, the result of the game against Arizona could look a whole lot like the last one.
nate glencer/The Chronicle
Kyrie Irving is expected to play significant minutes, but still will not start Thursday against Arizona.
rivalry rewind
FEB. 24, 1991
ARIZONA 103, DUKE 96
NOV. 26, 1997
ARIZONA 95, DUKE 87
Playing in their first competitive Playing their fourth game in five years, Duke and Arizona need two game since their national champiovertimes to decide this one. The onship win, the Wildcats give up 21 Wildcats edge ahead, extending their points to William Avery but hold on to top Duke home-court winning streak to 61
APRIL 2, 2001
DUKE 82, ARIZONA 72
DEC. 2004 NO GAMES
Most Duke fans shouldn’t have to be According to the Arizona Repubreminded of this win, a 2001 national lic, then-coach Lute Olson wanted championship that featured several no part in a regular season game key threes from Mike Dunleavy and a against Duke in New Jersey. The Gilbert Arenas meltdown teams haven’t played since 2001 The interdisciplinary certificate, Latino/a Studies in the Global South, provides students with comparative, historical, and cultural knowledge of Latino communities. Open to students from all disciplines, the certificate offers a better understanding of Latinos in the United States and provides an extra credential as you leave Duke for the “real world.” The following Fall 2011 courses all count towards the certificate: Intro to Latino/a Studies in the Global South with Prof Antonio Viego, LSGS 100S/SPAN 120S/AAAS 199S/LIT 162ES Reading Latina and Latino History through Literature with Prof Claudia Milian, LSGS 181S/SPAN 181S/ICS 131GS Latino/a Voices in Duke, Durham, and Beyond with Prof Joan Clifford, LSGS 106ES/SPAN 106ES Mayas, Aztecs and Incas with Prof Walter Mignolo, LSGS 155/SPAN 155D/ICS 155/CULANTH 157 Health, Culture, and the Latino Community, LSGS 106/ SPAN 106A
For additional courses and more info on the certificate, visit latino.aas.duke.edu.
the chronicle
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 | 7
dale from page 5 pressure situations like the NCAA Tournament simply cannot afford to be tormented by prior poor performance, Dale said. Rather, they need to exude confidence in their abilities throughout the good and bad. We often hear examples of shooting slumps, such as Singler’s ongoing 8-of-41 performance from 3-point range. Dale explained, though, that Singler should not think about the shooting slump tonight against Arizona. If he did, Duke’s championship prospects would certainly be dampened. “[Duke basketball players] have a win-
tyler seuc/The Chronicle
“You absolutely have to be mentally tough to be a Duke Basketball player,” Greg Dale said.
ner’s mentality. They look at the game as an opportunity to do something great,” Dale said. “These guys want to be great. J.J. Redick was a great athlete. He would miss his first eight shots, but continue to take them, thinking, ‘The next one’s going in.’” For a Duke basketball player, there is more to worry about than the pressure that society levies on you—or “external pressure,” Dale said. Even worse are internal pressures—those that players levy on themselves. Duke basketball players hold themselves to extraordinarly high standards. As much as students want them to succeed, they want themselves to succeed even more. And, as everybody can attest, disappointment in yourself takes a much heavier mental toll than a stranger’s disappointment in you. “There are external expectations and internal expectations,” Dale said. “The internal expectations can be even more difficult to overcome.” Whether it is external or internal, athletes cannot allow themselves to be burdened by pressure. Basketball is just as much of a mental game as it is physical. “You absolutely have to be mentally tough to be a Duke Basketball player,” Dale said. “They are under the limelight all the time. Mental toughness is a key part of their success.” Still, some will remain skeptical of whether the Blue Devils can ever truly ignore the encumbrance of high expectations. Before the season even began, experts almost unanimously picked Duke to win the title. At one point in the season, four members of the starting lineup were considered firstround draft picks. Students even began to plan a trip to Houston in December. To Duke fans, anything less than a fifth banner would be a disappointment. But they can only hope that the members of the basketball team don’t care.
johnston from page 5 pump is bigger than usual. She’s scored a 69.75 for the dive, her second-highest score of the day and the best by any diver in this round. Her lead is intact, and she’s well on her way to the first NCAA championship in Duke women’s aquatics history. She had dreamed of that moment for years, ever since she first enrolled at Duke. But this was no dream, and she had led the three-meter springboard event from start to finish at the NCAA championships, en route to a final score of 409.35 and a national title. Preliminaries for the event started off on a rocky note, as her first dive netted her just 49.5 points to put her in 22nd place, distant from the top-eight finish she would need to proceed to the finals. “I was a little cautious in the morning, and didn’t start off on the right foot,” she said. But a strong final dive, the best of the sixth round, scored her over 70 points and vaulted her into fifth place and on to the finals. In the finals she was determined to start on a good note. Her first dive is the one she’s most comfortable with, and she planned to use it to get her championship efforts off to a strong start. “If she really hits it, then she’s in position to go wire-to-wire like she did,” Johansen said. “And her consistency is so high on it that even when she doesn’t do it perfectly, it still keeps her in the mix to be one of the top performers.” And hit it she did, scoring a pair of nines and four 8.5s from the panel of judges. It earned her 76.5 points and put her in the lead right out of the gate. She had no intention of looking back from there. “To hit that first dive so well, I just knew it was all going to fall into place,”
she said. The confidence she gained from her first dive set the tone for the rest of her program, which she performed with outstanding consistency: no score below 63, and no worse than fourth place in any of the rounds. “All the technique in the sport kind of goes out the window,” Johansen said. “She became a performer.” She knows she wouldn’t have performed nearly as well without the coach whom she calls a “second father.” Johansen’s hiring at Duke after Johnston’s junior year of high school led Abby to move from Ohio to Durham and finish high school online. The coach’s guidance and encouragement have developed more than just Johnston’s diving technique. The life that she’s discovered at Duke outside of diving has also helped her keep her focus in the pool. “I used to put a lot more pressure on myself, and be a lot more upset if I didn’t do as well in diving,” she said. “Coming to Duke [has made] the failures in diving less significant because if I had gone to NCAAs and gotten last, boo hoo, bummer, I still have biology class on Monday…. I’ve really figured out the other things in my life that I want apart from diving, and that has enhanced my diving career.” Her diving career is hardly slowing down, however, as she’s set her sights higher even than to repeat as an NCAA national champion next year. Her “ultimate dream” is to make the 2012 Olympic team. To do that, she’ll need a top-notch performance at the FINA World Aquatics Championships in July in Shanghai, China. But her accomplishments to this point make her a leading candidate to represent the U.S. in London in 2012. For now, though, the NCAA title will do.
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8 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle Classifieds
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Duke Youth Programs has openings for male applicants for residential counselor positions. If interested, please contact Thomas Patterson at 684-5387. Email tpatters@duke.edu
Product Design and Marketing
Need to boost your child’s interest and confidence in science? engineering? business skills? Enroll today in this weekend workshop for middle school students!Visit www.learnmore. duke.edu/youth or call 684-6259 for more information. Space is limited! Email youth@duke.edu ASTHMATICS NEEDED Single visit study We are collecting blood, urine and/or household dust for various research studies, performed at the NIEHS Clinical Research Unit. Qualified participants may receive up to $90. Participants must provide own transportation. Contact Nicole 919-541-9899.
Teaching Licensure
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Email youth@duke.edu DUKE SUMMER SESSION ONLINE!
Three great courses to choose from in Term 1: ENGLISH 109S Writing the Experience, EDUC 168/ PUBPOL 106K Reform in American Classrooms, PUBPOL 196S Writing for Public Policy. Questions? Contact summer@duke.edu. Registration now underway.
RESEARCH STUDIES Participants are needed for studies of visual and hearing function using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These studies are conducted at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC) at Duke University Medical Center. Participants should be 18 years old or older and should have no history of brain injury or disease. Most studies last between 1-2 hours, and participants are paid approximately $20/hr. Please contact the BIAC volunteer coordinator at 681-9344 or volunteer@ biac.duke.edu for additional information. You can also visit our website at www.biac.duke.edu.
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Head Camp Counselor Position
Stoneridge Swim Club in Chapel Hill is now hiring for a Head Camp Counselor for the summer. This position requires at least 2 years of prior camp counselor experience. Competitive Pay. Great work environment. Application is on our website @ sssrc.org. Email is sssrc@mindspring.com.
THE CHRONICLE BUSINESS OFFICE is looking for student to work approximately 6-8 hrs per week for the summer and continue next year as well. Can come in a few hours per week immediately for training. Various office duties including data entry, deposits , filing and customer service. Please contact: Mary Weaver for appointment: mweaver@duke.edu, 684-0384.
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the chronicle
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 | 9
Diversions Shoe Chris Cassatt and Gary Brookins
Dilbert Scott Adams
Doonesbury Garry Trudeau
The Chronicle What we do while waiting for stories to come in: down fruit roll-ups: ���������������������������������������������������������toni/y, nick listen to elevator music: �������������������������� ruppdough, sst, ndotkyle wait it out at shootahs: ������������������������������������������������������������ fairy eat 2 nug bucks: ������������������������������������������������������������������� cleeliza teach ‘intro to intros’: �������������������������������������������� andyksavesduke follow @msrebeccablack: ������������������������������������ court, natie, chelz marry claire?: ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� pena couldn’t care less: ����������������������������������������������������������������������alem Barb Starbuck’s time is money: ������������������������������������������������� Barb
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10 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle commentaries
Reform, don’t cut, Pell Grants If Republicans in Con- administration to consider gress have their way, it may reducing the amount of aid become even more difficult the program provides. for America’s neediest to atThe Federal Pell Grant tend college. Program was introduced in According to The Chron- 1972 as part of a reform to icle of Higher the Higher editorial Education, Education lawmakers on Act. The proCapitol Hill have proposed gram awards grant money cutting $5.7 billion dollars to any student that qualifies from the Federal Pell Grant by meeting the standards of Program, which awards fed- need determined by the U.S. eral grants to low-income stu- Department of Education. dents hoping to attend col- The program has steadily exlege. The program currently panded since its inception. has a budget shortfall of $10.7 In 2007, Congress passed a billion — mostly because of a bill raising the income cutsurge in the number of stu- off for the maximum award dents eligible for awards and amount from $20,000 to increases in the maximum $30,000. Over the last two aid amount in the last de- years, the maximum award cade. This deficit shows no amount has increased by signs of decreasing, prompt- $819 to reach $5,500. And, ing Congress and the Obama in 2008, Congress approved
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onlinecomment
Congratulations, Alex. I have been reading your columns since I was a freshman premed at Duke, and they have been consistently insightful, informative, and entertaining.
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—“Trinity11” commenting on the column “Match day.” See more at www.dukechronicle.com.
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a measure allowing students to receive two Pell Grants in one academic year. If Republican budget cuts pass, nearly one quarter of current Pell Grant recipients would lose their eligibility, while those remaining would see an average $745 reduction in their award. These cuts stand to have a powerful impact on those that need grants to attend college. The loss of aid money could force some to take out costly loans to continue their education, and pressure others to drop out of school altogether. The proposed cuts to Pell Grants join a long list of other valuable social programs, most notably Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio, that have recently been on the Congressional chop-
ping block. These programs provide beneficial services to the public, but are viewed as excessive due to current budgetary constraints. Fortunately, Duke students receiving Pell Grants will not see a reduction in their aid. In an article published in the February 18 issue of The Chronicle, Vice Provost and Director of Financial Aid Alison Rabil, said that any reduction in federal Pell Grants will be replaced with a matching Duke grant. This will nullify any effect grant markdowns might have on Duke students receiving Pell Grants, who made up 12 percent of the study body and 29 percent of all financial aid recipients in the 2009-2010 school year. However, not all students
are able to attend private institutions with large financial aid budgets. One quarter of all Pell Grants go to for-profit colleges, although only ten percent of all students attend such institutions. Furthermore, many students using Pell Grants at for profit colleges never graduate, resulting in for- profit colleges collecting federal grants from students who never receive a diploma. Withholding grant funds from institutions with low completion rates is one way to ensure that grants are not wasted. Ultimately, attempts to reform the Pell Grant program should come before aggressive cuts. Policy changes in education are serious, and should not be left to partisan politics.
My language
ollege has become sort of like what a come to CAPS are for non-emergencies. Holbeach weekend used to be. Students lingsworth worries in the next 10 years that this think, ‘What we do here doesn’t really non-emergency service “could get lost.” count in our lives, doesn’t really count in the A senior woman I talked to highlighted a real world,’ but you can’t live four negative element of her CAPS years like that,” says Kathy Hollingexperience. She felt that her sworth, the director of Counseling counselor “couldn’t relate to and Psychological Services for the me culturally at all. I talked to past six years who will retire this him about my experience dealsummer. ing with the black community at Last semester, when I could have Duke, and he was clueless about used the (professional) ears of a how to help me.” She added that stranger, I didn’t seek out the seralthough it was helpful to talk vices that CAPS offers. I’ve noticed samantha lachman through her issues, she was left that among my friends and acquain- my favourite things wanting “long-term solutions.” tances, we don’t talk about going She still views CAPS as “a posito CAPS. One sophomore who retive thing that all Duke students quested anonymity explained: “Despite the fact should take advantage of.” that I share almost all of my most personal conHollingsworth admits, “In some sense, we’ll cerns with my friends, I am still hesitant to dis- never have a large enough counseling staff.” Decuss the fact that I have been to CAPS numerous spite the budget constraints of the last few years, times. I just don’t want a sign attached to my “[Vice President for Student Affairs] Larry Monhead that reads ‘mental case.’” eta has gone the extra mile in helping us.” Concerns about wait-times for non-emergenDuring her tenure, CAPS has added three to cy appointments are common. It turns out it four new positions. Even so, the current system doesn’t take a month (like I’ve always thought) is reaching maximum capacity. Hollingsworth to get an appointment. According to Holling- says, “We make a lot of efforts to see students swoth, “Last year an analysis of students’ mean right now. We’re dropping most of our meetlength of wait for initial appointment indicated ings; some people are even seeing students over that 49 percent of our student clients were seen lunch. It’s a priority to get students in.” Waitwithin one week and 83 percent were seen with- times may be longer than is ideal, and this perin 2 weeks. Among all, 29 percent of students petuates the misguided perception that it’s imwere seen within three days or less, including possible to get an appointment. the same day they called.” A lot of what CAPS does is beyond the realm Not too shabby, eh? of one-on-one appointments. Staff members host But there are more threads to the issue of workshops on everything from romance and mental health at Duke, including visibility. I dating at Duke (apparently both are possible) usually glance over the bus advertisements and to combating procrastination. They also meet CAPS plugs in emails from my RA. Hollings- with student organizations to create “more carworth said, “People don’t notice a service until ing mental health communities.” Hollingsworth they need it or a friend needs it.” I’ve worried said that last year, they had more than 19,000 before about referring a friend to CAPS, for fear contacts with students through these programs they’d see the recommendation as a betrayal of and others, and added that “many people will trust. Hollingsworth explained that last year, test out the waters by attending a program and they had more than 2,000 consults with con- come in sideways” to other services. cerned friends or adults: It’s not uncommon to Kelly Crace, a CAPS staff psychologist, will do so, and “it could be one of the most impor- be replacing Hollingsworth as executive directant interventions in a student’s life.” tor July 1. Financial constraints dictate the availAnother sophomore explained, “I initially ability and quality of mental health care.... but refused to seek help from CAPS just because my I hope that during his tenure, we can remove culture looks down upon psychological treat- the stigma associated with seeking out his staff’s ment,” but that after making a pact with two of support for personal problems. It’s impressive her best friends, she was “glad my friends could to admit you need help, and it’s encouraging step up for me when I couldn’t for myself.” when you share that experience with others. One misconception about CAPS is that it’s only there for emergency situations. In reality, Samantha Lachman is a Trinity sophomore. Her roughly 85 percent of the students who initially column runs every other Thursday.
the chronicle
commentaries
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 | 11
The Psychological Network In my four years at Duke, I have noticed changes in our noring the richness of their lives, the complexity of their beUniversity’s co-curricular world. Our Women’s Center, Cen- liefs and the strength of their own agency. And when I speak ter for Muslim Life and Center for LGBT Life, authoritatively on behalf of others without for example, have all created safe spaces, intheir permission, I may foster silence. If I becreased visibility and fostered a stronger cullieve open dialogue is important for mutual ture of acceptance. understanding, then I owe others the right to Developments like these make me proud speak for themselves. I owe myself the right to be a Duke student because they affirm our of speaking about my own thoughts, too. community’s willingness to engage in cross-exI don’t want to be impractical about this. Imperiential exchange. personal statements are often more grammatiSome things haven’t changed, though. In cally expedient. Sometimes we need to exchange this past year alone, certain emails, PowerPoints sandeep prasanna measured introspection for efficiency, especially and conversations have damaged my optimism. hooked on phonetics in academic contexts where big-picture obserWith just seven weeks left before I graduate, I vation is prized. Generalizations can be useful am unsure of what I can do to affect things at when they are qualified. And it’s difficult to conDuke. I wonder if my ability to make a structural impact on stantly frame thoughts with the words “I,” “me” and “my.” our community is limited because our undergraduate popuBut I find strength in that difficulty. In challenging mylation changes every year. self to confront myself, I also challenge myself to understand So in my last weeks here, I am challenging myself to reject my world. And if, in turn, I find myself wanting that world to those helpless sentiments. change, I hope that I can act with self-aware conviction. This past weekend, I facilitated dialogue on the Common Linguists argue about the circular relationship between Ground retreat, an intensive weekend-long conversation on language and thought. Linguistic relativity is the controverrace, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic status. This was my sial idea that our language determines how we think, popusecond time attending Common Ground; I had gone as a larly represented by Newspeak in George Orwell’s “1984.” participant last Spring. Just like last year, I left the retreat on Indeed, some analyses have noted that idiosyncrasies in our Sunday feeling overwhelmed with emotion and energized for language may force us to think about certain things and vice the last few weeks of the semester. versa. Just like gendered languages (French, for example) One of the cornerstones of the retreat is personal reflec- force me to reveal the sex of my dinner companion and even tion. Last year, and again this past weekend, I was constantly conceive of certain words as masculine or feminine, I trust asked to place my feelings under a microscope. Why do I feel that my measured I-statements force me to confront my conthe way I do about race? How do my actions and language re- ceptions of the world. flect, and not reflect, my views on gender and sexuality? What In Ayn Rand’s novella “Anthem,” society has destroyed can I do on a personal level to change my world if I want to? the concept of “I.” When the protagonist rediscovers the Introspection is a powerful tool, but I don’t know if we word “I,” it gives him, for the first time, the powerful posuse it often enough to understand our communities and our- sibility of personal expression, reflection and agency. Our selves. And it’s incredible how our language facilitates or in- world is no collectivist dystopia, but I do often forget about hibits introspective thought. the weight “I” carries. “I-statements” are sentences that speak to one’s own If I develop a habit of introspection as a result of using personal experience rather than generalizations about oth- I-statements, I would be proud. If I lead others to introspect ers—for example, saying, “I believe...” rather than “Indians because I frame my dialogues with them in terms of personal believe...” or even “I think that Indians believe....” Forcing experience, I would be humbled. I don’t have much more myself to use them has begun to affect the way that I think. time here. There are many ways I can leave my mark on the I-statements force me to confront my own experience, pre- Duke community, but maybe the most meaningful is an open venting me from clouding my process of reflection with im- challenge to myself and to others to purposefully change our personal, generalized language and thought. language and reflect. Indeed, who am I to speak for other people, anyway? When I use generalizations like “Women at Duke act...,” Sandeep Prasanna is a Trinity senior and a Program II major I risk alienating others by invalidating their experience. examining the dynamics of language. His column runs every other When I speak on behalf of other individuals, I could be ig- Thursday.
I
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More than a statistic
’ve known Kate (whose name has been campus,” Kate said. “You go to Duke, and changed to protect her identity) for a you expect to be around intelligent people few years, but she is a completely dif- who don’t do violent things like this.” ferent person now than Yet, she’s now part of the she was when I first met often cited statistic: one in her. Once a free spirit, she four women on a college camis now mistrusting of othpus will be sexually assaulted. ers and continuously conThe gross reality of this numscious of her personal safeber isn’t apparent because as ty on campus. “As much as many as 60 percent of sexual I love it here, there’s always assault cases in the U.S. go going to be another part of Between July and bhumi purohit unreported. me that hates Duke—just December of 2010 alone, the really hates it,” she told Women’s Center saw 29 cases got privilege? me. “It’s not only because of rape or sexual assault, 25 of what happened, but in which the alleged perpetrabecause of that mentality that if you don’t tor was a Duke undergraduate or a recent have it together and everything’s not going alumnus. Even this seemingly high number perfectly for you—well, that’s too bad. We is likely a vast underrepresentation of the don’t care about you.” actual instances of sexual assault. By reportKate’s opinion is not one that is often ing, survivors often fear confronting the heard, but is understandable all the same. stigma that had they consumed less alcohol She will forever associate the University with or dressed conservatively, they wouldn’t the night she was raped. On a Last Day of have been sexually assaulted. Classes, as she walked the halls of a dorm on Kate already blamed herself for what West Campus, she was forced onto a table had happened, but the thought of the poby two undergraduate Duke men and sexu- lice or the Undergraduate Conduct Board ally assaulted. She awoke the next morning also blaming her stopped Kate from redazed, confused and unable to fully com- porting the incident. She felt that her story prehend what had happened. She felt used, could potentially be leaked to the media, dirty, degraded and disempowered. and she would be unable to psychologically “Before this happened, it had never even move on from the incident. occurred to me that there was a possibility Perhaps the most difficult and salient I could be raped, especially on a college aspect of dealing with the aftermath of the
assault for Kate was moving on with her academic life. She met with her academic dean once after LDOC to explain what had happened and asked for extensions for her exams. Yet, one of her professors was unresponsive to her request. Kate was unable to explain her situation to her professor, and after being forced to take the exam, her GPA plummeted. As Kate dealt with her academics the following summer, she was overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness and a lack of support from Duke. After the initial meeting, Kate’s dean didn’t invite her for further talks about her academic struggles that resulted from the assault. Feeling helpless, Kate approached her dean about possibly transferring schools but received little support. “When I said I want to transfer, she basically just said ‘OK,’ and it felt like Duke didn’t care that this had happened or cared that I was here,” said Kate. After receiving counseling from the Women’s Center, however, Kate began the process of rehabilitating. She credits the center’s support as a main reason for her wanting to make her story public. In doing so, she hopes that Duke students will recognize that sexual assault is a serious problem on campus. Essential to this understanding is learning how to recognize potentially dangerous situations and intervene effectively. This year, the Women’s Center started a
program, Prevent Act Challenge Teach (PACT), which teaches just that. Additionally, the University has been actively working on the Gender Violence Prevention and Intervention Task Force, a group intended to investigate how to reduce the number of incidences of gender violence on campus. Despite this progress, Kate continues seeing other women, and at times, men, struggle with sexual assault. “To think that it’s still going on around me makes me so angry and frustrated,” she said. “You would think that once would be enough, but it just keeps happening over and over again. And it’ll keep happening until we step up as a community and say, ‘No, this is wrong.’” We, as students, administrators and faculty members, all ought to recognize the pervasiveness of sexual assault incidences on campus and urge our community to create an environment that is supportive to survivors. Whether you know it or not, it is possible that a friend or acquaintance has been sexually assaulted while at college. Visible or not, sexual assault is one of the most violent and underreported crimes on campus. It’s not just a statistic, but a grim reality that exists at Duke—one that will only be resolved when we collectively confront it. Bhumi Purohit is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Thursday.
12 | THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 the chronicle
studentaffairs.duke.edu 919-684-3737 twitter.com/duke_sa www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Duke-University-Student-Affairs/5536709183
Black Student Alliance Invitational Weekend 2011 This weekend, the Black Student Alliance, the Mary Lou Williams Center and Duke will welcome nearly 120 Black prospective first-year students to campus. Join us for an exciting, fun-filled weekend that will showcase the diversity of our community. Events this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Visit studentaffairs.duke.edu/mlw for more information.
Feminist Day & Night Come out to listen to music, eat free food and get free t-shirts and pins to celebrate our feminist identities! Festivities run from 10 am-1 pm at the Women’s Center. Later that night, the Women’s Center will host Feminists’ Night In. Feminists are invited to watch movies and just have a good time with the Women’s Collective. Come join the fun!
studentaffairs.duke.edu/events Fannie Mitchell Expert in Residence: Keith Griffith, Groupon 3/24, 9-10:30 am, Smith Warehouse, Bay 6, 2nd Floor How to Write a Persuasive Cover Letter for Ph.D. Students 3/24, 12-1:30 pm, Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, 2nd Floor Islam in a Post 9-11 US 3/24, 7-9 pm, Locatio, Physics 128 Part of Islamic Awareness Month www.dukemsa.org for more info Parenting 101: Who Are YOU Kidding? 3/24, 7:30-8:30 pm, Center for Multicultural Affairs Jummu’ah 3/25, 12:45 pm, York Reading Room, Gray 229 Social Movements: Fictional, Fractional, Factual Keynote by Sonia Sanchez 3/25, 1:30 pm, Von Canons, Bryan Center
Feminist Day 3/25, 11:30 am-1:30 pm, Bryan Center Plaza International Graduate Student Focus Group 3/25, 12-1:30 pm, Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, 2nd Floor First-Year Fridays: Drop-In Advising Hours on East Campus 3/25, 1-3 pm, Marketplace South Balcony Shabbat with Jewish Life at Duke Reform & Conservative Services and Benenson Family Shabbat Dinner 3/25, 6:15-8:15 pm, Freeman Center for Jewish Life Feminists’ Night In 3/25-26, 10 pm-1 am, Women’s Center After Egypt: Background and Strategies Regarding Israel and Palestine 3/28, 5-6 pm, Breedlove Room, Perkins Library
Stressed for Success 3/25, 4-5:15 pm, Duke Student Wellness Center
Profiles in Sexuality Research with Rosalind S. Chou 3/29, 12-1:30 pm, Center for LGBT Life, 2 West Union
CLG Series: I-House & CMA 3/24, 5-6:30 pm, International House
Senior Job Search Lab 3/29, 1:30-2:30 pm, Allen 304i
The Mellon HBCU Fellowship Program year-end colloquium at the Franklin Humanities Institute, now in it’s third year, will feature poet, activist, professor, teacher and author Sonia Sanchez as keynote speaker on Day 2 of the symposium, 3/25, 1-3 pm in the Bryan Center, Von Canon rooms. A book signing will follow the event.
Women Loving Women @ Duke 3/24, 6-8 pm, Center for LGBT Life, 2 West Union
Stand Up Documentary 3/29, 7-9 pm, Location TBA Part of Islamic Awareness Month www.dukemsa.org for more info
Visit www.fhi.duke.edufor more information.
Deloitte Chairman Sharon Allen at the UNC Women in Business Conference 3/25, registration begins at 8:30 am, Kenan-Flagler School of Business, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Visit studentaffairs.duke.edu/wc for more information.
Social Movements: Fictional, Fractional, Factual
japanrelief.duke.edu Please visit this page for events and updates on local efforts to support relief and recovery in Japan.
STRESSED=DESSERTS: take a study break for yummy desserts 3/24, 7-10 pm, OASIS Center, Bell Tower
Going Virtual: Effectively Branding Yourself and Networking Online for Ph.D. Students 3/30, 12-1 pm, Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, 2nd Floor Jazz at the Mary Lou 3/30, 5-8 pm, Mary Lou Williams Center, West Union