Mar. 31, 2011 issue

Page 1

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 31, 2011

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH YEAR, Issue 124

www.dukechronicle.com

potti investigation

Nevins defends 3,739 offered spots in Class of 2015 Duke admits 10.8% of regular decision applicant pool, a new record Duke response to flawed data by Melissa Dalis THE CHRONICLE

For eager high school seniors, the wait is finally over. The University offered 3,094 applicants the chance to join Duke’s Class of 2015 yesterday. Combined with the 645 high school students already admitted under Duke’s binding early decision program in December, a total of 3,739 seniors have been admitted this year. The acceptance rate for regular decision applicants was 10.8 percent. Overall, including the 29 percent early decision acceptance rate, the admissions department extended offers to 12.6 percent of applicants, representing a 2.2 percent decrease from last year’s overall acceptance rate. In addition, 2,300 students were offered a spot on the waitlist, which is 1,000 fewer than last year, admissions officials said. “This was an incredibly challenging year, both for the applicants and for the staff of the admissions office,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag said in a Duke news release. “We wanted to ensure that every application received a thorough review, while being aware that we had a limited amount of time to do so.” In an interview, Guttentag said the department is hoping for a yield rate in the mid-40

by Tullia Rushton and Zachary Tracer THE CHRONICLE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The mentor of discredited Duke cancer researcher Dr. Anil Potti provided the first public account of his thoughts and actions as the cancer research he developed with Potti and other scientists came under fire. In an hour-and-a-halflong presentation to an Institute of Medicine committee, Joseph NevAnil Potti ins, Barbara Levine professor of breast cancer genomics, defended his and Duke’s handling of criticisms about the research that mounted over several years. But he acknowledged that he failed to identify problems with the underlying data Potti used to conduct cancer research at Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, which was regarded as groundbreaking when it was published. “I didn’t recognize that a critical flaw in the research effort was one of data corruption, an apparent manipulation of validation data,” Nevins told the committee. The IOM committee is working to establish standards for genomics research and other medical science based on large quantities of data. The committee was established in response to the Potti affair. In a curt exchange with committee member Thomas Fleming, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington, Nevins refused to say how he believed the data problems occurred. Fleming pointed out that because the problems in the data improved the experimental results, it seemed that they were introduced intentionally. “I can’t address it,” Nevins responded. “I just can’t get into a position of speculating on how it happened.” He noted that Duke is conducting a research misconduct inquiry to investigate how the data errors occurred. And although Potti has resigned and accepted responsibility for problems with the data, Nevins never mentioned his former colleague’s name during the presentation. ‘Too good to be true’ Nevins did attempt to explain why it took years for Duke to address the criticisms of the research. See nevins on page 6

Duke prepares for switch to Sakai with pilot program, Page 4

See class of 2015 on page 5

chronicle graphic by courtney douglas

vice president for residence life and dining

Four compete to take on new VP position by Matthew Chase THE CHRONICLE

From planning the details of the house model to dealing with the merger of Campus Council and Duke Student Government, next year’s vice president for residential life and dining will be kept busy. The four candidates campaigning for the new position have expressed an interest in overseeing the development of the house model—set to be implemented in Fall 2012—as well as handling other ongoing housing and dining issues. The position—which will oversee a number of decisions that Campus Council has handled in the past—received the most applicants of all DSG vice presidential races, with six students initially running for the position. The four candidates still actively campaigning have experience in Campus Council or DSG. Freshman Wally Gurzynski and juniors Jeremy Moskowitz and Esosa

Osa currently serve on the residence life and dining committee, which was established in light of Campus Council’s merger with DSG. Freshman Philip Srebrev currently serves as a student affairs senator in DSG. The other two candidates who entered the race have since reconsidered their decisions. Freshman Leila Alapour withdrew her candidacy, and freshman Samuel Kebede wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle that he is “probably not” going to run for the position, although he has not officially withdrawn from the race, said DSG Attorney General Ryan Clark, a junior. All the candidates running expressed support for the decision to merge Campus Council and DSG, largely because the merger will allow students to lobby for residential life and dining issues more than they were able to do as a part of Campus Council.

ONTHERECORD

“Black culture is Duke culture... We find no shame in promoting this culture especially at Duke.”

­—BSA President Nana Asante on BSAI. See story page 4

See vp on page 8

NYT journalist speaks on Islam in post-9/11 America, Page 3


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Mar. 31, 2011 issue by Duke Chronicle - Issuu