October 16, 2017 by Duke Chronicle

The Chronicle

See Inside Florida State runs away from Duke’s defense

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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

MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2017 DUKECHRONICLE.COM

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 23

TOWERVIEW Nina Wilder | Contributing Graphic Designer

Low socioeconomic students discuss what it is like to pursue tech By Shannon Fang Contributing Reporter

THE CLIMB Students recount climbing Baldwin Auditorium By Selena Qian Contributing Reporter

*Name has been changed to protect the student’s identity. Wilson residence hall was in an uproar. It was election night 2016. One student rushed into the common room, carrying a lifesize cardboard cutout of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. During the night, sophomore Ben Peterson and three others climbed Baldwin Auditorium with the cutout, placing it on top. They tied it down with a hanger since they had no rope and weighed it down with rocks and a traffic cone. Peterson said he isn’t sure who came up with the idea to put the cutout on top of the roof, but several students had been upset about the election results. “It relieves a lot of stress and frustration,” Peterson said. “It was nothing harmful, but we made a statement.” Early the next morning, Duke maintenance workers took down the cutout. But several students with 8:30 a.m. classes noticed it in time to take videos of the removal. Peterson said he had always been curious about climbing Baldwin. A month and a half into his first year, he heard a few others in his dorm talking about it. The first time Peterson climbed, he was alone, wearing white shorts, a bright shirt and the wrong shoes for this kind of activity. He was somewhat visible even in the dark, but he said he wasn’t worried about getting caught. Since then, Peterson has climbed Baldwin about five times, often with friends such as fellow sophomore Ahmed Ahmed-Fouad. The first time Ahmed-Fouad climbed Baldwin, it was on a whim. When he mentioned to Peterson that he hadn’t yet climbed Baldwin, Peterson decided they should go together. It was around midnight, near the end of their first semester at Duke. “It was definitely harder than expected,” Ahmed-Fouad said. “[I thought] it would be an easy thing, where there’s a path that everyone takes, but it’s kind of like however you can find a way up, you find a way up.” For a while, the easiest way to start the climb was through a window

in the second-floor corner dorm room in either Bassett or Pegram. Senior Dane Burkholder lived in that room of Bassett his first year, but a metal grate had been installed prior to his arrival. “There were two or three instances where someone random would knock on my door to climb [Baldwin],” Burkholder wrote in an email. “I had to turn them away because my room didn’t work anymore.” That didn’t stop students from finding alternate routes. Ahmed-Fouad made the journey using a broken pipe that led him to the bridge between Baldwin and Bassett. He and Peterson took an orange traffic cone from outside Baldwin up with them, passing it back and forth as they went. At the top, they used it to mark their achievement. Ahmed-Fouad and Peterson weren’t the only ones either—at least a few students try to check this item off their bucket list each year, noted Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct. John Dailey, chief of Duke University Police Department, added that DUPD received three calls last year about students climbing Baldwin. Bryan wrote in an email that students thought to have climbed Baldwin are asked to attend an administrative hearing with an OSC staff member. If the staff member finds the student responsible for violating policy, the punishment usually includes a disciplinary See CLIMB on Page 4

Special to The Chronicle Pictured above is the view from on top of Baldwin Auditorium.

Although computer science is one of Duke’s most popular majors, the decision to pursue a tech career can be particularly challenging for students of a lower socioeconomic status. The Chronicle spoke with two first-generation African American students who discussed how their backgrounds have impacted their experiences with computer science. Although sophomore Cameron King has at times struggled as a computer science major, he said resources at Duke have kept him from becoming discouraged. Senior Gilbert Brooks, by comparison, said his experiences growing up in a low-income family delayed his decision to pursue computer science and still impacted him in class everyday. “I think for people who are first-generation or minorities, you come from a background that when you say something, you need to do it—no matter how painful it is,” Brooks said. Brooks opted to pursue computer science midway through his Duke experience. A Gates Scholar, he came to Duke as a pre-medical student and continued the pre-medical path for two years. During his junior year, he changed his major to computer science. The reason it took Brooks so long to switch majors is because he is a first-generation college student. He did not have access to computer science in high school and did not know that computer science was something he could study when he See TECH on Page 4

History professor’s book gets national acclaim, criticism By Bre Bradham Local and National News Editor

A Duke history professor’s latest book has gained critical acclaim, but not without drawing criticisms from two fellow Duke professors. Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe professor of history and public policy, released “Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” this past summer to national attention. The work—which focuses on the effects of the late economist James M. Buchanan—is one of five texts included on the shortlist for a National Book Award. However, Georg Vanberg, chair of the political science department, and Professor of Political Science Michael Munger have publicly written about problems they see with the text, with Munger going so far as to call it a “work of speculative historical fiction.” “The book traces the history of an idea—the idea of enchaining modern democratic government, as developed by James Buchanan,” MacLean told The Chronicle of Higher Education a few months back. “It shows how the idea came to appeal to an extremely wealthy and messianic individual, Charles Koch, who has harnessed it and organized other extremely wealthy donors to fund efforts, staffed by thousands of people, to radically alter our government in ways that will be devastating to millions of people and already seem to be producing an utterly unsustainable society in terms of social norms and governance.”

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