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Friday, September 27,2002
www.chronicle.duke.edu Vol. 98, No. 27
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In the Navy The football team takes on perhaps its most beatable opponent of the season Saturday. See page 11
THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
Tenure, health top faculty agenda By ANDREW COLLINS
selections and assessed recent trends
The Chronicle
The first Academic Council meeting of the year Thursday featured significant updates to two items of perennial faculty interest—their health plans and the tenure committee. Provost Peter Lange presented data to the council on tenure cases from the past year, while Executive Vice President Tallman Trask announced that health insurance copayments would increase this year under increasing financial pressures. .The Appointment, Promotion and Tenure Committee reported last year’s data concerning faculty tenure
in promotions and reappointments Lange said the number of faculty members leaving the tenure track in their first four years at the University has
declined over the last three years. He said
one reason for Ta ||man Trask the decline may be better hires, but he also acknowledged a greater willingness to reap-
point new hires after their initial threeyear evaluation period. Lange said it is difficult to assess assistant professors fairly after so little time because they may not have published their first major article. “That two-and-a-half-year review is not incredibly meaningful,” he said. He remained confident, however, that the University was being appropriately selective with its tenure cases. Departments nominated 18 total candidates for tenure last year, a significant decrease from recent years, Lange said. The APT committee then See APT on page 9
Task force to examine class scheduling
Women’s task force plans out research By ALEX GARINGER The Chronicle
A new committee will attempt to redistribute classes to decrease midday sessions and improve student options.
Four months after President Nan Keohane announced a new University-wide gender initiative, administrators, faculty, staff and students across campus are beginning the initial stages of research pertaining to women’s issues. The efforts are being spearheaded by the Women’s Steering Committee, a 15-member task force that draws from every comer of the University. The committee has broken itself into
By WHITNEY BECKETT The Chronicle
If a new task force has its way, undergraduates may find it more difficult to schedule
smaller working groups that are focusing on gender issues concerning employees at the University and Med-
ical Emily Grey
Center;
faculty; undergraduate, graduate and professional
school students; and alumni. “Our goal for the year is to collect information and to do research,” said Susan Roth, committee chair and professor of psychology: social and health sciences. “We really don’t know anything yet.” The committees are conducting their research primarily by compiling data and forming focus and discussion groups. The committee will bring together qualitative and quantitative information in individual reports, due to Keohane in June 2003. The largest component of the gender study will center on issues relating to non-faculty employees, who number more than 17,000. Statistics on the placement of women at the See WOMEN AT DUKE on page 8 IfiSElip lli&llll;
JENNY MAO/THE CHRONICLE
BLAKE CAMP, a freshman midfielder, and the rest of the men’s soccer beat then-No. 2 Clemson last week, but they will be tested again Saturday night against No. 3 North Carolina.
Men’s soccer readies for defending champ Heels By MIKE COREY The Chronicle
Coming off its first ever national championship in soccer, the vaunted Tar Heels of North Carolina started 2002 at No. 3 in the national polls. After rolling through early opponents hindered with inferior talent, North Carolina was derailed by upstart Davidson and rising national power Yale. Since the setbacks, however, the Tar Heels have steamrolled the likes of Brown, Campbell and then-No. 9
Virginia. No. 25 Duke (4-2-1, 1-1-0 in the ACC) will be the next stop for No. 13 North Carolina (6-2,1-0), who holds a 34-30-6 lead in the all-time series and
The Fitzpatrick photonics center is still in the construetjon phase but facu|ty are a |rea( jy seeing the effects of the new institute. See page 3
four-day weekends into their schedules. Prompted by concerns that students are avoiding early morning and Friday classes and the resulting concentration of classes at more desirable times, Provost Peter Lange this week finalized a task force that will consider class length and distribution throughout the day and week. The committee will balance several concerns, including the need for flexible faculty and student options, efficient facility use and the University’s goals for the student educational experience. “We're dealing with some basic and big questions about the basis of teaching and learning and the undergraduate experience at Duke,” said Judith Ruderman, vice provost for academics and administration. The 13-member task force, which will likely meet at least once each month beginning in October, will make its recommendations—possibly even maintaining the status quo—in February. said Edna Andrews, chair of the task force and chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature. Lange will consider the report, but any changes would not be made until at least spring 2004. The University has not comprehensively reviewed its scheduling in 30 years. Last spring, the separate University Scheduling Committee proposed adding two more 75-minute MondayWednesday slots in order to alleviate demand for Tuesday-Thursday classes. “The discussion that it evoked led us to see
has won the last two contests, when the Tar Heels strut into Koskinen Stadium Saturday night at 7 p.m. The Blue Devils were outgunned last year in Chapel Hill, 1-0. “They’re the defending national champions and have an outstanding team,” head coach John Rennie said. “It will be our fourth weekend in a row against a top-10 team. We expect it will be a very emotional battle.” The Blue Devils, who have been ranked as high as No. 17 in 2002, are much improved from 2001 when they went just 2-4 in the ACC. Last week’s win over then-No. 2 Clemson had soc-
this is a hot button issue—there were a lot of people who saw this as a further demolition of Friday classes,” said Ruderman, who also
See UNC on page 14
See SCHEDULING on page 9
Duke’s continuing education program draws people of all ages from the Triangle area who are returning to school for a wide range of reasons. See page 4
The “Race, Sex and God” Competition has received about 14 entries, which students will display at a festival the weekend of Oct. 17. See page 6