Tuesday, November 12,2002
Thunderstorms High 62, Low 40 www.chronicle.duke.edu Vol. 98, No. 57
The Chronicle f
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Final Stretch Head football coach Carl Franks said his team is going back to fundamentals after a week off. See page 9
THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
Group hopes to spur Iraq debate A new campus group of faculty members, students and administrators, called Iraq and US, is looking to create more dialogue from hawks, doves and “owls” on the Iraq situation. By JENNIFER HASVOLD The Chronicle
Members of Iraq and US, a new working group comprised Of faculty members, staff, students and administrators, met for their fourth weekly meeting Monday night to discuss ways to engage the Duke community in dialogue about the issues surrounding a potential war with Iraq. The group, including notable campus leaders such as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William Chafe and James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus John Hope Franklin, claims to be neither pro-war nor anti-war. It began when James Joseph, professor of the practice in public policy studies and former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, received e-mails from individuals interested in having a conversation on Iraq that was open to and representative of diverse perspectives.
During the first meeting, the group discussed three positions on a potential war with Iraq—hawks support unilateral action against Iraq, so-called owls recognize the need for multilateral force if Iraq continues to pose an imminent threat and doves oppose going to war with Iraq under any conditions. After discussing the classifications, Joseph said the group considered itself representative of all three. The common thread during the meeting was a desire to encourage discussion about the possibility See IRAQ AND US on page 6
ROBERT TAI/THE CHRONICLE
LUNAR NEW YEAR, an annual Asian Students Association presentation, is one of the many cultural events sponsored by various student groups on campus. A new task force hopes to improve advising of such groups and their events.
Task force examines club advising Student activities office hopes to make system more equitable By MOLLY NICHOLSON The Chronicle
In an attempt to address longstanding concerns about weak and inconsistent advising for student organizations, administrators have established a task force to examine the current system. Zoila Airall, assistant vice president for campus life, organized the task force to continue efforts by
both Duke Student Government and the Office ofUniversity Life for several years to improve advising—-
specifically the connection between advisers and their student groups. “It’s not like people were saying that we had terrible advising,” Airall said. Rather, she added, many people feel the advising system is inequitable. “Some organizations get very good advising, some organizations get average and some get none, and [students feel] that the reason that might have happened is that a set of expectations has not been established,” Airall said.
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prosand cons By KIYA BAJPAI The Chronicle
Senior Dave Russell has to duck his head when he walks into his room, for fear that his tall frame will hit the low pipes running along the ceiling just an inch above him. While this inconvenience is a disadvantage to Russell, he enjoys—for the most part—being one of only 463 seniors who chose to live on West Campus this year, compared with about 530 in previous years. Due to new housing assignment rules or just personal preference, many students decide to live off campus their last year at Duke. While apartments or houses can offer the luxuries ofpersonal space and independence, the seniors who do live on campus find the convenience overwhelmingly favorable. These seniors don’t have to deal with parking on a daily basis just to get to class. They don’t worry about cooking all their meals. And they often are quite happy living with selective groups, blocks, or perhaps inde-
pendents.
However, some seniors believe a true sense of community—something the administration
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Eric Meyers Bernice and Morton Lerner professor of relicautions that a recent archaelogical discovery may not necessarily relate to Jesus of Nazareth. See page 3
The Graduate School is offering more information to prospective students while joining a national forum on combatting attrition rates. See page 3
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Brian Denton, assistant dean of university life, coordinator of advising and an adviser for a variety of groups—including DSG, Cable 13 and the East Campus Coffeehouse—said that although the Office of Student Activities encourages student groups to find an active adviser, the groups are not always successful. “The idea for getting the adviser is to find someone interested See ADVISING on page 5
Community andseniors
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has tried to foster with its new residential life plan—seems to be missing from their fives. Russell admits that being able to stop by his room between classes or easily getting home after a night with friends are the clearest advantages to living on campus. When he was a freshman, he felt that only seniors and maybe a few lucky juniors could get singles on campus, and he was ready to wait his turn. It happened to be a lot more trouble than he thought, when as a senior he saw better housing going to sophomores because of new rules mandating all sophomores five on West Campus. “It seems odd that a university, which has made such a big deal recently about creating a sense of community on campus, would adopt a policy that drives people off campus, and makes it more difficult for those students living off campus to get to campus,” he
wrote in an e-mail.
Fellow senior Erin AUingham, currently the president of the Women’s Studies selective house in the West-Edens Link, chose to live on campus because she said all her older friends See SENIORS on page 7 Danish Ambassador Ulrik Federspiel addressed the role of ethics in foreign policy generally and in the recent confrontation between Iraq and the United States. See page 4