January 31, 2003

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Friday, January 31,2003

Cloudy High 48, Low 35 www.chronicle.duke.edu Vol. 98, No. 89

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Served a win Butler’s men’s basketball

team was little match for the Blue Devils, who won Thursday 80-60. See page 11

THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

New Oak Room owner strives for finer dining By SEEMA KAKAD The Chronicle

The start of each semester brings new classes, new professors and of course, a new Oak Room. After lasting only two months as The Oak Room Grille last semester, the always-fickle West Union Building eatery will take on its latest incarnation Monday as the privatized “Blue Bistro in the Oak Room.” Besides the new name, other changes include a new staff, a scaled-down menu, tips on food points and a new customer base that will improve the Blue Bistro’s chances of maintaining its name and operators for more than a semester.

MATT KLEIN/THE CHRONICLE

Duke quests for UConn’s crown Blue Devil star Alana Beard and the rest of the women’s basketball team will try to end Connecticut’s 58-game winning streak Saturday night. See Gameday for complete coverage.

In December, Dining Services forced ARAMARK Corp. to give up its oneand-a-haif-year Jim Wulforst control of The Oak Room Grille and Faculty Commons and handed the reigns to Fares Hanna, manager of the Blue Express in the Levine Science Research Center. Jim Wulforst, director of dining services, said The Oak Room’s persistent troubles were due to its three-seasonper-year schedule and year-round ex-

penses—including the cost of union labor and rent. During the summer months, when thousands of campers flooded campus, The Oak Room could not stay open because people were not interested in “fine dining.” “There just wasn’t enough activity in The Oak Room to keep it open or to generate enough revenue to pay the bills year-round,” Wulforst said. Hanna, a former vice president of operations at George’s Garage, said he hopes to supplement regular dining with catering. “We are creating a professional, nice atmosphere for students to have semiformals, parties and other private functions,” Hanna said. He hopes to rent out the Bistro’s five private rooms on the weekends. The replacement of 11 union employees will also save the Bistro money, although Wulforst stressed that his office worked with the Local 77 union’s Board to relocate all those displaced employees to a place of their choosing. “We put a plan together that they were comfortable with,” he said. “They have all been relocated to other dining service locations [or auxiliary services units], including the Marketplace as well as the newly opened Subway.” Hanna said that other than the new See OAK ROOM on page 9

Officials question Prof, releases grade inflation data party monitor use By KEVIN LEES The Chronicle

GRADE INFLATION

Administrators and students say the current system of having students monitor their own parties has not worked, but finding an alternative has proved difficult.

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The system of having students monitor their own parties has undergone little change since its inception a year and a half ago. But this year, several negative incidents have forced the system’s effectiveness to fall under increased scrutiny. Now, University officials and students are trying to figure out what is wrong and how they can change it. “We continue to receive anecdotal information that party monitors in general were not taking their responsibilities seriously,” said Sue Wasiolek, dean of students and assistant vice president for student affairs. More specifically, Wasiolek said some party monitors have violated the rule to remain sober. Administrators instituted the party monitor system in September 2001, rejecting an option to have professionals monitor student parties but still seek-

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Grade point averages have risen significantly over the past three decades, including at many top universities. The graph shows how the trend has developed at Duke and several of its competitors.

See GRADES on page 6

See PARTY MONITORS on page 7 '

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will officially close as a dormitory this Trent Drive summer bringing an end to a frequent target of student dissatisfaction. See page 3

In a column in The Washington Post this week, Stuart Rojstaczer, associate professor of hydrology, denounced grade inflation as a real and present danger in higher education, and provided a link with data for Duke’s average undergraduate grade point average from 1969 to 1999. The data, which was confidential until obtained by Rojstaczer from a retired associate dean in Trinity College, shows that since 1969, the average Duke student’s GPA went from 2.79 to 3.33—about the difference between a B-minus and a Bplus. Rojstaczer’s website also contains data for more than 30 other schools and analysis of the rise of grades over the past 30 years. Rojstaczer, a columnist for The Chronicle and a visiting scholar at Stanford University, argued in his Post column that colleges, in order to keep parents and students happy, have abandoned low marks. The data shows that the aver-

Officials from the Center for LGBT Life hope to move their office to larger facilities as planning begins for the Student Village. See page 4

Paul Baerman, special assistant to President Nan Keohane, chooses his words carefully as the president’s speech writer. See page 5


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