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The Chronicle
DUKE UNIVERSITY Ninety-Ninth Year, issue 82
Students
DURHAM, N.C.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22,2004
9
WWW.CHRONICLE.DUKE.EDU
HARASSMENT IN PHYSICS
WWJJD?
Chron. Ed. article refuted
computers
hacked by
Andrew Collins THE CHRONICLE
by
Some students coming back from fall study abroad have discovered to their dismay, what others in the University have known for months: Duke computers are under siege from hackers. Since August 2003, the Office ofInformation Technology has had to reinstall the operating systems of hundreds of hacked computers —the computer equivalent of a lobotomy. Although not unprecedented, the recent surge in hacking has inconvenienced many and shows no signs of abating. Former study abroad students report that a disproportionately high number of their fellow travelers have been hacked. A possible reason is that since they were gone last semester, some of these returning students may have failed to take precautions OIT recommends to guard against hacking. Junior Vinitha Kaushik said she did not pay adequate attention to an OIT security patch download page that greeted her when she returned to her computer from a France study abroad program. ‘They put the patch in the middle of a registration form,” she said. “All I really wanted to do was get back on the Internetwhen I got back to school, so I skipped the middle part.” Kaushik’s computer was promptly hacked. OIT security officer Chris Cramer said computers become vulnerable when individuals fail to create an administrator SEE HACKING ON PAGE 8
THE CHRONICLE
Several members of the University community criticized a report in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, detailing accusations of gender-based harassment in Duke’s physics department. They said the piece misconstrued facts and inadequately discussed the steps that have been taken to deal with harassment. The lengthy article, entitled “Louts in the Lab,” outlines allegations ofmistreatment of female faculty members and graduate students by males in the Duke physics department. While many of the allegations have been previously reported —in The Chronicle and elsewhere this is the first dme the issue has been comprehensively treated by The Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly publication with wide readership in the academic community. In a letter to the editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Provost Peter Lange wrote that the article “reflects more on the past than the present and more on the problems we all recognize than the efforts that have been undertaken to improve the situation. In doing so, it does a disservice to the department, to manyofits faculty and its chair and to the University.” —
ANTHONY
CROSS/THE CHRONICLE
JJ.Redick goes up for a shot during Duke's 68-60 win over Maryland Wednesday. See page 9.
Legacy admissions to continue Cindy Yee THE CHRONICLE by
When TexasA&M University announced earlier this month that it would abolish its preferential admissions policy for relatives of alumni, debate swirled nationwide over the merit of such a move. Some said the new policy was unnecessary, while others said it was not drastic enough But whatever the outcome of Texas A&M’s decision, Duke administrators say the children of Blue Devils will continue to receive special consideration during the admissions process. “We’ve had a very long-standing policy of taking family ties into account in admissions decisions, and there are no plans to change that,” said Christoph Guttentag,
Andrew Collins
director of undergraduate admissions. “It’s Just a plus factor, so it doesn’t predetermine the admissions decision. But the University community extends well beyond the people that are currendy here; alumni feel very much a part of the University community, and we try to take those ties into account when it is appropriate to do so.” At Texas A&M, the controversy over legacy admissions stemmed from a greater controversy over affirmative action admissions after the U.S. Supreme Court decided last spring that race may be a factor in admissions on a case-by-case basis. Since then, Sen. Edward Kennedy, DMass., has filed a bill that would require colleges to disclose the race and economic status of first-year students related to alum-
ni, and Sen. John Edward, D-N.C., has advocated an end to college legacy programs. “As a broader educational or public policy issue, this is a fairly new subject,” Guttentag said. “In the Texas A&M case, a tie was made between legacy admissions and affirmative action. I’m not sure that they should be so closely tied, but I think that the reason some people are paying greater attention to legacy admissions now is that it has to do with a renewed interest in issues of affirmative action.” After Texas A&M decided it would no longer use race as a factor in admissions, the school’s legacy admissions policy came under fire. Many argued that the school had abolished one type of affirmative action, while retaining another type. Like affirmative action, the “other affirmative action”—legacy admissions—gave SEE LEGACY ON PAGE 6
SEE PHYSICS ON PAGE 7
Penn picks new prez From staff reports The University of Pennsylvania has named Princeton University Provost Amy Gutmann as its eighth president, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported late Wednesday night. Gutmann succeeds current President Judith Rodin, who was the first woman to be elected president of a national research university. Duke President Nan Keohane was the second female president of a research university and like Rodin, will step down June 30. According to the Pennsylvanian, other candidates included current Bush cabinet member and former Stanford Provost Condoleeza Rice; Drew Faust, the dean of Radcliffe Institute; and Nancy Cantor, chancellor of the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.