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The Chronicle
DUKE UNIVERSITY Ninety-Ninth Year, issue 95
DURHAM, N.C.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10,2004
DCU sparks varied reactions
YOUNG TRUSTEE FINALISTS
by Cindy Yee THE CHRONICLE
ANTHONY CROSSTTHE CHRONICLE
Alex Garinger, Trinity 'O4, will hear the results of the young trustee selection on Wednesday evening.
Garinger looks to Duke's future desire since birth to become a Dukie like many other campus leaders. However, Garinger says his passion for Duke developed purely from chance. Garinger applied as a high school senior to 10 colleges and was rejected from seven schools and wait-listed at the remaining three, including Duke. The University was the only school that accepted him off the wait list, and so Garinger headed down south to Durham.
Emily Almas THE CHRONICLE
by
This story is part two of a threepart series profiling the finalists for the undergraduate young trustee position, which will be selected by a vote of the Duke Student Government Wednesday night.
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The story of how young finalist Alex Garinger ended up at Duke University is, for lack of a better word, surprising. Many might think that this literature major from Greenwich, Conn., has had a burning trustee
WWW.CHRONICLE.DUKE.EDU
SEE GARINGER ON PAGE 6
ofDCU. “Their viewpoints don’t represent a broad, diverse intellectual balance of opinions, but rather a monochromatic look at certain subjects.” John Burness, seniorvice president for public affairs and government relations, said the data presented in DCU’s advertisement is largely irrelevant to intellectual diversity within the classroom. “I know faculty members who are conservative and faculty members who are liberal. When I’ve talked to students about being in their classes, I am struck repeatedly by how often the fact of where a faculty [member] may stand in his or her own political views does not govern what goes on in class,” Burness said. “In some cases, faculty members even take a different position than what they believe, just to challenge students to think differently.” Burness added that it would be difficult to adjust an imbalance in political affiliations among faculty members because the University’s hiring processes do not take such affiliations into consideration. “When departments are making choices about whom they select as members of the faculty, I don’t think party registration is a litmus test,” Burness said. Indeed, department chairs said their hiring decisions are based in no way on a candidate’s political affiliations. “I don’t know the political affiliation ofall ofmy colleagues in philosophy, nor do I care,” said Robert Brandon, chair of the philosophy department. “Our last hire was in the history of modem phirector
Administrators had mixed reactions to a Duke Conservative Union advertisement in Monday’s edition of The Chronicle that claimed the University lacks intellectual diversity. While most said DCU’s interpretation of an imbalance in political affiliations among University deans and faculty members in certain departments was misleading, others said the data they uncovered could, in fact, hint at an underlying need for change. In the advertisement, formatted as an open letter to President Nan Keohane, DCU alleged that a number of humanities departments “have become increasingly politicized over the past few decades” and, furthermore, that this politicization has had “a significant impact on the daily workings of their faculty members.” The advertisement listed the break-down of faculty members’ political affiliations —Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated for each of eight humanities departments, based on a cross-reference of Duke’s departmental faculty lists with North Carolina voter registration records. According to DCU, 142 of the faculty members and deans included in the survey are registered Democrats, 28 are unaffiliatedand 8 are registered Republicans; “The purpose of the ad was basically to bring to light the fact that the faculty in many humanities departments are completely skewed toward the left,” said Madison Kitchens, executive di—
losophy. We hired an expert in Kant and Newton. Politics never came up in the interview.” Burness noted that the same policy holds in the selection of University administrators, from the president down to the department chairs. William Chafe, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, defended the University’s current hiring practices.
“Political perspective should never be a consideration in a faculty appointment,” he said. “Nor should there be an effort to have the number of Democrats or Republicans reflect national norms. In that case, over half the faculty would not vote or have a party affiliation. Rather, the key is openness fo intellectual discourse, embrace offree speech and a belief that the quality of an argument is the key to its success.” Kitchens argued, however, that the University does show a bias in its hiring process —not necessarily based on political affiliations, but remotely indicative of such. ‘The University isn’t looking at party registration when it is hiring, but it is looking at what faculty members’ research interests are, where they fall on certain issues, and whether they toe the ideological line,” Kitchens said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that 32 Democrats are in the history department, and zero Republicans. We’re not saying the University needs to hire more Republicans, but rather that it needs to be open to conservative perspectives SEE DCU ON PAGE
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Student patrols Students question police action to help security by
Aaron Levine
THE CHRONICLE
by
Cindy Yee
THE CHRONICLE
For all the graduate students who dreamed of being Batman when they were young, the chance may soon come to live out their childhood fantasies: biology TA by day, crime stopper by night. Clarence Birkhead, chief of police of the Duke University Police Department, said the University is currendy looking at a number of options to increase the visiblity of security personnel on campus—an ongoing initiative that received particular attention after a student was robbed, presumably at gunpoint, at an ATM in the Bryan Center Nov. 30. Among the possibilities under consideration is the initiation of graduate student patrols at night. “We are reviewing all our options in employing indhdduSEE POLICE ON PAGE 8
When senior Georgette Nicol heard about some partybusting tactics by the Duke University Police Department last semester, she was confused. After searching the DUPD website, she found that University regulations require students to show their Duke Cards when prompted by administrators or the DUPD, but students can remain silent if only asked for their names. This was one lesson shared at a Black Student Alliancesponsored Town Hall meeting last night as students, administrators and members ofDUPD discussed racial issues and the rights of students in dealing with law enforcement. The meeting, mediated by BSA president Maya Washington, was held in part to address concerns of some Central Campus residents that their parties are being unfairly targeted by DUPD. Additionally, students sought clarification on DUPD procedures including responses to SEE TOWN HALL ON PAGE 8
BROOKES
FICKE/THE
CHRONICLE
A panel responds to questions from students on DUPD law enforcement Monday night.