December 2, 2004

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Duke plays nemesis UVa for College Cup berth

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2004

THE INDEPENDENTDAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

ONE HUNDREDTH YEAR, ISSUE 70

University to improve advising BY

IZA WOJCEECHOWSKA THE CHRONICLE

Administrators may completely overhaul the first-year advising system effective Fall 2005 if the Board ofTrustees aptheir proves proposal today. Championed by Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College, and Michele Rasmussen, assistant dean of Trinity College, the program aims to focus primarily on dorm-wide community and student-adviser interaction. The new advisory system would assign each dormitory a cluster of advisers, each specializing in a particular field. The advisers from each dorm will also work with students within their residence coordinator-based neighborhood, offering their expertise to students who are not necessarily in their assigned dorms. In revamping the system, the University aims to address students’ frustration with the current system, which draws a group of students together based on their academic interests or intended major. Their assigned adviser is a faculty or staff member in that particular field, but problems arise when students change their minds and the advisers cannot offer much help outside their own areas. Administrators hope to couple the new neighborhood-oriented advising with social events designed to loosen up the advising environment and increase advisers’ accessibility. The goal is for students to become familiar with all the advisers in their area. ‘This is what the intention is: To take advantage of the fact that we have a firstyear campus, we have a pre-major advising system, and we want to intentionally align SEE ADVISING ON PAGE 8

McLendon aims to eliminate course buyouts by

Meg Bourdillon THE CHRONICLE

Plenty of professors complain when teaching duties

into their research time, but soon those who wish to do something about it will face changes to the course buyouts system. Course buyouts allow faculty members with unusually large research time commitments and extra research money to give some of those funds to the University in exchange for a temporarily lighter teaching load. George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, has initiated changes to the buyout procedure that will introduce greater transparency and prevent faculty members from eliminating their teaching responsibilities entirely. Students benefit when professors are active researchers, but teaching must remain a priority, McLendon cut

said. “I am unashamed about stating that a critical goal ofDuke University is the quality of the educational experience,” he explained. Greg Wray, director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Biology, reaffirmed the value placed on educating students at Duke, which seeks and attracts faculty with a genuine interest in teaching, he said. ‘This is not the kind of institution that a professor should come to if they want to only focus on research,” Wray said. “At peer institutions, there is definitely a lot of people who George McLendon buy out their teaching.” Course buyouts are already relatively rare among Arts and Sciences faculty, even in departments that attract a relatively large amount of grant money.

David Beratan, chair of the chemistry department, has been at the University for more than three years. “I don’t know of anyone in that time ever buying themselves out for a full year,” he said. Beratan himself has bought out his teaching load this semester to advance a research project that must produce results quickly in order to continue receiving funding. “Being able to do the buyout was really important to me,” Beratan said, but he favored some limitations. “It needs to be a special circumstance, and it shouldn’t happen too often.” Although very few professors choose to buy out their whole teaching load, “I think the right SEE BUYOUTS ON PAGE 8


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