November 11, 2005

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stud

campus

pleaders

Top campus enhance communka tion among groups

Students will be able to assess RCs in Campus Council surveys

v

rj^l FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2005

THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST YEAR, ISSUE 54

Liaisons focus on

Dean asks

diversity,

to opt in

professors

careers by

A&S Council mulls over course evals

Neal Sen Gupta THE CHRONICLE

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The Career Center is open to all students, and the Diversity Liaison Team is there to remind visitors of that fact. The Diversity Liaison Team, a group created last spring, was developed to spread the word about programs and opportunities available to minority students. The team is comprised of three students of color. DLT was created in response to the lack of minority students

seeking job opportunities through the Career Center. “One of the things that we found was that students of color were not using the Career Center as much as white students,” said Sheila Curran, executive director of the Career Center. “We felt that minority students were not aware of the opportunities available here.” The purpose of DLT is to link the Career Center with campus cultural groups, such as the Asian Students Association, Black Student Alliance, Diya SEE DIVERSITY ON PAGE 5

Steve Veres

THE CHRONICLE

WILLIAM LIEW/THE CHRONICLE

Students in Professor Joan Clifford'sSpanish course do work in the classroom as well as in the local Latino community.

Students mix service, academics Ashley Dean THE CHRONICLE

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Many Duke students who are bored with labs, lectures and recitations instead choose to register for courses in which they can put their studies to use. Service learning, an active model of teaching based on the philosophy of combining academic knowledge and realworld issues, is available to Duke undergraduates in a wide variety of disciplines.

“The general idea is that it should provide people with a more complete understanding of how to be actual professionals,” said senior Dan Dwyer, a member of a house course on the history and importance of service learning at Duke. Service learning courses are also opportunities to put “knowledge in the service of society,” a goal President Richard Brodhead has pushed since his arrival at Duke last year.

And the opportunities to combine schoolwork and service are growing. Students in a new spring course on community involvement, called “Rebuilding from Ruins,” will examine the lifecycle of natural disasters. The course was developed following last year’s Engineers Without Borders trip to Indonesia, said David Schaad, adjunct SEE SERVICE ON PAGE 6

Tour guides offer glimpse ofDuke to visitors by

Katherine Macllwaine THE CHRONICLE

IREM MERTOUTHE CHRONICLE

Tour guides like junior Matt Levy regularly guide prospective studentsand parents around campus.

The band of prospective students and their parents express amazement as they approach West Campus. They follow their tour guide up Chapel Drive, as Duke’s major landmark emerges in the sky. “I can see why people like coming here,” one mother whispers as the Chapel comes into view. “I love the architecture.” The sight of Duke’s grand Gothic structures on a sunny autumn afternoon provides a strong initial impact on a group, but it is the task of a group’s backwards-striding tour guide to keep interest high. “Tours really make the first impression of a school,” tour guide and junior Allana Strong said. “We want to put the Duke we know and love out there.” For tour guides like Strong, making such an impression is an art form. While leading their weekly sessions, the guides are able to skillfully cram information

about almost every positive aspect of Duke into a mere hour-and-fifteen-minute time slot. “It’s important that we really put Duke in a positive light,” Strong said. To achieve this goal, the tour guides share some common strategies as they wind through West Campus. The latest of these strategies is to focus on the abundance of new structures dotting the University’s grounds. Tour guide Jackie August, a sophomore, said she emphasizes fundraising efforts on her tours and wants to show prospective students where the money goes. “By the time you get here, most ofit will be completed,” she says of the current construction. After stopping on the Main West Quadrangle to describe the basics of Duke academics, each tour guide beelines to the walkway between three of the school’s latest additions: Bostock Library, von der Heyden SEE TOURS ON PAGE

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George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, sternly warned professors Thursday at the Faculty of Arts and Science Council meeting that they must improve access to teacher evaluations soon or face potentially unwanted competition from student groups. About 10 percent of professors who taught in Spring 2005 have chosen to make their course evaluations available to students so far, said Director of Assessments Matt Serra, an adjunct assistant professor of psychology. The statistic provoked several comments from faculty members, including Lee Baker, chair of the Arts and Sciences Council and associate professor in the Department ofCultural Anthropology. Baker said this will be an issue the Council will meet “head on” in the next few meetings. “This is not normative nor sustainable for a university of our type,” McLendon said. “If the faculty does not choose some different version, I am certain DSGwill create a parallel process.” SEE A&S COUNCIL ON PAGE 8

ANTHONY CROSS/THE

CHRONICLE

George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, called for professors to opt in to publish their course evaluations.


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