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The Chronicle
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006
THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
\
ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST YEAR, ISSUE 82
ACES scheduling snafus irk students ,
by
Leslie Griffith
THE CHRONICLE
For many undergraduate students, the closing of the drop/add period 5 p.m. today
marks the end of two weeks spent crafting the perfect schedule and crossing fingers to be let in off wait lists.
Despite technological troubles, long wait lists and workloads
not
conducive
to
class
shopping, administrators and most students found only minor problems with the Spring 2006 drop/add process. “I don’t want to jinx us for future semesters, but there were no significant issues or problems with the registration process,” Associate University Registrar Bill Burig wrote in an e-mail. Although popular classes across all departments are often beset by wait lists, the public policy studies department has seen spaces for its introductory course fill up quickly, particularly since the class became a prerequisite in spring 2005 for other PPS major requirements. For the second semester in a row, the enrollment capacity for Public Policy 55, the introducto-
ry PPS class, remained capped at 122 despite a wait list numbering 70 students at its peak. James Hamilton, professor and director of undergraduate studies for the public policy studies department, said the bulge in enrollment should be temporary as the first few classes of students subject to the new requirement complete the course and finish their majors. Elizabeth Vigdor, the instructor for PPS 55, said the size of the classroom, Sanford 04, restricts enrollment capacity. She added that a second class was not seen as necessary because there was space for any sophomore to take the class. Vigdor also noted that 20 freshmen are in the class. Any sophomores unable to enroll, she said, had joined wait lists for sections of the class that were already full. Other registration problems were rooted not in class popularity but in technology trouble. Jeff Storer, associate professor of the theater studies, reported confusing two sections of his “New Works” class on SEE CLASSES ON PAGE 8
SYLVIA
QU/THE CHRONICLE
Former FBI agent and author Gary Aldrich criticized the Clinton White House and left-leaning college campuses Tuesday night.
Aldrich decries liberal bias by
I
Neal Sen Gupta THE CHRONICLE
Duke’s campus hosted another controversial political speaker this week when Gary Aldrich, former FBI agent and best-selling author spoke Tuesday night. Aldrich spoke in Richard White Auditorium about his experiences working in the Bill Clinton White House as well as liberal bias on college campuses.
Aldrich was an FBI agent who specialized in white collar crime and political corruption for three decades. He worked in the White House during the first Bush administration and the Clinton years performing background checks on White House personnel. “Initially as an agent, I only met corrupt politicians that made me very cynical about politics in general,” Aldrich said.
“Then I began serving in the White House under the Bush administration, and they restored my faith in the political system. And then the Clintons came.” His negative experiences with the Clinton administration eventually led him to write his book, Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White SEE ALDRICH ON PAGE 10
GPSC names Young Affirmative action debate Trustee semifinalists sparks heated comments by
The Top 5 Heather Dean
Sudha Gollapudi Justin Klein Ryan Nolan
Joseph Volpe
Saidi Chen and
Tiffany Webber THE CHRONICLE
Five students remain in the race to be the Young Trustee for the graduate and professional student community. The semifinalists are sixth-year neurobiology student Heather Dean, secondyear Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences student Sudha Gollapudi, sixth-year medical- and law-school student Justin Klein, fourth-year law- and business-school student Ryan Nolan and third-year biostatistics and bioinformatics student Joseph Volpe. The semifinalists were announced at Monday night’s Graduate and Professional Student Council meeting. Each year the Graduate and Professional Student Council selects one student from a pool of applicants to serve a three-year term as a member of the SEE TRUSTEE ON PAGE 9
Ashley Dean THE CHRONICLE
by
John is a black student from an urban school with a high dropout rate. Although his SAT scores and grade point average are slighdy lower than the mean of his dream college, should he be accepted? The question of affirmative action was at the crux of a Duke Political Union-sponsored debate, “Equal Opportunity or Unfair Advantage: A Debate on Affirmative Action,” held Tuesday night. The two speakers were Carl Cohen, a philosophy professor from the University of Michigan, and James Coleman, a professor of the practice of law at Duke’s Law School. William Raspberry, professor of the practice of communications and journalism in the public policy studies department and moderator of the debate, said in his introduction that everyone believes SEE ACTION ON PAGE 11
WEIYITAN/THE CHRONICLE
Professor James Coleman argued in favor of affirmativeaction at a DPU-sponsored debateTuesday.