14ITHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,
THE CHRONICLE
2006
"Development cases" a necessary evil
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Admissions is a key tool in every overachieving establishing any college’s schooler’s worst high reputation, The Wall Street nightmare. After perfecting the violin, Journal reported, and Duke’s has strategy” acing the SATs and curing a “winning minor strand of cancer, Duke proven to be a successful means of bringing turns you down the young Univerbecause someeditorial sity to its current body else’s parents can sign a bigger check. prominence among schools several times its age. issue, its 9 The Wall In Sept. Donations made by the Street Journal reported Duke’s long history of systemically ad- families of wealthy students, mitting students ofrich and faJohn Burness, vice president mous parents —regardless of for public affairs and government relations, said in the arUniversity des and alumni connections—simply because the ticle, help to improve faciliparents of those students are ties and fund financial aid able to help the University’s initiatives—both key components of any successful instireputation and endowment. tution of higher education. The question, however, reThe handful of students mains; does a seven-figure donation that helps hundreds of who are brought in through students justify the nightmare the system will not bring down a class and one could of one student?
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make the argument that having sons and daughters of the rich and famous adds something to the uniqueness of a place, bettering the overall college experience of all students. Although this justification may be an afterthought used to defend policies that bring bad publicity, it may still have some merit. Duke community members may not support the method of boosting University coffers, but they should understand the importance of the process. Duke just turned 80 years old, and it now finds itself competing with institutions that have been around for centuries. Needless to say, on an institutional level, the University has to play catch up somehow. Looking at it through this lens, Duke’s winning strategy
The University controls the judicial process.... we’ll olh viously keep working on loosening the noose around everyone’s neck but, at the same time, they control it. —DSG President Elliott Wolf, a junior, on the Office of Judicial Affairs’ oversight of off-campus student life. See
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choosing to emphasize the admissions policies under former President Terry Sanford. Although little light has been shed on how the University approaches “development cases”—as they’re called in the admissions world —in the recent past, the University’s use of systemized recruitment should begin to level out now that Duke has secured its place in the top tier. Certainly, the method is a bit utilitarian. But the bottom line is that that overachieving high schooler is going to get into a top-flight school even if he or she is rejected from Duke, and the one out ofevery 100 students who makes it in because of money will, in the end, make a huge difference for the future of this institution.
Enough already
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is smart. Due in part to this admissions philosphy, the University’s endowment have become strong and the institution’s ranking, in a number of national polls, continues to be top-notch. undesirable Although and even questionable on a number of levels, Duke’s winning strategy of seeking out the wealthy has historically been a necessary evil of the college admissions process. Setting aside pragmatic concerns for idealistic aspirations was the standard for elite schools. Duke and Brown—the schools focused on in the Wall Street Journal article—are not the only schools that subscribed to this philosophy. The article notably lacks recent admissions facts, instead
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Remembrance
is a double-edged sword. With astonishing clarity we are able to preserve our most cherished memories, but as time goes on and the good begins to lose focus, it is the truest of sorrows that the mind—as if it reveled in the reliving of pain—will recall most sharply. Enter Duke, an elite university with everything going its way: Top-tier rankings, the best stu-
dents, outstanding athletic success, a relatively hip social scene for a school 3jo n of its caliber and a line In the sand Tom Wolfe’s dream school. Then the story broke. The 2005-2006 men’s lacrosse team threw a party during spring break where a stripper claimed that three white men had raped her. The team, the players, the campus, the students—Duke was changed forever. Unfortunately after nearly six months of hyperexaggerated and partisan media and community outrage —and a summer of continuous investigation, fact-checking and, above all, debunking —we are still consumed by the legacy of one of our darkest hours. As a result, our reputation is in jeopardy like never before. Our name has become synonymous with words like rape, privilege, alcohol abuse and prejudice. The innocent days of “work hard, play hard” are over, since to the outside world that mantra only seems to justify the alleged crimes of the lacrosse team and the Duke mentality they purportedly personify. Sadly, the days of “work hard, play not so much” are at hand. The issue dominates our collective consciousness. And I am sick and tired of hearing about it. Last summer we all had to deal with new acquaintances asking us one of a bevy of childish questions—Are you on the lacrosse team? Do you know anyone on the lacrosse team? What do you think, did they do it?—and we all honed our ability to make sufficientyet evasive answers to those awkward questions without starting controversy. We need to agree as a university to get over it. We have to come together as a school and stop walking around as if our closets have skeletons or with our tails between our legs. We need to stop covering it in our media, stop talking about it in our classes and stop tolerating it. Period. Then we have to change the Campus Culture Ini-
tiative. Really, what are they hoping to find—some kind of subversive, exclusive element of campus society, comprised of truly nefarious students who are undeniably behind every “dangerous” act that happens on campus? We all know the lacrosse players were Just normal Duke students, perhaps who partied a little too hard. But haven’t they had to deal with enough already? At best, the initiative will conclude that sometimes college students go to extremes when trying to have fun, and these are the ones we ought to inhibit to preserve some fun for the rest of us. The problem is we already know that. And if/when the three players are acquitted of the charges, the issue will be—and should be—a moot point. But at worst, it could become a referendum on our greek-centric social scene. Fraternity presidents are already creating a committee to investigate and report their members’ opinions of campus culture. What they say could very well determine the entire future ofon-campus partying. Destroying entertainment options for the large majority as a belated response to save face for the small minority of kids who sometimes go out of line is truly the wrong approach. Sure, Duke has a lot of rich white kids; it also has an incredible amount of diversity for a top-notch institution (37 percent of the Class of 2009 registered as minorities) and a tremendous number of students on financial aid (42 percent of the Class of 2008). As the success of the Class of 2010 shows, our incredible good outshines the little bit ofbad. That freshmen weren’t deterred proves our worries were misguided. Every college has racial and class tension, and most every college has a drinking-problem. That’s what happens when you combine a whole lot of different kids from different states and different circumstances in one place. Duke isn’t even the worst offender; it’s quite clear that large public schools, who dominate the top spots of Princeton Review’s list of the country’s best party schools, have significantly more dangerous alcohol and drug abuse problems than we do. Real tragedy, emblematic of real culture, merits real change. To that end, we owe it to ourselves to take responsible measures to curtail truly unsafe campus drinking. But the lacrosse scandal is not the proper impetus. Reliving the pain is an unnecessary exercise—we all remember. Now the trick is, trying to forget. That’s the way to move on.
Jon Detzel is Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.