Center LGBT director, Under
the LGBT a new community sees change, PAGE 3
JT
Junior bash
The junior class welcomes back its returning members, PAGE 3
basketball W Top-ranked Duke takes on perennial power Tennessee Monday, SPORTSWRAI
The Chronicl Sororities hand out 303 bids
Brodhead on the record
When
President Richard Brodhead came to Duke two and a half years ago from Yale University, he could never have predicted what awaited him. Coach K's possible departure. The Palestinian Solidarity Movement conference. A high-profile mixup at the Duke University Medical Center. And now, the
Adam Eaglin , THE CHRONICLE
by
lacrosse case.
Brodhead recently sat down for an exclusive interview with The Chronicle's Rob Copeland to discuss his handling of the lacrosse case, his opinion on Duke's increasingly vocal faculty and his treatment of the accused players. Assailed by critics of all persuasions for his actions in recent months, Brodhead is holding his ground even as calls for his resignation grow louder—although mostly from the blogosphere.
"I'm not surprised that people have criticized me," Brodhead said. "I think that all fair-minded people understand that the choices the University made had a logic to them."
Q&A, pg. 6
by
David Graham
THE CHRONICLE
Other than Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and the three men he charged with rape, sexual offense and kidnapping, no one has come under more intense scrutiny in the lacrosse scandal than President Richard Brodhead. A series of public statements and the resignation of English Professor Karla Holloway this month from her post on the Campus Culture Initiative have once again brought Brodhead’s actions to the fore—actions he said have been guided from the start by one simple idea. “If you want to know what my strategy has been for dealing with this, it’s been to try to do what was right, try to
SNL skit propels lax case to world of satire by Lysa Chen THE CHRONICLE
Viewers tuning into NBC last month might have seen TV personality Nancy Grace delivering one ofher frequent tirades
against the Duke men’s lacrosse team. This one went even farther than most. Grace stared into camera tokperspectives >
ening to pluck out
and eat the living hearts from the chestal cavities of the lacrosse players. “It’ll be the last thing you ever see,” she said. “I’ve read up on how to do this.” Of course, it wasn’t the real CNN anchor on screen, but instead Amy Poehler
ofNBC’s Saturday Night Live, whose deadpan impersonation of Grace on the show’s Dec. 16 episode has sparked some controversy about what is considered appropriate material for comedy. “There will always be a certain percentage of the audience that believes that a topic is out-of-bounds,” said Lome Michaels, SNL’s founder, in a telephone interview with The Chronicle. “We weren’t discussing the actual case as much as the actual hysteria of the coverage in the media.” Seated in front of a Christmas tree and dressed in business suit, Poehler delivered a “holiday message” with an exaggerated SEE SNL ON PAGE 5
figure out what principles were involved—the principle of respect for evidence, the principle of taking seriously the community issues, the principle of presumption of innocence and due process—and fashion a response that tries to honor those principles,” Brodhead said in an interview Friday. That kind of quote—complicated and detailed—has been both Brodhead’s strength and his Achilles’ heel throughout the past 10 months. Supporters point to his philosophy on the scandal as that of a intellectual, deep thinker. But detractors seek a firmer stand. John Bumess, senior vice president SEE BRODHEAD ON PAGE 8
After more than a week of working their social skills for upperclassmen, 303 women received bids to join one of the 10 National Panhellenic Conference sororities on campus, Panhellenic Association officers confirmed Sunday night. “It was very successful,” said senior Bethany Schraml, Panhel vice president for recruitment and membership. “We’re very pleased with the numbers.” This year sorority rush began later than in previous years, but the total number of bids was roughly the same as the number in 2006, when Panhel sororities gave out 305 bids. Schraml said the final bid number was much smaller than the initial number of registrants, which was approximately 425, but added that the decline was “about the same, if not a little bit less, than previous years.” The maximum number of bids that a sorority is allowed to distribute—known as “quota”—was set at 31 this year, identical to last year’s quota, said Panhel President Chrissie Gorman, a senior. Several sororities exceeded quota. Gorman SEE PANHEL ON PAGE 9
The Chronicle breaks down the number of new members in each of the 10 Panheilenic Association sororities.
see pg. 9
Scheyer puts Duke ahead of'Pack
PETER GEBHARD/THE
CHRONICLE
Duke beat up on N.C. State, 79-56. See story, SPORTSWRAP