The Campus Culture Initiative's final report, released Tuesday, has sparked campus-wide discussion over some of its most controversial recommendations.
"The document has a lot of potential to really redefine the way we experience Duke," said Black Student Alliance President Malik Burnett, a senior.
A number of student leaders expressed concern over the document, drawing attention to its provisions regarding selective living groups, alcohol policy and athletics, saying that undergraduate student perspective was not adequately considered by the report's Steering Committee.
Duke Student Government President Elliott Wolf, a junior, said the CCI committee's structure prevented it from fully engaging students in conversation before the release of the report.
"Because of the way the committee operated under strict confidentiality, the student response wasn't there," he said, adding, however, that certain recommendations in the report were valuable reflections on campus culture.
"In the midst of all the controversy, it's important not to lose sight of the positive recommendations," Wolf said.
The report focuses on six areas-curriculum and experiential learning; faculty-student interaction; residential life, social life and dining; alcohol; athletics; and admissions-and aims to make several improvements to campus life. Several of the report's recommendations, however, have drawn criticism from students.
For example, the report's provision that selective living sections should be disbanded was met with concern by many members of the greek community.
"Greeks are fundamentally about living with each other," said Interfraternity Council President David Melton, a junior. "When you take away sections, you're taking away more than just a place to have parties."
According to the CCI report, the existence of selective living groups plays a divisive role on campus, but many student leaders said they were skeptical that abolishing selective living sections would succeed in unifying the student body.
"I would be hard pressed to argue that 200 or 300 people living in a quad are going to be more unified than people who rushed a selective living group based on who they got along with and who they saw value in," Melton said.
Burnett added that although BSA was primarily concerned about increasing the level of interracial student interaction on campus, eliminating selective housing was not what he called "the magic bullet."
Other students said the changes would not alter the natural development of student groups on campus.
"Even if you didn't have the selective living groups you're still going to see people block together and live close to one another based on their comfort zones," said senior Kevin Fang, president of the Asian Students Association.
In addition, many students agreed that without selective living, groups will be more challenged to organize social activities.
"You would lose one of the main social drivers on campus," said Mirecourt selective living group President Blake Byers, a senior.
Byers added that he did not feel that non-greek selective living groups were involved with the construction of the CCI report, a sentiment shared by Greek student leaders.
"As far as I know, nobody from the CCI Steering Committee had any conversations with greeks about what residential life means to them or what the consequences of taking away residential housing would be," Melton said.
Campus Council President Jay Ganatra, a senior, said part of the problem was the underrepresentation of students from selective living groups in the CCI committee.
"You can't create residential policy recommendations when, out of the four students [on the committee], none of them are living in selective housing," Ganatra said.
Ganatra also drew attention to a second controversial area of the CCI's report-its section recommending clarification of the University's alcohol policy and aiming to "reduce the centrality" of alcohol on campus.
"I don't think you'll be able to change the centrality of alcohol," Ganatra said. "You can create events where alcohol is a part of it, but not central to it."
Ganatra and Burnett promoted holding more events like DukePlays or Nasher Noir, which they said demonstrate that the student body can come together in an atmosphere not dominated by the presence of alcohol.
In addition to concerns about proposed alterations to residential life and alcohol policy, students also debated the CCI's recommendations for policy changes related to athletics on campus.
The CCI recommends that athletes spend less time traveling and in practice-a provision which several students said might jeopardize the quality of the University's athletic program.
"You might as well just say, 'Let's drop out of the ACC,'" Ganatra said. "These people, they're not just dumb jocks, they do bring a lot to the University."
Both athletes and student leaders said they saw no problem with the on-campus involvement or academic qualifications of typical athletes.
"I don't think it's broken, and I don't think it needs fixing," said junior Adam Langley, a member of the men's lacrosse team.
Wolf agreed that the CCI's suggestions for revamping the lifestyles of athletes are unnecessary. "They're obviously performing athletically very well, and I don't really see any other problems with the accommodations Duke makes both on the admissions end and on the time-demand end," Wolf said.
More than lamenting the proposals of the CCI committee, several student leaders said their organizations had already taken initiative in addressing the issues before the report was released.
"Many of those are issues we ourselves have identified and have worked towards correcting in the past," Melton said.
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