Critics of affirmative action argue that universities reduce people down to their race. By eliminating the Reginaldo Howard Memorial Scholarship program, Duke has proved them right.
But while we often trumpet what’s gained with efficiency, we fail to consider what’s lost. Sometimes we have difficulty parsing the tasks requiring efficiency from those that offer opportunity for discovery, enjoyment and whimsy.
May I make clear that I do not ask that any of you compromise on your own views. I simply request that you recognize that disagreement is more often rooted in a difference in values and circumstance than it is in ignorance and/or unintelligence.
If we don’t question, we embrace the status quo and lose out on an opportunity to shape the future.
This broken relationship between the ivory tower and the much larger rest of the world furthers distrust in evidence-based research and all of science as a whole.
Your advisor urged you to explore intellectually! Expand your mind! Try something new! You saw their lips moving but heard no sound.
Defining the terms and conditions of your life in such concrete terms makes it seem as if you’re guaranteeing your success. Don’t fall for the trap.
As we come to the end of this academic year, and as you look toward the summer and beyond, take a song with you on the journey. It is a gift for your soul.
Continuing the annual tradition of soliciting alumni donations, this year’s performance of an “Average Day at Duke” was a smashing success. The alumni committee went above and beyond to organize a Centennial spectacle to remember.
Real change occurs over timescales that are beyond our attention span.
By freeing up that mental space, we can go on learning “more important things” like physics and philosophy. But at the same time, there is an associated cost. We are losing independence.
I was at a loss about why and how people would argue against gender-affirming care, except possibly due to religious beliefs or unfamiliarity with transgender issues.
We face different struggles, and we process our pain in different ways. For me, I process by being brutally honest. Telling the truth enables me to live as I am: I can be at peace with how I feel and simultaneously strive to make things better for myself.
While reflecting on my four years of education here, I noticed a trend in their staying power, almost so simple it’s stupid: The classes I got the most value from tended to be the ones in which I paid the most attention.
We fear ever diving into the dreaded phase that lies on the other side of childhood: adulthood.
How do we eat in a way that aligns with our values against a constant moral battleground around food? How do we determine what is actually “good for us” and the world around us against a system of scientific information ripe with contradiction?
Students take gap semesters during college to work on all sorts of different things and every person I’ve talked to has grown immensely through and loved their experience.
Spicy food is a delicious way to bring some heat to the Duke experience.
We tend to define intellectuality within the bounds of reason, emphasizing the explicable over the miraculous. We find it difficult to believe in what we can’t see or label, and we struggle to surrender control and place faith in higher powers.
Looking at the actual content of the ACIR’s report only further shows the ways in which information is distorted to delegitimize the effects of divestment in fighting climate change.
