Until a few years ago, I thought I knew what it meant to be a good listener. It meant being quick to hear and slow to speak.
Last Friday, Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education, joined other administrators to reemphasize Duke’s focus on increasing socioeconomic diversity in its student body.
Never in history have there been as many aggressive, prominent GOP presidential candidates fighting to ban abortion.
Energy is a tricky subject. It warms our houses, fuels our cars and powers innovation. But at the same time, energy production releases pollutants into the atmosphere that ultimately contribute to the upward creep of global temperatures.
The start of the school year is a time of sweet renewal. We see now on campus substantial architectural renewal – a beautiful new library entrance and paths, freshly sodded quads and, in due course, a restored chapel, new student union, football stadium, and athletics plaza.
At the end of last semester, the Interfraternity Council announced a student-led taskforce that will investigate the role of Greek life in sexual assault on campus with the goal of making recommendations to prevent and address such misconduct.
As more Americans open up to Donald Trump’s presidential bid, I too have found myself swept up in the media-fueled Trump frenzy.
The radio plays out from someone’s iPhone on a bench outside, a top-40 love song: “Girl, you’re the one I want to want me.” The lyrics pester me slightly, and I wonder why it’s so hard to avoid talk of love and romance in a stretch of a couple hours. But for many who find themselves interested in the prospect of romance, media like these love songs deeply influences our identity narratives.
Last Wednesday, Duke Student Government canceled the existing undergraduate campus newspaper readership program.
Debate continues to rage on campus over one freshman’s choice not to read his class’s assigned summer reading, Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” Writing in The Washington Post, freshman Zach Stuman explained that he could not read the work on account of the objectionable images it contained. “After researching the book and reading a small portion of it, I chose not to complete the assignment.
I hope that this column will not be a vain voice in the wilderness but rather the impetus for students to reflect upon their own thinking and the way in which they argue with others, particularly those they disagree with. It is incumbent upon us to raise the level of campus dialogue to a standard consistent with the intellectualism we aspire to as a university. Duke deserves nothing less from her students.
It can be easy to toss aside the idea of trigger warnings as frivolous and silly, especially if you aren’t a victim of trauma. But as human beings, we should care about the experiences of other people and in having authentic interactions with our peers.
Freshmen, as you begin the school year and start your remarkable journey here at Duke, I would like to begin with telling you all that through your Duke journey, you will most likely fail.
Once a month, I open my shipment of Enbrel refills and see a receipt with two numbers: Medication Cost: $3,200 Patient Responsibility: $0 That’s pretty nice.
Each fall semester, the pleasantly warm weather and the crisp, autumn air that will hopefully soon follow complete the picture of couples on our main quad, strolling across the grass hand-in-hand.
Another year, another “scandal.” I use the term loosely. If we call having a porn star a “scandal,” then this probably qualifies as well.
Before campus was filled with the new semester mantra of “how was your summer?”, the tranquility of a deserted Duke was disrupted by the laughs of eight to ten year old girls.
The school year begins with a cacophony of rhetoric, especially for the Class of 2019, whose orientation is built, in part, to inspire them grandly about what they can do at Duke.
I spent the summer participating in the DukeEngage Seattle program, but now beginning a different internship in New York, it feels natural to keep plowing ahead, compartmentalizing my summer in Seattle as just that — another summer experience.
