Column: Meeting the founders' goals

A few days ago something compelled me to make the laborious trek down into the bowels of the Bryan Center to check my mail for only the second time all year. In it was the Bulletin of Information and Regulations for the 2000-2001 academic year at Duke University. All kinds of curricular requirements, as well as the many possible types of academic and social wrongdoings and the corresponding penalties, are explained in vague detail in this little booklet that nobody actually reads until their butts are on the line.

I came across an interesting passage that the administration was obligated to include but they no doubt expected that even problematic students looking for loopholes would still fail to notice. It was the founding mission of Duke University as envisioned by the Duke family-as accepted by the Board of Trustees-intended to guide the principles and policies for the entire community. The mission has been completely ignored by the current administration. According to the founding indenture set forth by the founding fathers who wanted their legacies to entail a little more than lung cancer, Duke is supposed to "develop our resources, increase our wisdom, and promote human happiness."

With regards to the first part, "developing our resources," it seems that the administration has interpreted the phrase quite literally and quite liberally. Sometimes I am led to believe that the fabled "Campaign for Duke" is little more than a Political Action Committee, created by Nan Keohane-who is hell-bent on raising billions of dollars to validate her legitimacy as university president. Who exactly voted for this lady anyway and who was the lightweight that she ran against? Just a note to our distinguished chief executive: More buildings will not improve our ranking, nor will they make us more like those Ivy League schools that you are so enamored with.

My anger over this matter takes me away from the larger point I am trying to address-Duke is concerned with attracting innocent students and misdirected dollars to its proverbial halls of higher learning, more than it is with respecting the students once enrolled and appropriately allocating financial gifts once donated. I guess they deserve some credit for their continued success, however disingenuous, in the endeavor of increasing resources, but for the other two goals put forth by our founders, Duke's efforts are less than commendable.

Take the "increase our wisdom" part of the mission, for example. I just do not understand how outdated maps in pre-modern classrooms, Ethernet connections in K-ville and an honor code that lacks honor can do anything to make us smarter students or better people. Specifically about the so-called Honor Code-it is aimed to teach us all to become better human beings, but in order for it to ever function properly, it first needs to recognize that we are in fact human beings. Now that I think about it, the administration and the honor code have a number of striking similarities. The problem with Duke is that the administration erroneously attempts to address the concerns of every single student and in doing so the administration fails to respond to the needs of any single student in particular.

Lastly, concerning the line about "promoting human happiness," simply by taking a stroll through Perkins around 2 a.m. during midterms and finals, it should be obvious that Duke has again failed to live up to its charge. As for those poor students who have had the misfortune of finding themselves at odds with the academic or social policies of the University so carefully and cleverly tucked away in the small print of that bulletin, I can only say that I have been there too. And we all know that there is nothing about the administration's treatment of students in trouble that complies whatsoever with their mandate to promote human happiness. There is no human face to the policies concerning academic misconduct because the administration fails to rehabilitate a student who has done wrong and it does not distinguish a good student who has erred from a bad student who has sought to undermine the integrity of the system. All too often, Duke's approach to providing a liberal undergraduate education resembles nothing more than a ruthless kind of intellectual totalitarianism.

I haven't always felt this way but lately things around this so-called 'Gothic Wonderland' have seemed considerably less than, well wonderful. After three and a half years as a tried and true Blue Devil, I came to the sudden and sad conclusion recently that I hate Duke. And if you think about it for just a second, you might agree with me. It sounds rather harsh at first. 'Hate' is an awful word, one that my devoutly Catholic grandmother told me never to say out loud. Sorry Grammie, but it's true. Maybe if the administration adopts a kind-of "compassionate conservatism" to its treatment of students things would improve, but since they are totally and utterly clueless, I'll be long gone before that ever happens.

Thomas Bowman is a Trinity senior.