Council hears report on Academic Priorities Committee

In the last and shortest meeting of the school year, the Academic Council heard a series of updates from university leaders about a number of projects and initiatives.

John Simon, chair of the Academic Priorities Committee, spoke about the committee's work over the last two years. During his time as chair, Simon said, the committee has evolved from a provost advisory group into a stronger voice that has helped set important university priorities during the strategic planning period. Simon, who also chairs the Department of Chemistry, said during the past two years meetings have been filled with lively debate with the provost over issues like strategic planning and administrative responses to departmental issues.

The council also received reports from two senior administrators. The first was from William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, who updated the council on the progress of residential life changes. The presentation, which stressed the residential plan's efforts to confront segregation on West Campus, met with only a handful of faculty comments and questions.

President Nan Keohane also briefly attended the meeting to update the faculty on the administrative response to demands by members of Duke Student Movement. Keohane explained that a number of task forces and committees will begin to investigate issues such as student social space, black faculty recruitment and campus climate.

John Staddon, James B. Duke professor of experimental psychology, suggested that administrators might be addressing the wrong set of problems. Instead, Staddon said administrators should consider why protesters did not transform the debate over the publications of an anti-reparations advertisement in The Chronicle into an academic discussion.

"What is wrong with their education that they would react this way?" he asked. "This could signal that we have not given them a proper education."

Several council members, however, argued that the advertisement controversy served only as an indicator of much larger troubles on campus.

Council Chair Peter Burian, a professor of classical studies, also announced that Vice Provost for Academics and Administrative Services Judith Ruderman will head a search committee to find a successor for William King, the University archivist. King, the University's first archivist, will step down after thirty years in December.