For the last several years, I've heard severe griping from students about how Duke is becoming too serious and that leadership is hell bent on turning Duke into an Ivy League school. Most of the time I find that student complaints are on target. But I think that these claims of uber-seriousness on the part of Duke students are groundless. Duke hasn't become more serious. It has just become boring.
The campus is a lot quieter at night. Even the Cameron Crazies have gradually declined in their energy level and are no longer jubilantly nuts, but just mildly neurotic. I think that part of the reason for this change is external--Duke policies that choke social life--but I also think that students have become duller. They are so worried about their next step that they've forgotten to enjoy the moment.
If Ivy League schools are boring, then certainly Duke qualifies. But Ivy League schools are indeed more intellectually oriented. Duke could use some intellectual intensity. It could also use a hell of a lot more energetic social life.
I wouldn't mind a bit if Duke joined the Ivy League. In fact, I think that we should do just that. Rather than being a near Ivy with a basketball team, we should just be a part of the real thing.
Oh I know you think I've gone completely off my rocker, but let's think outside the box. On paper, there is little difference between Penn, Dartmouth, Brown and Duke. Duke already possesses pretentiousness of Ivy League magnitude. We might as well have the title that goes with it.
It is possible that such a change wouldn't just be symbolic, but would produce tangible benefits. Duke leadership, secure about its standing in the world, might be more inclined to develop sane policies concerning social life. We would have to axe scholarship football. Given our lack of gridiron prowess and football's expense, this would be a blessing. Free from the carnival of scholarship athletics, Duke just might become more intellectually focused.
There are of course two major sticking points with joining the Ivy League. One is the "the Coach K problem." The other is perhaps more fundamental: why would the rest of the Ivy League want us?
While I admit I'm not a fan of Coach K, I know that he has been, ignoring the corruption inherent in big time college basketball everywhere, a major asset for Duke. But in 10 years or so, Coach K will retire. What Coach Wooden was to UCLA, Coach K has been to Duke. UCLA has never found anyone who can replace the "Wizard of Westwood." What better way could there be to avoid seeing one coach after another fail to repeat the magic of Coach K than to simply move into the Ivy League and drop scholarship basketball altogether once he retires?
Then there is the question of whether the Ivy League schools would let us in. I've done a little bit of homework and contacted an Ivy League dean, Richard Beeman from Penn, about this issue. At first he joked, "No, Duke can't join. Penn already has filled the slot of 'party school of the Ivy League,' and we don't want Duke competing for that slot!"
But then he became serious. "I think MOST of the students at MOST of the Ivy Schools are for the most part notable for valuing intellectual engagement for its own sake, not as a means to an end (e.g., a job or a place in medical school). I emphasize that I mean MOST and NOT ALL. And, indeed, most of us at all of these schools have worried about the increasingly utilitarian view of many of our students toward their educations. So I pose a question for you to ask Duke students to think about. If a self-conscious commitment to intellectual engagement for its own sake is a hallmark of an Ivy League education, then does Duke belong in the Ivy League? I would not presume to answer that question. It's only a question that people at Duke can answer for themselves."
So there it is in a nutshell. Do we want a commitment to intellectual engagement by Duke's students and faculty? Regardless as to whether Duke joins the Ivy League, I think the answer to that question is obvious.
And with that, I sign off Chronicle column writing for the semester and probably forever. Thanks to The Chronicle for giving me the space for my words. Best wishes to all this year's graduates. And for those coming back, I hope that you work to make Duke a better place.
Stuart Rojstaczer is a professor of hydrology. His column appears every third Wednesday.
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