Frustrating lack of publicity

Janet Reno. Jared Diamond. Lily Tomlin. Did you know all of these people were at Duke in the past two weeks? Did you find out they were coming to Duke BEFORE they spoke?

In the past, The Chronicle has reported on President Brodhead's initiatives to invite conversationalists to Duke (Duke offers new funds for speakers, Sept. 5). Larry Moneta even claimed that it is a goal to populate the campus with interesting speakers.

Critics of the Duke speaker policy have vented that Duke fails to get the quality of speakers as elite Ivies like Harvard and Yale, or even Columbia. However, the heart of the issue isn't simply a lack of speakers who want to come here. The problem is that Duke doesn't do enough to attract people to the speakers who come already.

I received an e-mail about Janet Reno coming the night before she came-too late to make arrangements to miss class (I only received that e-mail because I am on the pre-law mailing list). I only knew Diamond and Tomlin spoke because of articles in The Chronicle after their appearances.

The fact is that Duke does an atrocious job of publicizing these events. It isn't a matter of student apathy; I spoke with various students who were extremely disappointed they were not informed about these people's appearances.

So, what it comes down to is: Why isn't Duke making a huge effort to draw a crowd to these events? Duke DOES choose certain speakers to publicize extraordinarily well. Take Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, a book all freshman read. I can't walk to a location on East campus without seeing a poster publicizing his appearance. For Reno, Diamond and Tomlin, I couldn't walk to a place on East Campus with seeing mention of their respective appearances. While Hosseini wrote a multi-culturally acclaimed New York Times best-seller, there is no apparent reason Reno, Diamond or Tomlin should be publicized less than him.

Whether it's a matter of political or social agenda that Duke emphasizes certain speakers over others or some other reason, Duke is not actively promoting very well-known and insightful speakers. So, maybe the reason we need to resort to the grassroots letter-writing prescribed in President Brodhead's initiative is because when speakers DO come, Duke fails to publicize them.

This problem should not be hard to rectify. Duke already is taking the first step, in attracting the speakers. However, the administration or the department hosting the speaker ought to advertise the speaker and be held up to what I'll call "The Hosseini Standard." Put a ton of posters out, e-mail the students and then, if after the students take advantage of what they already have available to them there are still problems, I encourage President Brodhead to continue his grassroots conversationalist initiative.

Listen Larry, I've got a news flash for you. It isn't a small percentage of extremists-it's the entire tailgating population that likes to get wasted. You know why? Because you provide no other viable social outlets on campus like every other school in the nation.

A waste of your time? Clearly it is the number-one issue among the student body and you consider it a waste of your time. This administration continues to ignore the beggings of its student body, and it will be its downfall. You can take away our outlets, but you can't take away the social spirit of college students. We aren't adults yet, despite your best observations.

As long as Larry Moneta is in this administration I will not give a penny to Duke in alumni contributions. I ask the same of anyone else who hates this school for its failure to recognize student concern for this issue.

Chase LaFerney

Trinity '06

Editorial needs clarification

Your editorial "Time to Move" is off the mark. In your article, you compare move-out to move-in, saying that "students have five days to settle into their dorms." Your piece fails to mention, however, that starting next year this will no longer be the case. RLHS plans to restrict move-in dates as well-cutting that period to only three days. Clearly, RLHS doesn't believe that adequate time both to get situated and to leave is a University priority.

Mark Middaugh

Trinity '06

Academic freedom pledge futile

Have the Students for Academic Freedom not read Ch. 11 of Catch-22? The obnoxious, self-seeking Captain Black's Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade fizzles out ignominiously. I doubt the the group's pledge will do much better.

Elisabeth Jezierski

Durham, NC