Nip/Tuck is arguably one of the best shows on television at the moment. How can it miss with non-stop, over-the-top drama about transsexuals and serial rapists?
Another reason the cosmetic surgery drama is so compelling is that it looks (more or less analytically) at one of the most fundamental dilemmas in human thought: the relationship between body and soul. Patients of the McNamara/Troy cosmetic surgery practice and the doctors themselves struggle with questions of how outward appearance represents inner character.
Recently, significant changes to the academic integrity policy at Duke have been made. The revised policy is important because it articulates the practical meaning of the non-toleration clause of the Community Standard-no longer requiring students to "report" instances of cheating but simply to "act" in any of a list of prescribed ways (including reporting and confronting).
This policy, like the altered visages of patients on Nip/Tuck, is the outward manifestation of the philosophy and commitments of the Duke community. In fact, the changes, far from superficial, move toward articulating the very type of community Duke seeks to be.
Since last spring, I have followed discussions about the Community Standard and the policy that expresses it. Part of the reason I focus so frequently on academic integrity is because it is one of the most significant ways in which the University can define itself.
The previous "non-toleration" policy was more than just ineffective. By requiring students to report their peers, without the option of anonymity and through a bureaucratic system rife with forms and procedures, it expressed an adversarial understanding of non-toleration.
In order for a student to have "reported" under the previously outlined procedure, he or she would have had to be motivated by a personal outrage strong enough to warrant pointing the finger and beginning a hostile process of investigation against a peer.
The problem was that this outrage wasn't there. Think about the tangible, personal, selfish reasons to report cheating. Certainly it unfairly skews the so-called "curve," but one observed instance is negligible. It also undermines the value of a Duke diploma, but this is an abstract concern (though a valid one).
No, to take action against cheating requires more than personal inducement. It requires a sense of investment in the Duke community. A student who witnesses an instance of cheating will act not because personally injured by the violation but because of a recognition-and concern-that the cheater is injuring him- or herself and undermining the community.
To approach a student about cheating, to act in any fashion against it, implies that we are all deeply invested in each other's actions.
Yet we are a fractured community. We have three residential campuses, two undergraduate schools, scores of fields of study, dozens of greek and living groups and innumerable student organizations. Students live different lives on campus, socially and academically.
A commitment to academic integrity as articulated by the current policy is an expression of community that cuts across these divisions.
I understand how naA_ve this sounds. But there are already sources of common ground. Our shared interest in the success of basketball is a huge unifier. And I suspect (and boy do I hope) I'm not only one who almost daily makes it halfway to the non-existent Bryan Center walkway when checking my mailbox. We do live different lives, but we share a great deal.
There is nothing now preventing us from expressing common interest in our Community Standard. The question is no longer whether the policy allows for a communal acceptance of the "non-toleration" aspect of the Standard. It does. The question now is how the community will choose to respond.
David Kleban is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.