Duke staff members voiced questions and concerns Thursday at the last in a series of town hall meetings hosted by the Campus Culture Initiative this week.
At the meeting, staff members debated a number of topics, including student drinking behaviors and the lack of engagement between the students and the wider Durham community.
The concerns were tempered with a discussion about the difficulties of analyzing campus culture without sounding pejorative or dismissive of the positive elements of the University and student body.
The three-part series of meetings also included sessions for faculty and students held Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
"What the staff do for us is very important as far as our campus culture is concerned," said junior Elliott Wolf, Duke Student Government president and a member of the CCI committee. "Everything from auxiliary services to student affairs, when we're not in class-basically you guys govern our lives."
Seats filled quickly as approximately 150 staff members arrived in the Bryan Center for the meeting. Thursday's meeting had the largest attendance of the three town halls.
CCI Chair Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and vice provost for undergraduate education, began the meeting by speaking about Duke as a "campus of divides."
After the lacrosse story first broke, Thompson said that "reactions fractionated along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, privilege, class, athlete, non-athlete, town and gown."
Although many members agreed that divisions existed, some staff, including Duke men's lacrosse head coach John Danowski, said that the discourse so far had been overly critical.
"If [Duke wasn't] great, I wouldn't be here or send my son here," he said. "In the two months that I've been here, there's nothing bad at all that I see. Could you be better, could you improve? Yes. But every student is spectacular, every student is excellent, and you're going to emerge better and stronger as a result of this," Danowski added.
Also in the meeting, Thompson said Duke needed to do more than simply tolerate diversity. "Beyond tolerance, we need to affirm difference, which enables us to do work and grow," he said.
"It isn't always comfortable to do this, but we don't want comfort, we want to maximize growth and have a greater understanding of the complexities of issues," he added.
Both CCI representatives and audience members agreed that, to some extent, administrative bodies follow a "silo" structure, in which administrative entities are designed for efficiency and not collaborative efforts.
The conversation that followed between the staff and CCI representatives included criticisms of campus culture that were often prefaced by affirmations of the merits of the University and the majority of its students.
Concerns included underage drinking, trash left by students after tailgates and the lack of effective diversity education offered by Duke.
After the meeting, Thompson said he agreed with Danowski that Duke is a great place, but added that it wasn't as great for everyone.
"By saying it's not as great for everybody doesn't mean that there are not great things that we want to affirm," he added. "I think that's the polarity that we have to get past."
Thompson also said the initiative needed to look for ways to better connect faculty, staff and students.
Following the interim report in December, the initiative is expected to release a final report in February.
Although the initiative is explicitly advisory to the president, the report will be a public document.
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