Well, folks, they've done it again.
Once more the infallible powers that be have decided to issue forth their wisdom on the topic of how to live your life in a short and pleasantly fuzzy report. This one is entitled "Interim Report on the Undergraduate Experience at Duke," and it comes from the Office of the Provost, Peter Lange.
Now, this one is slightly different from its predecessor, the report issued by the Campus Culture Initiative Steering Committee last spring, in that it goes to great pains to give as few actual ideas as possible. The CCI gave quite a few solid recommendations, and the student body at large responded by recommending where the CCI could put them.
So instead, the Interim Report fills up on platitudes. Thanks to a little program called grep and the miracle of regular expressions I can tell you that some form of the word "pluralism" appears 12 times in the 16-page report. The provost obviously disagrees with my earlier argument that there is no Duke "culture," as that word appears in some form 31 times. Our "community" is mentioned a whopping 47 times. Surprisingly, the phrase "Kum Ba Yah" appears zero times.
The remainder of the report is grouped into four parts: engaging diversity, gender relations, selective living and regulations and responsibility governing student social life. Let's take those one at a time.
On diversity, ever the golden calf of the culture mythos, the report seems to agree with the satirist Maddox when he says that it "comes from people who look different." To this end, the report's authors acknowledge that they conferred almost exclusively with the Black Student Alliance and Asian Students Association. I've nothing against these organizations, but it does rather imply that our students of Indian, Caucasian, Arab, Latin American or some other ethnicity either have nothing to contribute to diversity or are simply not as important.
The report asks whether we're using our living and dining spaces to properly encourage pluralism and simultaneously encourage individualism. I've always been of the opinion that bridges between diverse groups are built on a common interest rather than a common address, but maybe that's just me.
On the subject of gender relations, the report notes that everyone thinks everyone else is the problem (I'm sure we're all shocked) and then goes on to address rather awkwardly what the report calls our "hookup culture." Now, I'm sure Lange, Moneta and Co. are fine gentlemen and seasoned veterans of amorous campaigns, but whether and how I do my "hooking up" is a subject with which I'd rather they not concern themselves. But again, perhaps I'm off base here.
In the section on rules regarding social life, the report has come to the surprising conclusion that quite a few students like to drink and that "many students feel that rules are inconsistently enforced." The report here flirts with a real solution here when it mentions that students should have "the opportunity to learn from mistakes," but quickly reverts to the same old, same old, by deciding to revise enforcement rather than the rules themselves.
Finally, on selective living the report furiously backpedals on the CCI's recommendation that it be done away with entirely. Apparently it came as a shock that the right to free association was as staunchly defended by those who did not exercise it as those who did.
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. I think folks like Lange and Moneta are doing the best they know how, and this report does emphasize the need to get student input. So here's my input into what their plans should be: Back off.
I don't say that in a negative sense, either. Backing off and letting the students interact naturally should be the official policy. Now this course might not get us exactly where we want as quickly as we want, but then neither have the many attempts by administrations past and present to mold and manufacture good little boys and girls.
The whole subject always comes back to this truth: No housing, dining or party policy from the administration will change the way we think of or treat each other. The onus is on us-the students-and us alone, to improve our own behavior and that of our colleagues. Everything else is a waste of time and paper, and will do more harm than good.
Oliver Sherouse is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Wednesday.
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