I'm always in a good mood when I'm eating chicken korma. It's delicious. But I have a friend who evidently doesn't feel the same way, because he was in an angry mood when we met up at Dale's last week.
"The thing about tenting," he said, slamming down his food tray, "is all that energy could be used for so many better things. Like helping the community, or championing a cause or correcting social inequalities."
Dutiful Dukie that I am, I was prepared to jump in and defend our tradition against this bleeding-heart liberal. If I tent, it doesn't mean that I don't take up other activities to help others in my spare time. In fact, there's one Duke organization that happens to do both: Crazies Who Care, a Cameron Crazies group that has raised more than $8,000 for charitable causes.
But I realize now that I'm not satisfied with my original answer. It's not a question of either/or: Plenty of tenting Dukies also help their communities or work for worthy causes. But it is a question of priorities. Tenting demands a huge time commitment from us, and we deem it a worthy sacrifice. As a community, Duke has decided that tenting is a worthwhile use of a student's time. We've even subsidized tenting: Wi-Fi and Ethernet services are provided so that our tentees can do their homework and surf the Web while tenting. Not too many other activities, worthier activities, are allowed that same level of legitimacy.
There are other Cameron Crazy rites, I feel, that make it uncomfortably clear where our priorities lie. For example, the national anthem. When we sing the national anthem in Cameron, everyone gets particularly excited for the line, "Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?" That's because when we get to "Oh," we all shout and make a big O with our hands. It's a cute little Duke tradition. It also makes me somewhat uncomfortable: Even our national anthem, which is supposed to transcend the daily realities of one university, is turned into yet another call-sign for Dukie pride.
This isn't to say that Duke students secretly wish for the overthrow of the U.S. government. But it is to say that when we're in Cameron, we become Crazies first, and everything else second. I still remember some students griping about the fact that Coach K was going to coach the U.S. Olympic Team; they were proud that our coach was given the honor, but worried that it would distract his focus from Duke pre-season concerns. Duke comes first, I guess.
The commitments you make with your time illustrate what you find important in your life. At Duke, our basketball team is important to us. And that's the way it should be. But frankly, I wish we could see other things as more important.
That's why I would like to humbly suggest my own change to the tenting tradition. What if tenting students could miss a certain number of tent checks, provided that they engaged in line-monitor-regulated community service activities? A student could dedicate four hours to helping out with a local organization and receive permission to miss one tent check and still get credit; something along those lines.
Before you dismiss the idea out of hand by arguing that it would cheapen the tenting experience, think about this: If such a program were implemented, the community-at-large would be better off because of our tenting tradition. As it stands, Duke students are best known as basketball fanatics. I'd rather we be known as students who are committed both to our basketball program and to helping others.
Crazies Who Care is a great step in that direction; they ask each student to contribute $1 to a charitable cause before a game. But once again, it's a question of priorities. It's a good thing to be a Cameron Crazie who happens to care about worthy causes. But it's a better thing to be someone who cares, and who happens to be a Cameron Crazie.
James Tager is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.
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