I love to travel, but I hate going backwards. So a few weeks ago when I road tripped down to the Mississippi Delta to return to the small town where I had spent nine weeks last summer managing a...
TRANG, Thailand-Thailand is a puzzle. A very complicated puzzle. Everything fits together perfectly; every sight, sound and smell. Yet if you were to pull apart the puzzle and try to put it back...
One of my sisters, a captain on the high school rowing team for which I'm a geriatric alum, got busted last week for hazing her young teammates. It was all in good fun, she says, while the girls...
On April 5, in the face of allegations arising from a party held by the men's lacrosse team, I wrote to outline steps the university would take in response to this complex situation. At term's end,...
LONDON -- I've lately been analyzing what it means to feel safe, an introspection I'm sure I'm not alone in indulging in as a Duke female these days. On campus, I can fully emphasize that I've...
My mother is fustian. She likes to use big words-flamboyent words, dramatic words. The truth is, however, that she sometimes gets her words wrong. Don't get me wrong, she is a brilliant woman....
The setting sun was scolding the back of my neck as I approached my ball, a good distance from the tee box and well within range of the 18th green. A three iron, I decided, would suffice. After...
Witch hunts go in stages. First frenzy, when everybody damns the souls of people they don't know. Then confusion, as the first wave of contradictory facts comes in. Then deafening silence, as...
Could you give me the name of a few good black students on campus to talk to? You know, to get their perspective on this whole racial problem." Sitting with my office phone tucked between my cheek...
Suddenly, Duke isn't the baddest kid on the block anymore. It turns out Yale is harboring a terrorist on its campus. That's right, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is a former official in the Taliban...
I had the pleasure of being a marshal during commencement events last weekend. In addition to being congratulated at least 50 times on earning my Duke degree (an understandable mistake on the part...
4. Knit top. A sparkly, seventies-style, Lurex-infused knit top a la Missoni. Wear with worn jeans and a bold necklace for a fresh-from-the-set-of-the-OC brand of date-worthy chic. -Recess, "Top...
After writing countless papers and studying for numerous tests and pulling I don't know how many all-nighters, it's time to move on.
I may become a "better" person but less worthy as an individual. Is it a good thing to become an adult or insist on being a child? About to graduate, I am puzzled even more.
Dear freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors: "We can't be potential forever," a friend said to me a few weeks ago-and he was right. The hardest part about college, for many precocious...
I don't profess to know exactly what it takes to have the perfect college experience. I don't have any step-by-step directions to help you make your time here worthwhile, and honestly, I don't...
A brief note; this was scheduled to run in the Exam Breakers' issue, but fell through the cracks of editorial transition. Generously, I have been allowed a spot in the much more widely read...
Today, The Chronicle Online launched the first of many initiatives to better utilize the Internet as a central means of disseminating up-to-the minute news. There is now a website dedicated to the...
In the four years since, I have witnessed nothing short of an administrative ransacking of this school's social life. Deans, cops, neighbors, nerds and the shadow of the Ivy League have gradually...
That's right, with the last night of regular Chronicle production in full swing, I'm typing a 25-page constitutional law paper-in addition to directing staff members as they piece together what is...
