One step makes all the difference

13 Sep 2011, Posted by Alexander Kazandjian in Backpages, 0 Comments

Stephen Cameron/The Chronicle

It takes nothing more than a couple inches of raised ground to make parts of this campus completely inaccessible to handicapped students.

In a school as old and established as Duke, it is no surprise that there are many locations on campus that are inaccessible to people with mobility limitations or physical disabilities. Many of the school’s policies and practices—such as not allowing students with housing accommodations to block with their friends or using elevators as storage closets—seem to push these students away rather than integrate them. Although the school tries to go out of its way to accommodate its few disabled students, there are many things that could be done to improve the accessibility of the campus as a whole.

“The [student disability] office—they’re not on you for things—but if you need something you can ask them for things and they’re generally accommodating,” said senior Charlotte Schwarz.

The Student Disability Accommodations Office, located on Central Campus, is great for working with people one-on-one, Schwarz said, adding that the office has been extremely helpful with any personal problems brought to their attention.

She noted, however, that the office could be more proactive about the little things. There are many automatic doors and entryways on campus that are broken and will remain so until it is brought to the attention of the administration. Likewise, there are many places on campus where the sidewalks are cracked and distorted—or else nonexistent.

“The disability office itself is off the main campus and far away,” said junior Megan Barron. “It’s not an integral part of the Duke community because people don’t see the disability office like they’d see other resources on campus. It’s like a slap in the face that the office is so far away. There are also so many resources on campus that are located in buildings which are completely inaccessible, which means those resources are inaccessible.”

Getting around campus is often an issue for students with disabilities. While the bus drivers are generally very good about being patient with individuals in wheelchairs and willing to wait for a straggler or two who isn’t as quick to board as the rest of the students, there are only so many places one can go with a bus.

There are some places that require you to call the van service to help you get there. Safe Rides is meant to help students with mobility issues—a sprained ankle or a broken foot—get where they need to go. The fact that Duke provides this service is phenomenal and extremely convenient. It has, however, experienced many cutbacks recently, reducing the size of its fleet and the hours it operates.

Many students believe that accessibility on campus is not a problem, and that elevators and automatic doors are generally superfluous. It is because of this mentality that one sometimes finds elevators which double as storage closets, finding anything from mops and buckets to coals upon stepping inside. Likewise, students who require special housing accommodations are kept from being able to block with their friends, even if it’s only one or two people.

“That’s not fair, I agree. I wanted to block with friends, and I couldn’t. I didn’t push it too hard,” Schwarz said. “I realized that wasn’t in the policy, so I just let it go.”

The dorms especially aren’t very accessible, Barron said. West Campus dorms often have a single step—which prevents individuals with wheelchairs from going inside—or narrow hallways which require very precise handling. Most dorms don’t even have elevators, and those that do—Koehane or Edens—are much farther away than most.

“Accessibility doors are always in the back of a building, the long way around,” Barron said. “They’re generally all the way around back, by the dumpster or parking lot and out of sight. It sends a weird message. You shouldn’t have to go such a roundabout way to get where you need to go.”

Barron, who runs the Duke Disability Alliance, feels that once the students of Duke University are made aware of the problems on campus they too will feel compelled to fix them. Barron invites everyone to attend the DDA for its general body meeting on Sep. 22 at 7:30 in the Center for Multicultural Affairs.

CollegeACB went down with a blip(dar)

11 Sep 2011, Posted by Nguyen Tran in Backpages, 1 Comments

Irina Danescu/The Chronicle

When I did my school research, apart from the ubiquitous U.S. News ranking and other college review books, I referred to another source: CollegeACB.

Yes, I did use the infamous college message board for my school search—and for good reasons.

I believe that CollegeACB, as nasty as it as it can be, allowed me to peek into the inner thoughts of Duke’s students—who, if I were to meet face to face, would be more cautious and thus less honest about what they said.

After a two year run, however, CollegeACB ceased to exist as its original form.

This January, Peter Frank, its owner, announced that he was selling his stake, and that new managers would take over control of the site soon. The transition was carried out during the summer, when Blipdar, CollegeACB’s successor, was launched.

For a site that caused much controversy not just on Duke’s campus but throughout the nation, CollegeACB’s rebirth was met with surprisingly muted reaction. Some, like sophomore Cathy Thompson, didn’t even know the site had changed.

“I guess it’s because I’ve stopped coming to the site since it’d become so negative. But I’m not the only one. All of my friends stopped using it a while ago,” Thompson said. “This is a good thing. ACB is so bad that I’m glad people have stopped using it.”

For those who have tried using Blipdar, the change brought much frustration. Blipdar is not as user-friendly as CollegeACB, said sophomore Matt Darlow.

“For a company that supposedly invested a hefty sum of money, you’d think they’ll do a better job,” Darlow said. “The interface sucks, the site keeps crashing. There are so many issues with [Blipdar] that it’s just plain unuseable.”

Blipdar may never enjoy the popularity CollegeACB once commanded, many students believe.

“Even if [Blipdar’s management] get their acts together, it is too late,” said junior Alison Walker. “The site was heavily criticized to begin with, and now with the lousy interface and technical issues, whoever used to use the site will leave and never come back again.”

Ching chong ling long ting tong

11 Sep 2011, Posted by Nathan Hsieh in Backpages, 1 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Most people who don’t know me would be surprised to hear me use the phrase “my distant Asian culture.”

I am a second generation Chinese-American who essentially only relates to his culture through food. Chinese 1 at Duke was personally much, much more than the apprehension of language and the gradual appreciation of the distant Asian culture. As soon as a teacher from the East Asian studies department called me at home a couple days before orientation-week started, I knew my experience would be unique to many. The conversation began as she interrogated me in basic Chinese, trying to figure out whether or not my knowledge of the language was proficient enough to move me up to a higher-level course.

From the moment I refused to move up to a class filled with native Chinese speakers, I knew the decision would color by future Chinese-learning experience.

The first day I was in class, the teacher gave me weird looks as she asked me about my cultural background. She proceeded to refer to me to a different course for students much more articulate in the language. She could not comprehend how little I actually knew about my heritage.

My parents both moved to America from Hong Kong when they were young and spent much of their life acclimating to the vast cultural differences between the two hemispheres. By the time I came around, it wasn’t necessary to learn my native language or spend time trying to connect with my roots. I simply went about my life in America, trying to fit in as best I could in a small southern preparatory school in Durham, North Carolina.

During my senior year of high school I chose to go to Shanghai, China for 2 weeks as a part of my senior project. Nothing could have prepared me for that. Nothing. I finally realized how out of touch I was with my culture as I walked through the streets trying to find my way around the city thriving with a population over thirty million. People would try to converse with me, and when I couldn’t respond in the local dialect, Shanghainese, they would try speaking next in the more common tongue of Mandarin. When I still couldn’t reply they would give me peculiar looks and scream louder trying to get their point across. They couldn’t wrap their minds around the concept that I could not understand them. I looked just like them, walked just like them, ate just like them, yet I still couldn’t communicate a word back and forth besides a brief introduction.

Being overseas, I truly realized how culturally distant I was from any other Asian American—even in my high school—and that the first step to getting more in touch with my roots was to learn the language. My first Chinese class at Duke was my attempt to draw myself closer to my family and understand where they are coming from. It has truly been difficult dealing with the homework, the studying and late night memorization of characters as well as getting past the judgment I receive from teachers for not understanding a word of Chinese, but its all worth the slowly diminishing distance to my culture. Better late than never.

9/11: West coast perspective

10 Sep 2011, Posted by Ashley Mooney in Backpages, 0 Comments

As inhabitants of the East coast stood still and took a collective breath on the morning of September 11, 2001, the West coast was sound asleep.

Special To The Chronicle

Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center—the first tower hit—at approximately 8:45 a.m. Eastern standard time. People were well into their morning routines—kids were in school, the streets were crowded and the horrors of morning traffic had already started.

On the West coast, most people hadn’t even gotten out of bed.

I grew up in Tigard, Oregon—almost 3,000 miles away from New York. On September 11, I woke up to my parents telling me that the World Trade Center had been attacked. I didn’t even know what the Twin Towers were. I did not know a single person who had been directly affected by the attacks—nobody’s relatives worked at the World Trade Center; nobody was on any of the flights that day. Watching the news seemed almost like watching a movie.

Although our nation was attacked, it all felt distant and surreal.

John Wang, a second year Divinity School graduate student, accounted a similar feeling of detachment. At the time he was living in Roland Heights, California.

“I was sitting in my sophomore English honors class and we heard news that there was an attack, so our teacher turned on the TV in the classroom, and we started to watch these events unfold,” Wang said. “It was a really surreal experience—kind of like I was watching a movie—but it was real life. I just kept thinking, ‘Wow that’s really happening right now.’”

Junior Alpha Tessema, a Beaverton, Oregon native, reflected on his own experience.

“It didn’t seem real. It was like this sense of country that I had in my mind was very stable and strong. Like, ‘the USA is the best’ was the mantra in my mind,” he said. “September 11 sort of shattered that fantasy.”

Living on the West coast at the time definitely seemed like a different experience, Tessema added.

“We were affected by it but it wasn’t as real,” Tessema said. “We woke up to the sirens of the East coast three hours ahead of us.”

Second year Divinity School graduate student, Brian Manchester, from Yorba Linda, California, expressed similar feelings.

“Having never traveled to New York, I felt somewhat disconnected,” Manchester said.  “I cared, I felt for them, but it was kind of distant for me.”

Although the initial response for many West coasters was detached shock, September 11 revived a sense of community. We could not see the victims we were rallying to aid, but our efforts did not lack in zeal.

Teachers encouraged intellectual discussions amongst my fourth grade peers. Adults seemed more motivated to help. I noticed a spike in clothing and food drives, as well as an increase in community service amongst my community.

So yes, there were drives to help those directly affected by 9/11, but there was also more of a focus on bettering our local community and our relationships in general. Moments like these are opportunities to reflect on priorities.

That day’s tragedy colored the way we see the world. Our generation takes it for granted because it is the only reality we have ever known (not many have vivid memories of the world before the fourth grade), but the September 11 attacks have changed the minor nuances of all of our lives.

9/11: From across the pond

10 Sep 2011, Posted by Jack Wagner in Backpages, 0 Comments

It was about 9:30 p.m. in Hong Kong on the evening of September 11, 2001 when my grandmother called the house and frantically told us to turn on CNN.

Special To The Chronicle

I will never forget standing with my whole family and staring at the television in silence for over ten minutes.

My father had colleagues who worked in the World Trade Center who thankfully managed to escape safely, but were forever scarred by the experience. We were stricken with grief for the victims and their families, and we were shocked that something like this could have happened. Moreover, given that both of my parents are journalists, they could already envision the ramifications of this event—not only for America, but also for the whole world.

September 11 is the landmark event of our generation and has impacted countries all over the world.

The most obvious examples would be Afghanistan and Iraq because of the U.S. “War on Terror.” Outside of the two war-torn countries, the entire Middle East has been affected by the consequences of 9/11.

Pakistan is now a major player in the War on Terror because the U.S. has relied on the country for strategic reasons, despite the fact that Pakistan has been accused on abetting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has also conducted many operations on al-Qaeda targets in Yemen, the Philippines and the Horn of Africa.

As Lionel Barber stated in the Financial Times this week, however, 9/11 changed the international community’s attitude towards America more than it did towards terrorism (given that terrorism has existed for a long time). For the first time, the U.S. was no longer the all-mighty nation that I had pictured it to be from across the Pacific. Despite being the world’s largest economy and most powerful military force, the U.S. was no longer untouchable. America’s controversial methods of counter-terrorism—such as the use of torture in Guantanamo—were also scrutinized in foreign countries.

Yet despite this apparent disapproval of the American counter-terrorism methods on the international scene, numerous countries improved their ties to the U.S. by either supporting the general cause or by actually committing troops to the Afghan or Iraqi wars.

The example of this that is closest to my heart regards China. It has supported America’s war from the beginning—as Michael Szonyi wrote for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in 2002, this Chinese support has “heralded a new and closer chapter in Sino-American relations.”

An interesting parallel to this has been the threat of China overtaking the US as the world superpower. A source at the Financial Times office in Hong Kong aptly explained that the downgrading of the United States’ sovereign debt this year could be partly traced all the way back to 9/11, given the incredible costs of the War on Terror that weighed down its government’s budget.

Arguably, 9/11 could be a symbol for the end of the US’s unquestionable dominance in the world.