SLIDESHOW: Bull City Records

01 Mar 2011, Posted by Courtney Douglas in Featured, News, Photos, Playground, 0 Comments

Check out The Chronicle’s photos of the Bull City’s Records performance.

SLIDESHOW: Mad Men and Mad Women Party

01 Mar 2011, Posted by Courtney Douglas in Featured, News, Photos, 0 Comments

A whimsical twist on the East Campus image

01 Mar 2011, Posted by Lauren Carroll in Featured, News, 1 Comments

A few weeks ago, I walked out of Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center and did a double take. A new, fanciful banner covered the once blank, grey brick wall that surrounds the upper level.

I couldn’t help but stop and stare for several moments; it seemed as if the brochure-perfect picture of the East Campus Quad on a spring day had been taken over by zombies, bubble gum, aliens, rainbow afros, marine animals and a similarly spontaneous pair of paintbrushes.

The imaginative piece was created by co-artists Justina Wong and Aubrey Frazzitta, who were commissioned by the Office of Student Activities and Facilities and the Duke Innovative Design Agency to create something eye-catching with a gigantic and seemingly unexciting photo of East Campus, Wong said.

Frazzitta added that the assignment was part of OSAF’s current efforts to “refresh the BC and include more student artwork.”

The two seniors spent over a week painting on the stage of Reynolds Theater. Both Wong and Frazzitta said that they didn’t plan out the art – they just let it flow at random. Wong said that she “approached the task as a huge doodling.”

“The assignment was just to create a fun work of art that would inspire the creativity of Duke students,” Frazzitta said. “We really had a lot of freedom regarding the direction to take the project in, so Justina and I just dove in and got started! We didn’t plan too much beforehand, as we wanted the project to have an aspect of randomness and spontaneity.”

Zombie squirrels and bubble-gum pink goo

Every time I leave my class in Griffith, I notice something new in the painting, pigs flying above Baldwin Auditorium, zombie squirrels in the trees and even Waldo. (I won’t tell you where he is!)

Even if you don’t make it down to that part of the BC too often, I recommend that you take a look next time you eat at McDonald’s or Armadillo Grill, but make sure you have a few minutes to spare.

“The joy it brings to other people makes me so happy,” Wong said. “I like that people have to stand there and stare at it for a good few minutes in order to absorb the full magnitude of craziness in the paintings.”

Bang for your buck: Duke voted #2 in best-valued private colleges

01 Mar 2011, Posted by Nicole Kyle in News, 0 Comments

So Dukies aren’t exactly used to being second-best.

But as the Huffington Post reported Friday, The Princeton Review and USA Today named Duke University #2 in private schools with the best value for their cost of attendance. Duke followed recurring #1 Swarthmore and was followed by Princeton at #3.

Swarthmore’s estimated cost of attendance for 2012 is $51,500 and Princeton’s is $52,180. Duke’s currently $53,905, but following a 3.9 percent tuition increase, cost of attendance will be approximately $55,690 for the 2012 year.

The study examined 650 colleges and universities across the United States. Among the 50 top public and 50 top private schools, The Princeton Review used factors such as academic excellence, financial aid and overall cost of attendance to calculate those with the highest ‘value.’

According to the Princeton Review’s website, to have high value “a school must be academically outstanding. It must also offer value in one of two ways: either by charging a comparatively lower sticker price (that includes all the “cost of attendance” factors listed above) right off the bat or by making a comparatively higher sticker price affordable to students it admits who demonstrate financial need.”

Duke replaced Harvard in the #2 slot. Harvard dropped to #5 and Yale went from #5 to #10.

Last year, though, Duke didn’t even make the top ten.

So what’s the reason for the big jump?

Dean of Undergraduate Admission Christoph Guttentag said it is likely more a change in the ranking methodology than any change in college’s policies.

“Anytime that there are big changes in rankings of any sort, it typically means a change in methodology,” Guttentag said. “I don’t think Duke is dramatically different, but people who do the rankings like to change the way they do them because it keeps it interesting.

Guttenetag said he is skeptical of any sort of rankings, regardless of how the University is portrayed.

“That said, I think Duke represents a terrific value in education,” he noted. “I’m really pleased that we’ve been recognized this way, though if that changes I’m not going to lose sleep in any way next year.”

“All that said, I’m happy we’re number two,” he concluded.

So what do YOU think—is Duke worth “every penny?”

The Full Top-10 Best Value Private Colleges

Swarthmore College
Duke University
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology
Harvard College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Vanderbilt University
Wesleyan College
Yale University

Fuqua survey predicts increase in social media spending

01 Mar 2011, Posted by Sonia Havele in News, 0 Comments

Social media spending is predicted to surpass that of traditional marketing within the next five years, according to results from a survey conducted by the Fuqua School of Business.

The survey, known as the CMO survey, is a nationwide poll of chief marketing officers conducted twice a year by Fuqua. More than 400 top marketers at Fortune 100, Forbes Top 200 and CMO club companies were surveyed for the February 2011 poll.

Social media, according to the CMO Survey, refers to “online content created by companies, customers, and others on the web” and exists in several forms including blogging, product reviews, social networking, forums and video/photo sharing.

Christine Moorman, founding director of the CMO survey and the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration at Fuqua, explained that firms are trying to determine how consumers are utilizing social media as it continues to grow in use and popularity.

Moorman said “brick and mortar” businesses have come to face new marketing challenges in light of expanding online companies like Amazon.

“It is cheaper to use social media as a sales force,” Moorman said. “Borders [is] going out of business because Amazon is doing things at half the cost.”

Moorman noted, however, that there is still a great deal of experimentation taking place, as companies have not yet determined how to integrate marketing strategy with social media. Companies that “figure that out” will be in a better position to offer value to their companies, she added.

Despite the greater interaction and selection offered by in-store experiences, the observed increase and predicted growth in social media spending among companies across the board may be explained best by a question posed by Moorman.

“If customers can stand there and buy [a product] on their iPhone, how can ['brick and mortar'] companies sustain a business model?”