31 Jan 2009, Posted by Shuchi Parikh in Dining, News, 0 Comments
Chai’s Noodle Bar & Bistro and Green Tango are waiting for equipment to be installed (like DukeCard readers) and are slated to be on food points soon, according to e-mails to the Duke University Dining Committee. Chai’s is expecting their equipment to be in by Monday/Tuesday, to become an official Merchants on Points vendor sometime this week.
Both Erwin Road restaurants in addition to T.G.I. Friday’s are approved to go on food points to expand offerings from Duke Dining’s Merchants on Points program, as The Chronicle reported Jan. 22.
Updated 5:59 p.m.
Even the slightest shift in higher education rankings provokes many questions on campus: Why did Duke’s position change? How far ahead is the Harvard-Yale-Princeton triumvirate? What can Duke do to stay on the upswing?
These and other questions came to mind when the Fuqua School of Business leapt to No. 22 in the Financial Times’ list of best full-time business schools in the world, a six-spot improvement from last year.
It is probably too soon for Fuqua’s five-site global network, announced last August, to be giving Duke a boost in the curent rankings, Elizabeth Hogan, Fuqua’s assistant dean for marketing and communications, told The Chronicle when Fuqua rose to eighth place in BusinessWeek’s Best B-Schools of 2008 issue.
But Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for government relations and public affairs, hinted that the Multinational Growth Plan could give Duke a boost in future rankings.
“As Fuqua’s global programs continue to expand, we expect that Duke’s stature will only grow among international leaders,” Schoenfeld wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle when Fuqua’s position in the Financial Times’ rankings was announced.
Even so, Dan LeClair, vice president and chief knowledge officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, said he doubts Fuqua is launching the global outposts to best its competitors in the rankings.
“I know that Fuqua is not doing this to increase their rankings,” he said. “This is part of their mission, an important part of their strategy. [Improved rankings] may be an outcome–it’s certainly a reasonable thing that could come out of this. But I think it’s important to note that business schools like Duke don’t let the rankings drive their strategy…. I know [Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard] well enough to know that [rankings] are not the key driver.”
Bob Steel
Bob Steel has attracted a lot of negative publicity recently, but many in the U.S. Treasury department still hold a favorable impression of his legacy.
Steel, chair of Duke’s Board of Trustees and Trinity ’73, served as Undersecretary of Domestic Finance in the U.S. Treasury Department from Oct. 2006 to July 2008. Obama’s new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is currently vetting candidates to fill the role of Treasury Undersecretary. According to Deborah Solomon of the Wall Street Journal, Geithner would do well to find a candidate who measures up to Steel:
A robust staff is critical for any Treasury secretary, especially one who’ll be as busy as Mr. Geithner. Indeed, many blame some of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s missteps on the fact that he lost a top advisor — Robert Steel – at the height of the financial crisis. Several former Treasury staff say Mr. Steel’s departure left Mr. Paulson without someone to advise him on the political perception of the bailout and robbed him of someone to oversee the department’s day to day functions. After Mr. Steel left, “there was no grown-up in the building,” quips one former Treasury staffer.
Steel was criticized by Duke alumni for his role in the 2006 lacrosse case and its aftermath. More recently he has been in the news for his brief stint as chief executive officer of Wachovia Corp.—the failed bank that was ultimately bought out by Wells Fargo & Co. in October. As The Chronicle previously reported, Steel is currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for comments he made leading up to the deal with Wells Fargo.
Updated 12:32 a.m., Feb. 3.
It’s amazing how quickly Dukies can burn through food points. But this week, many students knew their appetites were no match for their DukeCard records.
A number of students who logged onto the DukeCard Web site noticed that they had been billed twice for the same purchases made on food points or FLEX Saturday, said Matthew Drummond, Office of Information Technology director of the DukeCard Office. The double-charging was simply a display error—students were not actually charged twice–but the glitch seems to have ruffled some students’ feathers.
It should have been just an uneventful trip to The ‘Dillo. But something about the experience did not sit well with senior Qing Wang when she was assessing the state of her food points the next day.
“I knew I did not order two burritos,” she said. “I guess being an alert individual, I just noticed it…. I was just practicing responsible individual finance.”
Word of the apparent double-charging spread quickly in the student community. Wang notified hundreds of Duke students of the apparent double-charging by e-mail, and many of those students in turn seem to have passed the news on to their friends. Most students Wang contacted reported that their accounts no longer showed the double-charges after Tuesday, and the items did not appear to have been deducted twice from their balances, she said.
But Wang said one double-charge still appears on her balance, noting that she has done the math and it seems she was indeed billed twice for the item. DukeCard officials have sent an e-mail explaining the glitch to students, but Wang still wants answers.
“I’m definitely going to follow up on that—not because Food Points are important to me but just for peace of mind,” she said. “What is going on? How credible is the Duke dining system?”
Photo Credit: The Associated Press
There’s nothing more exciting than a snow day—especially when it happens to coincide with an historic presidential inauguration.
Nielsen ratings show that more than 51 percent of households in the Raleigh-Durham television market tuned in to watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama Jan. 20. In comparison, the overall ratings for the country were around 30 percent. The Triangle ratings were the highest concentration of viewers in the country—higher even than Obama’s hometown of Chicago.
As the (Raleigh) News & Observer reported:
Local stations were thrilled with the “Snowbama effect.”
John Idler, general manger of WTVD, said the ABC station’s numbers — 15.9 percent of households — were higher than expected. He attributed that to the fact that people had “more time to watch.” WRAL had the highest rating in the market — 17.9 percent — during the noon to 12:15 p.m. period when Obama took the oath. (A ratings point equals about 10,800 homes.)
Steve Hammel, general manager of the CBS affiliate, said such viewership is higher than on most Super Bowl Sundays.
Duke students, however, weren’t quite as lucky as Wake County and Durham County public school kids: the University operated on a regular class schedule for Inauguration Day.
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