Zeta Tau Alpha Smash Bash

26 Oct 2011, Posted by Raisa Chowdhury in News, 0 Comments

Tyler Seuc/The Chronicle

The sisters of Zeta Tau Alpha invited Duke campus to release emotion by hitting a pink car last Friday.

The sorority held their annual fall Smash Bash to benefit breast cancer awareness on the main quad as part of a larger two-week effort. The event featured a donated junkyard car painted pink that people could smash for a donation and a yogurt-eating contest. There were also t-shirt and baked goods sales as well as sign-ups to vote for Big Man on Campus at the event and at a table on the Bryan Center plaza the week leading up to the event.

Sophomore Nikki Rigl attended the event to show her support.

“It was lot of fun to watch the student get rooted on by their fellow peers and the smiles on the face of the students who were able to dismantle a piece of the car to take home as a souvenir,” Rigl said. “I was sad I missed the yogurt-eating contest which many of my friends took part in. It was apparently epic.”

At the national level, the sorority partners with the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Yoplait to make the event possible. At Duke, the Delta Tau Delta fraternity partnered with the sorority and grilled food for participants.

“Everyone came out—all ages, Greek, non-Greek and there were even some parents there,” said sophomore Jessie Smit, member of  Zeta.

The sorority will continue to table this week to gather donations and to promote the Think Pink football game on Saturday where they will hand out flowers for breast cancer survivors, ribbons and shower cards to teach women how to do self-examinations.

“It is really important that women know how to examine themselves because a lot of women don’t catch [breast cancer] early enough,” Smit said. “It’s a lot less serious if you catch it early.”

There was also a Dig Pink volleyball game last Wednesday that similarly promoted breast cancer awareness.

“On the athletics side of things, we really see that as an avenue to reach out to a lot of people,” said sophomore Jordan Miller, Smash Bash and Pink Tea co-chair of Zeta. “This is the first year we had a volleyball game as part of our Smash Bash week, and our presence at the football game this weekend will be bigger than in the past. We’re hoping to continue working with athletics throughout the year and sponsor Think Pink games for various other sports.”

Miller plans to expand the Smash Bash event in the future to involve more groups on campus, including athletic teams or student groups. Miller and her co-chair, senior Stormie Leoni, began efforts to achieve this goal by expanding the Big Man on Campus competition from just fraternities to selective living groups as well.

Other additions to the event this year include a silent auction, wristband sales in the Duke bookstore and handing out gifts for survivors at their table at the football game. The football game is also a week after the Smash Bash instead of the weekend before like last year in an effort to spread out the sorority’s philanthropy efforts to make the chapter and its cause more noticeable on campus.

The event raised approximately $600 in 2009 and $10,000 in 2010. The goal this year is to beat that and make between $12,000 and $15,000 by the end of the two weeks.

“The event was well run and seemed like a success,” said sophomore Chris Bogdan, who attended the event. “It was a good mix of fundraising for a cause and having fun.”

DevilWatch: Drunk and drugged Dukies

26 Oct 2011, Posted by Melissa Dalis in Backpages, News, 0 Comments

In the weekly blog series DevilWatch, The Chronicle‘s Melissa Dalis highlights each week’s crimes, as released by the Duke University Police Department.

Oct. 17-23 was a slow week for the Duke University Police Department, which only saw a total of 20 crimes.

Drugs and alcohol crimes comprised 25 percent of the crimes this week: underage consumption in Bryan Center Walkway, Edens 3A and Erwin Rd. BP station, possession of a fake ID in the BP station, possession of drug paraphernalia in Bell Tower and “possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, aid and abet, and underage” in House HH.

Thefts this week included bottles of soda and water, a credit card, two counts of currency, two iPhones, an iPod and a pair of riding boots.

There were four assaults: one on a female in the Durham Regional Hospital, three law enforcement officers at the Durham Regional Hospital, Broad St. and the Washington Duke Inn and a “simple assault” in Jarvis.

The assaults at Broad St. and the WaDuke resulted in arrest, as well as the count of underage consumption and possession of a fake ID at the Erwin Rd. BP station.

BY THE NUMBERS

Total crimes: 20

Thefts: 7

Saturday crimes: 6

Crimes in dorms: 6

Law enforcement officers assaulted: 3

Underage consumption: 3

Duke tied for 5th highest application fee

24 Oct 2011, Posted by Katie Hillyer in News, 0 Comments

Melissa Yeo/The Chronicle

The best things in life are free—except for a college degree.

U.S. News and World Report recently released a list of the top 10 highest college application fees. Charging $75, Duke tied for fifth.

Although 16 other colleges charge the same amount as Duke does, $75 remains a substantial sum to pay simply to apply. From the University’s standpoint, the application fee is entirely necessary.  The seemingly staggering cost to apply to certain schools, however, may deter prospective students from applying. The highest fees in the nation belong to George Mason, which charges $100, and Stanford, which charges $90.

“The fees definitely played a big role in the schools I applied to,”  said freshman Abby Ardis. ”I didn’t apply to a few schools like Cornell and [University of Pennsylvania] because it would have been an extra $70, and I just could not afford that on top of the other fees I was paying.”

Students pay a series of hidden costs in the college application process ranging from Advanced Placement exam registration fees, SAT and SAT 2 exam fees and all the practice books in between. Beyond these costs, application fees may be the straw that breaks the high school senior’s back.

“I had originally had about 13 schools I was interested in, but I didn’t want to burden my parents with the cost so I cut my list down to seven schools,” said sophomore Chris Clarke.

The cost of the application fee did little to deter students from applying to a school if it was already their number one choice, however, which in many cases was Duke.

“The fees didn’t really affect my decisions to apply to the colleges I was seriously interested in,” said freshman Ali Schwartz. “So, because Duke was my top choice, the application fee was not much of a factor.”

There is an application fee waiver offered to students with financial need that helps defray the cost of applying.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Cristoph Guttentag said that the waiver makes applying to Duke more accessible.

“I don’t see the application fee deterring students from applying since we do offer fee waiver programs that are very straight forward,” Guttentag said. “There is no evidence yet that application fees affect students decisions to apply.”

The Duke application fee may seem large, but it is right on target with those of other private institutions. Although it appears to be a factor in whether or not students apply, it is not necessarily definitive.

Politics roundup: Cain’s rise, Perry’s fall

24 Oct 2011, Posted by Walker Schiff in Backpages, Politics Roundup, 0 Comments

Herman Cain rises

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

It’s been three weeks since I last wrote a roundup, and those three weeks have been very kind to GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

Cain has gained significant ground in almost every poll and has gained “frontrunner” status. A Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll had him four points above Romney and eleven points behind the plummeting Rick Perry.

With Cain’s higher poll numbers comes a lot more attention for the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. For the most part, Cain has used this newfound media attention to push his 9-9-9 plan. The plan, which is not a pizza deal, proposes a 9 percent corporate income tax, 9 percent personal income tax and 9 percent sales tax. The plan has garnered plenty of criticism and is yet to receive support from any notable Republicans, yet Cain’s poll numbers haven’t taken a hit.

The main problem people have with the 9-9-9 plan is that it raises taxes for a majority of Americans while giving a tax cut to the richest among us. Cain recently revised his planning, saying that it would actually be the 9-0-9 plan for Americans under the poverty level, but that has done little to slow critics.

Cain has also used all the attention he is getting to talk about border fences—specifically electrified border fences.

In regards to the U.S.-Mexico border, Cain said, “We’ll have a real fence: 20 feet high, with barbed wire. Electrified. With a sign on the other side saying, ‘It can kill you.’”

Then, Cain went on Meet the Press and declared that this plan was a joke. All was well until a couple days later. Cain said his plan for a border fence may still involve the fence being electrified, but it was still a joke because he didn’t want to offend anyone.

Despite the fact that the attention Cain is getting might not be the best thing for his campaign, his poll numbers are still strong. Polls from the last week and a half have Cain ahead of Romney in key states such as Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina—sometimes by double digits.

Rick Perry plummets

With Cain’s rise comes Rick Perry’s fall. Perry has been plummeting in almost every poll out there, presumably due to his poor debate performances. I could talk about Perry’s poor poll numbers more specifically to show how rough his campaign is going, but an exchange from a recent interview he did with Parade Magazine more aptly elucidates how much he really has hit rock bottom.

The interviewer pressed him on whether or not he thought President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Perry avoided the questions and refused to give a definitive answer as to what he thought of the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate. He even brought up a dinner he recently had with Donald Trump in which Trump expressed that he thought Obama’s birth certificate was fake. You know a GOP candidate is desperate when he is considering the idea that Obama’s birth certificate could be fake.

No glove, no love

24 Oct 2011, Posted by Ashley Mooney in News, 0 Comments

Jisoo Yoon/The Chronicle

“No glove, no love” seems to be an increasingly popular pickup line amongst teenagers.

According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 80 percent of boys between the ages of 15 and 19 reported that they used a condom the first time they had sex—a nine point rise from 2002. Furthermore, 85 percent used some form of contraception. Only 78 percent of girls, however, reported using contraception their first time having sex.

Maralis Mercado, program coordinator for health and wellness, commented on the gender disparity in condom use.

“I think it has a lot to do with access and with stigma,” she said. “I think there’s’ still a stigma with women picking up condoms.… There’s kind of an embarrassment of ‘I don’t want to carry that kind of thing,’ where as with boys there’s a sense of pride.”

In order to reduce this stigma, Mercado said, student health is trying to make condoms as accessible as possible to ensure that all students are comfortable with getting them.

Mercado added that the rising popularity of comprehensive sex education programs is another reason for the increase in contraceptive use. She noted that according to research studies, such programs can both decrease the onset of first sexual encounter and increase the chances of an individual choosing to use a protective barrier when they first choose to have sex.

The Duke Student Wellness Center offers free safer sex supplies to students. Among supplies offered are condoms, lubricants and dental dams.

“On East Campus they go very quickly,” said physician assistant Steve Taxman. “We keep them well stocked because we obviously want them available to whoever needs them.”

In 2010, student health distributed 15,876 condoms, 2,789 packets of lubricant and 300 latex dental dams, she said.

There are several locations on campus where Student Wellness distributes free safer sex supplies: the Student Wellness Center, Student Health on East and West Campuses, The Oasis, the Women’s Center and the Center for LGBT Life. Mercado also noted that Student Wellness is working on plans to make condoms more accessible to students in dorms. Freshmen on East Campus currently have the option at the beginning of the year to vote on whether or not they would like baskets of free condoms in their bathrooms.