Durham restaurants welcome back students

08 Sep 2011, Posted by Patton Callaway in News, 0 Comments

Shayan Asadi/The Chronicle

As students arrived at Duke for the school year, Durham eateries prepared to welcome everyone home by equipping their businesses with new systems, employees and bargains.

Enzo’s Pizza Company added drivers, hours and employees to better serve students’ late night cravings. Nosh doubled their staff, invested in a new phone system to take more efficient ordersand expanded outdoor seating. Mount Fuji drew in students with a buy-one-get-one-free sushi deal.

But these were simply standard adjustments. Every conversation with a restaurant owner quickly revealed the true blue blood that runs through the Duke and Durham communities, linking them together.

“Of course Duke students have a huge financial impact on our restaurant,” said Nosh owner Wendy Woods. “But more important than that is the community and family feel that our students give to our restaurant and staff.”

Shooters II owner Kim Cates echoed this family mentality.

“I honestly believe that with our attitude and how we handle things make it like a family here,” Cates said. “You come here, and it feels like home.”

Like a loving parent, Cates ensures that Duke students stay safe when they come to her bar for a ride on the bull or a dance in the cage. Shooters added more buses to transport large groups to and from the bar, and they also shifted the underage line to the side of the building so that students no longer have to stand in the street.

“We know we have a place where everyone can go and be safe,” Cates said.

Beyond that, Shooters is a Duke attraction—a melting pot where all students from all backgrounds can come for a good time.

“We don’t only cater to Greek organizations or athletes,” Cates said. “We cater to the entire Duke University.”

Gene Devines, Duke alum (’75) and owner of Devines Restaurant and Sports Bar, maintains the same priorities.

“Back in ’77, there weren’t a lot of people going out in Durham, and instead people were going to Chapel Hill,” Devines said. “So I wanted to fill that gap and keep students in Durham.”

Devines’ success is especially evident during football season as the community flocks to this sports bar.

“We try to prosper a relationship with [the students] so they can come out, enjoy themselves and get great wings,” Devines said.

The Duke-Durham connection runs deeper as both communities support each other through charities and events. Enzo’s provided free pizzas for the freshman orientation waterslide and continues to work closely with Duke cancer drives and promotional events. Additionally, both Enzo’s and Nosh advertise in The Chronicle.

Through entertainment, good food and service, Duke students and Durham restaurant owners have cultivated a relationship that connects the University to the surrounding community. For students, these places have become a home away from home.

“As an owner, I didn’t know that we would become so attached to the students,” Woods said. “We’re very proud of them, and they’ve never acted inappropriately in this restaurant. We look forward to them coming back every year.”

Brownie points

08 Sep 2011, Posted by Victor Chen in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

For graduate students, the long journey of examinations and research towards an advanced degree is no piece of cake—or is it?

The work and dedication that goes into earning a postgraduate degree is no walk in the park, but there’s a lighter side to the upper-echelons of academia: food. As any college student knows through early morning pizza and late night candy cravings, remaining well-fed is important to studying and success. For those considering graduate school but worried about the availability of free food after walking out of Wallace Wade with an undergraduate diploma, have no fear. Snacks and other traditions have their place at Duke’s own graduate schools as well as academic institutions elsewhere.

Graduate students spend a good amount of time on their dissertations—original research papers that are the culmination of years of studying a specific field. These dissertations must jump through rings of qualifying examinations and revisions. Many of these benchmarks are decided in committee meetings that can last for hours.

“Most people bring some sort of food to committee meetings when defending prelims or dissertations,” said Liz Shesko, a graduate student in history.

Although these finger foods may not be exotic delicacies, they are appreciated by the committee members.

“I brought cheese and crackers for myself and my committee to munch on, especially since my combined defense of prelims and my dissertation prospectus spanned the lunch hour,” Shesko added.

At her final dissertation defense sometime this year, Shesko said that she plans on cooking a dish that relates to her concentration: Bolivia. Aside from some easy finger foods such as cookies, it is not unheard of for advisors to bring champagne for a quick toast after the student passes the final hurdle. Shesko also noted an old tradition of handing down a stethoscope to the last person who passes the final dissertation defense—a humorous jab at the new “less-useful” doctors.

Dissertation desserts, however, vary across departments. In the chemistry department, for example, the food seems to run on the spare side.

“While some students will occasionally provide store-bought cookies at their defense or prelim, it’s not a well-established practice in our department,” said Caroline Morris, graduate program coordinator for chemistry.

Morris also noted that the graduate students in her department generally brought food “to entice other students to attend the open exams.”

So while the food selection at defenses across departments may be different and sometimes rather barren, some tenets always hold true: food makes life better, and no one passes it up when it’s free.

10 years later: Are we safer?

08 Sep 2011, Posted by Caroline Fairchild in News, 0 Comments

Since September 11, 2011, the United States has increased its security dramatically. But even with the extra security, the question remains: Are we actually safer than we were 10 years ago? The Chronicle‘s Caroline Fairchild asked professors, experts and former students this question.

“We are safer, but not yet safe. We have put into place a lot of measures from the annoying, the airports, but there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scene and has made it harder, but not impossible, for terrorist groups to perform further acts.”

-Peter Feaver, co-director of the AGS program

“Yes and no. Yes, we are safer in that we invented a concept of homeland security that we didn’t really have before and we institutionalized that. We are less safe because we played the hegemon and the invader, convincing the countless young men around the world that the propaganda of our enemies is correct.”

-Alex Roland, former history professor at Duke

“There is no doubt in my mind that when it comes to our capacity to monitor airport security, Internet and a variety of different digital modes of communication, that we are in a much better place. But, from a larger macro point of view, the fact is that the group that attacked us is now spread worldwide in places like Somalia and Yemen, and they have means of communicating with each other, and to that extent, we are living in an independent world.”

-Bruce Kuniholm, dean of Sanford School of Public Policy

“When 9/11 happened, al Qaeda had a free reign to operate in Afganistan, and they were well funded and well trained, and they had executed some devastating attacks—now it is just a shadow of its former self.”

-David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security

“I definitely think the measures adopted in the aftermath of 9/11 made it much more difficult for al-Qaeda or similar groups to strike the U.S. homeland.”

-Ionut Popescu, AGS program fellow

“We can never be totally safe, or fully aware of everything going on in the world, but I think that the U.S. has done a good job thus far in solving te problems that allowed 9/11 to occur in the first place. There is much more to do, but I feel very lucky to live in this country and have full faith in the U.S. government.”

-Chelsea Goldstein, Trinity ’10

9/11 Reflection preview

08 Sep 2011, Posted by Samantha Brooks and Taylor Mavrakos and Molly Himmelstein in News, 0 Comments

This week, The Chronicle will bring you stories from alumni, student perspectives and video highlights of this weekend’s commemoration of Sept. 11, 2001. Watch this video by Samantha Brooks, Molly Himmelstein and Taylor Mavrakos for a teaser of what is to come.

Football Gameday Soundoff

05 Sep 2011, Posted by Dylan Peterson in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

In hopes of fostering a safe alternative to the wild, widely-anticipated Tailgate, Duke University administrators enacted Football Gameday. The event was met with avoidance and concern prior to Duke’s first game of the season against Richmond. The air of (dis)spirit for Football Gameday seemed to foreshadow the later glum arising from the football team’s narrow 23-21 loss. The Chronicle’s Dylan Peterson spoke with students, faculty and staff about their reflections on the day.

“What we experience now is nothing like everyone else had had last year. It seemed most of the upperclassmen were pretty bummed.”

—Tyler Nisonoff, freshman

“I had a really good time, but the good thing about Tailgate was going to one place and seeing all your friends at this traditional celebration of Duke spirit, whereas at Gameday, it’s more contained, so you’re hanging out with the people you see everyday.”

—Allison Candal, sophomore 

“There wasn’t much for freshmen to do. There wasn’t any sort of community aspect.”

—Claire McIlvenny, junior

“I obviously enjoyed Tailgate more. However, [Gameday] was a more sustainable event and it’s better than nothing,”

—Stuart Reit, sophomore 

“It was very eventful, loud and the kids looked like they were having a good time. The band was practicing so we got to hear them play—that was fun. The lunch was really good too.”

—Jacqueline Stewart, Duke Bookstore employee

“It was really segregated and broken up. It kind of turned us into a southern school that’s really ‘fratty’ where social groups are split up. With Tailgate, it brought everyone together and unified.”

—Isalyn Connel, sophomore

“They pushed Duke apart rather than [bringing] it together.”

—Elizabeth Turner, sophomore

“Tailgate used to bring [selective living groups] and [fraternities] together…. Tailgate was ridiculous at times with the costumes and whatnot, but it was somewhat controllable because it was centralized in one specific place. Frats will drink regardless, so now people will do it behind closed doors, which makes it difficult to regulate.”

—Mark Kayello, sophomore 

“I didn’t go out of my way to go.”

—Philip Srebrev, sophomore 

“I liked Tailgate. [Gameday] was very strange to me…. I feel like they [administration] would rather us do nothing than have Tailgate. It’s such a sad picture [pointing to the picture of Gameday in The Chronicle]—there are only a few kids. I think it would be fun to go to a game the way football schools do it, with a traditional huge Tailgate with everyone in the same place.”

—Alison Zinna, senior