Video: Purple looks to raise social awareness with activism week

09 Sep 2009, Posted by Emmeline Zhao in News, Student Groups, 0 Comments

Purple kicks off social activism week with a purpose from Duke Chronicle on Vimeo.

Purple, a new student organization aiming to raise awareness about five specific social issues, launched its social activism week Monday. Check out the video above, shot and narrated by The Chronicle’s Brithny Zhang, to see Purple’s events from the week and what group leaders think the organization means to campus.

Video: Rep. David Price talks healthcare at Duke

07 Sep 2009, Posted by Zachary Tracer in Academics, National Politics, News, video, 1 Comments

Rep. David Price, D-N.C., came to Duke last Tuesday to talk about healthcare reform with students and answer their questions. Watch the video above, shot and narrated by The Chronicle’s Allie Prater, to see Price speak and hear an interview with one of the event’s planners.

Sanford professor, student push increased use of ignition-interlock devices

31 Aug 2009, Posted by Lindsey Rupp in Faculty and Staff, News, Tidbits, 1 Comments

Several people in the Sanford School of Public Policy want to help prevent people from making poor decisions when they drink.

Although they may not care whether people who imbibe keep their clothes on, Philip J. Cook, professor of public policy, and Maeve E. Gearing, a doctoral candidate in public policy, want to keep them off the roads.

Cook and Gearing co-authored an op-ed article that ran in the New York Times Monday about ignition-interlock devices. These devices are breathalyzers that attach to the ignition of a car and will prevent the vehicle from starting if the driver is intoxicated, which if widely used could save as many as 750 lives a year, according to a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration report estimate.

Currently, eight states require drunk-driving offenders to have ignition-interlock devices installed in their cars and 25 states require repeat offenders to install them, according to the article.

But in 2007, only 146,000 ignition interlocks were in use, they wrote, adding that the reasons were clear: the devices are expensive to install and there is little enforcement or oversight of their installation.

The authors suggest courts connect installing ignition-interlock devices with substance-abuse treatment requirements and only allow offenders to remove the devices when they do not try to start their cars while drunk over an extended time period.

“The ignition interlock could be an extraordinarily effective way to prevent drunk-driving recidivism,” Cook and Gearing wrote. “But it can save lives only if we make sure people use it.”

Duke students drink, get naked, get caught

30 Aug 2009, Posted by Zachary Tracer in Crime, News, student life, 1 Comments

As the year begins, before work piles up, Duke students have a lot of free time on their hands. Different Dukies do different things to fill the hours, most of which don’t make it on to a police blotter.

But sometimes, Duke students get drunk. And when they do, they don’t always make the best choices.

In the latest instance of drunk Duke student shenanigans, Duke Police found an intoxicated student sans clothing (yes, naked) in McClendon Commons around 9 a.m. Friday. According to the police report summary, an officer escorted the student back to his room.

Ten days earlier, Duke Police discovered a naked intoxicated student passed out near the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences, which students know as CIEMAS, at 2:12 a.m. No word on what the student was doing over there so early on a Tuesday morning. The student was taken to the hospital.

Sometimes, however, drunk naked Dukies are a bit more active. Have a look at this police report from April:

“I witnessed two subjects running from the Kilgo Quad area towards the Bus Stop. The male subject was completely naked with the exception of his hat and holding his boxers in his hand. The female subject was wearing only underclothes. The two stated that they had been at an unknown room in Kilgo Quad playing beer pong and had lost the game and as a result had been asked to run to the bus stop naked.”

When the officer encountered the students, he “asked the male subject to please put on his boxers,” the report states. After getting the students’ information, the officer let them go and get dressed.

The two did not get off scot-free. The students were not arrested, but a Dean was advised of the incident, the report notes.

Why doesn’t Duke have an undergraduate business program?

25 Aug 2009, Posted by Zachary Tracer in Academics, Faculty and Staff, News, 0 Comments

When I sat down with Fuqua’s  Kathie Amato, assistant dean for executive MBA programs and associate dean for the Master of Management Studies program, and Deputy Dean Bill Boulding, or spoke via telephone with Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard about the new Master of Management Studies, the question of why Duke does not have an undergraduate business  program often arose.

The University once had an undergraduate business program—it ended in 1979, the year Sheppard came to Duke.

“The reason we got out of it is a belief that business is inherently narrowing as a subject matter, and if it is the first thing you learn, you are really ill-prepared for the world you are about to enter,” Sheppard said. “We believe that, we inherently believe that.”

He said the creation of the Master of Management Studies program does not indicate that Duke should have an undergraduate business program.

“Is the existence of a law school evidence that we should be teaching law in undergrad—silly question,” he said. “I’d say the same thing about what we’re doing.”

Amato drew from personal experience to help explain the lack of an undergraduate business program.

“We really like the marriage of either the strong base in the liberal arts or the strong base in the sciences… with [the Master of Management Studies program] because we really believe that when you combine those two, it is a far more powerful combination and really gives someone the benefit of what we believe is a true Duke sort of education, quite frankly,” she said. “I was a religion undergraduate who immediately went to school and got an MBA. The fact that I have that very strong liberal arts, religion, philosophy background was very huge to me throughout my career.”

Duke does have a broader option for students interested in business, the Markets and Management Studies Certificate program.

“If you want to go into business, business school, start a business, or work for a business, this is the way to do it,” said sociology professor Lisa Keister, director of Markets and Management Studies. “The whole idea, especially at Duke, is that you have very broad liberal arts training…. That is still true in the certificate program.”