INC NEWS - Column: Town-Gown on Points (Duke Towerview magazine, Feb 2006)

[John Schelp]

Column: Town-Gown on Points
Local business advocates see the DukeCard as key to
connection -- and cash 
By Carol Anderson & John Schelp
Duke Towerview magazine, February 2006
 
In the Princeton Review's 2005 student survey of
college rankings, Duke's town-gown relations were
fifth worst in the nation. Duke officials may dismiss
them as unscientific, but these ratings raise
questions about how students form such negative
perceptions of town-gown relations and how Duke might
counter them. 

When the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association
investigated poor student attendance at a
Duke-sponsored Block Party on Ninth Street last fall,
it found that changing DukeCard policies could counter
these perceptions. Current DukeCard policies prohibit
students from using the card for purchases off-campus,
discouraging them from patronizing local merchants.
For small, locally owned merchants, the costs
associated with the program-$1,500 to $3,500 start-up
costs and 18 percent commissions-make participation
prohibitively expensive.

Many other universities have programs that enable
student IDs to function like debit cards by linking
them to area bank accounts. Both UNC-Chapel Hill and
N.C. State allow students to use their cards off
campus. State charges no commissions. Instead of
dragging their feet, senior administrators like
Tallman Trask and Kemel Dawkins should implement
DukeCard policies that would encourage students to
venture off campus, benefit both the Duke and Durham
communities, and improve perceptions of town-gown
relations. 

In a Chronicle article, Duke officials attributed
limiting DukeCard use to on-campus purchases to the
University's tax-exempt status. But as a local
business owner pointed out in The Chronicle late last
month, there's a big difference between the Duke's
purchases being exempt from sales taxes and individual
DukeCard purchases of pizza or sandwiches being
tax-exempt. Bluntly stated, this difference is
fairness.

Current DukeCard policies unfairly discourage Duke
students and employees from venturing off campus to
purchase food, textbooks, or other items, depriving
Durham and North Carolina of sales tax revenues and
placing this burden on the backs of local residents
and businesses. Surely this is not the reason we grant
tax-exempt status to institutions of higher learning.
And it may surprise Blue Devil parents that Duke's
dubious use of its tax-exempt status is compounded by
its 18 percent bite from every pizza-on-points
delivered to their student's dorm.

Lowering DukeCard start-up costs and commissions would
improve town-gown relations, enabling more small,
local businesses-like Blue Corn Café or the Regulator
on Ninth Street or Morgan Imports at Brightleaf-to
participate in the program. Duke's current high set-up
fees and 18 percent commissions are more easily
absorbed by national chains than small, local
merchants. And supporting locally owned merchants is
another important way Duke could help the local
economy and tax base. 

In April 2005, Publisher's Weekly reported an Austin,
Texas study that found $45 of every $100 spent at an
independent Austin bookseller stayed in the local
community, while just $13 of every $100 spent at the
national chain Borders stayed in the community, making
the independent bookseller's contribution to the local
economy nearly three times higher than the national
chain's. It is reasonable to think that what holds for
booksellers also holds for restaurants, music sellers,
and boutiques. 

Thus, both DukeCard holders and Durham will benefit
from thriving local business districts with locally
owned merchants frequented by Duke students and
staff-the former by a wider array of dining, shopping
and entertainment choices and contact with the Durham
community and the latter by new customers and
increased tax revenues in the local community.


Photo caption of vacant storefront: CLOSE UP SHOP -
Local restaurants like Torero's that cannot accept
DukeCards sometimes suffer without students' business.
 
Contributors: Duke students are prized customers to
John Schelp, president of the Old West Durham
Neighborhood Association, and Carol Anderson, owner of
Vaguely Reminiscent on Ninth Street. Both see Blue
Devils as key to keeping the local economy vibrant.
But the duo is becoming vocal as communication -- and
action -- between Duke officials and local business
leaders have become stagnant. Visit www.owdna.org for
more information.

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