INC NEWS - Duke shouldn't use neighborhood partnership as PR tool (working towards a genuine partnership)

[John Schelp]

folks,

Shortly after the media started reporting that three
men held the victim down in a bathroom, sexually
assaulted and sodomized her, and beat, kicked and
strangled her at a Duke lacrosse team party, the head
of the university's PR office spoke with a Washington
Post reporter and, for whatever reason, lauded Duke's
Neighborhood Partnership Initiative. 

Again, Duke shouldn't have used the Neighborhood
Partnership as a PR tool in its damage control
efforts.

That was the point of my letter to the Indy.

I agree that the Neighborhood Partnership has done
good things -- especially in the schools. But, I
disagree that there's no conflict in one person
overseeing both Duke's image and Duke's Neighborhood
Partnership.

To be clear, this isn't an attack on Mr. Burness. This
is a criticism of a structure at Duke that allows the
Partnership Neighborhood Initiative to be used as a PR

tool without any input or conversation about it with
the "partners." 

The events around the lacrosse team situation are a
perfect example of this. These events directly affect
the Partnership Neighborhoods near East Campus:
Trinity Park and Trinity Heights, where the team lived
and the reported incidents happened; Walltown, which
was invoked in Larry Moneta's third-hand-rumor email
to all students; Old West Durham, Watts-Hillandale,
and Burch Avenue where many Duke students, staff, and
faculty live; as well as neighborhoods where NCCU
students, faculty, and staff live.

These events have exposed tensions between the
neighborhoods and Duke -- and have raised serious
issues and concerns that need to be addressed in a
context where all parties come to the table as equals
in the discussions. 

When Duke uses the Neighborhood Partnership as a PR
tool, as they have in this context, it shifts
attention from the immediate issues and tensions the
"town" wants it to address -- to issues the "gown" is
more comfortable putting out in public. 

This is neither a partnership nor a dialogue. 

If it were a true partnership, for instance, Duke
would have asked to meet with representatives of the
Partnership Neighborhoods by now. We could have
discussed the fallout from the recent events
face-to-face -- instead of hearing silence followed by
seeing statements from the university's PR office
posted on listservs. 

Pointing to the partnership without engaging the
partnership makes it all seem less than a genuine
partnership.

We can take positive steps and move forward. A good
start would be to move the Neighborhood Partnership
Initiative out of Duke's PR office.

~John Schelp