INC NEWS - column: More talk, no action from Duke (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

More talk, no action from Duke
Guest column by Christopher B. McLaughlin
(Herald-Sun, 7 May 2006)

Bold. Innovative. Visionary.

Impressive adjectives, don't you agree? Too bad none
of them describe the recent Duke report on its
judicial policies.

After the lacrosse shenanigans shined a spotlight on
Duke's pervasive indifference to its students'
off-campus misconduct, President Richard Brodhead
promised that the university would "face up to the
profoundly serious issues that recent events have
brought to light and address them in a positive,
substantive and ongoing way."

Sorry, Mr. President, but the milquetoasty pablum
served up on Monday by the Duke faculty falls far
short of your goal. Instead of action, we get promises
of more talk.  Instead of change, we get calls for
more committees.  Instead of solutions, we get
stalling.

To its credit, the faculty committee charged with
investigating this topic met with community leaders
and city officials who have been demanding action from
the university for years.  According to the committee,
City Manager Patrick Baker and several City Council
members unanimously concluded that "bold new steps"
were needed to solve the continuing off-campus
problems.  Mr. Baker specifically suggested a policy
adopted by Wake Forest University that has curbed
similar off-campus misconduct issues in Winston-Salem.
 Community leaders repeated their request for a
special telephone line to report student misconduct, a
request that was formally submitted by a
well-publicized Duke-Durham committee formed nearly
two years ago.

What impact did this testimony have on the committee?
Apparently zero.  Don't waste your time looking for
any of the city's suggestions in the committee's
formal list of recommended changes to university
policies.  You won't find them.  

Despite the abundant evidence to the contrary we've
all been watching on CNN for the past month, the
committee decided that serious change isn't needed at
Duke.  There is no recommendation to consider Wake
Forest's effective approach to the problem. There is
no recognition of defects in Duke's judicial process,
which the committee specifically found "reasonable." 
There is, however, a conclusion that there is no
"compelling argument" to support a hotline for
neighborhood complaints.  (Maybe my neighbors awakened
by students vomiting and peeing on their lawns at 3
a.m. should instead call the faculty members who
penned this lily-livered report?)

Avoiding real change, the committee patted the
university on its back for the patently inadequate
efforts to date.  The committee concluded that Duke
has already taken "noteworthy" steps to address the
problem, the impact of which is "yet to be
determined."  The problem with this self-serving
conclusion is that the most important such step*the
purchase by Duke of a number of houses off East
Campus*does nothing to eliminate boorish student
behavior.  It just moves the problem further off
campus.  

The committee lamented that there was "almost no
recognition" by the community of other university
actions, including the hiring of an administrator
focused exclusively on off-campus concerns.  Hmm. 
Perhaps its because these alleged solutions have done
nothing to solve the problem?

The committee proposed that the honor pledge signed by
incoming Duke students be changed to include a
reference to "good citizenship."  The current pledge
requires students to conduct themselves "responsibly
and honorably in all my activities," with little
noticeable effect.  I'm pretty confident a new pledge
won't be any more successful in constraining my
student neighbors' behavior after chugging 12 Busch
Lights on your average weekend night.  

The committee recommended creating a new "bulletin of
undergraduate education" to be distributed to all new
students.  This document, of course, would be in
addition to the mountain of paper already dumped on
freshmen in the blur of orientation week.  

Finally, the committee recommended the formation of --
yes, you guessed it -- another committee to study the
issue! I'll award one of the many warm cans of Busch
Light left on my front steps to the alert reader who
can correctly identify the legion of university
committees that have already been formed to
investigate this same problem.

The committee got one conclusion right, recognizing
the "clear perception among [Durham] residents that
Duke has not taken sufficient ownership of the problem
of off-campus student misconduct."  Sadly, this report
does nothing to change that fact. 

Of the nearly thirty findings and recommendations
issued by the committee, not a single one urges the
university to take responsibility for student conduct
beyond campus walls.  Until Duke does so, we'll be
wrestling with this problem for years to come. 


Chris McLaughlin is a Duke graduate and a Durham
resident.