INC NEWS - Duke focuses on neighbor relations (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

"I really hope the positive stuff is what shines the
next couple of weeks. There certainly was no place to
go but up after last spring." 
-Kelly Jarrett, OWDNA vice-president

Duke focuses on neighbor relations
by Gregory Phillips, Herald-Sun, 13 August 2006

There's a guarded optimism among Duke University
administrators, student leaders and even beleaguered
neighbors who have endured hard-partying students that
efforts to curb loutish behavior may start to bear
fruit this year. 

The new student government president has impressed
residents by spending the summer building bridges in
nearby neighborhoods. And Duke administrators say when
some 6,400 undergraduate students cascade into Durham
this month, there will be more friendly warning of
incoming freshmen to respect their neighbors. 

Residents of Trinity Park, which hugs Duke's East
Campus, have dealt with student drunkenness, littering
and noise for years. But off-campus student
misadventures made bigger headlines than ever in the
past academic year. An Alcohol Law Enforcement sting
last August resulted in more than 150 citations for
underage drinking, many of which were later thrown out
for lack of warrants. In March, a men's lacrosse team
party on Buchanan Boulevard yielded rape accusations
against three players. 

Duke Student Government President Elliott Wolf
highlighted neighborhood relations as his top priority
upon election. He has been organizing events to
intermingle students and residents and has appointed a
student community liaison officer who serves on the
Trinity Park Neighborhood Association board. 

"We want students to realize they live in Durham,"
Wolf said. "With that comes understanding that the
people who live in Durham are our neighbors." 

Wolf, a junior from Washington, D.C., is hoping to
spark interaction that can continue without student
government or Duke administrators. He believes that
would make relations "not so much a Duke-Durham kind
of thing as a neighbor-neighbor kind of thing." 

The kind of students who behave badly at parties may
not be first in line for neighborhood gatherings that
don't involve a beer bong, but Wolf said he's not
looking to entice or even guilt-trip them into
engaging their neighbors. Rather, he's hoping to show
Duke students what the Bull City has to offer besides
college parties, partly through orientation events
such as trips to a Durham Bulls baseball game and the
American Tobacco Campus. 

"Everything that goes with living in Durham, we want
to extend to Duke students," Wolf said. 

Neighbors will be involved in orientation, Wolf said,
helping freshmen get settled, so students "will see
the people helping them move in are the same people
they might run into at 2 a.m." 

Wolf said he doesn't see residents who want to
eradicate partying, just the excesses that have
tainted it. 

"For the most part, the neighborhood just wants peace
and quiet," he said. "There's a serious perception
they're the moral police. They're not." 

For neighbors, Wolf has been making the right noises. 

"That's the perfect scenario, that what you will see
is them be part of the community, to be enmeshed in
it," said Alice Bumgarner, Trinity Park Neighborhood
Association president. 

"I'd really like to see some of the bridge-building
we're doing pay off," she said, conceding that has to
include residents not stereotyping freshmen who are in
Durham for the first time. 

Bumgarner realizes the reality will fall short of
perfection, but hopes the stronger student-neighbor
relations will foster a quicker, comprehensive
response to inappropriate behavior. 

"Sure, they're going to cross some lines every now and
then," she said, "but the community will be there to
let them know what's acceptable." 

Law enforcement won't be far away either. Durham
Police Sgt. Dale Gunter said the department's
procedures will remain the same as in the past. 

"The standard will be the same," he said. "Zero
tolerance for inappropriate criminal behavior, whether
it's parties, underage drinking or anything." 

There won't be any excuses for getting out of hand. 

"Duke students, any students, know how to act like
model citizens," Gunter said. "If they don't there are
consequences." 

Larry Moneta, Duke's vice president of student
affairs, echoed that but said an emphasis will be
placed this year on prevention through warning
students how the university expects them to treat
their neighbors. 

"We're trying to send a message to engage in a
responsible way, rather than the way it's been in the
past," Moneta said. 

Freshman orientation will be "retooled" to include
more targeted messages about what's acceptable and the
negative consequences of breaking the rules, Moneta
said. An e-mail will be sent to all off-campus
students that Moneta didn't characterize as a threat,
but said would ask them "to respect the rights and
responsibilities of living off campus." 

Besides that, Moneta said the university will continue
with strategies used last year, when a new staff
position was created to monitor complaints.
Orientation changes included university coalition
BlueSPARC (Study to Prevent Alcohol Related
Consequences) handing out door hangers with safety
tips, noise ordinance information and the dangers of
high-risk drinking and more promotion of on-campus
recreation. 

"This is not a one-year process," Moneta said. "It's a
multi-year shift in culture from an off-campus party
scene to events on campus." 

At least some Trinity Park residents seem to think the
university's stance will be effective. 

"More eyes are upon them, and there isn't going to be
the same tolerance as there has been in the past,"
said real estate agent and resident Ellen Dagenhart. 

Also optimistic of a fresh start this year, Trinity
Park resident Frank Crigler said the "chronic
problems" of the past shouldn't be held against new
students, while acknowledging that past partying "was
very noisy and kept me awake." 

Crigler said he admired Duke for buying 12 houses near
East Campus that were formerly rented to students and
known as party houses. They included the 610 N.
Buchanan residence where the rape was later alleged to
have occurred. The seven vacant ones were put on the
market this summer, with a requirement they be
owner-occupied. One is now under contract, with two or
three set to follow soon, according to the
university's real estate office. 

Moneta said there's a dearth of similar large houses
conducive to student sharing near campus. He believes
off-campus upperclassmen likely will migrate to
apartment complexes near the West Campus, where he has
meetings scheduled with property managers. 

"Certainly it doesn't just solve the problem to have
them partying in apartment complexes," said Kelly
Jarrett, vice president of the Old West Durham
Neighborhood Association. "Those are still
residential." 

Concerns have been expressed that parties occurring
farther off campus will cause an increase in drinking
and driving. Gunter said with designated drivers,
taxis and safe-ride services, there's no excuse for
that. 

"Nothing causes anybody to drink and drive except for
that person who drinks and then gets in the car with
the keys," he said. 

Despite that concern, Jarrett is taking a positive
attitude to the return of students. 

"I really hope the positive stuff is what shines the
next couple of weeks," she said. "There certainly was
no place to go but up after last spring."