By Lingfeng Li
Here’s another article related to the Duke Lacrosse incident and the need for more universities to follow due process in cases related to sexual assault.

Amanda Auerbach, a contributor for The Gothic Guardian, also wrote about sexual assault at Duke in our first issue for 2009-2010.

By Lingfeng Li
A grad student at Duke recently published a story on Salon.com documenting his experience living in a van to better afford tuition.  An interesting read for anyone that needs a break from studying during finals week!
http://www.salon.com/life/pinched/2009/12/06/living_in_a_van/index.html

By Sabrina McCutchan
Visitors who spend more than five minutes walking around Duke University are sure to encounter evidence of the campus’s commitment to the environment. Buildings have motion-sensor triggers for their lighting systems to preserve energy. Where there’s a trash bin, there are usually several recycle bins nearby. The buses that run between campuses have stickers on their sides declaring their commitment to use low-grade, high-efficiency fuel. And then, of course, there’s the Smart Home.
Spend ten minutes walking around Duke University, however, and a few other things come to light, …

By Justin Robinette
It was reported Wednesday that the Board of Trustees will soon be presented “a proposal…asking for $75,000 to study the feasibility of a 150-bed addition to [Keohane] quad” by “several top administrators.” The article cited Dean and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Steve Nowicki, and asserts that “adding residence space” and potential dining options to Keohane Quad will be funded in the following manner (Follow this logic!): “Duke would likely borrow money to construct the dorm and repay it over time using housing revenue, Nowicki said. If the …

By Justin Robinette
I get renewed amusement every year our campus erupts in reference to anything unpleasant which appears on the East Campus bridge.  Each time, participants always include a) the Honor Council, b) any given angry race or sex-oriented advocacy group, and c) any given administrator with the power of email blast, most recently Dr. Airall.  Unfortunately, the vandal himself is almost entirely ignored in favor of condemning, rather, the symbolic nature of the message itself.  The vandal is also somehow conflated each time not with a random criminal act …

By Lingfeng Li
I often encounter more liberally-minded peers keen to attack my own political views, even if they don’t fully understand what these views are.  When I talk about how the country cannot afford the kind of spending President Obama has undertaken, I am quickly asked “why is it that we could afford the war on Iraq?”  The truth is, we couldn’t.  I didn’t support the war on Iraq either.  In fact, when the United States first declared war on Iraq, I wanted to skip my middle school classes and …

By Amanda Auerbach
When Ada Gregory, the director of the Duke University Women’s Center claimed in the Chronicle article on the new rape policy that the Duke sex offenders are the “crème of the crop” due the high intelligence of Duke students and their consequent “cunning” and “manipulative” powers, she assumes that the female victims of sexual offenses have been out-smarted by their male offenders.  She has since apologized for the implications of her claim, but she did offer statistics to back her claim up in the same article.  For this …

By Aaron McGuire
There are a lot of different definitions of the word “conservative.” I agree with some of them. I disagree with many more. In this writer’s view, though, real conservatism is a philosophy best encapsulated in two key words. Responsibility and restraint.
Conservatism means a government that takes its responsibility to preserve the individual liberties of its citizens as a sacred vow, not an empty promise. A government that understands that, truly, its own value is in the freedom it gives its citizens.
Conservatism means a government committed to fiscal restraint, …

By Trent Serwetz
Intoning the phrase “political conservatism,” depending on the audience, might conjure up images of the bygone Reagan era and the laissez faire policies associated with it. On the other hand, to some people “conservative” is symbolic of a horned devil with a pitchfork and a can of Budweiser.
For a couple of reasons, identifying the meaning of the word conservatism while sifting through all the spin surrounding it is no easy task. The modern media is so polarized that we are constantly bombarded with negative images of both conservatives …

By Matt Straus
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” – John Dewey
It was a normal Tuesday night for Kevin Zhu. After finishing his differential equations homework and hanging with his hallmates, he opened up his laptop and checked his email. Nearing 1 am, he finally decided it was time for class. That’s right; at 12:48 am, Kevin Zhu sat down for his physics lecture.
Across the campus Tuesday night, Kevin was probably not the only one streaming a lecture. In fact, with DukeCapture’s availability …