<p>oib, the service academies haven't exactly been the model of excellence themselves, if you insist on judging institutions by a few individuals...</p>
<p>a couple years ago there was a similar sex scandal at a nearby MD prep high school, St. Paul's. A sophomore videotaped himself having sex with his prep school girlfriend, and put it online and showed it to his whole lacrosse team.</p>
<p>These boys were nationally ranked lax players, and St. Paul's has a good reputation, though I don't know if it is considered a feeder school for Duke or not--I wonder if any of the same boys were involved.</p>
<p>oib, I can see you obviously have a negative view of Duke prior to this incident, and that you are reveling in the stink of this scandal to advance your pro-WestPoint view. I personally admire West Point and view it as a vital American institution, but clearly there have been major scandals, academic and social, there as well so keep your stones to yourself. </p>
<p>You are never going to get 100% 'socially acceptable' behavior out of 18-23 year olds booze or no booze. Making mistakes is part of the maturing process that we ALL go through to some extent. In NO way am I excusing the alleged behavior here - but as the prosecutor said taking responsibility seems to be the biggest issue here - we probably wouldn't be here implicating the entire school if the team had a few standup guys who had not stonewalled and hoped daddy would make it go away. </p>
<p>I DO honestly appreciate the link OIB posted in #113 - it speaks to legitimate racial issues at not just Duke but any major university in this country. I think excellent points are made about the way black women are portrayed in hip-hop culture and how the white prepboy wannabies seem to have taken this as open season on any black woman they encounter in a party situation. Before you say it - I AM NOT BLAMING THE VICTIM HERE! Or passing it off on society. But let's at least be honest about the cultural forces at work here. </p>
<p>Duke has a similar (11%) proportion of African-American students as UNC. It would be very interesting to have the same conversation with a handful of Carolina students and see what their experience has been. Duke also (according to 2006 USNWR stats on 04-05 enrollment) has a higher % of African-Americans than any Ivy or top 20 National U except Stanford (11% also). I did read somewhere recently that Duke had scored very high on some scale designed to measure how 'friendly' the U was to African-American students/faculty - I have no idea what this actually measured. But I don't get any sense that the reaction on campus falls on racial lines on this. </p>
<p>Last note - bcg - yes we should feel for the victim - what is alleged is disgusting - I wonder how a mother of two smart enough to get into college decides that stripping for even a small party is a good idea to begin with.</p>
<p>To take on: "I wonder how a mother of two smart enough to get into college decides that stripping for even a small party is a good idea to begin with."</p>
<p>I'm afraid it is when that mother of two is out of other options... And unfortunately, you combine that with people who have an excess of cash they have neither earned nor deserve willing to spend it in that way.</p>
<p>Rereading this thread and seeing how some "adults" have come over in an attempt to pile on by spewing hyperbole and illogic reminds me of the quote</p>
<p>Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality
and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense
of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the
beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse
the true with the false and the false with the true.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. </p>
<p>by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. </p>
<p>Many of the posts are not seeking justice or advocating power at its best. They're just pouring out hate, for whatever reason. I invite you to pour it out elsewhere.</p>
<p>For the parents and students and others who are engaging in a constructive manner about this very real, very tragic, and very serious event - you have certainly represented "love implementing the demands of justice" - a love for an institution that you know as do I represents something much better than these despicable acts, should they prove true, indicate. A cry for justice - most assuredly for the young woman and her family; in a greater sense for all that she represents. </p>
<p>There are much larger issues coming into the light here - issues of class and of race and of gender; issues that exist across the face of this country but that, sadly, only end up discussed in concentrated bursts centered on incendiary circumstances. Issues that those of narrower minds would chose to use as sharpened weapons against imagined foes, but that are actually blunt object beating down the soul of America. Issues that those of you with broader perspectives are facing head on.</p>
<p>Issues I fervently hope and pray we as a Duke community, and a Durham community, and beyond, and beyond, will someday overcome.</p>
<p>DukeEgr93~</p>
<p>Your eloquence and gentle spirit humbles me and SHOULD humble even the most hate-filled and hardened among us. Thank you for all that you represent, which is the absolute BEST part of a most remarkable university.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>Things aren't always what they seem. Prisons are full of innocent men.</p>
<p>Agreed, Duke is no different from most of the Ivy League and most other "top" universities. Probably not something to be proud of. What I'm confused about is why any parent would want to spend 50K plus per year to send a child to any of them.</p>
<p>BigGreen, do you have anything else to offer in defense of your claim besides an article published on one of the most radically conservative websites on the internet?</p>
<p>"Last note - bcg - yes we should feel for the victim - what is alleged is disgusting - I wonder how a mother of two smart enough to get into college decides that stripping for even a small party is a good idea to begin with."</p>
<p>Based on my experiences working at third tier colleges like North Carolina Central, she's probably first generation college, gets little financial aid from her college (because NCC doesn't have much aid to give), has parents who can't help her with expenses, is carrying enormous college loans and has few if any other job options that would allow her to earn the $ she needs for college while also balancing studies and motherhood.</p>
<p>The question I have is why Duke college students who come from affluent backgrounds and are smart enough and motivated enough to attend one of the country's top colleges would be boozing and hiring strippers and hurling racial slurs at any time, not to mention a Monday night, which presumably is a school night. </p>
<p>(I'm only mentioning here the things that the players admitted to or that were witnessed by others. Of course, if they also committed rape, robbery and attempted murder, that leaves even more heinous actions for me to puzzle about why people whom life had given so much would sink to such low levels.)</p>
<p>I'm sorry, is this the same Big Green who, when discussing the allegations against the QB at USNA said:
"I'm a USMA father and as much as I like to razz the Navy this is terrible news for all of the academies. He is innocent until proven guilty - and it's so difficult to believe that a young man who is 22, who has the maturity to command a football team, who knew what good things were ahead for him, and who certainly knew what the consequences for his acts were, would do this. So I suggest we sit tight and see what happens."?
or has someone else taken over your account?</p>
<p>A women from Brown wrote a book about her stripping days while in college. Many women at many schools right up to some of the best find this a good way to make money. Hard to beat $300-$500 night.</p>
<p>They had a couple of strippers getting divorced on Divorce Court, with the wife making $200,000/yr. That probably isn't normal, but still, for someone with seemingly few other options, I'd imagine it's hard to pass up.</p>
<p>northstarmom - the timeline for the team was they were in SanDiego over the weekend at a tournament so they probably partying Monday night to make up for lost ground...I agree 100% with your questions re: the players judgement and I would feel like an abject failure as a parent if either one of my boys was involved in something like this.</p>
<p>But I have to wonder about the posters who seem to defend stripping as a legit way to pay your bills and at the same time decry the 'laddie' culture that consumes this service as debased and depraved. You can't have it both ways. </p>
<p>Again, I am not defending the guys who perpetrated this godawful mess, just pointing out that stripping/exotic dancing carries psychic and possibly physically dangerous costs as well. That is one major reason why the pay is so good. If everyone did it, it wouldn't pay well - simple economics.</p>
<p>I agree that stripping is degrading and dangerous. However, what options would a low income single mother who is attending a third tier college have to pay her bills including her tuition?</p>
<p>While I don't know the dancer, when I taught at a similar school, I had many students who had a staggering amout of loans, little financial aid, great need, and who also were working and sometimes were even sending $ home to support their parents and siblings. Consequently, I can fully understand why a female student might choose to take on a job like being an exotic dancer. She might see that as virtually the only way that she could get a college education. </p>
<p>Federal college assistance to low income students has not kept pace with the rapidly rising college costs. Colleges like NCC don't have a lot of need-based aid, and have lots of students who need aid.</p>
<p>Students who attend colleges like NCC on the whole don't have the board scores to get things like National Achievement Scholarships -- the scholarships for the top African American students. Indeed, most of the students who qualify for such scholarships come from educated families and attended excellent school systems.</p>
<p>Ironically, my S was offered a full ride from NCC based on his board scores. We have the means to pay out of pocket for NCC if he wished to go there. I doubt if the exotic dancer had those kind of options.</p>
<p>One last thing about stripping: From what I've read, sometimes women who do such things have a history of being sexually abused as kids. They choose to do things like stripping because they view that as a step up from what they endured as kids in that at least they get paid. I think that for most college students to choose to do such a job either they would have to be extremely financially desperate or they would have a very warped view of the world and what their options are as females.</p>
<p>St. Pauls sends about as many kids to Duke as any other MIAA school. Lately the trend has been for more Duke lax players to be from Long Island (currently 15 of 47, and a majority of this years recruiting class). Maryland private kids going to Duke has actually be decreasing over the years.</p>
<p>..............
[quote]
Duke Magazine
January-February 2004
New President: An 'Eloquent Spokesman' for Higher Education
Richard H. Brodhead, dean of Yale College and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Professor of English at Yale University, is Duke's ninth president. The announcement was made December 12 by trustee chair Peter M. Nicholas '64. </p>
<p>Brodhead is "a scholar with a deep commitment to undergraduate and graduate education, a proven and effective administrator and fund-raiser who understands how research universities work, and an eloquent spokesman about the central role of higher education in American life," Nicholas said. "As one of his faculty colleagues at Yale put it, 'His performance is brilliant. Students love him, the faculty trust him, the alumni are in awe of him.' Duke's trustees are confident that the qualities that have led Dick Brodhead to be so revered in New Haven will also serve him well as our next president." </p>
<p>"I am tremendously excited to join a university that has already established itself in the top rank of institutions, yet is still so up-and-coming," Brodhead said. "Duke is a school with a taste for excellence, the energy and optimism to aspire to it, the dynamism and lightness of foot to actually make required changes, and the ability to avoid complacency in the face of accomplishment. </p>
<p>"Duke's core values are quite close to my own, and I will represent them with real dedication. I also feel the institution would welcome change in the places where I see room for growth. If I can be part of making a very good university even better, it will be a great satisfaction." </p>
<p>Brodhead has been dean of Yale College since 1993, serving as the college's faculty chair and chief administrator. He shares oversight of the faculty appointments process with the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and plays a central role in all tenure appointments and decisions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. As dean, he also has leadership responsibility for undergraduate education, housing and social life, student services, undergraduate admissions, and financial aid. </p>
<p>Brodhead was the committee's unanimous choice after an intensive review of some 200 candidates, said Robert K. Steel '73, vice chair of the board of trustees, who led the nineteen-member search committee of trustees, faculty and staff members, students, and alumni. "We heard from many people who know Dick--and saw first-hand during our conversations with him--that he is remarkably eloquent and well-versed in the key issues affecting higher education, a careful listener, a thoughtful strategist, an intellectual of great breadth, and a consensus builder of the first rank. And he has a wonderful sense of humor, which is a prerequisite for a university president." </p>
<p>"He has won the respect of the faculty, students, and staff at Yale, leading efforts to revitalize the curriculum, reach out to international students, enhance financial aid, strengthen the arts, and much more," said Sara Sun Beale, Charles L.B. Lowndes Professor of law and the search committee's vice chair. "He is a truly gifted academic leader who is known for developing and nurturing a vibrant intellectual and social community and supporting true excellence in every endeavor." </p>
<p>Brodhead was the first Yale graduate in more than two decades to be named to the deanship, which he has held longer than all but two others in Yale's 302-year history. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude and with exceptional distinction in English in 1968, followed two years later by a master's degree and, then, in 1972, by a Ph.D. in English. He joined Yale's faculty as an assistant professor of English the same year. He was appointed professor of English in 1985 and chaired the English department for five years before his selection as dean of Yale College. </p>
<p>Among Brodhead's numerous scholarly honors are Guggenheim, Woodrow Wilson, Danforth, and Morse fellowships. In 2002, he received a presidential appointment to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. He has served on the editorial boards of several publications in the humanities and is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, and other American authors--including two books published by Duke University Press. He also chaired the external review committee of Duke's English department in 1991. </p>
<p>When he is not working, reading, spending time with family or friends, or watching intercollegiate athletics, Brodhead enjoys traveling and the outdoors. He characterizes himself as an "avid college sports fan, which I clearly will have an opportunity to experience at Duke." </p>
<p>Brodhead and his wife, Cynthia, an attorney, have been married thirty-three years. They have a son, Daniel, who is a 2001 graduate of Yale.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hazmat!</p>
<p>If you have an argument, state it!</p>
<p>What's to argue about..............??</p>
<p>Hazmat, you just copy-pasted an article from a year ago with no relevance to the situation.</p>
<p>If you would like to EXPLAIN the relevance to the situation, please do so.</p>