We often use the phrase paradox in its scientific or philosophical context. Whether it is the notion of Schrödinger's cat or Zeno’s idea of motion, paradoxes take seemingly reasonable arguments and illustrate why they are in fact senseless.
I hope to illustrate a more socially relevant paradox, one that all students will have some experience with during their Duke careers.
For social culture at Duke to become better on campus, the administration must continue to heavily regulate it.
Seemingly simple and uncontroversial, this statement has it origins way beyond our institutional memory. Following the events of the infamous “Duke Lacrosse Scandal” in 2007, the university started a Campus Culture Initiative Steering Committee to examine, among other university issues, social culture and campus life.
Starting with the recommendations from this committee, the administration began to implement a series of regulations that did everything from decrease students’ rights in the conduct process to increase the role of the RA in regulating on campus social events. More of the aftermath of the CCI can be found in an unpublished report written by Bryan Dinner and Duke Student Government’s Social Culture committee last year.
I am not saying all these regulations were disadvantageous. There were, and still are, incredibly toxic elements of the Duke social culture, including but not limited to alcohol dependence, sexual assault, and exclusivity. But at this point in time there exist certain administrative policies that encourage students to seek refuge off-campus and, therefore, even create an environment in which these toxic elements can thrive.
After all, if a student feels like they are unable to have an active social life on-campus for fear of being written up, they will seek an off-campus event where those regulations do not exist. As a result, this student will expose themselves to an environment free from all regulations even those that are meant to protect them. Consequently, Duke’s current social culture might be considered even less regulated than social culture before the Campus Culture Initiative in 2007.
The paradox itself lies in the fact that by regulating social culture on campus to make it better, the administration pushed social culture off campus and made it inherently worse. Worse in respect to availability to students, safety, and neighborhood relationships as well.
In these neighborhood relationships lie further contradictions toward the policy of our administration. Given the roots of Duke and the social context of the surrounding Durham community, Duke has been actively trying to improve its relationship with and reputation among Durham residents.
Duke’s social culture compounds this issue. Since Duke’s social culture continues to move off campus, relationships with our Durham neighbors continue to deteriorate. Since 2014, Durham Neighborhood United has come into existence with the sole purpose of responding to the development of off-campus social culture. They circulate a document to Durham residents that live in proximity to Duke’s campus. In this document, all levels of dealing with off-campus student events involve calling the cops.
Rather than find a way to mediate the situation, however, Duke Administration continues to drive a further wedge between the Duke students living off-campus and their Durham neighbors.
Take, for example, the warning issued by Dr. Larry Moneta following the conclusion of this year’s orientation week. “And to those of you hosting or attending off campus parties, I offer fair warning. Neighbors are well organized to respond to large and loud crowds and Durham police will be issuing citations. You don't want to be standing in front of a Durham magistrate for under-age drinking, or, worse for having served minors or violating local noise, or other local/state ordinances.”
From an administrative standpoint, I understand why Dr. Moneta has to issue warnings such as the one above. Duke students off-campus are loud and social events do happen and there is a host of liability issues that go along with them.
However, from a student standpoint, warnings like these do nothing other than irritate both students and neighbors and actually make things worse. If the administration is unable to compromise with Duke students on campus, then why on earth would they want to prevent further compromise off-campus?
Not all situations have to end in arrests and bitterness. Compromise is still possible. Duke students off-campus are not deviant criminals but still intelligent and empathetic individuals capable of working with their neighbors.
Yet this issue is still part of the overarching paradox. As long as Duke continues to heavily regulate the on-campus events through stricter policies and a stagnant judicial system, Duke students will continue to host events off-campus and Durham neighbors will continue to get more frustrated with the university.
In the short-term, there needs to be an active movement by both the administration and students to bring these sort of events back onto campus. I am not referring to something like Devilsgate either. Rather an on-campus section or quad event where individuals are not constantly afraid of being written up by an RA or shut down by the RC.
For such an event to occur there needs to be a mutual establishment of trust on both ends. The administration must have faith that on their own and slightly less regulated, students will not burn the campus to the ground. Students must then trust that the administration is not completely out to get them. Only once this mutual trust is established can we make any progress moving forward and can the paradox be resolved.
These arguments are not new. But I believe they reflect the reality of the continued off-campus social culture trend as well as a continued failure to compromise.
Now let me give my own warning to both Duke students and the administration about our social paradox. If we continue on our current path of pushing social culture off-campus, we will eventually reach a point of no return.
What does that point look like? Look no further than Harvard for an example of what our social culture could become. There, off-campus social events have reached a point of such deregulation and exclusivity that the administration is forced to take desperate measures to force them to change. Punishments for those involved in unrecognized groups there include the prevention of members of off-campus, selective organizations from holding leadership positions in on campus clubs.
A situation like Harvard’s is bad any way you look at it. Harvard students are less safe because almost all social events take place in off-campus, unaffiliated organizations. Harvard Administration has little to no control over these organizations since they are pushed so far off-campus. Furthermore, Harvard students as a whole have less access to a social scene in general.
Now fraternities, sororities and selective-living groups are recognized by the university. However, their unofficial off-campus houses and events are not. The question therefore remains as to whether Duke as a whole goes forward, failing to compromise until we have a social culture reminiscent of Harvard’s where exclusivity thrives and compromise is non-existent. Or, do we try to find an on-campus social culture that actually—rather than theoretically—works for everyone?
George Mellgard is a Trinity senior. His column, “esse quam videri,” runs on alternate Wednesdays.
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