Kaveh Danesh, the sole candidate for vice president for academic affairs, is brilliant, passionate and brimming with constructive ideas for the academic culture of our campus. It is heartening to see that his platform focuses on making Duke a more intellectually engaging campus for students. He emphasizes the need to transition away from what he believes is the “checklist culture” in which students struggle to meet requirements and fail to explore the University’s academic offerings. His idea to expand the FOCUS program to provide more half-credit courses that will enable students from Pratt and Trinity to go beyond their major concentrations is a good one, and we hope it contributes to even more changes to Curriculum 2000.
While Danesh has the requisite passion and ideas for this position, the campus needs to hear more of how he plans to implement his propositions. For example, his proposal to video-tape professors talking about their courses and posting these as synopses on ACES in lieu of formal, written course descriptions is engaging in theory. But it is unlikely that professors and many students will be as enthusiastic about the proposal. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to his platform’s execution if he coupled his ideas and passion with more student input, perhaps in the form of focus groups instead of just surveys.
Overall Kaveh Danesh is an accomplished and capable candidate who has a range of exciting ideas for transforming the Duke academic experience. We hope that he can build on his previous year of experience in the position and channel his energies more effectively. The Chronicle’s independent Editorial Board formally endorses Kaveh Danesh for vice president for academic affairs.
Precious Lockhart and Katherine Zhang recused themselves from this edit due to their roles in DSG.
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