Column: Beer and cheeseburgers

Much has been made about the success of the campaign and Nan Keohane should be commended for helping Duke amass such wealth. The best news about this is that the administration is soliciting student input. That's where I come in. There are all sorts of spectacular suggestions being thrown around. Monorail! Ninth Street running through Central! Blow the Bryan Center to the moon and build a new one! Another new Oak Room! Personal midgets for students! All joking aside, I do have some suggestions that would give this place a boost. And no, "Make Duke more like Harvard" is not one of them.

Financial aid needs help. For all their talk of diversity, the admissions office lets in a hell of a lot of rich white kids. Need-blind admission was a step in the right direction, but lots of families are scraping to get by, while Duke puts money in the bank.

Make the campus safer. I'm not afraid to shower at 3 a.m., but several female friends of mine are. This shouldn't even be an issue. Card readers on the doors were dismissed as too expensive; I don't buy it. The costs of lock changes and lost keys add up, at what point does the cost surpass that of a single card reader? An ironic side note: the spiffy new lock on my bathroom door routinely keeps the door from completely closing.

Fix the main housing quad. Duke is known as a beautiful campus, but I can't print the words frequently used to describe the quad. As one who loves to take naps outside, I must say that I prefer grass over mud and hay. Green grass leads to greenbacks; parents and alumni are more likely to cut a fat check if the campus looks nice.

Nothing I have suggested so far is even remotely controversial. I admit, it's been a boring column so far. Ready for my crazy idea? Put that money toward Friday night quad kegs (and cheeseburgers). Not only will this make drinking safer, it will foster community (and cheeseburgers).

Larry Moneta's new quad system hasn't exactly unified West Campus. You can have a "quad dinner" in the Great Hall every night, but people still don't feel completely comfortable talking to the strangers down the hall. Solution: add a little social lubricant. Make it so that each student can only drink free in their own quad. That keeps people closer to home, where they might make friends with some of their neighbors. .

Worried about students overconsuming? That will always be an issue. If college students want booze, they'll get it. At least this way, people are drinking less hard liquor. Less hard liquor means fewer trips to the hospital. Still want to limit the drinking? Make everybody swipe their DukeCard for each beer, automatic cutoff at eight. First two cups are free, each one after that is 75 cents, on points. With this system, the cost is somewhat defrayed and nobody gets too much.

As for the freshmen, I say let them drink. Not on East Campus, but on West Campus. They have to live on West Campus as sophomores anyway, so they might as well pick whom they want to live with. Ditch the linked housing idea. Grant freshmen access to the beer supply of every quad. As they drink, they get a chance to interact with upperclassmen. From these interactions, they can decide which quad they would prefer to live in as sophomores. The situation is similar to rush, but acceptance is guaranteed.