Challenging the Duke status quo

So, it's a new year here at good old Duke. New rooms, new classes, new routines. We haven't lost a frat yet, the football team is still undefeated, and the freshmen haven't quite figured out whose parties they like best. One of the best things about college is that you get a fairly clean slate at the beginning of every year--you get to start over, and have a chance to make things different.

Unfortunately, at the end of every year, it seems like the same problems exist, the same complaints are made, the same factors blamed, the same bitter columns written in the last few Chronicles of the year. What we don't seem to realize is that every organization, club, team, and committee that makes up the Duke community and makes decisions for the Duke community is made up of people, and people are capable of changing things. We have a tendency here at Duke to look at certain things as being inevitable: DSG won't do anything productive, the administration will continue to play musical chairs with the Greek system until there are no frats left, and so on. But it doesn't have to be that way.

There are no supernatural forces at work throwing up obstacles in the way of happiness at Duke. Somebody can fix most of the things we complain about, the problem is just figuring out who and how.

For starters, the perennial punch line of the autumn, the football team, has a chance to be different this year. Everyone rags on the team when it's down, and they've been the subject of many a Blazing Sea Nuggets cartoon. So, if the team turns out to be competitive this year, it would be nice if the energy we put into making fun of them could be transferred into cheering them to kick some Tar Heel (or Wolfpack butt around the stadium.

Many of us are willing to spend six weeks camping out in the freezing cold to get good seats for basketball games, but we're not willing to spend a Saturday afternoon outside cheering for football. Football games are huge at most Division I schools, with tailgating and parties and all that, but here, they're almost an afterthought. Yeah, the team hasn't really been too great recently, but the game against East Carolina last year and ensuing craziness were some of the best stories of last year. It would be nice if everyone chose not to wait until December to show their school pride.

Student government, another frequent punching bag, is a tougher problem. The somewhat feeble defense of DSG that appeared in The Chronicle at the end of last year was notable for one thing: almost nothing on the list of things that DSG supposedly 'did' for students were actually physically tangible.

The Union, in contrast, is running three weeks worth of events at the beginning of this year, and got a big-name concert in Cameron. I know DSG's role and purpose are different from the Union's, but still, it seems like the biggest thing DSG does all year (besides line monitoring) is elect new officers. I suppose it could be that the officers themselves aren't entirely to blame for that, and the system itself needs a little adjusting. If that's the case, then someone should do a little research and find schools where student government is actually considered an important positive influence on student life, and figure out what we have to do to improve ours.

Probably the most frequently raised complaint about Duke is the trouble with race relations. Many people are afraid to say it, but race relations are a problem not because of arcane rules or laws that segregate groups of students, but actually because people segregate themselves.

When you walk into the Marketplace and see tables of white kids, tables of black kids, and tables of Asian kids, with only a few intermixed ones here and there, it's because people chose to sit like that. It may be unconscious, we may feel more comfortable around people more like ourselves, but that doesn't make it inevitable. Having all freshmen live together on East and all sophomores living on West instead of self-segregated campuses definitely helps a little, but ultimately things like that can't be changed from above.

Princeton Review may say that poor racial interaction is a characteristic of Duke as an institution, but it's actually a characteristic of Duke students, and one that could be changed if enough of us were willing to try. Until then, we may have diversity, but we won't really have community.

Personally, I would not bet on any of these things changing this year. Making fun of football, DSG's inefficiency, and self-segregation are practically traditions, habits passed down from one class to the next. They may be tough habits to break, but anything is possible. Many Duke students do amazing things with regularity, and if somebody ambitious set their mind to it, many of the common Duke problems probably could be fixed. The right people just have to step up to the plate.

I'm certainly not saying that the year will be terrible if we have a typical Duke year, and these things don't change. That's how last year was, and most people I know really enjoyed themselves. Great friends, good classes, and basketball season make up for a lot of things. However, just because we don't have to fix the problems to have a great time doesn't mean that we should ignore them. Unless, of course, nobody minds hearing the same complaints year after year after year.

Jonathan Ross is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every third week.