A time for choosing

It has been written many times over that Duke is at a crossroads. I could rehash argument after argument which has been written in column after column about the life of the student at Duke in the past 10 years. But I choose not to, for the direction in which we will head rests on the shoulders of a new administration. Yet on the eve of the inauguration of our newest president, the course this University will take is not yet apparent. Do we wish to continue in the direction of the past 10 years and preserve the traditions of this University, for good or for ill? Or do we wish to strike a new course and reform the University in a new light? Will this new president choose to pursue an ambitious agenda a lá Terry Sanford, whose efforts are memorialized with a renowned department named in his honor? Or will he choose to follow the lead of J. Deryl Hart, whose three-year tenure as president is best judged by his namesake, the Hart Reading Room.

Right now the students, alumni and friends of Duke would seem to agree that we’ve never had it so good. Yet, each day it seems University administrators unveil another policy with which we all disagree.

Last year, activities fees were raised without student consent. These extra funds have been funneled to various school organizations with the express purpose of serving students with gifts and providing additional entertainment options. Yet, we always respond with striking unity: We’re just not interested. Still, it seems the more we reject these new offerings, the more they are pushed on us. Their persistent attempts to keep us on campus, though thus far unsuccessful, constitute a direct attack on our right to spend our time in the manner we feel most appropriate.

Well, I, for one, say we students are intelligent adults who are mature enough to make our own decisions and live our lives the way we see fit. We don’t need an administration dictating what is best for us.

Take the quad system, for example. More and more often I feel the breath of quad administration down my back. And while many within the University think such supervision is, at once, necessary and beneficial, there is a fine line between taking a keen interest in students’ lives and baby-sitting. So I hope the next few years will bring more freedom and liberty and less restriction on our personal lives. It is in this freedom that academic achievements will truly by allowed to flourish and not be squashed in oversight and regulation.

In conclusion, I come to the true point of this column:

I want to prop open my bathroom door. As a matter of convenience, my hallmates and I would like the right to prop open our bathroom door, and as male students, we see little harm in doing so. If that hall wants to keep their bathroom door locked, then that is their right as well. Further more, any forced regulation will just cause a backlash against said policy, such as putting duct tape over the knob or stuffing the door slot with wadded up toilet paper or using the traditional doorstop or just plain taking the door down altogether.

We don’t need some University official, only a few years older than ourselves, telling us this decision is unacceptable. I really hate it when I wake up in the middle of the night and have to use the restroom, causing me to have to stumble around in the dark looking for my keys. Of course, I can never find them so I have to turn on the light, waking up my roommate. He doesn’t like that. I don’t like that. And I really don’t like when a school official fines me money for trying to prop open said door.