Town-Gown on Points

In the Princeton Review's 2005 student survey of college rankings, Duke's town-gown relations were fifth worst in the nation. Duke officials may dismiss them as unscientific, but these ratings raise questions about how students form such negative perceptions of town-gown relations and how Duke might counter them.

When the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association investigated poor student attendance at a Duke-sponsored Block Party on Ninth Street last fall, it found that changing DukeCard policies could counter these perceptions. Current DukeCard policies prohibit students from using the card for purchases off-campus, discouraging them from patronizing local merchants. For small, locally owned merchants, the costs associated with the program-$1,500 to $3,500 start-up costs and 18 percent commissions-make participation prohibitively expensive.

Many other universities have programs that enable student IDs to function like debit cards by linking them to area bank accounts. Both UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State allow students to use their cards off campus. State charges no commissions. Instead of dragging their feet, senior administrators like Tallman Trask and Kemel Dawkins should implement DukeCard policies that would encourage students to venture off campus, benefit both the Duke and Durham communities, and improve perceptions of town-gown relations.

In a Chronicle article, Duke officials attributed limiting DukeCard use to on-campus purchases to the University's tax-exempt status. But as a local business owner pointed out in The Chronicle late last month, there's a big difference between the Duke's purchases being exempt from sales taxes and individual DukeCard purchases of pizza or sandwiches being tax-exempt. Bluntly stated, this difference is fairness.

Current DukeCard policies unfairly discourage Duke students and employees from venturing off campus to purchase food, textbooks, or other items, depriving Durham and North Carolina of sales tax revenues and placing this burden on the backs of local residents and businesses. Surely this is not the reason we grant tax-exempt status to institutions of higher learning. And it may surprise Blue Devil parents that Duke's dubious use of its tax-exempt status is compounded by its 18 percent bite from every pizza-on-points delivered to their student's dorm.       

Lowering DukeCard start-up costs and commissions would improve town-gown relations, enabling more small, local businesses-like Blue Corn Café or the Regulator on Ninth Street or Morgan Imports at Brightleaf-to participate in the program. Duke's current high set-up fees and 18 percent commissions are more easily absorbed by national chains than small, local merchants. And supporting locally owned merchants is another important way Duke could help the local economy and tax base.

In April 2005, Publisher's Weekly reported an Austin, Texas study that found $45 of every $100 spent at an independent Austin bookseller stayed in the local community, while just $13 of every $100 spent at the national chain Borders stayed in the community, making the independent bookseller's contribution to the local economy nearly three times higher than the national chain's. It is reasonable to think that what holds for booksellers also holds for restaurants, music sellers, and boutiques.

Thus, both DukeCard holders and Durham will benefit from thriving local business districts with locally owned merchants frequented by Duke students and staff-the former by a wider array of dining, shopping and entertainment choices and contact with the Durham community and the latter by new customers and increased tax revenues in the local community.