The Campus Culture Initiative, in its ardent search to find the cause of Duke's cultural cancer, is missing one very important point-that Duke students don't want things to change.
Duke students have an invested interest to keep Shooters II popular, Parizades open, and Tailgate alive; and despite the findings of the Campus Culture Initiative, my bets are on the fact that Duke students won't change their party, drinking or hook-up habits.
Duke students who recognize a problem in campus culture are the anomaly. For the most part, Duke students like things the way that they are. They enjoy dressing up, getting drunk and going home with strangers. Not only do we like it, but as Duke students, we demand it. and we miss it when we leave.
Homecoming weekend, and the debauchery that ensued, proves that Duke students who graduate and enter the supposedly better "real world" miss the campus culture, and that they come back in hordes to re-experience it, even if just for a few days.
During the span of Homecoming, these students become drinking and sex fiends, reminding us of our glory days as wide-eyed and horny freshmen, eager to booze-up and hook-up.
People don't come back to Duke to see their friends, they come back to see the party. Even those living in big cities like New York or Washington, D.C., say that there is no place in the world like Duke. not for its professors, academic resources or interdisciplinary community, but for its party scene-for Shooters II, for the foam parties and for the kind of "sex and scandal" that has made Duke so notorious.
What's more disturbing to me, as a students recently back from abroad, is not that Duke's culture is hurtful to its participants, but that these participants base their happiness and their livelihood on this culture. They don't believe that Duke's campus culture is detrimental, and they don't seem to understand what the huff and puff is all about.
As a senior, I've huffed and puffed for quite a while. and there have been others, too. For years, Chronicle columnists and student activists have expressed concern over campus culture. Believe it or not, we've been making the same declarations of concern that Newsweek, CNN and even Rolling Stone magazine have made in the days since the Lacrosse scandal. But our concerns were never met with any support-or "initiative"-and especially not from the administration.
What makes Rolling Stone a more legitimate commentator on Duke's campus culture than Duke students? I can't help but think that the shame and embarrassment our campus has undergone in the past year could have been easily avoided. if only Dick Brodhead and company had paid attention to what was being said by the students, themselves.
The question this initiative should be asking is not "Why do Duke students party the way that they do," but rather, "What kinds of students is Duke University attracting?" and "Why is it that these students don't want the campus party culture to change?"
As freshmen, we are quickly initiated into the Duke scene and all that it entails. We don't question the Duke way of life, we question ourselves. Most freshmen observe the Duke social scene uncritically, and change to fit in.
Take a walk along East Campus and you will see an abundance of Duke freshmen sporting "Duke Lacrosse" wristbands and t-shirts. It's a month into school, and these freshmen have already accepted the fact that Duke students have done nothing wrong-that we are not guilty. not of rape, not of racism and most definitely not of a harmful campus culture.
Not only do upperclassmen revel in Duke's campus culture, but they teach freshmen to revel in it, too. Freshmen quickly learn that Shooters II is the "it" hotspot; that DTD and Sigma Nu are more popular than ATO or AEPi; that rushed, rough, and often unsatisfying one-night-stands are the norm; and that, as Duke students, we like it that way.
The Campus Culture Initiative has a very important task at hand, although probably not the task that Campus Culture Initiative chair, Bob Thompson, and his committee members initially signed up for. Duke University and its students do not need a report on what's wrong on campus, and we most certainly do not need a savior. What we need is a change in mindset; and although an administration-instigated study into campus culture is not the best way to go about making changes, if you're going to do it anyway, Bob, do it well.
Shadee Malaklou is a Trinity senior.
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