Provost Peter Lange and President Richard Brodhead took questions from faculty members during a closed meeting of the Arts and Sciences Council Thursday.
To begin the discussion, Lange gave an address on dialogue and freedom of speech in an age of "democratized" electronic media. He focused his talk on the criticisms of faculty on blogs and in e-mails in the wake of the lacrosse scandal.
Then, after Brodhead spoke briefly about framing his Jan. 8 letter to the University community, they opened the floor for dialogue.
"I thought it was very productive," said Lee Baker, chair of the council and associate professor of cultural anthropology, who noted that attendance was high. "It sort of set the tone for a new semester."
Baker said that about half the professors' questions related to the media and about half regarded other issues.
"I think it was a fine discussion," Lange said.
Lange described the critiques of faculty members on blogs and in e-mails as "personal attacks... some viciously personal, still others openly threatening or racist."
He said fear of such attacks could inhibit some from speaking freely.
Lange noted, however, that there are benefits to increased democratization of the media.
"There is no solution to this conundrum other than self- and other-awareness and apposite self-restraint, not of ideas but of rhetoric," he said.
Lange said he had not spoken out against these attacks earlier because of his concern that a public statement might generate more vitriol. Additionally, he said he did not wish to be seen as monitoring the faculty's freedom of speech.
He explained that the recent reduction in media attention and the need for an open campus dialogue on the findings of the Campus Culture Initiative convinced him to argue publicly in favor of the respectful and candid exchange of ideas on campus.
"It is the provost's job to defend the fundamental value and values of the faculty, and at some point refraining from that defense, because it might produce more [attacks], becomes itself imprudent," Lange said.
He concluded by saying that the process of evaluating campus culture has provided Duke with an opportunity for leadership, encouraging collective debate about the issues under discussion.
"We are here to teach, to study and to learn, and to do so at our best we need both the best climate possible on our campus and a degree of tranquility," Lange said. "May the new semester bring us much more of both."
Baker explained that he invited the administrators to address the council because of the particular relevance of current campus concerns for the faculty of Trinity College.
"A lot of these issues that the president was grappling with over the break really did impact the undergraduate teaching faculty," Baker said. "We share... a sense of community as teachers of undergraduates... and, then, to each other."
The full text of Lange's speech is available at <http://dukenews.duke.edu/ 2007/01/lange.html>.
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