Mesele needs clarification

In his recent column, Samson Mesele fails to clearly distinguish between supporting the efforts of the Campus Culture Initiative and granting the committee carte blanche to formulate its recommendations ("Pro-CCI, Pro-Duke," March 1). Unequivocally, every student has an interest in making Duke a better place. Thus, it is hard to argue that anyone could be against that overreaching goal of the CCI. However, there are many valid arguments against the methods undertaken by the committee and its ultimate conclusions.

In terms of the process, consider the recent statement by Dean Robert Thompson, chair of the committee, in which he succinctly said that he does not expect any changes to be made. That mindset is not one that will be conducive to the kind of conversation that Brodhead envisioned. Furthermore, at least once a member sent an e-mail out to the committee listing his concerns about the report-the primary one being the dearth of student involvement in the process.

Rather than taking advantage of this opportunity to amend the statements based on student input-thereby ensuring some semblance of consensus-the members steamed ahead.

Then, one must consider the recommendations. There are some valid critiques of the status quo and laudable suggestions for improvement within the report. Yet, the committee often draws conclusions about students' views although they did not listen to them. To my knowledge, no greek or SLG was invited to speak about the value of housing or the possible consequences of taking it away-either for the campus community or the organization itself. Through its recommendations, though, the report effectively seeks to bar any current or future organization from obtaining a dedicated space on campus. Without any tangible knowledge of the situation, how can such a broad proposal be made? Therefore, now is not the time to position oneself holistically as pro-CCI or anti-CCI, whatever that means.

Instead, we must engage each of its points separately, and doing so involves thinking critically. Let us not lose sight of that.

David Melton

Trinity '08