I entered Duke in 2004 with two extremely notable classmates, whom I must admit I pull for whenever I get the chance. The first is the lone senior on our men's basketball team: DeMarcus Nelson. The other is not quite in my class; he is in fact a few years older, but he joined Duke at the same time I did. He's our president, Dickie B.
I, personally, have internal debates about these two men-who, for instance, most deserves to be referred to as "O captain, my captain"? But, in another sense, I think of them both in similar ways: They are simultaneously in and not in my class. Though we came to Duke in the same year, their lives here must be startlingly different from mine.
And they both struggle at times. I constantly root for them, I have a soft spot for both, but I admit that sometimes I do not think that they're living up to their potential.
We will learn whether DeMarcus can realize his potential during his last season with us. We are also learning if President Brodhead can achieve his.
Brodhead once described a university as "a place where nothing is so true that it can't be challenged, and nothing so far out that it can't be entertained for the sake of the understanding it might yield." I think he forgot his own ideals sometime during the whole lacrosse debacle, and I wish he had not. I think he decided too certainly on a truth and acted on that quick decision.
I-like everyone else, I suppose-was happy to see that Brodhead apologized for the University's handling of that mess, though I'm still not sure what was specifically his fault and for what (or whom) he was taking the fall.
But I was disturbed when, after reading the articles on The Chronicle's Web site, I looked down at the reader-submitted comments and saw an echo of one refrain: Brodhead must go.
"No!" I thought, "not my Dickie B." But I quickly realized something: of the 30 or so comments after the articles, almost none were from students. Instead the users were almost uniformly tagged as Duke parents, alums or faculty members.
That starkly resembled my own experience during the spring of my sophomore year: it was not my fellow students who dwelled on the case. Instead, it was my family, possible employers and in general outside adults who constantly raised the issue.
I distinctly remember being in Granada, Spain on top of the Alhambra, a 10th century Muslim fortress, while wearing a Duke T-shirt. I was asked by a random old man about the lacrosse case, how it was being handled, what the real story was, etc.
But Duke and Brodhead did not fail the alums, the parents or any other outside adults in this case. They failed students, specifically the lacrosse team.
Why would the apology come before any audience other than students, the lacrosse team and the team's families? By choosing to speak at an event outside the knowledge of the vast majority of Duke undergraduates, Brodhead apologized to the wrong people.
Clearly the effects of the lacrosse case have extended beyond the student body, but the students themselves should remain the University's top concern. In too many ways, students are treated as another problem for the administration to overcome and not as the very reason for the University's existence.
President Brodhead: I know you have the potential to be a great teacher. Even a brief overview of your career reveals that for years you held a special relationship with your students and had the highest hopes for them.
Please, rededicate yourself to Duke's students. I truly believe we will forever be the heart of this place. To rejoin us, in your own words, "You'll need to join in the spirit of this place: You'll need to give up the pretense that you already know the last word about anything and join in the work of education-of collectively struggling toward the improved understanding none of us yet fully possesses."
Jordan Everson is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Wednesday.
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