As frustrating as it is to have another commencement speaker who's most relevant experience appears to be her connection to Duke University, far worse is the total disregard for student opinion demonstrated by President Richard Brodhead in his comments to The Chronicle.
Not only did the administration never bother to seek student input about possible speakers, but, according to Brodhead, those students who don't agree with the speaker selection (approximately two-thirds of those students who took The Chronicle's admittedly unscientific online poll) have just not read enough books to know better. That kind of condescending attitude needlessly undermines students' trust and support of the University administration and further displays the University's unwillingness to seriously engage students in substantive conversation about what kind of a school we want to have. I hope that Brodhead will reconsider his comments and work to include students in a meaningful way in the decisions that affect their life at Duke in the future, but, given the dismissive attitude exhibited by the administration in the past to student requests, I'm not holding my breath.
Sam Howe
Trinity '08
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.