This week’s randomly selected “Week in Chronicle History” inspects the wonderful decade of the 90s once again.
Here I must post a response to a puzzled enquiry from a Chronicle alumnus—no, the 90s aren’t Jurassic. Yet. But anything from The Chronicle archives will be considered a part of the long and glorious tradition of chronicling what the Moerae have spun out for Duke.
Concerns over racial divides
On Monday, November 15, 1993 the university was concerned with constructing a new policy on black faculty. An earlier 1988 resolution, proposed by the Academic Council, stipulated that each of the University’s 56 hiring units were required to add at least one black faculty member by Fall 1993 or submit a document on why it could not.
The resolution was responsible for the net increase of seven black faculty members. This small net increase highlighted a few problems on campus. The article reported that some black faculty found the University’s environment “at best tolerant and at worst openly hostile.”
Earlier that semester, members of the Black Student Alliance also protested the low number of black faculty at Duke by boycotting campus eateries and organizing an open mike session.
Then-president Nan Keohane pledged a reevaluation of the original 1988 policy, saying the policy needed to be “more flexible and attentive to the differing circumstances.”
Further emphasis on racial divides came up in regards to the 6th annual conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. More than 1,200 activists came to Durham for the conference titled, “Creating Change.”
Peri Jude Radecic, executive director of the task force, made a speech on cooperating with all civil rights movements because they all shared a common goal. Author Mab Segrest also emphasized the connection between the gay and lesbian movement and the civil rights movement.
In light of the more recent possible overturn of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, it is interesting to see how activists have transformed into the campaigns of today.
Timely Parallels
While we have a Mike Posner belting party tunes out on the radio, Duke in the ‘90s was host to Al Petrone. A graduate student from the Fuqua School of Business, Petrone was also a successful musician who recorded his first CD, “Of Pride and Pain,” in Germany in 1991. Before that, he opened a Bon Jovi concert in 1988 and jammed backstage with Al Steward and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
In a further echo of current events, Tuesday, November 16’s article on a debate on a perceived anti-intellectualism at Duke included an interesting proposal from James B. Duke Professor of English Reynolds Price. Price, along with several other faculty members and students, championed a system of residential colleges to rectify the anti-intellectualism.
Given that Duke’s administration is now actually seriously considering enacting a residential system, will this be the long-awaited solution to a problem noted almost two decades ago?
In odd news, that same day, the “Crime Briefs” reported that a man described as white and in his 30s “exposed himself” to a woman jogging in Wallace Wade Stadium the week before. He stood near the scoreboard sometime between 8:15 and 8:45 A.M. Given that it was a Tuesday morning, what on earth was the guy thinking?
On Wednesday, Trinity junior Jason Carey’s 1986 Saab exploded in flames when he tried to start it up. Additionally, the flames damaged the two cars next to Carey’s car. Luckily, Carey escaped unhurt.
Wednesday, November 17 found a suffering American Airlines after a strike by its flight attendants’ union. The strike continued through the rest of the week and ended up impacting flight schedules at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Another article on Friday, November 19 shows how “hysterical” customers besieged travel agents with phone calls. Some were able to find other flights honoring American Airline tickets, but as the article noted, “available seats on other carriers are likely to grow more scarce in coming days because so many people travel around Thanksgiving.”
Eventually the strike ended on November 23, just in time for Thanksgiving. It must have been a great relief for homeward bound students—imagine if it hadn’t ended! For us here in 2010, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I would very much like canceled flights NOT to get in the way of me and my pumpkin pie.
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