We built tent city

At the outset of this semester, a slew of tents appeared on the ground outside Cameron Indoor Stadium to form Krzyzewskiville, Duke’s perennial tent city. The grass in front of the Duke Chapel, on the other hand, remains tentless as the Occupy Duke movement has left the space, well, unoccupied, since the start of winter break.

Occupy Duke caused a big splash on campus last semester, standing in solidarity with the then-prominent Occupy movement taking place in cities across the United States. Now, as Occupy is losing attention and steam, the future of Duke’s homegrown offshoot of this national protest faces its own pivotal moment.

Looking back on Occupy Duke’s first semester, we support the movement’s efforts to promote a campus discourse about issues previously ignored by many members of the Duke community. The presence of tents on Main Quad gave a central, visible reminder to students to participate in this discourse. Events, such as the speaker series, also fulfilled Occupy Duke’s goal of generating a reflective, meaningful discussion and allowed voice to be given to ideas previously left unsaid.

Occupy Duke had the prudence to take a less invasive approach than other campus Occupy movements. Occupy Yale and Occupy Harvard have extended their activities to heckling at financial recruiting information sessions and speaker events, a move that generates more noise than enlightenment. Duke occupiers have refrained from these kinds of disruptive activities, both adding to their credibility and keeping them in line with their most prominently stated goals.

Still, Occupy Duke cannot be exempt from critique. Several signs posted outside the group’s tents used the language of disease and “cancer”—a lexicon that shuts down, rather than opens up, exchange. These kinds of ideas should not be stifled, but they can be expressed in a manner that fosters, not deters, dialogue with individuals holding opposing opinions.

Without the tents—which both drew attention to pressing issues and licensed their discussion—this dialogue will falter. Re-pitching its camp is a necessary step in the next phase of Occupy, as it centers itself and becomes something more than a flash in the pan: a persistent campus presence.

We hope to see a clarification of Occupy Duke’s relationship to the University. Although the movement is not based in a single manifesto of policy demands, it does align with certain positions regarding University administration, most notably endowment transparency. Giving students a clearer picture of these particular demands would help establish Occupy Duke as a force for campus change.

Occupy Duke’s status as a loosely coordinated, non-chartered student group makes the logistics of its existence particularly difficult. Because of the obstacles to finding physical space on campus, we hope the movement will expand its reach through the Internet and social media outlets. Having a stronger presence online can offer students sustained exposure to the movement and provide yet another forum through which to promote the discourse central to its existence.