I came to Duke to be challenged. As the valedictorian of my high school, I was in awe when just weeks before the end of my senior year in high school a thread on Duke's Facebook page where valedictorians complained about writing their graduation speech had more than 100 people comment. At my high school, Ivy League acceptances were hard to come by, and even though some peers challenged me I had never expected someone my age could be as intelligent, driven, organized, fantastically accomplished and uniquely different as some of the people I have met at Duke University these past four years.
But darn if it's not competitive. For example, my sophomore year Duke Political Review rejected my application to write foreign policy articles for them, which was maybe the 10th organization to reject me that year alone. I then joined The Chronicle as a columnist, partly to continue to write about foreign policy and partly to spite DPR since The Chronicle publishes more frequently.
Yet, when it came time to write my first column, I was disturbed by nasty remarks and comments thrown at a certain Duke student who doubled as an adult actress. I decided to momentarily put my thoughts on international issues on hold. Afterwards, I switched between writing about international issues and personal reflections, noting that my personal reflections were typically more passionate and written more simply.
I increasingly wrote articles tailored to Duke's campus, such as one discussing the unclear training processing for panelists on sexual misconduct hearings and one about a "Yik-Yak race war" back when I barely knew about the app. After the former article, I met privately with two faculty members intimately involved with Title IX, Howard Kallem and Victoria Krebs. After the latter, I took my first real stance on a divisive campus issue, stating my support for the administration's affirmation it would not ban Yik Yak from campus. After these two experiences, I began to realize the platform that my column gave me to ensure hundreds, perhaps even thousands would read my thoughts. It was a real opportunity to impact Duke's culture.
Since then, I have authored columns about contentious issues such as Duke's politically-correct pack mentality, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and campus safe spaces. I have authored columns on general musings and observations ranging from Jewish identity as a minority to why senior donations are low to how it always seems people's faces are buried in their smart phones.
While I was initially afraid to touch many of the most contentious issues on this campus for fear of social repercussions, I found these articles have ultimately been the ones I am most proud of having authored.
I have been asked many times what my tagline "Patricians etc." means, and why I haven't changed it. For those unfamiliar with Roman social structure, plebeian is the term for a commoner while patrician is the term for those born to nobility. When I first picked my tagline, the shorthand "pleb" had become vernacular to refer to those who followed crowds, were unaware of world events, had trouble thinking independently and were generally ignorant. I intended for the tagline "Patricians, etc." to signal to my readers that if they were aware of world events and wanted an independent analysis not based on whatever the latest article out of the New York Times, Foreign Policy or the Huffington Post was they could read it there.
But over time, it took on a different meaning to me. The tagline "Patricians, etc." meant being willing to take a stance on an issue even though I knew large sections of Duke's student body disagreed. It meant taking stances on issues as they come, dealing with them individually, and not taking a default position because you believe it is the "progressive" or the "conservative" one. It means not classifying people in black and white. And above all that, it means not falling complacent to how things are or the direction they are heading in at Duke. It means working actively to not be a "pleb."
Writing columns for The Chronicle has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my four short years here at Duke. I would highly, strongly, extremely encourage anybody who has opinions on campus issues to apply to be a columnist. Seeing your own ideas and words repeated and discussed by other people who both agree and disagree (and not always politely!) has let me realize how many people see the world differently than I do, but that I still have something important to contribute.
When I think of the endless critics, whether they be mean-spirited Yaks, vandalism in the dead of night, cruel ad-hominem Facebook attacks or snide remarks delivered in private, I am reminded of a quote by Theodore Roosevelt.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst … his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
With these words I encourage everyone who reads this to strive to be a patrician, take chances with your thoughts regardless of whether they're popular, stay informed and think of your own position on each issue rather than blindly following people you may typically agree with.
Thank you for joining me every other week as I tackled some of the more difficult and painful issues on our campus, the critical ones abroad and my musings about Duke life. Thank you for taking the time to read my 700-to-950-word columns. My hope is I challenged you as you challenged me. All my best.
Tyler Fredricks is a Trinity senior. This is his final column for The Chronicle.
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