Tim Kowalczyk is a Trinity sophomore. His column, "the academy matters," runs on alternate Thursdays.
"I do not like you. I cannot say why, but this much I know: I do not like you.” I was asked to translate this quip in my first semester of Latin at Duke.
We’ve finished that most sacred rite in the Duke year: men’s basketball. But never women’s. And also never any other sport even though they work hard too.
I ask because since September of last year, Duke’s residential housekeeping staff have been required to work weekends.
There is no such thing as dialogue at Duke University. There exist only monologues in parallel.
“Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away.” The Roman poet Martial captured that uncomfortable feeling of seeing something good drift from us and wanting to somehow hold onto it.
On Friday, we were told that three of our Greek chapters are being investigated for alleged hazing. Our community has been silent for five days.
I am reminded of this line Marley roars at Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol because a few days ago I received some very bad advice. Who wants to hear a student’s views on anything outside the Duke Bubble, someone insisted, when the Duke Bubble is the only thing students really know?
“And the people in the houses/ All went to the university/ Where they were put in boxes/ And they came out all the same/ And there’s doctors and lawyers/ And business executives/ And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky/ And they all look just the same.”
The theologian Augustine observed that his teachers, “being beaten in some trifling question by another teacher, would seethe with more bile and envy” than the most rambunctious child. Those in positions of stewardship are often more puerile and irrational as those whose best interests they pretend to steward.
