Neuroscience blends with humanities in new program

Asians may be affected by affirmative action

by Benson TranTHE CHRONICLE

Heated talk on college campuses across the nation attest to the fact that many students believe affirmative ac-tion plays a pivotal role in the college application process, and this discussion includes the uncertain role of the poli-cy on the admission prospects of Asian-American college applicants.

Although Asian Americans make up 5.6 percent of U.S. population, students of Asian descent comprise 21 percent of Duke’s undergraduate en-rollment. The overrepresentation of the Asian population at many universi-ties may reinforce the Asian stereotype of the “model minority,” a term used to describe an ethnic group that achieves a higher degree of success than the

general population. Popular culture has often viewed Asians as a mono-lithic community of model minorities. This stereotyping has led many to ar-gue that Asians have it harder during the college application process, some students said.

Eileen Chow, visiting associate pro-fessor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, said she supports affirmative action; however, it should be practiced intelligently and factored alongside re-gional and socioeconomic factors.

Duke, along with other top private universities, has a holistic admissions pro-cess and considers much more than just test scores and grades. Chow said that Asian Americans at private universities

SEE ASIANS ON PAGE 3

by Julian SpectorTHE CHRONICLE

The federal government has tapped Duke to join a select team of universities to address global development issues using in-novative research approaches.

The U.S. Agency for International De-velopment will fund Duke with $10 million as an inaugural member of the Higher Ed-ucation Solutions Network, announced to-day in Washington. Duke was selected out of nearly 500 applicants after submitting a proposal to alleviate extreme poverty and health disparities. HESN funds an initial group of seven institutions of higher learn-ing, with plans for more universities to join later on.

Duke’s program focuses on global health entrepreneurship, and will fund col-laborative activity with students and faculty specializing in business, global health and health care delivery.

“We really do believe it is now possible to end extreme poverty and that doing so will help us as a nation to be more secure and create economic opportunities at home. We believe science, technology and innovation can be a core driver,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said in a telecon-ference Thursday.

Each of the seven schools will pursue an

USAID gives $10M for partnership

SEE USAID ON PAGE 3

Three DUHS facilities tied to scare

CHRONICLE GRAPHIC BY RITA LO

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are 80 health care centers in North Carolina as-sociated with the national meningitis outbreak. Seven of the facilities are located in Durham.

by Maggie SpiniTHE CHRONICLE

The U.S. Food and Drug Administra-tion labeled 80 North Carolina health care facilities, including seven in Dur-ham, as customers of the pharmacy tied to the ongoing national meningitis out-break.

Three among those listed—Durham Regional Hospital, James E. Davis Ambu-latory Surgical Center and North Caro-lina Orthopaedic Clinic—are part of the Duke University Health System, but only North Carolina Orthopaedic Clinic used the injectable steroid, methylprednisolo-ne acetate, that was found to be contam-inated, said Karen Frush, chief patient safety officer for the Duke University Health System. No DUHS patients have reported cases of meningitis, and the ste-roid was only used for joint treatments at the orthopedic clinic. No spinal injec-tions occurred, she noted.

Methylprednisolone acetate is a pre-servative-free steroid that is injected into the lumbar spine or into joints and is used to treat pain, said Richard Drew, associ-ate professor in infectious disease at the School of Medicine. Fungal contamina-tion of the product in New England Com-pounding Center laboratories has led to 424 cases of meningitis nationwide and 10 reports of joint infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control. At least 31 people have died from the outbreak. There have been three reports of infec-tion and one death in North Carolina.

After receiving alerts about the outbreak

by Anthony HagouelTHE CHRONICLE

A new neurohumanities program will foster collaboration between multiple dis-ciplines and parts of the brain.

Deborah Jenson, director of under-graduate studies for Romance studies; Michael Platt, director of the Duke Insti-tute for Brain Sciences and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Lasana Har-ris, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, are co-conveners of the Neu-rohumanities Research Group, co-spon-sored by the Franklin Humanities Institute and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. The group is dedicated to expanding re-search and scholarship in the field—which emerged in 2009—by offering both courses and study abroad programs. The new Duke Neurohumanities in Paris program will al-low students and faculty to diversify their

understanding of the two fields through shared experience over the course of six weeks in Paris, Jenson said.

“One goal is to broaden and diversify the content of the neuroscience major,” Jenson noted.

Jenson and her colleagues hope to shed light on new means of analysis by combin-ing the two fields. By evaluating the role of specific breakthroughs in neuroscience—such as mirror neurons, which are cells that are activated in the brain as if an observed action were being performed—Jenson hopes to not only allow for the advance-ment of literature through the methodolo-gies of neuroscience, but also to improve understanding of neuroscience through the study of culture.

“With mirror neurons, you are basically

SEE MENINGITIS ON PAGE 4

Three medical facilities associated with the Duke University Health System are among 80 North Carolina health care centers linked to the national meningitis outbreak. No DUHS patients have reported cases of the illness.

SEE NEURO ON PAGE 4

The ChronicleTHE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH YEAR, ISSUE 55WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM

Blue Devils take on Blue Devils take on Georgia State for fi rst Georgia State for fi rst

game of the season, game of the season, Page 3Page 3

International Comparitive International Comparitive Studies is not just a major, Studies is not just a major, Page 2Page 2

ONTHERECORD“Tuesday was a great day for weed and weddings....”

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2 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

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Legalization may alter anti-drug strategies

International studies becomes full program

by Margot TuchlerTHE CHRONICLE

International Comparative Studies has been approved to become an official pro-gram, as opposed to just a major.

The Arts & Sciences Council unani-mously passed a motion to grant ICS pro-gram status at its meeting Thursday. ICS will now be able to hire faculty for the program, beginning with a visiting profes-sor of the practice and eventually a per-manent professor of the practice, in addi-tion to other faculty members to stabilize the program, Dean of the Social Sciences Angela O’Rand said. ICS Director Frances Hasso, presented her case for the major to become a program, noting the need for a fortified staff—particularly a tenure-track faculty member within the department. She also noted the increasing relevance of transnational and global studies even out-side Duke, as well as the major’s popular-ity since its inception nearly 40 years ago.

“We are institutionally the largest un-dergraduate intellectual project of this

kind that’s doing global, international and transnational [studies],” Hasso said.

She also noted that a name change for the program was being considered—more than 70 prospective and declared ICS majors were surveyed to get a sense of whether international studies, global studies or other options would suit the major better than ICS. The results of the survey, however, overwhelmingly favored the original name.

ICS’s program status comes on the heels of structural adjustments that have been made to the major in the past few years, said Lee Baker, dean of academic affairs of Trinity College of Arts & Sci-ences.

“ICS has made some strategic and comprehensive shifts in streamlining and thinking through the curriculum, and that has to be recognized as a part of this,” Baker said. “ICS definitely fits within the University’s priorities and the college’s

EMMA LOEWE/ THE CHRONICLE

At the Arts and Sciences Council meeting Thursday, the group approved changing International Compara-tive Studies from a major to a program.

SEE COUNCIL ON PAGE 5

by William boothWASHINGTON POST

MEXICO CITY — The decision by vot-ers in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has left President-elect Enrique Pea Nieto and his team scrambling to reformulate their anti-drug strategies in light of what one senior aide said was a referendum that “changes the rules of the game.”

It is too early to know what Mexico’s re-sponse to the ballot measures will be, but Pea Nieto’s top aide said the incoming ad-ministration will discuss the issue when he heads to Washington this month for meet-ings with President Barack Obama and congressional leaders. The decision, how-ever, is expected to spark a broad debate in Mexico about the direction and costs of the U.S.-backed drug war here.

Mexico spends billions of dollars each year confronting violent trafficking orga-nizations that threaten the security of the country but whose main market is the Unit-ed States, the largest consumer of drugs in the world.

With Washington’s urging and support, Mexican soldiers roam the mountains burning clandestine plantations filled with marijuana destined for the United States. Mexico’s police and military last year seized almost as much marijuana as did U.S. agents working the Southwest border region.

About 60,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug violence, and tens of thousands ar-rested and incarcerated. The drug violence and the state response to narcotics traffick-ing and organized crime has consumed the administration of outgoing President Felipe Calderon.

“The legalization of marijuana forces us to think very hard about our strategy to combat criminal organizations, mainly because the largest consumer in the world has liberalized its laws,” said Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of Pea Nieto’s party in Mexico’s Congress.

Pea Nieto’s top adviser, Luis Videgaray, said Thursday that his boss did not believe

that legalization was the answer. But Videg-aray said Mexico’s drug strategies must be reviewed in light of the legalization votes.

“Obviously, we can’t handle a product that is illegal in Mexico, trying to stop its transfer to the United States, when in the United States, at least in part of the United States, it now has a different status,” Videga-ray told a radio station Wednesday.

Videgaray added that legalization “changes the rules of the game in the rela-tionship with the United States” in regards to anti-drug efforts.

“I think more and more Mexicans will respond in a similar fashion, as we ask our-selves why are Mexican troops up in the mountains of Sinaloa and Guerrero and Durango looking for marijuana, and why are we searching for tunnels, patrolling the borders, when once this product reaches Colorado it becomes legal,” said Jorge Cas-taneda, a former foreign minister of Mexi-co and an advocate for ending what he calls an “absurd war.”

Pea Nieto has pledged to work closely with the U.S. government against powerful transnational crime organizations when he takes office next month. But he has stressed that his main goal is not to confront smug-glers but to reduce the sensational violence and rampant crime—such as extortion, kid-napping, theft—that have soared in Mexico during Calderon’s six years in office.

Jonathan Caulkins, an expert in the drug trade and a professor at Carnegie Mel-lon University, said marijuana legalization in the United States could allow Pea Nieto to resist U.S. pressure to maintain a hard line against smuggling groups.

Advocates for marijuana legalization in the United States and Mexico have of-ten argued that ending the prohibition against pot would deny Mexican traffickers a key source of revenue. Analysts generally agree that about half of all the marijuana consumed in the United States comes from Mexico. If Colorado and Washington state

SEE LEGALIZATION ON PAGE 5

ARTS AND SCIENCES COUNCIL

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approach to development innova-tion that is tailored to their particu-lar strengths. Duke’s branch of the network, known as the Social Entre-preneurship Accelerator at Duke, will engage in social entrepreneur-ship with a focus on global health, to create improved models of health service delivery at low cost to disad-vantaged populations, Shah said.

Many Duke programs will come together to form SEAD, including faculty and students at the Fuqua School of Business Center for the Ad-vancement of Social Entrepreneur-ship, Duke Medicine’s International Partnership for Innovative Health-care Delivery and the Duke Global Health Institute, among others.

Working with universities offers a creative process that would not be found in a conventional govern-ment institution, Shah said.

“Often, big federal agencies don’t bring the same youthful cre-ativity that a student group at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy, the University of California at Berkeley or Texas A&M University might bring to the task,” he said.

The SEAD model allows Duke’s participants to bring diverse ex-pertise to the table, said Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and president and CEO of Duke University Health System. Members from CASE will aid with the business and finance aspects of a project, medical personnel will advise on its health aspects and policy experts will weigh in on what regulations it would need to follow.

“By bringing these people who have great ideas on how to make care better and bringing them to-gether with funding, it increases the chances they will be successful,” Dzau said.

DGHI Director Dr. Michael Mer-son traveled to Washington, D.C. Thursday to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, USAID leadership and other participating universities about HESN. The na-tional program will be launched in

a ceremony Friday afternoon, which Clinton will attend.

Merson said the model for the HESN resembles the relationships NASA has with many university lab-oratories to develop jet propulsion technology.

“AID feels that to have the im-pact it wants to have, it needs to build partnerships with universities in developing and scaling discover-ies that can make a difference,” Mer-son said.

The details of how the partici-pating schools will interact are still being worked out—the participants met each other for the first time Thursday, Merson said. He noted, though, that each institution will work with the agency and with each other, and that there was “no ques-tion” that there would be active communication.

Duke will be working with uni-versities across the nation, and one across the Atlantic, Shah said. MIT will focus on design and technology and UC Berkeley will develop a new discipline of development science,

combining math, science and engi-neering coursework with research and applied programming. Mak-erere University in Uganda, which has partnered with Duke on global health programs in the past, will de-velop online coursework and an in-terdisciplinary approach to tackling hunger and famine.

Texas A&M will study improving agricultural productivity in conflict zones. Michigan State University will explore the impact of population growth and climate change on food production and develop new crops that are climate resistant and im-prove nutrition around world. The College of William and Mary will work with geospatial data to identify critical areas, such as where malaria is likely to be prevalent and where crop yields will be high or low.

Shah emphasized the startup nature of the HESN mission. The USAID Development Innovation Ventures Fund already supports entrepreneurs, but it looks for ex-isting technologies. The HESN, on the other hand, will look for inno-

vative ideas that, although they may have less certainty of success, offer the possibility of generating break-through technologies.

The funding for the network makes up less than 2 percent of the agency’s total investment around the world, Shah noted, adding that it was worthwhile to invest a very small portion of the budget in inno-vation and research.

Duke hopes to receive the grant by the end of the month and will start the project by early 2013 at the latest, Merson added.

USAID’s choice of Duke to join the HESN signals a “notable vote of confidence” in the University’s ac-tivities in global health, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for pub-lic affairs and government relations.

“Ultimately, they’re not giving a grant to Duke to make Duke a bet-ter place. USAID is doing this be-cause it will advance the priorities of the agency and the country and we’re active participants in that, and in turn it will make Duke a better place,” he said.

USAID from page 1

are not held by higher standards but by different standards.

“People think of it as a way of praising Asian Americans.” Chow said, “It hasn’t particularly benefited Asian Americans and instead homogenizes them.”

Timothy Wong, a sophomore at the University of Texas at Aus-tin who was waitlisted and even-tually rejected by Duke, did not

believe his ethnicity played an important factor in his rejection.

“I don’t think it’s some-thing they really judged me on. If it came down to it, the odds wouldn’t be in my favor though,” Wong said, “There’s always that hinge that ‘He’s Asian.’ They might not be con-scious of it—a little coloring in the back.”

The idea that being Asian hurts an applicant’s chances fails to take into account the

implicit advantage of growing up in a culture that promotes education as the currency of success, sophomore Vijay Menon said.

Sophomore Ray Li noted that affirmative action is well-intentioned, but he said he be-lieves race should not be the sole determining factor if col-leges are striving to create a di-verse campus.

“If an affirmative action pro-gram values diversity, it should

encompass all spectrums of di-versity including socioeconom-ic status, religion, geographical region, sexuality, and political views,” he said.

Even though he may not benefit from affirmative ac-tion, Menon said he fervently supports the policy because it helps promote diversity among university campuses.

“Regardless of whether or not you believe affirmative action hurts Asian Americans, I feel

that this question is ancillary to the more relevant question of whether or not you believe diversity is critical at Duke.” Menon said. “I have been en-riched by my black and Latino friends on campus, and diver-sity is one of the main reasons I chose Duke over [the University of California at] Berkeley.”

Dean of Undergraduate Ad-missions Christoph Guttentag could not be reached for com-ment.

ASIANS from page 1

4 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

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from the CDC earlier this year, Frush said she and her team called patients—approximately 200 individuals—of the orthope-dic clinic who had received ste-roid injections produced by New England Compounding Center to inform them of the risk of meningitis. Based on FDA rec-ommendations, patients who had not received the steroid injection but had been treated with other NECC drugs were notified via let-ter, and a hotline was established for patients to call who had ques-tions or concerns. Approximately 1,200 patients received NECC products within Duke Health Sys-tem, Frush said.

“We don’t want to unneces-sarily worry people, but we do want to use an abundance of caution,” she said.

Because this particular strain of meningitis is fungal and not bacterial, it cannot be transmitted from person to person, making it a “contained outbreak,” Drew said.

“This is a local situation where it was caused by contami-nated solutions, and one has to realize that it is and continues to be hospital-acquired infec-tion,” said Dr. John Perfect, chief of the division of infec-tious diseases. “When we’re dealing with all the hardware, we’re putting in patients, all the antibiotics we use and the resistance they build up, trying to prevent these infections is

something we have to do—day in, day out.”

Finding systematic ways to treat patients who are infected in health care facilities can be problematic, and is often un-charted territory, he added.

Perfect, who has worked as a clinician at Duke for 35 years, specializes in patient care for infectious disease and was in-volved in treating a 2002 men-ingitis outbreak that affected five patients at Duke, the Uni-versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University.

“I felt like it was Groundhog Day when I first heard about the cases [in the current out-break],” he said. “My focus is how to get these patients back to their normal health while trying to practice evidence-based material. Then these out-breaks come out where there’s no precedent [for treatment] because we don’t have natural histories of how these things should be managed.”

How to treat such cases is an evolving issue that includes not just physicians and their patients, but also national and state regulations and guide-lines, Perfect said. Disputes over drug distribution and compounding is the “raging controversy” underlying the outbreak itself, Drew said. The FDA oversees drug production, but compounding—the com-bining or altering of drugs—is regulated by states through pharmacy licenses. As a com-

pounding company, NECC is not allowed to manufacture drugs. Instead, it is only sup-posed to compound drugs on a patient-specific basis after ob-taining prescriptions. But the FDA and the Massachusetts’ health department have both claimed that NECC was operat-ing as a drug manufacturer—it shipped approximately 17,000 vials of its steroid to 23 states without procuring advance prescriptions.

“[NECC] set up trust in the public, and it wasn’t safe,” Drew said. “That’s the underlying story. Not only is this horrible in terms of individual patients, but it has also brought this is-sue of who manufactures and compounds and who oversees them to light.”

The NECC was shut down by Massachusetts health officials and there will be a U.S. Senate hearing Nov. 15 on state and federal oversight of the com-pany.

Perfect said that for now, he thinks the most pressing mat-ter is patient care.

“When all’s said and done, there’s still a lot of sick people out there,” he said. “Trying to manage that without knowing what the natural history is—it’s tricky. Trying to be consistent at a local and policy level is tricky. There are a lot of people trying to help out on this thing and just like how we respond to Katrina or Sandy, how we respond to this disaster is very important.”

MENINGITIS from page 1

www.dukechronicle.com

living another person’s experi-ence,” Jenson said. “It’s as if there is an internal film that coincides with somebody else’s. You are mimetically imprinted with some-body else’s experience.”

Jenson said she believes this phenomenon is one of many that can be used to improve analysis of literature.

“We have been wondering how can you maximize the synergy be-tween neuroscience faculty and humanities faculty and make it accessible to students,” Jenson said. “One thing we thought of was having a prolonged experi-ence of taking faculty’s courses. In a six-week summer program, the faculty could be sitting in on the other side’s presentations.”

Although the field of neurohu-manities is new at Duke, it is not unprecedented. At “Poetry of Neuroscience,” a discussion held in March, senior Arianne Soo and another classmate recited poems they wrote based in neuroscience.

“The poetry reading brought together a small but very diverse group, including undergradu-ates, graduates and researchers from the English and neurosci-ence departments, as well as psy-chiatrists,” Soo wrote in an email Wednesday.

Soo is currently working on a

thesis in creative poetry writing, focusing primarily on understand-ing mental illness from both first and second person perspectives.

From using poetry in order to understand and cope with illness to integrating the approaches of different disciplines for a holistic understanding of issues such as emotion, memory and conscious-ness, Soo said she sees great po-tential in the field of neurohu-manities.

Duke is one of the first major universities to pursue the interdis-ciplinary field.

“I hope that Duke can play a leading role in the creating of this discipline,” Harris wrote in an email Thursday.

Although he believes that the combining of the two fields will be difficult, Harris said he is op-timistic about the continuation of the interdisciplinary field.

Jenson said she hopes to see new scholarship in neurohuman-ities, and is hoping to create a DukeImmerse program abroad that would be dedicated to the subject.

“Scientific research cultures are all anglofied,” Jenson said. “They are often highly developed in the United States, everything is translated from other places. Does that mean in the end, that we don’t understand really im-portant difference in scientific cultures?’

NEURO from page 1

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priorities in terms of civil and global engagement, inter-disciplinary learning and undergraduate research.”

Hasso fielded a question from Charlie Becker, as-sociate chair of the economics department, who asked how ICS is distinctive from other social sciences. Hasso noted that although the field of study draws from many traditional departments—such as political science, his-tory and cultural anthropology—it distinguishes itself because of its focus on exploring global and transna-tional trends.

“It’s not an institutionalized field yet, but it’s getting there,” Hasso said.

The council also discussed DukeImmerse—a semes-ter-long four-course program centered on a unifying theme—and its potential for expansion. Participants in the program take four courses as a group of 12 class-mates, fostering an integrated learning community and creating opportunities for research and civic engage-ment, said Donna Lisker, associate vice provost and as-sociate dean of undergraduate education.

Two DukeImmerse programs ran in the Spring, in-cluding “Black Freedom Struggles in the 20th Century: A Comparison of the Civil Rights Movement in the Unit-ed States and the Anti-Apartheid Struggles in South Af-rica.” Program participants traveled to South Africa for three weeks at the end of their semester of courses on the topic. Bill Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin professor of history and Karin Shapiro, visiting associate professor of history, spoke about and praised the program and will lead the program along with junior Marcus Benning and senior Sara Adam, who participated in the program.

“Definitely, it was more than the sum of the parts,” Shapiro said of the program. “It was incredibly reward-ing for Bill and me.”

Of the 12 students who participated, three are cur-rently writing honors theses, one won the Robert F. Durden Prize for undergraduate excellence in research, and several returned to South Africa over the summer to pursue research and civic engagement, Shapiro noted.

“DukeImmerse was by far the best semester I’ve had at Duke,” Benning said. “It’s structured in a way that facili-tates and encourages constant discussion inside and out-side of the classroom. Taking four courses with the same 12 people forces us to engage on a really deep level.”

Members of the council discussed the merit of the program—widely decided to be a valuable part of Duke’s emerging goals of interdisciplinarity—and its future. Incorporating study of foreign language into the program could enhance the potential for fieldwork, Benning noted.

Although both pilot DukeImmerse programs were international—the other one took students to Nepal and Cairo—domestic opportunities are also an option and may be more economically sustainable, Lisker said.

manage to legalize the trade—to produce home-grown products that can compete in price and quality against il-legal Mexican imports—then revenue to Mexican drug car-tels would probably decrease. But not by much.

U.S. experts who produced a landmark Rand Corp. study in 2010 when California voters were considering the legal-ization of recreational marijuana use (the measure did not pass), concluded that Mexican cartels earn no more than $2 billion moving marijuana across the Southwest border and that the groups derive 15 to 26 percent of their revenue from marijuana sales.

The Rand study authors estimated that legal marijuana use in California, a state that consumes about one-seventh of all the pot smoked in the United States, would cost the cartels 2 to 4 percent of their revenue. So losing consum-ers in states such as Washington and Colorado that have a smaller population might not affect the cartel bottom line by much.

U.S. government estimates of drug cartel profits, how-ever, are much higher.

“Marijuana is an important part of their business, but not the most important. Most people agree it’s about 20 percent of their revenues, and so two small U.S. states legalizing mar-ijuana won’t really impact their market share very much,” said Eric Olson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

But Olson said the incoming Mexican president will be watching closely.

“There is a sense of frustration throughout Latin Ameri-ca about the steep costs of confronting drug trafficking. And these votes in the United States, and the reaction to them, might signal a willingness for the countries to think outside of the box on drug policy.”

Whether the loss of some marijuana revenue will reduce killings in Mexico is even more uncertain, as much of worst violence is attributed to crime rings that have branched out from drug smuggling to human trafficking, extortion, kid-napping, oil theft and DVD piracy.

LEGALIZATION from page 2COUNCIL from page 2

Get ready for one of the weirdest seasons yet. With this upcoming year of college basketball, there’s just no other way to put it.

2010-2011 was the year of the mid-major, of VCU and But-ler (again), and last season was all about Kentucky’s revamped Fab Five, but 2012-2013 lacks that same definition.

Is it the year tradition returns with revitalized programs at UCLA and Indiana? Will John Calipari add another layer of cement to his recruiting legacy? Or will it be the year of “together”?

The ACC is a microcosm of what’s going on nation-wide—a wide-open, four-horse race at the top with even

more question marks in the rest of the pack. Precocious freshmen will carry the load at North Carolina and N.C. State, an unlikely inside-out combo could bring Maryland back to national relevance, and Miami, picked fifth in the conference pre-season poll, just lost an exhibition to a Division II squad.

It’s too early to start looking for answers, so here are the most important questions in preparation for opening night—starting with what faces Duke.

1. Is Duke basketball really “together”?Nobody uses cliched sports motivational tactics quite as

well as Coach K. From the team’s introduction at Countdown to Craziness to their interactions with the media, the Blue Devils are making every effort to put last year’s chemistry problems behind them. The departure of Austin Rivers is no cure-all by any means, but it certainly makes it easier for Coach K to work his magic.

2. Will the Blue Devils play defense?I’m of the mind that Duke’s defensive problems last year

were in part related to the chemistry issues. More importantly, Ken Pomeroy and other statisticians have written off 2011-2012 as an anomaly. In honor of Nate Silver’s presidential election performance, I’ll take their word for it.

3. Will UNC East be better than UNC West?Shabazz Muhammad, Kyle Anderson and Tony Parker

make a UCLA roster already full of Tar Heel castoffs near the top of all the preseason polls. Larry Drew II will fit better in Ben Howland’s half-court offense than he did running and gunning for Roy Williams and the Wear twins are talented

SportsThe Chronicle

www.dukechroniclesports.com

FRIDAYNovember 9, 2012

>> THE BLUE ZONE Keep up to date with Duke basketball by check-ing out the sports blog, featuring player profiles of seniors Ryan Kelly and Mason Plumlee.

>>

VOLLEYBALL

Duke opens season play against Georgia State

Let’s get weird

Blue Devils fall to No. 13 Florida State

NICOLE SAVAGE/THE CHRONICLE

Senior Seth Curry will return to the starting line-up Friday against Georga State. He was out for the first preseason game due to a right-leg injury.

ChrisCusack

DUKE GSUCAMERON • FRIDAY • 7 p.m. • SEASON OPENER

SEE CUSACK ON PAGE 8

by Karl KingmaTHE CHRONICLE

The countdown is done. No. 8 Duke will open its 2012-2013 season at Cameron

Indoor Stadium Friday night, hosting Georgia State at 7 p.m. Although the Blue Devils have won 12 straight season-opening victories, last year’s nail-biter against Belmont re-mains fresh in team’s mind. Senior captain Mason Plumlee hopes that tonight’s victory will be more convincing.

“Last year’s game was a big game. They took us right

down to the wire,” Plumlee said. “Hopefully it won’t come down to hitting a big three in the end. We’ll be in close games without putting ourselves in that situation against Georgia State.”

Duke is projected to adjust its starting lineup in order to accommodate the return of Seth Curry from a lingering right leg injury. In addition to forwards Plumlee and Ryan Kelly, the Blue Devils will start Curry, Quinn Cook and

SEE M. BASKETBALL ON PAGE 8

by Matt PunTHE CHRONICLE

After a slow start, the Blue Devils raised their level of play but could not put together a comeback against the Seminoles.

Duke (14-14, 5-11 in the ACC) fell to No. 13 Florida St. (22-3, 13-2) for the second time this season, losing in straight sets Thursday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“It was real difficult there at the begin-ning with us not connecting and [not] being able to get our offense going at all,” head coach Jolene Nagel said.

Due partly to communication errors, the Blue Devils fell behind 4-10 right off the bat, forcing Nagel to take an early timeout.

Duke regrouped to win three of the next four points, and was kept in the match by freshman Elizabeth Campbell, who recorded a set-high six kills on a

.385 hitting percentage.“[Campbell’s] doing great,” Nagel

said. “We knew that it was one area that we wanted to go to tonight against them to use our middles and to use our right side, and it was obviously working when we had a chance to do that, so she obvi-ously did a great job of executing that.”

But the Seminoles soon pulled ahead again. Ultimately dropping the set 25-16, the Blue Devils were hampered by three service errors and four attack errors.

“We were just making a lot of errors, probably just serving,” Campbell said. “And… we weren’t passing that well in the first set, but I think we picked it up after that.”

Duke certainly kept the next two sets much tighter. In the second set, the Blue Devils kept pace with the Seminoles, largely due to the latter’s paltry .040 hit-ting percentage and Duke junior Ali Mc-Curdy’s team-high seven digs in the set.

The Blue Devils even held a 20-18 lead at one point despite registering just a .100 hitting percentage of their own.

“Our passing definitely got better,” Campbell said. “And our serving got tougher so it kept putting them out of system.”

Duke’s efforts came up short again, however, as it lost the set 26-24.

In the third set Duke fell behind early again, dropping five of the first six points as Florida State took control of play around the net. Seniors Fatma Yil-drim and Marija Milosavljevic and junior Ashley Neff combined for eight kills in the set and 24 kills in the match.

“The difference with them is they have those three hitters up there all the time which is really great,” Nagel said. “So it’s a little bit harder to be able to know where to block because they’ve just got three hitters ready to go.”

Behind several kills of their own—

including four from sophomore Jeme Obeime—the Blue Devils managed to build a lead of its own with as much as a four-point advantage late in the set.

After calling a timeout leading just 20-18, Duke won the next two points. The Blue Devils could not hold on, how-ever, dropping five consecutive points to conclude the set.

“Our errors made the difference,” Nagel said. “We dug ourselves a pretty big hole…. Until we can really get rid of those [errors] a little bit more, it’s going to be difficult to dig ourselves out of it every time.”

The Blue Devils will look to rebound against Miami Saturday in their final home game of the season. Miami is cur-rently ranked second in the ACC. Sat-urday marks senior night for the squad, and will honor seniors Nailah Water-field, Christiana Gray and Megan Hen-drickson.

THE CHRONICLE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 | 7

by Tim VisutipolTHE CHRONICLE

The Blue Devils will need to win six games to become national champions. Last year, Duke won five and narrowly lost to Stanford in the final.

Throughout the 2011 NCAA tourna-ment, Duke played four of its games in Koskinen Stadium as a top-seeded team. But this year the third-seeded Blue Devils (12-5-2) may only get one game at home, against Loyola Maryland (12-5-4)

Saturday at 4 p.m.“This time of year you want to be at

home,” Blue Devil head coach Robbie Church said. “It’s an advantage, but there are different paths to win the national championship. We’re definitely not tak-ing the same path as we took last year, but it doesn’t mean we can’t end up in the same place.”

The Greyhounds secured their spot in the tournament for the tenth time in his-tory by winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship as the third-seeded team in the conference.

Loyola Maryland has a number of skill-ful players and nine seniors on the roster. This blend of skill and experience is some-thing Church recognizes as a strength of his opponents.

Duke Gardens Holiday Craft Fair

Date: November 10, 2012Time: 10am-2:30pmPlace: Sarah P. Duke Gardens,420 Anderson St, Durham, NC 27708For More Information: 684-3698,http://gardens.duke.eduPrice: Free

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W. SOCCER CROSS COUNTRY

Blue Devils earn shot at redemption

Running to nationals

SATURDAY, 4 p.m.Koskinen Stadium

Loyola Md.

No. 3 Duke

vs.

“[Their conference title] tells you a lot about the character and the heart of their team as well,” Church said.

The Greyhounds are coached by a for-mer Duke player, Katherine Remy Vet-tori, who Church has a very high level of respect for.

“Their coach, Katherine, played here [and] was a good player for Bill Hempen in that time,” Church said. “She’s a wonderful young lady and has a very bright future in the game of soccer and in coaching.”

Like Loyola Maryland, the Blue Devils have a wealth of experience themselves, with all starters from last year’s run to the final game still on the roster. Freshman Cassie Pecht is the only starter not to have had that experience, but as the ACC Fresh-man of the Year, she has done well to im-prove the team’s options.

“[This experience] is what we’re relying on at this point,” Church said. “There were some really good things that happened dur-ing the regular season and some frustrating things…. Bailing the [ACC tournament] game against Wake Forest, a game we felt we should have won, was really heart break-ing. In my twelve years here it was as tough a loss as I’ve had. There were a lot tears af-ter that game. I think it’s important that we feel, that we keep the emotion, as we don’t want that feeling to happen again.”

With Duke’s disappointing loss to Wake Forest, the Blue Devils have been out of action

SEE W. SOCCER ON PAGE 8

by Sarah ElsakrTHE CHRONICLE

After an entire season spent focusing on gaining points towards qualifying for the NCAA championship meet, the Blue Devils will head to Charlotte for the NCAA Southeast Regional. Once there, the team hopes their hard work will earn them a top-four finish.

In order to qualify for an automatic bid to the national meet, Duke will need to place in the top-two at the regional competition. Throughout the season, however, the men have faced off against nationally-ranked teams in hopes of gaining points toward at-large qualification. Due to their success at bigger meets such as the Pre-National competition in October, the runners will be less pressured to secure a top-two spot. Head coach Norm Ogil-vie said the team should be able to accomplish their goal of racing at the national meet if they can place in any of the top-four spots.

“Top-four will definitely get us in,” Ogilvie said. “If we’re fifth, other things have to hap-pen. We’ve done all the work, we feel ready and now it’s just a matter of going out there and running.”

If the Blue Devils do not reach their goal of top-four, they will have to wait to see what hap-pens in other regions before knowing whether or not their season will continue. The Blue

Devils will earn a point for every team that they beat during previous races this season that makes it to the national championships. If things work in their favor, they might be able to secure a trip to Louisville, Ky. without a top-four finish, but Ogilvie noted that the runners will be doing everything in their power to en-sure it does not come to that.

For some, such as graduate student James Kostelnik and senior Mike Moverman, not performing well at the Regional meet means that Friday will be their last race as Blue Devils. That knowledge provides extra motivation for the already-driven runners, who are looking forward to today’s competition.

“The entire season’s goal race is this race. It’s exciting that it’s finally here,” Moverman said. “I’m confident that I can run fast and the team can run fast, so there’s nothing to worry about. If we weren’t prepared I’d probably be nervous, but I feel like we’re prepared.”

The Blue Devils have consistently prov-en that their team is in better shape this season than it was in the previous, but an off day at the ACC meet recently brought out their weaker side. In this meet, though, that type of disappointing performance is one they cannot afford.

“If we run like we ran at the Pre-National meet… we will go,” Ogilvie said. “And if we run like we did at ACC’s, we won’t.”

8 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

RELIGIOUS DIRECTORY

3002 Hope Valley RdDurham, NC 27707

(919) 489 6557Website: www.epworth-umc.org

Join us for Worship:Small Traditional Service: 8:30am

Casual Service: 9:00am - fellowship hallLarger Traditional Service: 11:00am

Please visit our website for current Bible studies and events.We are transforming the world by making disciples for life-

one person at a time!

Beth El Synagogue 1004 Watts St., Durham 919-682-1238

Durham’s First Synagogue One block from Duke East Campus A Project Reconnect Congregation

Traditional Conservative Egalitarian congregation offering an Orthodox Kehillah

Saturday morning Shabbat Services: Orthodox: 9:00am / Conservative: 9:45am

Visit www.betheldurham.org for more information

Students are welcome at all Shabbat and Holiday Services

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CUSACK from page 6

enough to own the Pac-12, but there are still lots of question marks in Pasadena—includ-ing whether Muhammad will even be eligible. UNC East is short four starters from last season, but there’s a bevy of McDonald’s All-Americans ready to replace them. My pick? East. Who knows when the NCAA will finally get around to letting Muhammad play?

4. Can Dez Wells make the ACC a five-horse race?

In a rare showing of human understand-ing and fairness, the NCAA granted Dez Wells’ appeal to play immediately at Mary-land. Granted, the decision came on the same day that two Indiana freshmen were suspended for taking “benefits” from their le-gal guardian, but baby steps I guess. Wells will pair up with immensely talented post player Alex Len to form one of the conference’s best duos. The Terrapins’ fate will rest in how the rest of the team responds.

W. SOCCER from page 7

for what Church describes as an “unbeliev-able” 13 days. The Greyhounds, on the other hand, played last Sunday.

While it may not be the best prepara-tion, Church has stressed the balance be-tween staying sharp and getting rest and admits that it has benefited some of his players emotionally and physically.

“There’s a difference between resting and not being sharp,” Church said. “That’s one of the things that will concern me with our time off is how sharp we will be. We’re definitely rested, but they’ve also been re-ally, really sharp in practice.”

Duke defender Natasha Anasi said after the selection show Monday, that the Blue Devils were tired of “beating up on each other” and were excited to face another

M. BASKETBALL from page 6

freshman Rasheed Sulaimon in the back-court. Sulaimon, a dynamic combo guard, does not take his responsibilities as a fresh-man starter lightly.

“It’s very exciting. It’s a great honor given to me by [head coach Mike Krzyze-wski],” Sulaimon said. “I have a big duty that I have to fulfill on the defensive end, and that’s going to get me a lot of playing time.”

Despite having a clear talent disadvan-tage, Georgia State head coach Ron Hunt-er says his team is confident and excited to play, although the Panthers are trying to ingore the impending challenge.

“That’s the great thing about young guys,” Hunter said. “They think we’re actu-ally coming to play in Raleigh for an AAU game. We didn’t say we’re going to Durham to play Duke.”

In order for the Panthers to have a

chance Friday night, junior point guard Devonta White will need to step up. White, who led the team last year with 12.9 points per game, is a linchpin for Georgia State on both sides of the ball.

“He’s my point guard. He’s my quarter-back. We get nothing done without Devon-ta,” Hunter said. “[White] is the key to our basketball team.”

The Panthers are welcoming some new faces of their own including Vir-ginia Tech transfer Manny Atkins, the only Georgia State player who has game experience in Cameron Indoor. Hunt-er hopes that Atkins, who averaged 4.9 points per game in his last year in Blacksburg, Va., will thrive in his larger role with the Panthers.

“He’s going to open up at a place that he’s been before,” Hunter said. “Atkins adds experience to our fairly young team, especially as a guy who’s played at this level before.”

Hunter’s son, freshman R.J. Hunter, is also poised to contribute this year. Hunter, a three-star recruit, had several more high-profile suitors including Iowa and Wake Forest, but decided to play for his father. He has tallied 52 points, six rebounds and four assists in the Pan-ther’s two preseason games.

“[Coaching R.J.] has been great,” Hunt-er said. “When you coach your son, if he doesn’t do what I say, then I can take his allowance away.”

Georgia State may have trouble con-taining the Blue Devils’ disproportionate amount of talent, but Hunter hopes that they will not be intimidated by the pro-gram’s legacy.

“Don’t lose to the logo. That’s what I’ve been preaching since we’ve scheduled this game,” Hunter said. “Duke has created an incredible logo. What happens is, mid-ma-jor teams come in and lose to the logo and not necessarily the players.”

foe. Anasi will have a tough task dealing with the Greyhounds’ senior attackers —Nichole Schiro and attacking midfielder Gigi Mangione. Church said they can pose problems for the Duke defense with their combinations and creative play.

Church also highlighted the abilities of the Loyola Maryland goalkeeper Didi Har-acic as an issue the Blue Devils have to solve early to be able to win the game.

“Their goalkeeper is very good,” Church said. “She’s kept them in a lot of games and will be tough to score on.”

This could be difficult on a Duke team that has not been firing on all cylinders. The Blue Devils have only one goal in their last three conference games.

“We scored a lot of goals, but we’ve got to be concerned because goals dried up a little bit here at the end of the season.

But in the NCAA tournament you’re not going to score a lot of goals,” Church said. “We weren’t as sharp in the final third. We had the ball a lot…. We had great chances to win every single match we were in and should have won three or four of those.”

He added that the Blue Devils have sometimes played too many long passes from defense and need to revert back to playing shorter passes to connect play from the defense to the midfield. This would also vary the Duke attack and prevent teams from sitting back to defend the balls played to the forwards. The Blue Devils have been working on their shape and tactics for the past few weeks.

Church hopes these final tweaks will give the Blue Devils an edge to defeat the Greyhounds. The winner of this matchup will advance to play the winner of Tennes-

see and Miami of Ohio in Charlottesville, Va. should Virginia, the region’s second seeded team, advance.

“When we’re dominating teams, we’ve got to score goals off that domination,” Church said. “We’ve got to get those ener-gy goals—that’s the only thing that’s miss-ing from this year’s group. We’ve got to be able to finish our opportunities and break [our opponent’s] spirits.”

Want more sports?Who doesn’t.

www.sports.chronicleblogs.com

12 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

Organ Recitals 2012-13DUKE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL

PARKER KITTERMAN

Sunday, November 11, 20125:00 p.m.Duke ChapelFree admissionParker Kitterman is the Director of Music and Organist at historic Christ Church in Philadelphia. After graduating from Duke University with a degree in Music and English (Trinity ‘01), he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Belgium. He was also a finalist in the Tokyo and Toulouse international organ playing competitions. Kitterman returns to Duke as part of the “Alumni Series” in a recital on the Flentrop organ.

THE CHRONICLE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 | 9

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The Duplex Glenn McCoy

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A piece of dental fl oss dangles from my bath-room counter, a congealed glob of Colgate Total toothpaste to its left, a Crest lump to its

right. I think about this fl oss precariously there—a little fl avored stretch of nylon quietly littering the warped Central Campus sink. It’s not on the counter, no. But not falling off just yet either.

I see a lot of wisdom in this fl oss, in this maybe mundane string of a thing. It warmly reminds me of my father who every night sits in bed reclined, legs folded, and fl osses his teeth. Pick pock, pick pock.

The suspended fl oss reminds me that there is some adventure and beauty in the middle road, in the space fi xed between two points. It hangs there, noncommittal. Some people in my shoes might chuckle and think “how funny that it hangs just so!” Others may be an-noyed that it has not yet made its way into the trash bin. But I am engrossed. For even if the wind or a hand came to snatch it, this fl oss has known both sides. It has seen the water-splashed sink and the speckled linoleum fl oor. It has a view of the tooth-paste globs as they dry up—the left and the right. It wavers. On the counter. On the fence.

Today is my 21st birthday. And admittedly, I have never made fence-sitting a habit. Even as a little girl, I would march into Gap Kids, grab a sunhat and fl o-ral dress and tell Momma that it was the only outfi t that would do. And at Duke, as I enter my 20s, I re-main decisive. I make up my mind as one might a bed—quickly and without afterthought.

This autumn, though, I have found myself where the fl oss is now, the unsettling no man’s land of mid-dle ground. I am too apolitical to be independent. I am too torn to be sure.

I have wavered, watching the world whirl by as mud was slung and passions were poured. How-could-you’s and empty promises, heartfelt pleas and ignorant slurs all careening toward me as Nov. 6 drew near.

I gathered quickly that my hesitation posed a threat to some decided voters. Some reassured them-

selves aloud that it was out of apathy and improper research that I had not picked a side. Some thought that I wanted to rustle elephant and donkey feath-ers—that I was hesitating to frustrate my partisan

friends. I was told that a vote for Mitt Romney meant I didn’t respect my womanhood or my friends who are gay. That a vote for Barack Obama meant killing the American dream, an America evermore entrenched in government.

I will say that I did vote, with an absentee Florida ballot no less. I will say that I care deeply about this coun-try and where we are headed. I do love my friends who are gay and care

about their rights. Maine and Maryland, I salute you. I worry about the economy and bipartisan gridlock. I have only the utmost reverence for my womanhood. Most of all, I stand by my uncertainty.

Through this uncomfortable straddling of sides, I have become fascinated with the passions that divide us. I was fascinated and uneasy, caught between the congealing lumps. The Colgate and Crest—the left and the right.

Aside from a few migraines and plenty of sighs, politics this year has given me an opportunity to reevaluate how we decide. What causes so many to be drawn to either glob of toothpaste, leaving me in between?

No defi nitive answers yet. I am appropriately un-decided.

I have found a few things, though. I have found that I rather like the middle road. I think I’ll linger here a while longer. I fi nd it to be a forum for the most candid and impassioned pitches of opinion. I now pledge allegiance to choosing sides only after good hesitation. I rather like to dangle. Here I am still on the bathroom countertop, as the world whirls around me and the toothpaste congeals. Tick tock. Pick pock.

Gracie Willert is a Trinity junior. Her column runs ev-ery other Friday.

commentaries10 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

The C

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The Ind

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editorial

A piece of dental fl oss

Discuss affi rmative action productively

”“ onlinecomment

Duke is working to balance educational disparity, which affects social factors such as socioeconomic status and health outcomes. So until someone thinks of a better solution than affi rmative action, then this policy is here to stay.

—“AS” commenting on the letter “Response to ‘Rethink affi rmative action’” See more at www.dukechronicle.com.

LETTERS POLICY

The Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form of letters to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for purposes of identifi cation, phone number and local address. Letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial department for information regarding guest columns.

The Chronicle will not publish anonymous or form letters or letters that are promotional in nature. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, clarity and style and the right to withhold letters based on the discretion of the editorial page editor.

Direct submissions to:

E-mail: chronicleletters@duke.eduEditorial Page DepartmentThe ChronicleBox 90858, Durham, NC 27708Phone: (919) 684-2663Fax: (919) 684-4696

The recent uproar over af-fi rmative action exposes the need to rethink how we talk about race and ethnicity in college admissions.

Critics of affi rmative ac-tion have many strong arguments at their disposal. But when they choose primarily to argue that benefi ciaries of the policy are undeserving of admission, they unfairly target individu-als and inhibit civil dialogue. Indicting the benefi ciaries of affi rmative action implicates students who have no control over the admissions process, incites backlash and obscures the compendium of rational arguments critics can deploy.

Moreover, this rhetoric in-correctly frames college admis-sions as a process that selects

for the most deserving appli-cants. Admissions at Duke—as at most universities—evaluates candidates based on what they promise to contribute to the university, not their worthi-

ness. If we un-derstand this, we can aban-

don dangerous conversations about whether or not an indi-vidual’s skin color makes her more deserving of a college education. In its place, we can substitute a more productive discussion about whether and to what extent a student’s race or ethnicity contributes to the set of unique experiences he or she brings to the university.

Sometimes, anti-affi rma-tive action arguments draw unintentionally from racist mythologies that characterize racial and ethnic minorities

as lazy. Individuals whose lan-guage evinces racist narratives are not necessarily racist. On the contrary, most critics of affi rmative action actively sup-port racial equality. However, because opposition to affi rma-tive action is bound up with a tradition of racism, individuals who argue against it must inter-rogate their assumptions and exercise particular caution to craft well-reasoned arguments against specifi c policies.

Both sides must deploy language carefully, and pro-ponents of affi rmative action have as much responsibility as critics to challenge their as-sumptions and avoid personal attacks. Often, when people either feel singled out by an argument or sense racist tradi-tions lying beneath its surface, they react quickly and emo-

tionally. Emotions can cloud judgment, and proponents of affi rmative action exacerbate confl ict when they trade rea-son for vitriol and succumb to knee-jerk reactions against perceived racism. Acerbic ad hominem attacks, especially those that denounce oppo-nents as racist, unjustly perse-cute individuals for speaking their mind, ignore legitimate arguments made by critics and drown out healthy discussions that might yield a better un-derstanding of how different people think about the issue.

Productive conversations about affi rmative action en-courage people to examine and evaluate its justifi cations. Typically, these justifi cations invoke the need to either pro-mote diversity or correct for structural inequalities. Debat-

ing the diversity argument re-quires considering what diver-sity means and how race and ethnicity contribute to a diverse student body. Debating argu-ments about structural inequal-ity necessitate thorough exami-nations of social structures and their differential effects on ra-cial and ethnic groups.

Affi rmative action emerged during a time when racial mi-norities faced clear barriers to educational and professional advancement. Today, our task is to determine whether or not those barriers still exist and af-fi rmative action remains nec-essary.

Affi rmative action debates always risk igniting confl ict. But, if we focus on policy and not people, our conversations promise to become more pro-ductive.

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commentariesTHE CHRONICLE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2012 | 11

All political parties should place climate change at the top of their agenda.

Yes, Obama has won. As an environ-mentalist, I’m grateful for that. But with a conserva-tive House, the need for all-partisan recognition of climate change is undeni-able. Spoiler Alert: Cli-mate change and change of fossil fuel use directly threaten each party’s fun-damental ideology.

First, the Republicans. The Republican favors small government and smaller-scale regulation in business practices. How-ever, the repercussions associated with climate change would place the Ameri-can government in a position such that it cannot limit the scope of government or industrial regulation. Many agricul-turally productive areas of the U.S. will be affected by climate change, causing dramatic increases in food prices. In-creased storms will put vulnerable U.S. cities, like New York, at increased risk of needing federal disaster relief. The projected 1.6 percent drop in world GDP will threaten American jobs. All this means increased instability in the U.S., which might actually increase the need for a more centralized govern-ment. This is analogous to the effect of economic sanctions, such to the ones most recently employed in Iran. Thus, climate change would be directly con-trary to a Republican’s interests.

More examples abound. Several peer-reviewed models indicate that cli-mate change will signifi cantly threaten food security worldwide. The U.N.’s Food & Agriculture Organization pro-jected a decrease in agricultural pro-ductivity by 20 to 40 percent in some ar-eas due to the effects of climate change. An estimated 150 million people will be climate change refugees by 2050, dramatically increasing the pressure on U.S. borders. The Republican platform, which holds a tough stance on immigra-tion, should be troubled. And along the lines of national security, the CIA itself ranks climate change as one of the lead-ing threats to America. It cites numer-ous reasons: sea-level rise threatening naval installments, instability in poor regions increasing the risk of terror-ism and increased risk to international trade. Each of these directly opposes the Republican platform.

So why support fossil fuels? “Jobs” is most often the response. But it’s not even clear why this is the case. Yes, fos-sil fuels create jobs, but only tempo-rarily. Coalfield economies are among the weakest types of economies; the in-dustry is continually mechanizing and eliminating opportunities for workers. West Virginia makes a somewhat tragic case study. Despite the fact that West Virginia coal production has remained roughly the same from 1950 to 2010, coal mine employment has decreased by more than 85 percent. If nothing else, the Republicans should be against an industry that actively cuts jobs!

For the libertarian, the consider-ations aren’t very different. The legal allowance of climate change is direct-ly contrary to the concept of private property. For instance, consider the Maldives. No point on the island is more than one meter above sea level.

The Maldives’ per capita carbon diox-ide emission is far lower than the world average, and the country aims to be carbon neutral in the next decade. Yet,

considering the effects of climate change on rising sea levels, it is all too pos-sible that the actions of others who do emit mas-sive amounts of carbon dioxide are depriving Maldivians of their funda-mental right to property. And things are not much better closer to home. Water scarcity threatens

the viability of many major cities in the U.S., including Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles, Houston, Tuscon and Atlanta. Some Alaskan villages have moved miles inland to escape rising waters. Further-more, strictly in terms of economic policies, the status quo for fossil fuel use includes immense subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. This manifests itself it multiple ways: direct subsidies to the industry, the leasing of federal land for drilling, foreign tax credit and, most importantly, the free externalization of carbon dioxide emitted. From 2002-08, subsidies to fossil fuels are estimated to have totaled $72 billion, almost three times the $29 billion given to renew-able energy. The libertarian should be directly against this governmental choice of the victor.

Finally, consider the Democrats. I find it fairly obvious why the Demo-crats should oppose climate change: Democrats support poorer classes and increasing social services; Democrats generally acknowledge the need for regulation; Democrats generally ap-preciate science, etc. So I don’t need to explain why they should care, but despite this incentive, consider what they have yet to do for climate change. Obama has simply not pushed climate policy during his four years and has consistently abandoned efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Al Gore said Obama has done little more than Bush to move the country forward on the cli-mate issue. Notably, Obama didn’t call Romney out on it during the debates. This year’s debates were the first de-bates since 1988 during which climate change was not mentioned. In fact, at times, it seemed as though the two can-didates were competing over who loved fossil fuel more.

To be fair, Obama has done some good. He created significant renewable energy tax credits, recently supported a bill to remove oil industry subsidies and appointed pro-environmental fig-ures to important positions (e.g. Steve Chu, Lisa Jackson, John Holdren). But climate change needs to take front and center. A damaged environment nega-tively affects almost every other issue that the administration pushes (econ-omy, healthcare, etc.). For a problem that will cease to be reversible after 2017, according to the International Energy Agency, we need to increase fo-cus on this, not decrease it. And so, in the wake of this most recent election, I hope that our new president will honor his party’s values (and other parties’ values) and bring climate change to the forefront.

Lucas Spangher is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Friday.

Executive responsibility Tuesday was a great day for weed

and weddings. Yet while Colorado and Washington serenely celebrate,

West Coast environmentalists and food activists are up in arms over the defeat of California’s Proposition 37.

Slightly less sexy than marijuana laws but just as controversial, this ballot initiative would have required label-ing of genetically modifi ed food. Genetically modifi ed (GM) organisms are mainly altered to withstand the use of herbicides and pesticides, or even to produce a pesti-cide. GM strains of crops such as soybeans, corn, po-tatoes, tomatoes and canola have been approved by the FDA for U.S. markets since the 1990s.

In a previous column, I argued for more transparent, standardized food la-beling. However, standardization does not necessarily imply transparency. Labeling GMOs per Prop 37 may do more to con-fuse and alarm consumers than to truly educate them.

In national polls as well as media hype, it has become clear that many American consumers are concerned about the un-known effects of GM foods. What is the basis for this concern? The World Health Organization explains, “Generally con-sumers consider that traditional foods (that have often been eaten for thousands of years) are safe.” These so-called tradi-tional foods, then, are not generally as-sessed for safety, whereas consumers feel that GM foods should be. But just where is the line between “traditional” foods and scary Frankenfoods?

Some argue that GMOs are unnatural, that they don’t grow the way nature in-tended. Well, neither do organisms in con-ventional agriculture. Humans have been modifying food crops through artifi cial selection for certain traits for thousands of years. It is impossible to construct a mean-ingful defi nition of “natural” that applies to any product of agriculture.

Those who recoil from GMOs might also keep in mind the many other ways we dramatically alter food that don’t involve gene splicing. Take, for example, cows. Around 99 percent of the meat you fi nd in restaurants and supermarkets in Amer-ica comes from factory farms, otherwise known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). CAFOs are designed to make animals get fat as quickly as possi-ble, at the lowest cost possible. To achieve this high growth rate, cows are fed a deli-cious mixture of mystery meat, hormones and a lot of corn. Because cows’ digestive systems are designed to process grasses, di-gesting corn makes them constantly sick. To correct this, feedlots administer huge amounts of antibiotics to keep the cows alive until they reach slaughtering weight. The animal becomes nothing more than a protein-creating machine—and we have learned to tweak that machine to our de-sired level of effi ciency.

The risks associated with this industrial

meat production are immediate, serious and well-documented. We’ve seen a rise in American obesity: Corn-fed beef is sig-nifi cantly higher in saturated fat than grass-fed. We see an alarming increase in antibiotic-resistant microbes. The heavy use of bovine growth hormones has been linked to increased risk of some types of

cancer in milk consumers. Lagoons of concentrated manure cause water and air pollution. These risks also exist in industrial produc-tion of pork and poultry.

What could be more un-natural than stuffi ng a cow full of corn, or making a chicken grow so fast that its legs cannot support its body weight? I have a hard time understanding why anyone

would have a visceral reaction to geneti-cally modifi ed soybeans, but continue to consume factory farmed meats.

We must holistically challenge what is viewed as acceptable in our food system. GMOs should not be demonized based on relative ideas of what is “natural,” but judged based on their observed merits.

The current situation is that no scien-tifi cally rigorous peer-reviewed study has linked GMOs with detrimental health effects in animals or humans. In a press release last month, the American Associa-tion for the Advancement of Science stat-ed that in a dozen long-term studies, GM and non-GM counterparts were shown to be nutritionally equivalent. If we’re wor-ried about developing pesticide resistance, consider that the rise in GMOs is a symp-tom, not a primary cause, of widespread pesticide use in agriculture. Additionally, GM technology offers promising solutions to malnutrition in developing countries, particularly with vitamin-fortifi ed staple crops such as Golden Rice.

Like those who oppose GM foods, I am very concerned about the mixed messages we get from Monsanto and other agribusi-ness giants. I don’t dispute the importance of transparency; I would love for our gov-ernment to mandate honest food labels. But slapping a label on GMOs without an effort to objectively educate the public may only encourage unwarranted reac-tions and unnecessary regulatory costs.

I was glad to see Proposition 37 on the ballot in California. If nothing else, it brought national attention to the food movement, both to commend its goals and to point out its inconsistencies. I agree with the Los Angeles Times’ assessment concerning the failure of Prop 37: “What’s needed is a consistent, rational food poli-cy, not a piecemeal approach based on in-dividual groups’ pet concerns.” If Califor-nia, or any of us, is serious about knowing what’s in our food, we should start with the low-hanging fruits of the food system—risks that are well-founded in scientifi c evidence.

Hannah Colton is a Trinity senior. Her col-umn runs every other Friday. You can follow Hannah on Twitter @ColtonHannah.

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