The report, directed by Provost Peter Lange, will serve as a framework for discussion this semester on the topic of residential, social and dining space.  The report follows up last year’s Campus Culture Initiative (CCI) but recommends rethinking some CCI’s proposals, including a suggestion to eliminate selective housing such as fraternities and theme houses.

“This report comes at the midpoint of our conversations with the students, faculty and staff of our community about the campus culture,” Lange said. “It represents our midstream thoughts about how we can create a campus culture which best supports our educational mission both inside and outside the classroom.

“It represents as well our thinking, based on the extensive conversations of the spring and research this summer how we might best create a pluralistic and balanced campus culture that will allow all our students, in all their diversity of backgrounds, interests and passions, to realize the highest levels of personal growth and responsibility to others, both like and different than themselves. We look forward to a new round of conversations this fall that will provide further insight about how best to achieve our goals and enrich our culture and community.”

During this semester, a series of nearly a dozen open forums for students, which begin Sept. 17, will help Duke officials develop recommendations.  At the same time, Lange, Simon, new Dean of Undergraduate Education Steve Nowicki and Vice President Larry Moneta will also meet with faculty groups, staff and alumni.  (Click here for list of planned student forums.)

The report noted that many students – including fraternity members – said Duke’s social system could be improved but that most also opposed eliminating selective housing.

“What emerged was a sentiment for a greater number of alternative, ‘elective’ living options that would coexist, on an equal basis in terms of resources, with the existing range of selective living groups,” the report said.  “This broadening of selective living options could create at Duke a balanced, ‘pluralist’ community of group living opportunities rooted in multiple values and in student choices.  Each group, as part of its charter, would have to contribute through some of its activities to the richness of activities available to the broader community.”

The report recommends focusing this semester’s discussion around several questions:

• Duke places sophomores on West Campus and intends to direct upperclass students to Central Campus housing.  Should the university rethink this housing model and mix sophomores, juniors and seniors throughout Central and West Campus?
• What kind of housing model gives the best experience to both students living in selective housing and independents living by themselves or in small blocks of students?
• What expectations should be made of housing groups that are allocated space so that they can positively contribute to the overall campus environment?
• What is the right mix of convenience and enhanced social experiences for dining?

Duke officials said these space issues are fundamental to many critical issues that drove the Campus Culture Initiative: alcohol, gender relations, ethnic and racial diversity and bridging academic and social life on campus.

“In addition to simply living and eating, residence halls and dining facilities provide important venues for students to interact with each other and for interactions of faculty and staff with students,” the report said. “All members of our campus community share the ability to serve as role models and can model how to work together to build character and a sense of purpose. … These daily interactions are an important component of what defines the Duke experience and enable learning about human interactions and establishing relationships that go well beyond that experienced in the classroom or with classmates.”

Already this semester, several university initiatives been implemented in the name of strengthening a pluralistic community.  Duke Bikes, a shared bike program, was launched that will allow students to borrow bikes for campus travel.  The a new social patio at Armadillo Grill and expanded hours and menus for the Faculty Commons are meant to create more social space for student life and enhance student-faculty interaction.  In addition, Lange appointed John Blackshear, clinical director of the Academic Resource Center, as a student ombudsman to serve as a confidential and independent source for conflict resolution involving a student.