7/20/2011

Mr. President, kick some butt. Your website is in shambles, and whoever manages it should be replaced.

✔✔ After receiving several comments from Loyal Readers over a period of time, FC checked out President Brodhead's website and here is what we found:

-- You have to click three times in the right spots to get from the university's home page to any mention of Brodhead. Then he sits on a page with three other leaders, including Peter the Provost, Chancellor Victor Dzau and Executive VP Trask. This is dead end: there is no link to any other Brodhead site. (Most university presidents have a home page greeting)

-- We could not find a link to Brodhead's website -- which we knew existed -- no matter where we looked. We did a Google search and landed at http://www.duke.edu/president/

-- Most of the pictures are from his initial photo shoot on campus, and he's now starting his 8th year. We could not find any that reflected his shaving off his mustache a year and a half ago.

-- More importantly, there is no speech since Convocation in May, 2010. No writing (as information e-mails to alumni) since April, 2010.

-- The last time he was in the news was July, 2010.

-- The last log of a Duke Idea presentation to alumni was May 20, 2009.

-- And his Curriculum Vitae is worse. His last honor in May, 2007. His last professsional activity a year before that. His last major lecture was in Cleveland, “What Universities Are Good For,” The City Club of Cleveland, November 2006.

-- If you click on "additional resources," the Quick Facts about Duke is blank.

-- If you seek "Reports to the Trustees February 2006 to present," you get a blank page. Nan Koehane started posting this quarterly reports with the advent of the internet.

-- If you click on Contact Us, that's where you find buried a link to the President's office hours for students. Brodhead has often touted this at the opening Convocation (as if sitting down with him individually were a common experience), but the appointment list is for the fall (not spring) semester of the last academic year.

There's more. You get the idea.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please send comments directly to Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com if you want a response. The on-line form is anonymous and we cannot get back to you.

We hope with transfer to a new website in the near future to have open discussion. FC also welcomes Guest FC columns, a complete essay that will be posted just like our own.