Obituary - Juanita Kreps, James B. Duke professor of economics

Juanita Kreps was one of the most amazing people ever to grace the Duke campus, and it's a miracle that she ever got here at all.

She was born in the little town of Lynch, Kentucky, born into poverty and tension and uncertainty and unhappiness. Her father was a struggling coal mine operator.

At age 4, her parents divorced and she lived with her mother until 12 or 13, when the Great Depression forced her into a state boarding school. For most of her generation, that would be the end of their education.

But somehow Berea College entered her life, a school dedicated to the rescue of bright children in the bleakness of southern Appalachia. She flourished and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. And she came to Duke -- the precise story of her admission and scholarships lost in time. -- receiving a masters (1944) and doctorate (1948).

During her years as a Duke student, she became the wife of another promising young economist, Clifton H. Kreps Jr., and for a while she allowed his career to whipsaw hers. They went from Denison University to Hofstra to Queens College, which is a division of the City University of New York. He was hired. She was an adjunct.

By the mid 50's, Clifton moved to UNC in Chapel Hill, where he began his ascent , becoming Wachovia Professor of Banking. He passed away ten years ago.

Juanita Kreps returned to Duke in 1955, and went steadily through the academic ranks, reaching the top rung as James B. Duke Professor of Economics in 1972, the first woman in an endowed chair. This was no small achievement at a school where -- for most of her years -- just about every prominent faculty member -- save Anne Firor Scott -- was a white male.

Kreps was notable on campus for her liberal views. In one class she said the size of the federal debt did not matter (it was only a few hundred million at the time), because it was money that Americans owed to other Americans. Alzheimer's robbed us of the chance to hear any update.

On a predominantly conservative campus, she was one of the first to speak of the right to choose abortion. In death, her family asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to Planned Parenthood or the Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill.

Her specialty was the labor demographics of women and older workers.

Consider her articles and books:

“Sex in the Marketplace: American Women at Work” (1971), about how women were excluded from top jobs and settled for low salaries, while still being expected to be responsible for housework.

“Lifetime Allocation of Work and Leisure: Essays in the Economy of Aging” (1971);

and “Women and the American Economy” (1976).

Kreps entered the administration of Duke, and was last Dean of the Women's College (then occupying East Campus) from 1969 until 1972. She presided over its devolvement, with female students (co-eds in the contemporary term) gaining full status in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.

By 1972, her national stature was such that the New York Stock Exchange did the unprecedented, naming her a director. Talk about sitting amid conservative white men!!

In 1973, President Terry Sanford made her a vice president of the university without specific portfolio. In 1976, Sanford mentioned her to the Democratic Presidential candidate and his staff, and after winning, Jimmy Carter named her the fourth woman ever to sit in the cabinet, and the first to be secretary of commerce. There were some ripples beyond sex; this post traditionally went not to an economist but to someone immersed in private business.

Announcing her nomination, President Jimmy Carter said it was hard to find qualified women. Asked if she agreed, Ms. Kreps replied, "I do think we have to do a better job of looking in the case of both women and minorities."

"I think she disagrees with me," a smiling Mr. Carter said.

"I don't think you have to shy away from the idea of tokenism," she told the Washington Post in 1977, soon after being confirmed by the Senate. "It's just a stage we have to go through."

Kreps defined her ambition: "a new era, in which corporations would boast of how much they had spent on socially desirable activities and corporate executives would be esteemed by shareholders and their peers for the same reason."

The New York Times, in an unusual 1100 word obituary written by a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, said she sought new laws to ensure privacy for millions of consumers, requiring insurance, financial and credit card companies to tell customers about information collected on them, to explain adverse decisions affecting them, and to accord them rights to challenge erroneous data in their files.

She championed minority owned businesses, female and elderly workers, the unemployed, and urban areas starting to wither from outsourcing of jobs.

Inside the Carter administration, she battled Treasury over trade-regulation enforcement, the State Department over commercial attachés who help American businesses overseas, and with the national security adviser over sensitive technology exports to Communist countries.

She undertook notable trade missions world wide, including the Communist nations of China and the Soviet Union.

Above all, Washington was a lonely experience. Her husband was unable to leave UNC and she commuted most weekends. She left the Cabinet after three years when her husband tried to commit suicide.

Her evaluation of her Carter years included the remark that she was never part of the "Boy's Breakfast Club" that met regularly at the White House to advise the President on domestic economic policy.

Corporate America knocked loudly at Krep's door at Duke. Over time, she became a director of J.C. Penney, Eastman Kodak, R J Reynolds Nabisco, Citicorp, United Airlines, AT&T, Armco, Zurn Industries, John Deere and Company, Chrysler Corporation, and TIAA-CREF, which is the giant pension fund specializing in serving educators.

Oh yes, she was also chair of the company which brings us the College Boards and other exams, Educational Testing Service.

In the academic word, she received 15 honorary degrees, plus other awards and recognition.

Berea College put her on its board, as did UNC-Wilmington. And so did The Duke Endowment, a separate charity founded by James B. Duke that is often confused with the University.

As for the name Juanita, Kreps just shook her head. She was of Scottish-Irish heritage, and said "My mother liked the name and she claimed she might have some Spanish ancestry," she told the Washington Post in her soft spoken way. "But I don't think I'm the Juanita type," she said. "I should have been called Emily."

At Duke Kreps is memorialized with the Juanita and Clifton Kreps chair in economics. She received the Duke University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service—considered the University’s highest honor.

Thank you for reading Fact Checker.

Duke admissions - counting phantoms

The Chronicle's Tower View magazine did a recap story on Duke admissions.

Fact Checker here. This is a good article.

I would like to point out, however, how malleable admissions statistics are.

At Washington University in Saint Louis, a good enough school that it should not have to resort to games, admissions officers placed a mass advertisement that included a reply post card -- and counted every postcard as an application.

At Franklin and Marshal -- which will be led by former Duke PR maven John Burness as president pro tem this fall -- the admissions director got a bright idea to improve his yield rate. He skipped over the best applicants -- figuring that Franklin and Marshal would have competition for them, and admitted the mediocre on the theory more would show up. They did.

At Duke, here's the only two objections I have to the statistics. In reporting applications, we count people who withdraw before getting a decision from Duke -- perhaps they got early admission elsewhere. We also count "incomplete" applications.

Key point: I cannot find out how far along an application must go before it triggers a count.

Solution: Duke should count only those applications read by admissions counselors, only those whom we accept, reject or put on a wait list. In that manner, Duke will not tinker with its acceptance rate. (The current methods drive the rate a bit lower).

If you do not think acceptance rates make a big difference, sign on to U S News and World Report. Its abbreviated (read that to mean free) listings include only one fact about each school -- acceptance rate.

As for our yield, yes we do have a problem: Duke at the bottom of the top ten list is competing for the same students as the schools at the top -- and invariably if students can get into Harvard, Yale Princeton they go there.

No where is this more apparent than in the one statistic that Fact Checker has recently uncovered. For the Class of 2010, just graduated, The Robinson Scholarship program offered 21 people admission to Duke. Only 15 showed up.

I will try to find similar stats on the Angier and Ben Duke Scholarships. But it's pretty bad when your prime scholarships are rejected.

Fact Checker here. Thanks for reading!

Duke gets two new trustees

The Chronicle reported that two new trustees are joining the board, as well as two junior trustees with observer status.

✔ Fact Checker here.

Yale has just gotten a new member of its governing board too, and allow me, please, to quote from the official university news release:

"Yale graduates from around the world have elected renowned pediatric surgeon and educator Dr. Francisco Cigarroa ’79 B.S. to serve........."

Yes, there were three candidates. A choice!!

The candidates spoke to their fellow Yalies. They told them of their dreams for the school, where they stood on issues. And then the alumni actually voted actually voted from among the choices and selected the best!!!!!!!!!

Compare that please with the clandestine process that brought Dukies two new trustees. Conducted behind closed doors, the two were put forth by the Brodhead Admnistration and were approved by by the lemmings on the current board of trustees at their meeting last December (not in May as Chronicle states), and then submitted for the charade of ratification by either the Methodist Church or the alumni leadership.

Fact Checker tried to find out in December who had been selected. We tried to find out again after the alumni leadership ratified. And the Allen Building Gang kept it secret -- not because there is any reason to, but because that's the way they think and that's their penchant.

Fellow Dukies, all this should change!!!!!!!!!!! Revolution!!!!!!!

Loyal Readers will recall my prediction that Bill Gross would be elected. Stay tuned, we'll get him some day, unavoidable as we move into a high gear fund-raising campaign. He's the West Coast bond guru who parlayed Duke dorm poker games -- and his uncanny ability to analyze the risk of making a bet -- into becoming a multi-billionaire. Quite a colorful guy too -- for example he spent more than $30 million for a beach house -- and is now tearing it down to use the land to put up his own dream. Hey, if you got it, go for it.

✔Bishoop Hope Morgan Ward.

Her election as a trustee is best viewed as a sop to the Methodist Church. While clearly qualified in her own right, Fact Checker believes Ward bubbled to the top because we have lost, or are about to lose in the next expiration of Trustee terms, three church stalwarts: retired Bishop J. Lawrence McClesky, Rev. Clarence Newsome who is the former President of Shaw University in Raleigh, and Rev. Charles Smith who has been pastor in residence at Duke Divinity School.

Keeping the myth alive that this is a Methodist institution!!

✔Laurene Sperling

Though the Chronicle story on Sperling doesn't mention her husband, Fact Checker believes he's a good reason for her rise from an obscure Library advisory panel to the top governing body. Scott Sperling is a heavy hitter in the financial world, co-president of Thomas H. Lee Partners -- THL for those in the know -- a vast private equity firm in Boston. Enormous bucks. Mansion north of Boston.

If that script sounds familiar, Duke followed it too with Martha Monserrate, neglecting to tell us that her spouse is Herbert Hardinge McDade, president of Lehman Brothers before its collapse. Enormous bucks. Mansion in Great Gatsby country.

The Sperlings met as MBA students at Harvard and have been very very loyal there, writing regular big checks not only to the B-school but to the Harvard medical school's teaching hospital. Their other big contributions have been to Jewish charities, with Fact Finder uncovering no indication that Scott's undergraduate alma mater, Purdue, has gotten gravy. So far as I can trace -- and I'm pretty good at these things -- the first six digit contribution to Duke came three years ago.

Loyal Readers, watch for more!

Thanks for reading and supporting Fact Checker.
You deserve to know.
Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com

Duke and China

(The Chronicle wrote an ecstatic feature article about Duke's international aspirations)

Good day, my fellow Dukies. Many of you are vacationing, Fact Checker is NOT.

✔
Let's go to the Chronicle archives.

April 16, 2009
The Chronicle first mentioned the Chinese backwater of Kunshan on this date, learning in an interview with Dean Sheppard of Fuqua that -- in the newspaper's words -- "construction on the site will begin in August."

December 4, 2009
By the time the Trustee's winter meeting rolled around, the Chronicle said Duke was going to send a delegation to Kunshan in January 2010 to "break ground." Needless to say the Chronicle never asked about the slippage apparent in not breaking ground in August.

The paper further noted that a document that President Brodhead would sign in China formalizing the agreement states "the facilities would be ready for occupancy in 2011."

January 22, 2010
Duke PR flooded editors with pictures of Brodhead in China for the "ground-breaking." We saw our President and the Chinese rep -- surprisingly only an assistant dean from a Shanghai university that we are taking on as a partner -- listening to appropriate song and dance, and then moving to a table replete with red bunting and little flags of the USA and China crossed as if Obama and Wen Jiabao were on hand. Brodhead and partner used ceremonial pens to sign and swap bound copies of the documents.

Then Brodhead and the Chinese assistant dean donned white gloves, were given silver tipped shovels, and turned the earth. Duke's news release called it a groundbreaking. To Fact Checker, that means it's underway.

Behind them was a Hollywood set built for the occasion, declaring this to be the "cornerstone ceremony," which to Fact Checker implies there is a building into which the cornerstone would fit.

June 16, 2010
Yes six months later. The Chronicle -- without bothering to tell us about the other deadlines -- reports on a visit to Kunshan by a coterie of Deans trying to figure out what to do with the facility. Oh that's not what the official announcement said; but that's what it meant.

Steve Nowicki allowed that -- as the Chronicle put it -- "construction is set to begin soon." Huh? Soon?????

Nowicki is also quoted as explaining there won't be any undergraduate programs for a while. No one at the paper said, "hey Steve, wait a second. Here's what we learned from the Brodhead administration for our story on January 25th" :

"The University will use the (Kunshan) facilities for the Global Semester Abroad program beginning next semester," a reference to undergraduates and August, 2010.

And Jones, who has moved in six months time from being a Dean to being full time Adviser to Brodhead on international stuff to being a Vice Provost to being a Vice President, says without ever wincing at the 2011 timetable, that we can have occupancy in 2012. This man will go far as an administrator.

July 1, 2010
Which brings us to today's headline, "Chinese city prepares for opening of Duke campus" which is a rather inaccurate way to tell us construction has yet to begin.

✔The point is: there has now been enough slippage in the Kunshan timetable, that the Brodhead Administration must come clean and tell us what's happening and why.

So far as Fact Checker can determine, the only activity Duke has confirmed for the five buildings on 200 acres (twice the size of East Campus) occurs in August, 2012.

I wonder if the Chinese know that.

What's convening there? Our well hyped Cross Continent MBA program convenes in Kunshan -- for a total of two weeks. Yes 14 days of use for the campus. I wonder if the Chinese footing the bill know this.

✔As for the MBA candidates, In the 15 months after Kunshan -- having paid for airfare, paid $1500 for a special laptop and mailed in $120,100 to Duke -- the students move on to hotels in four other international cities plus Durham -- a total of 60 classroom days to earn their degrees.

$120,100. Hmmm.... That's $2,000 a day. (The tuition, by the way, when the program was first announced on September 15, 2008, was going to be $101,900.)

The situation with the Cross Continent program -- a linchpin in our international aspirations along with a home campus like Kunshan -- should also cause some concern. Back to the Chronicle archive.

In announcing the new MBA program, the good dean of Fuqua said he hoped for 180 students in the academic year just ending. He only rounded up 120 after admitting many more from the US than he intended, robbing the program of its international flavor.

As for the Cross-Continent MBA class starting in August, Dean Shepperd -- knowing full well the impact of the recession, so I do not want to hear the economy brought up as an excuse -- said he was "confident" there would be 280 students.

Fellow Dukies, my mole in Fuqua says we will be lucky to get half that number.

I hate to throw cold water on a hot topic, but let's remember Fuqua's other hastily conceived international voyages that ended in disaster. Frankfurt, for example, at a cost of many millions. Moscow. London.

Since it's founding in 1969 with fat checks from a man named Fuqua and his better known next door neighbor, the Wendy's hamburger man Dave Thomas, our business school has grown like topsy. Today it has more than twice as many professors as the Law School, including one whose take last year was a cool $1,031,673 and yes, Fact Checker is pursing this full steam. You can count on it!!

In the last year with complete statistics, Fuqua awarded 596 MBA's and 100 Master of Management Studies degrees. That compares with just 162 Ph.D's in the entire Arts and Sciences enterprise, and 191 masters. It also compares with only 103 Duke MD degrees.

The school has ambitions. It needs a Fact Checker to keep tabs.

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Lastly, Loyal Readers, the labor situation in Kunshan.

Our Trustee chair and President Brodhead have both noted this city has people earning far more than others in China. They spoke with pride of an economic engine. I warn with haste.

The same sharks from Taiwan who outsourced their work to the mainland and built up Kunshan will move on at the drop of a dime if labor costs rise above what sharks would have to pay in other exploited parts of the world. The Philippines. India. You name it.

In recent months, there have been labor strikes in China. Including Kunshan, where one of the biggest employers is Foxconn, which makes motherboards for many brands of computers.

Not in its Kunshan factory, but in another, 11 employees of Foxconn committed suicide recently, apparently because they were driven crazy by intense work and poor conditions. Consider a woman whose only function is to stick rubber feet on the bottom of each mouse passing on a production line, thousands of mouses (or mice) racing by each day, 11 hours a day, six days a week, $280 a month. She lives in a walled compound at the factory, 9 to a room, sleeping in shifts, working when awake).

Dukies, if you find yourself in Kunshan, this is what you will find yourself in the middle of.

Vice President Jones noted that some of the unrest in Kunshan came during the Duke Deans visit, but they did not know about it and paid no attention. Suppose they had known? What would they have done?

No more than Dukies are able to ignore Durham -- or historically were they able to ignore the grave injustices of the South -- can we become an island of 200 acres, in a city with no university, no airport, and only one hotel with any stars within its boundaries, a city where the best restaurant is not Chinese but Korean, and where the principal night-time attraction is a gigantic bowling alley.

Ware not going to Kunshan to upset their way of life or their economy. Neither can we go without conscience. We shall engage.

✔
Thank you for reading Fact Checker. Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com

Please don't write me that you found more hotels with stars. The others are all outside the city in lake resorts. .

We're back effective July 1, 2010

✔Fact Checker!!!

This blog becomes alive again July 1, 2010. All essays that I append to Chronicle articles can be read here. You might also want to check the Chronicle archive for the original article as well as all other comments.

Only some of my essays before July 1 are included in this blog -- hit or miss. Sorry.

In the coming months, Fact Checker will expand. I hope to have an e-mail news letter as the first step. Keep checking for details, or send an e-mail to be notified of the start to Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com

Fact Checker will return!!!

This blog becomes alive again July 1, 2010. The essays that I append to Chronicle articles can be read here. You might also want to check the Chronicle archive for the original article as well as all other comments.

In the coming months, Fact Checker will expand. I hope to have an e-mail news letter as the first step. Keep checking for details, or send an e-mail to be notified of the start to Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com

GO DUKE!!!!!!

3-18-2010 More on K-Ville

✔Fact Checker here.

Well... this wandering quixotic view of K-Ville is fine. But there are some very very serious issues with this Duke "tradition" that need to be addressed.

First, it may make good B-roll for television sports coverage, but how does this spectacle collide with objectives of Duke? Week after week after week. Is the diversion worth it? What happens to academics? What happens to other aspects of student life during this period, like engagement and service.

We may experience, as the columnist found, spirit and friendships in tents, but it is at the great expense of what happens in dorms and dining halls. Is the balance appropriate?

Plus the nitty gritty. Student health. Did anyone get sick? And how about alcohol abuse?

In addition to essays off the top of one's head, and a light rewrite from page 85 of Professor King's book "If Gargoyles Could Talk" telling about the wartime Blue Devils, this newspaper -- and its columnists -- have a responsibility to dig and inform and present solid facts. How many people got ill? How many people needed medical attention because of alcohol abuse?

We had in one story during this year's tenting mention of "ambulances" and then hush!! As I documented ten days ago, the history of K-Ville is a chain of stories in the Chronicle -- curiously absent this year -- embracing words like "drunk," "drunken" and "alcohol abuse."

Remember when you see these body counts, they are not just numbers: they are the story of K-Ville and its tilted impact upon our community.

Finally, viewed from the official side of the University, I am left wondering why there is no evaluation or other comment from any Brodhead Administration official.

Did Dean Steve visit? Day or night? What do you think of the university enabling a weeks-long bacchanalia with unfettered under-aged drinking?

To be honest with you, I am surprised our insurers tolerate this at all, because some day, when something goes wrong, Duke will be zonked with liability claims from the victim or his and her family.

Did President Brodhead visit? Day or night? Did he hear the noise, smell the booze, wallow in the mud? Did he think students roused at 4 AM for a bed-check got proper rest -- not to mention students asleep in nearby quads not participating in K-Ville who hear line monitors blare their wake up call.

Chronicle, did you chase our president to ask if he went to the single most important "tradition" on our campus?

Did Brodhead see, as Deputy Fact Checkers did, fellatio in public between the tents, and urination when no one was thought to be watching.

Mr. Brodhead, are you satisfied with K-Ville? Do you endorse it? I hear only your silence. As a Chronicle editorial put it a few weeks back, where is the leadership?

✔Sorry, Cameron Crazies, some days Fact Checker must tell you what you do not want to hear.

3/15/2010 Brodhead builds financial aid -- but he also creates the need for it.

✔Fact Checker here. Hope spring break was all you hoped it would be and more.

This is a very good column. And your calculation about the cost of Duke projected from official figures is hereby certified by Fact Checker to be correct.

Here's the problem. We hear President Brodhead extoll that the happen-stance of one's birth and socio-economic status must not become a new barrier to higher education, like race and gender once were. He has focused on need-blind admissions to let students who are not born into wealth squeak through Duke.

The problem with all that is: Brodhead himself and other administrators are the ones erecting the new barrier, letting costs go through the roof and tolerating tuition hikes year after year far in excess of inflation.

Before the financial meltdown robbed us of much of our endowment and gifts, did anyone ever hear the President address how we can control costs? In fact he pooh-poohed the idea, saying there would not be a market for a lower cost generic Duke.

It's essential that we look at both sides of the equation. Build financial aid, yes, but also cut costs to get this thing into better balance.

✔Since the Trustee announcement of a 3.9 percent hike in the cost of attending Duke next year (small point: the tuition component actually went up 4 percent) many Loyal Readers have challenged official figures showing that the cost of Duke next year will be $51,865, up from $49,895 at present. Source: press releases covering last year's and this year's increases.

Indeed, other official Duke figures contradict this low-ball calculation. The very same people who put out the press releases also post "Quick Facts about Duke" showing current costs -- excluding books, supplies and personal expenses -- are $50,245 this year, not $49,895.

I have also received meticulous documentation that I am still studying showing that the news releases are further contradicted by official calculations of financial aid packages.

In one instance, the current year's package -- taking out books and personal expenses to keep it consistent with the above -- is based on costs of $52,660. A far cry from the press release's $49,895.

Thank you everybody for sending along a wealth of material and tips about Duke!

Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com

3-13-2010 Man shot dead on campus. Administrators give us the runaround.

✔Fact Checker here.

Mr. Trask, you have said there is little need at Duke for professional, fully trained, armed police officers. You advocated that officers be replaced with cheaper security guards hired by the day from a private contractor.

You said this well before the financial crisis struck. Now that saving money is important, with the meltdown of our endowment and with a 62 percent decline in gifts, are you even stronger in this view?

Or has the Durham on Duke violence now come close enough to Allen Building for you to wake up. What is your view at this time?

Has the fatal shooting this morning -- plus the injury (wounding?) of a Duke Police Officer with no details yet available -- changed your mind? You never responded to this question 18 months ago when more blood flowed and less than a half mile away, a graduate student at Duke was murdered at his own home by a posse of Durham thugs.

Or won't we find out because you do not answer questions from the public?

Mr. Trask, campus police were among those offered early retirement. President Brodhead went to a retirement ceremony this fall at the Nasher where officers with combined service and experience of 372 years left; he was all smiles then. How about giving us specifics now to reassure us that the force is back up to full strength and par.

Mr Trask, you have direct responsibility for campus police. One of your officers is right now accused of a felony -- the S and M rape of a woman. Are you for some reason not sensitive to the seriousness of this charge?

This officer had his Duke Police uniform, Duke handcuffs and Duke gun. Along with a whip, a giant enema bag and over-sized butt plug. You supervised an inquiry into this man's career at Duke, starting with the question of why he left a higher paid job and vesting pension benefits after nearly ten years as a Master Patrolman (love that title) in Raleigh. At Duke, where did he patrol? Did he have access to sensitive student records? To victims of sex crimes in the hospital? Fact Checker believes this community is entitled to know.

The last time The Chronicle raised these questions, the police chief, under your direct supervision in the neatly drawn organizational charts you so love, dodged by saying the inquiry was not done. That was five months ago.

Do you have the decency to answer now?

✔Fact Checker. On duty even during Spring Break.

5:46 PM
March 13, 2010
Fact Checker

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✔Thank you Chronicle for your excellent work on this important story. And an extra ✔✔ from Fact Checker for informing us of the disgraceful runaround you are receiving from the Duke PR people.

You mention Mr. Stokke, bouncing to Mr Jarmul, who bounced to Mr. Stokke, who then made himself unavailable.

This is the same Stokke, associate (correction) vice president for PR, who appeared in a December 7 Chronicle story on the closing of the student pharmacy. Careful readers will recall how Outpatient Pharmacy Manager Stefanadis referred all questions to his boss, Chief Pharmacy Officer Bush. Bush, after agreeing to an interview, canceled and never could be reached again.

Back to Stefanadis. He told the Chronicle that Duke PR had stopped all interviews. Finally the Chronicle reached Stokke again, who referred questions regarding the pharmacy transition to Bush.

Readers, you deserve to know that Duke PR is increasingly using this tactic: bouncing like a loose basketball from official to official.

They are also stopping officials with direct responsibility and knowledge from speaking. For example, the VP and University Secretary was prevented from discussing something as routine as the date when a Trustee's term expired.

This is the same Stokke who has failed to respond to respond to three recent requests from a Deputy Fact Checker -- the first contact ever made with Stokke -- for a full biography of Chancellor Dzau as part of a continuing investigation.

Schoenfeld has also failed to respond to this request.

✔Readers, you are entitled to know about the performance of Duke officials.

3/5/2010 Major post - the disaster we call K-Ville

Fact Checker here.
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The post above, from Justin Time, says "Hopefully, tomorrow night people will be able to control themselves."

That is not enough. Not at all. This is a situation with far greater dimensions, one that has been building for a long long time, one that at the very least has the capacity to develop into a public relations nightmare for Duke, if not claim the lives of one or more participants in this unbridled Bacchanalia.

It is a situation that demands response from President Brodhead and his administration, and also from our basketball coach.

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Yes Coach K too. Please read from this semester's K-Ville blog by Chris:

"While the general campus belief that Duke is home to the country’s only set of line monitors is patently false, ours is the most intimately involved with its school’s team. Many coaches are either unwilling or uninterested in collaborating with the heads of their respective fan groups, other than dropping off some snacks the night before the big game. In contrast, head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his staff work closely with the line monitors to help keep tenting safe, healthy (generally) and enjoyable for the students involved."

And finally with respect to Coach K, please read the following words quoted in the Chronicle last June 24th, in the third of a four part exclusive interview:

"What is Krzyewskiville. Is it a plus? Is it a minus? It's probably a little of both."

Well Coach, you were prophetic.

And now this pathetic spectacle that some call a tradition must be front and center, even stealing some precious focus and minutes from your preparation for the game against u-n-c.

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As for President Brodhead, on February 10th, in response to a Chronicle editorial with withering criticism of his leadership, Fact Checker posted a special 4,000 word report. Please read:

"Oh yes, there's the drinking issue. The Allen Building team came down hard on Tailgating. It has skirted around Last Day of Classes. And it has been totally silent on the most abusive situation of all, the week after week bacchanalia we call K-Ville. Mr Brodhead, why are you so pusillanimous that you cannot speak out at this total disruption of the atmosphere and purpose of Duke? Have you ever visited the place at night? Heard the noise. Smelled the booze. Wallowed in the mud? How rested would you be if at 4 AM each day you had to stand outside Hart House to be counted?"

Loyal readers, I spent a few minutes looking into the Chronicle archive this morning. Since the on-line version began, there has been story after story after story about the conditions that reached a zenith last night.

February 1, 2008. This story mentions the word drunk or drunken five times. Not counting the times it mentions heavy drinking.

"To outsiders, it may look like a segment of fraternity hazing, or worse, a far-flung attempt to get on reality TV. But to the most dedicated Cameron Crazies, tenting for the men's home basketball game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill March 8 is a lifestyle that often takes precedence over health."

The story continues, with administrators very candid about their knowledge of what is happening:

"Jean Hanson, administrative director of the Student Health Center, said students in Krzyzewskiville face a number of potential health concerns...

"She noted that consuming alcohol is one of the most dangerous practices students can partake in if they are tenting because alcohol dilates blood vessels and increases the amount of blood flow to the surface of the skin, which ultimately results in heat loss.

"'Heavy drinking will often make you sleepy or pass out altogether,' Hanson said. 'If you pass out and fall asleep while you are exposed to the cold, then it is just going to make it worse. You can end up with hypothermia....

"Hypothermia or not, many of the tenters said one of the biggest problem they face in K-ville is falling asleep surrounded by loud conversation or drunken banter.

"'I went back [to my room] at 7 this morning, set my alarm at 8 to get up for class and woke up at noon because I couldn't get to sleep until 5 last night because of sounds from across the walkway,' freshman (I omit the name) said.

"In addition to drunken noises, having to be alert for late tent checks does not allow students to get a healthy amount of uninterrupted sleep, Hanson said."

Read enough? Well there's more.

Desperate for rest, some students said they have resorted to extreme measures.

"'You either get drunk and pass out or use your iPod,' freshman (name omitted) said. 'Tenting should be fun'

"But for others the drunken chatters add amusement to their experiences at K-ville.

"'It's [funny] when [the drunk students] think that the big smiley face chair in front of our tent is the most fascinating thing in the world and want to sit in it and take pictures in it,' sophomore (name omitted) said."

Read, please, a Chronicle article last September 24, about the tenting a year earlier, when flu was not a major factor:

"Last year, 60 students tenting in K-ville sought help from Student Health, Hanson wrote in an email. She added that she expects the number to be even higher this year."

And last year right before the big game, this blog:

"January 15: Had a party last night. Some stupid line monitor cut my shotgun hole too big and it spilled everywhere. It looked like I pissed myself. Jenny giggled."

For those readers who are not cool, a shotgun hole is one punched into a can of beer, with the drinker now catching the full stream.

Year after year, the same condition. Columnist Greg Czaja on April 5, 2006 recounting his experiences: "I saw several students being taken away from K-Ville in an ambulance."

And finally March 4, 1996 by someone only identified as B:

"Welcome to Krzyzewskiville, (official motto "Chug! Chug! Chug!") sponsored by Natural Light beer. Here in K-ville, we drink more beer by 9 a.m. than most people drink all day. Camping out-be all you can be. The atmosphere here is like Auschwitz meets Mardi Gras.

"Basketball? There's none of that here, but we've got music, fire, and drunk people-and a lot of all of them. You couldn't ask for anything more. We're the largest yuppie ghetto this side of Greenwich village, complete with cell phones and microbrewed beer.

"...it's the drinks that define a tent. Those with kegs make friends very quickly. Those without a keg befriend those with. Speaking of drinking, was it me, or was it like pre-prohibition era Duke out there? Freshmen: This is what you missed out on in years past!"

✔
Mr. Brodhead, the Campus Culture Initiative you began after the lacrosse hoax ducked K-Ville. Dean Nowicki, you are properly concerned with the entire undergraduate experience, not just the classroom.

Tonight, the situation can only grow worse because more frequent tent checks will have to make up for the ones lost last night. In fact, a Deputy Fact Checker who understands the rules better than I, says tent checks requiring physical presence might even be held during class hours.

Dean Steve, this annual disruption involving fully 20 percent of undergraduates living in tents week after week is your greatest imperative. So is the illegality of it all, flagrant violation of minimum drinking age with the tacit approval of administrators.

Mr. President, two weeks ago you seemed to begin a new phase of your tenure, with greater involvement on campus. A major test has come along quite soon.

✔✔Thank you for reading Fact Checker even on days when things you did not want to hear must be said.