Jan - Feb 2008 Issue

Stylin': Hendricks' Bahsir (Robert Gowens). Courtesy of Nasher Museum of Art

Mind-body harmony: Alumnae

Lucas J. Gilman

Duke Magazine

 

Courtesy of Jon Shain

Les Todd

Duke's Home Depot Smart Home. Megan Morr

Off to dreamland: Junior David Taylor naps in Bostocks's Carpenter R

Bettmann / CORBIS

There's a thread linking two of this issue's feature stories, which document the vibrancy of campus religious life and the appeal of Teach For America. Both focus on young people and commitment. Presumably the young always have aspired to connect with something larger than themselves, and to seek something purposeful in their lives.

L

Couch: standing tall. Patrice Gilbert

Ko-i-Staun Foot Soldiery in Summer Costume, actively employed among the Rocks, pl

Nancy C. Andrews.

It's still dark, just after six in the morning, when Alex Baranpuria, dressed sharply in a red shirt, matching red tie, and black slacks, packs up a bagel with tofu, grabs the A train from Fulton Street in New York's downtown Financial District, and heads up to 125th Street. From there it's a quick subway transfer to 135th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. Just across the street from the subway stop is St. Nicholas Park; St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Dutch New Amsterdam, is also the patron saint of children.

On an overcast Wednesday morning, a half-dozen people from myriad backgrounds practice Buddhist meditation in the quiet stillness of the Duke Chapel crypt. Upstairs in the Memorial Chapel, a devout Christian prays next to an occasional churchgoer during a nondenominational worship service, offered every weekday morning throughout the academic year. Later that afternoon, students gather at the Freeman Center for Jewish Life to plan Sukkoth and Simchat Torah activities, while Muslim students meet with a Durham imam to plan a campus-wide celebration and meal to mark the end of Ramadan.

Put your right hand on your right temple, and your left on your left temple. Now gently squeeze; don't let up.Okay. Now you are ready for a conversation with Arlie Petters, the energetic, broadly smiling man in the striped short-sleeve shirt and comfortable brown slacks who has come to meet you at a Barnes & Noble café. Many topics will come up. He will wonder whether amoebas could join the conversation.

 Sitting in a darkened classroom during his first college photography course, Danny Wilcox Frazier watched images from Robert Frank's seminal book The Americans projected on a screen. The black-and-white pictures, taken by Frank in the mid-1950s during a two-year project as he crisscrossed the U.S., seemed immediately familiar to Frazier.

 I was hired into my position by a wonderful man who was grooming me to become his successor. I was surprised that when he retired, I was passed over in favor of someone who is much younger and less experienced than me. I feel like I'm training her. Should I start looking for another job?

Burness: leaving a legacy of noteworthy contributions. Chris Hildreth

Hospice care not only helps increase the dignity and ease the suffering of people who are dying, but also provides significant savings to Medicare, according to a new Duke-led study.

Allegorical Portrait of a Lady, 17th century, attributed to Pieter van Slingeland, Dutch (1640-1691). Oil on panel, 19 1⁄4 x 15 inches. Given in honor of Marilyn M.

 Just two years into the Financial Aid Initiative, Duke has announced major changes to its financial-aid policy, eliminating parental contributions for some families and substituting loans with grants for many others. Officials estimate the new policy will benefit nearly 2,500 undergraduates.Beginning in the fall of 2008, Duke's financial-aid program will include these features:

David Becker

Jon Gardiner

Binks: moderation proponent.

All dried up: Durham's municipal reservoir on the Little River; the dock, upper left, is usually afloat.

Robert Pinsky. Scott Davidson

 Philip Mulford. Lawrence K. Emerson

Let's go Duke: President's Dance, a capella concert, and friendly reunions made Homecoming memorable. Megan Morr

Peter Agre, a 2003 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, will return to the Johns Hopkins University to lead its Malaria Research Institute after serving for two years as vice chancellor for science and technology at Duke Medical Center. Earlier this year, Agre publicly considered running for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, but decided against the run.U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A.

A documentary film about Duke literature professor Ariel Dorfman's exile from Chile has made the "short list" for Oscar nominees in the Best Documentary Picture category. A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman is among fifteen films the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is considering for the five official nominee spots in the Oscars' feature-length documentary category.

Duke scientists may have solved the mystery surrounding the healing properties of gold—a discovery they say could renew interest in gold salts as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases.Physicians first used injections of gold salts in the early 1900s to ease the pain and swelling associated with arthritis.

Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official By Miriam Cooke. Duke University Press, 2007. 208 pages. $21.95, paper.

In play: Women's field hockey is among twenty-six varsity

Reynolds: record holderDuke Sports InformationIn October, the Duke Sports Hall of Fame enshrined five new members.

How do two people at the opposite ends of a political spectrum—a former local Ku Klux Klan leader and a black civil-rights activist—become friends, against all odds?In the summer reading selection for incoming freshmen, The Best of Enemies, author Osha Gray Davidson chronicled the development of this unusual relationship and its progression from distrust to mutual respect.

Reynolds Price