Jan - Feb 2009 Issue

Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher

Ouch: gout pain incarnate. Corbis Bettmann Standard RM

In the November 1941 Alumni Register, Duke President Robert L. Flowers pondered the war raging overseas. "[W]hatever may be the outcome," he said, "the world as we know it will not be the same." Almost seven decades later, we asked alumni to reflect on a conflict that remade the world—and their own lives.

Four alumni have been nominated to Duke's board of trustees by the executive committee of the board of directors of the Duke Alumni Association—one for the first time, and three for renewed terms. Paula Hannaway Crown '80, Paul Farmer '82, Bruce Karsh '77, and Susan Stalnecker '73 will serve six-year terms, beginning July 1.

  Over the past three years, Duke political science chairman Michael Munger, who has been quoted in the magazine talking about the political leanings of the faculty, has driven tens of thousands of miles, c

Chrissy DiNicola

Nicholas Gessler. Les Todd

In a mid-December letter to the Duke community, President Richard H. Brodhead highlighted the current economic uncertainty, but noted, "By many measures, Duke continues to enjoy great strength and stability." At the same time, he added, "Duke's endowment, like virtually every other investment fund, has declined over the past few months.

Breadth and depth: Friedlaender's photos help v

Lisa Hood

Lasting chords: Mary Lou Williams Center today hosts weekly jazz concerts. Michael Zirkle

Safer stenting: arm entry optimal. MedicalRF.com / Corbis

Less than two weeks after hosting a crowded and passionate election-night watch party, the Sanford Institute of Public Policy was the site of a panel discussion that took a more measured approach to the 2008 elections, focusing on media coverage of the presidential campaigns.

Safe: Werber steals third during eighth inning of 1939 Reds-Dodgers game.

 

John F. Burness. Credit: Les Todd

Courtesy John W. Hartman Center

In Brief

 (Note: On January 20, 2009, Kevin Martin stepped down as chair of the FCC to join the Aspen Institute in Maryland as a senior fellow. )If Kevin Martin, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was worried that the citizens of the Pacific Northwest were going to storm the podium where he was standing, his face never betrayed it.

Pirates are pervasive in Beaufort, North Carolina, their evil essence  committed to wax mannequins and  cardboard cutouts at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. There are cannonballs and other artifacts from Blackbeard's presumed flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, recovered at Beaufort Inlet. There are squeezable puff bottles that produce odors familiar to pirates, such as the sulfur smell of gunpowder.

The Duke Alumni Association plans to honor alumni who died while on active duty in the military.

  Fred Andrews '60. Credit: Frank Fournier  

Immigration is a hot-button political issue, but two recent exhibits at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) provided insights into the human dimensions of America's changing demographics.

 Courtesy Bil Lepp

May Company, 6067 Wilshire Blvd.

Illustrious in any language: Schroth, also known as "Su Ilustrísma." Michael Naclerio / The

Follow the bouncing ball: scene from The Soccer Project. Courtesy The Soccer Project

Megan Morr

Goldstein: Tracing historical patterns of migration and disease through genomics.

Off and running: Duke's newest Rhodes, pictured in Vietnam. Peter Lemieux

  Duke is undertaking a new undergraduate global-citizenship initiative through its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)—a major element of its upcoming reaffirmation of accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Ass

Speed limits, four-way stops, traffic lights at regular intervals. These things make driving safer, right? Wrong, says John Staddon, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of psychology and neuroscience. An Englishman who has long studied adaptive behavior patterns, Staddon argues that the preponderance of signs and signals on American roads leads us to rely on hints from traffic engineers instead of observing road conditions and fellow drivers.

Laughs and legacy building: Revelers at President's Dance. Megan Morr

Lindsay France

 

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama proposed an economic plan that would create five million jobs in environmental industries. And despite some ambiguity in the campaign literature, these so-called "green-collar" jobs do, in fact, present the next frontier for U.S. manufacturing, according to a new report from Duke's Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness.

Harvest of Blossoms: Poems from a Life Cut Short. Edited by Irene and Helene Silverblatt.

Calling Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public school system, an "educational reformer" is like calling a bulldozer "something that moves dirt." The term doesn't begin to do justice to what many consider her radical transformations of the D.C. system, one of the nation's worst.

Engineering exerci

Pay it forward: Winston-Salem club volunteers pack high-protein meals f