Jul - Aug 2010 Issue

Atrocities AvoidedThe article "Encounters With an Ever-Present Past" [March-April 2010] gave me the impression that a rare opportunity for students to visit the Holy Land was misused to promote a one-sided view of the Middle East conflict.

Treasure trove: Trinity College Historical Society holdings, first stored in a fireproof vault, evolved into today's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Duke University Archives

Going clothes shopping with a preadolescent girl can be a lesson in frustration. Children's sizes are too small or, even worse (in the eyes of a middle-schooler), too "babyish," while junior styles can be immodestly skimpy.

The first sentence in Carol Apollonio's course synopsis describes her class as "Dostoevsky with the gloves off." It's up to students to handle the brooding Russian master without fear of getting their hands a little dirty along the way.

Duke Performances has put together an eclectic lineup for its third annual summer concert series, mixing young indie-rock bands with a little bit of chamber music. From May to August, there will be twelve concerts in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. On Wednesday nights in July, local and internationally renowned independent pop and rock groups will perform on the lawn behind the gardens' Doris Duke Center. In August, two chamber music performances will be held inside the center, in Kirby Horton Hall.

Robin Ali parks her Acura MDX in the Oldham Towers parking lot on an overcast morning in May. Built in 1969, the downtown Durham public-housing high-rise has seen better days. Ali is here for her first stop of the day. She's checking in on eighty-six-year-old Carrie Coates, discharged from Duke Hospital the previous afternoon for treatment of a blood clot in her left leg.

Julie Skarratt

Mike Wiley has played many roles in his acting career—all actors do. It's just that Wiley plays them all at once.Since the spring , he has had a new role as the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in documentary studies and American studies at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bright star: Alma Thomas' The Eclipse. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Rejane Cytacki

The library recently acquired a rare photographic panorama of Istanbul, titled Panorama de Constantinople Pris de la Tour du Galata. The panorama was made in the 1870s or 1880s by J. Pascal Sebah, a leading commercial photographer in Istanbul whose studio was renowned for its views and portraits of subjects in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.

Executive aesthetics: CVS head Thomas Ryan, left, earned higher marks for attractiveness and competence than Nike's Phil Knight, right. Ryan:Bloomberg via Getty Images; Knight: nikebiz.com

Nancy Sanders Goodwin: FloraTwo years ago, Nancy Sanders Goodwin '58 erected a deer-proof fence around Montrose, the historic, sixty-one acre property in Hillsborough, North Carolina, she has transformed into a series of gardens that attracts horticulturists and gardeners from around the world.

Bill and Angela Lynch wonder whether their son, Matthew, was aware of the university’s veterans’ memorial, which, when Matt was in school here, was inscribed with only the names of Duke alumni who died in World War II. Though it stands along a well-traveled sidewalk in the quad between Duke Chapel and the divinity school, the memorial is a low stone wall and is easy to miss.

Bad News: Earle talks oil.

In the May-June issue, we asked you to tell us whether you wear sunscreen every time you're out in the sun. Only 33 percent said yes.

Watch Earle's TED talk, her appearance on The Colbert Report, and more at National Geographic

Nearly 4,000 alumni, family members, and friends came back to Duke in mid-April to celebrate Reunions Weekend, and mingling with classmates was only one of their many options. With picture-perfect weather and the excitement of a fourth NCAA men's basketball title still palpable, returning alumni faced tough choices for how to spend their time.

Recent Duke studies have analyzed two factors behind rising health-care costs in the U.S.: medical imaging and physician pay.

Orange Trailer, Arizona, 2006, Burk Uzzle, U.S. C-print, 40 x 50 inches. Gift of Charles Weinraub and Emily Kass. Burk Uzzle

It was all over in five seconds. C.J. Costabile '12, a defensive midfielder, won the faceoff in the overtime period, knocked the ball forward, scooped it, and ran toward the goal. No one moved to defend him. Ten yards from the goal, he looked around. He was still alone. The goalie moved his stick toward the ground, expecting a low shot, but the ball sailed high over his shoulder and into the back of the net.The Duke lacrosse team had won its first national championship. Five seconds took the sting out of five disappointing seasons.

Philip Benfey, Paul Kramer Professor of biology, and Vann Bennett, James B. Duke Professor of cell biology, biochemistry, and neurobiology at Duke Medical Center, have joined exclusive company. This spring, they were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the U.S.Benfey is director of the Center for Systems Biology in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and conducts research on plant genomes. He is considered a pioneer in the field of systems biology.

Gerard Nsabimana Les Todd

I've got to know—why did you grow the beard?I got pretty lazy last summer, and I started letting it grow out a little bit. I was playing well in pickup games, and then, before the season, we had our individual meetings with the coaches. I went in, and we were talking about the year, and when we were almost done, coach [Mike Krzyzewski] asked me, "So, what about the beard? What is this?"

George McLendon, dean of Trinity College and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke, will become provost of Rice University on July 1. McLendon, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was named dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2004; the deanship of Trinity College was added to his responsibilities in 2008.Before coming to Duke, he served as chair of Princeton University's chemistry department. He also taught and served in several leadership roles at the University of Rochester.

Religious references: Shahn's Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher.

While the 2010 commencement exercises took place under cloudy skies, the message of this year's speaker was nevertheless illuminating. Muhammad Yunus, considered the father of microfinance, called on the graduates to dedicate their lives to addressing social problems instead of focusing solely on personal profit. "Each individual, each human being, has enormous power to change the world. You have it. Are you going to use that power to change the world?" he asked.

Expensive image: PET scans drive up health-care costs.

What's Next: Follow Your Passions and Find your Dream Jobby Kerry Hannon '82Chronicle Books, 2010. 288 pages. $22.95.

Wallace: Duke's newest Truman. Courtesy Lindsey Wallace

When Haerer arrived at Duke in 2008, he was recruited by Chris Carson '10 to help organize a bass-fishing club.

Ferraro: ADUTA winner praised for sparking students' intellectual curiosity. Les Todd

Indelible influence: Tifft remembered as a beloved professor, mentor, and friend. Chris Hildreth

The opening chapter of Sylvia Earle’s book The World Is Blue is “The Vision: Limitless Ocean Bounty, Infinite Resiliency.” The second chapter is a more troubling plunge: “The Reality: The Ocean Is in Trouble, So Are We.” A basic lesson from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico—a lesson that Earle expounds on in the book, published well before the massive spill—is that human fate and the fate of the oceans are intertwined.