Mar - Apr 2010 Issue

On Feburary 7, 2009, the Duke men's basketball team pulled off an astounding comeback against the University of Miami Hurricanes, rallying from sixteen points down in the second half. The Blue Devils went on to win by three in an overtime nail biter. 

Stuart Benjamin, Douglas B. Maggs Professor of law, has been appointed the Federal Communications Commission's first Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is spending the spring semester in Washington, working in the agency's Office of Strategic Planning.L. Gregory Jones M.Div. '85, Ph.D. '88, who has served as dean of the divinity school since 1997, has been named senior adviser for international strategy.

O’Barr: intellectual landscape architect. Chris Hildreth

Rejane Cytacki

There's a Duke characteristic that Richard H. Brodhead noted when he was introduced as president six years ago. While Duke is a place that wraps itself in the traditional garb of neo-Gothic and Georgian architecture, it's also a place possessed of a restless energy. For him, that energy was symbolized by a horizon line broken by construction cranes.

 Rachel Weeks '07 launched her ethical fashion company School House in April 2009 during Reunions Weekend at Duke. Less than a year after Duke Stores became the first retailer to carry her collegiate apparel, Weeks and her fledgling company have made noticeable progress.

Making the grade: Trinity College Class of 1904. Duke University Archives

Sam Wells remembers distinctly what it feels like to be a university student wrestling with an acute awareness of the world's inequalities. As an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, he had a difficult time reconciling that, as he puts it, "there was a bottom billion who couldn't have what I had, and my powerlessness to do anything to make it better."

In January about eighty undergraduates returned to campus before the spring semester for the inaugural Winter Forum. The two-and-a-half day Conference was founded to stimulate serious discussion on campus on a topic of global significance. This year, students, faculty members, and industry experts gathered to examine ways to make the green economy work.

Patient patient: A mannequin endures endless poking and prodding as nursing students encounter a range of real-life simulations during

The shootings at Fort Hood, the uncovering of numerous bombing plots, and the discovery of five young men from the U.S. trying to join the Taliban in Pakistan marked a year filled with news of terrorist activity by Muslim Americans. But a new report by scholars at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which analyzes the extent of terrorist violence by Muslim Americans since September 11, 2001, says the number of radicalized Muslim Americans is still small.

Room to grow: Measuring height of orphan in Tanzania. Chris Hildreth

Creative focus: Mark digging for ginseng roots in the hills behind Olive Branch, Illinois, spring 1986. Cedric Chatterley

Step right up: research on the move. Megan Morr

Labor advocate: Huerta praised role of unions in pursuit of economic justice. Megan Morr

Forum

  Mark Lazarus, an independent-film producer, finds enchantment in screenplays. Not every one ever written. Not even every one he reads. And he reads hundreds until, like an archaeologist on a dig, he hits treasure. "When I read something great, a rare and wonderful experience, my body reacts," he says. "An antenna inside me vibrates. I get a frisson."

A.F. Elliot, "Journal of tours of duty in West Africa," unpublished manuscript with drawings, watercolors, and photographs. 1866-1879. Les Todd

In April, the thirteenth annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will bring up the curtain on numerous documentary-film premieres—and a new executive director.Deirdre Haj, an experienced documentary producer who was formerly a theater and film actor, will take over from Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies, who has been serving as interim head of the festival.

In front of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a cluster of Duke students consulted a good book—if not exactly the Good Book—as one of them read aloud: "One expects the central shrine of Christendom to stand out in majestic isolation, but anonymous buildings cling to it like barnacles. One looks for numinous light, but it is dark and cramped…. One desires holiness, only to encounter a jealous possessiveness: The six groups of occupants—Latin Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrians, Copts, Ethiopians—watch one another for any infringement of rights."

Has it really come to this?

(2) Duke 95(4) UNC 81

When the television is on, it generates heat; similarly, when someone sits on a sofa, her body heat is transferred into the cushions. Tiny amounts of flame-retardants incorporated in these common household furnishings to nullify the flammable petrochemical polymers they're made of (substances like plastic and polyurethane) begin to leach out. The flame-retardant chemicals attach themselves to dust particles on the floor or pieces of furniture, says Heather Stapleton, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at the Nicholas School of the Environment.

Julie Skarratt

Asian expansion: Brodhead signs formal agreement for new campus in China.Courtesy Fuqua School of BusinessDuke will be putting down roots in Kunshan, China, a move that is meant to advance the university's commitment to global education.

Visual op-ed: Nick Anderson’s Wilting in the Heat, 2008. Courtesy Nasher Museum of Art

Demolition (Ping'an Avenue Beijing) 1999, Zhang Dali, China. C-Print. 35 3/8 x 23 5/8 inches

This year, more than 2,000 students applied for early-decision admission to Duke's Class of 2014, an increase of 31 percent over last year's figures. The high number of early-decision applications set a record, eclipsing the prior one—set in 2001—by 423 applications.

Samuelson: influential economist. Life Magazine

Taking on the state: Edwards, center, looks on as her lawyers Dwight Drake, right, and Dick Harpootlian, left, respond to questions at a press conference abou

Not so fast: Leaders from five countries, including Bolivia's Evo Morales, above left, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, center, refused to consent to accord; protestors, above right, demons

New beginnings: Cunningham, right, with principal Dorcas Oyugi at WISER opening. Caroline Whistler ’08

Lost worlds: detail from Liu Xiaodong’s Hotbed. Courtesy Nasher Museum of Art

Wish you were here: Young alumni and friends gather in Tiananmen Square in front of entrance to Forbidden City. Courtesy Duke Alumni Association

Traditional chemotherapy drugs are often given in combination to increase their effectiveness, but doctors and medical researchers have struggled to implement new targeted cancer drugs in the same way. Research conducted on patients with advanced breast cancer by Kimberly Blackwell '89, associate professor of medicine, may change that.

On the road: Terry Sanford on the campaign trail for governor, May 1960. Courtesy North Carolina Division of Archives and History

  Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. security officials have worried about the possibility of a nuclear or radiological "dirty bomb" exploding in a highly populated area. In case the threat ever comes to fruition, researchers at Duke are working to mitigate the effects of an attack.

The Global Game: Writers on Soccer. Edited by John Turnbull '85, Thom Satterlee, and Alon Raab. University of Nebraska Press, 2008. 316 pages. $19.95.

The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katherine Harmon '82. Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. 256 pages. $45.  

CHESNOT/SIPA/APThe Duke community is responding to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti that resulted from January's devastating earthquake. In the weeks following the disaster, students, faculty and staff members, and alumni offered their support in a variety of ways.

And many more: Krzyzewski and junior guard Nolan Smith share a laugh during 1,000th game celebration in Cameron. Megan Morr

When the Duke Alumni Association (DAA) began planning the inaugural kickoff for the newly created Duke Entertainment, Media, and the Arts Network (DEMAN), organizers expected about fifty people to come. Instead, they had to move to a much larger space to accommodate the more than 200 alumni and friends who registered for the event.