Nov - Dec 2009 Issue

Anne Corpening Morrison Welsh. Courtesy Orbis Books

 

Photos courtesy Ed Nixon

Lisa Kern Griffin. Courtesy Duke Law School

Two high-profile speakers came to campus this fall, and each gave an impassioned plea for a favored cause. But that is where the similarity ends.

Turf pros: Jamie Fuqua paints lines on the field. Credit: Megan Morr

Catherine L. Gilliss  B.S.N. '71, dean of the School of Nursing, was appointed president of the American Academy of Nursing. She has served two terms on that organization's board of directors.Paul Hendrickson was the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in documentary studies and American studies at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the fall semester.

 

At the annual gathering of the Garden Writers Association, more than 400 horticultural scribes and shutterbugs enthusiastically crowded into Duke's Sarah P. Duke Gardens for an afternoon and evening this fall.

 

We invited readers to share their experiences with the Rhine Institute and Dr. J.B. Rhine. Here are a few of the responses we received. If you'd like to share your tale of ESP, e-mail us or use our feedback form.

Roger Manley

 In late October, the Duke herbarium threw open the doors of its new digs for members of the university community to see. There, visitors mingled among 400,000 pressed angiosperms, or flowering plants, that now fit neatly into tall storage cabinets loaded into movable, library-like carriages.

It's not yet 8 on a sweltering July morning, and David Cutcliffe is in his oak-paneled office on the third floor of Duke's Yoh Football Center, looking for a story. Not just any story—a Paul "Bear" Bryant story. The legendary coach in the houndstooth hat was Cutcliffe's first boss, at the University of Alabama back in the early 1970s.

  This January, Duke will hold its inaugural Winter Forum, an annual three-day program aimed at increasing awareness of global issues among undergraduates.

Invertebrate investment: Andon eyes Blue Jellyfish specimens as he prepares to transfer them to a holding tank. Peter DaSilva.

Even as the university is looking to ever-tighter budgets, Duke University Health System seems to be a model of good financial health.Fitch Ratings, a financial ratings service, recently reported that the health system enjoys a "very strong balance sheet and operating profitability, leading market-share position in Durham County, excellent clinical reputation, and association with its parent, Duke University."

 On a late afternoon in September, with summer very much in the air, the Duke Symphony Orchestra has just finished its traditional opening concert on the East Campus lawn. A half-dozen freshmen head to the scene just in time for the finale—the inevitable "Stars and Stripes Forever." One of them asks, "Is there free food here?" His friends weren't sure.

iStockPhoto

All is not grim for Duke and other research universities in the current financial climate. In February 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly called the stimulus package, resulting in the investment of $15 billion in activities that promote job growth and retention and scientific advancement.

 Tim Profeta M.E.M. '97, J.D. '97, director of Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, arrives one April morning at the Capitol Hill office of a Republican senator from the Midwest. He's here to discuss one of the most difficult issues facing Congress this year: how to slow the devastating pace of global warming. President Obama wants lawmakers to pass cap-and-trade legislation, which would set limits on carbon emissions and allow industries to buy and sell pollution allowances.

A few days into his new position testing a cholesterol drug for a San Francisco biotech company, Alex Andon '06 realized that the job stank. It required him to liquefy cholesterol-laced human feces and parcel out the mix from beneath a hood that never seemed to keep out the smell. One day, a pipette he was using recoiled and hurtled a brown glob onto his jacket, inches from his mouth. "Almost the entire time, I wanted to get out of there," he says.

Joseph Mitchell, a staff writer for The New Yorker for almost sixty years, became famous for his captivating, carefully constructed stories about ordinary people. His keen interest in his subjects led him to explore the physical world they inhabited.

Before the telltale sore throat, fever, and muscle fatigue appear, Duke researchers say they can tell who is infected with a common upper respiratory virus, like the cold or flu. They have identified a genomic signature in the blood that reveals whether a patient has been exposed to the virus or not. 

Spirit Wife (Blolo Bla), twentieth century. Wood and pigment.16 x 4 x 5 inches.Nasher Museum of Art.Gift of Andrew and Vera Laska.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito taught a week-long seminar in constitutional interpretation at Duke Law School before the court's session began this fall. This is the justice's second trip to Duke in as many years; Alito judged the final round of the Dean's Cup Moot Court Competition at the law school in 2008.

Polar opposites: Other ads go better with Coke. Courtesy Coca-Cola

 The long line of cars, once allowed to enter the quad, inches slowly along the side of East Campus. Curving around near Baldwin Auditorium, the cars come to a stop in front of Pegram dormitory.

 Concentrating on parapsychology: Horn with Zener cards at New York’s Municipal Archives. Yunghi Kim

Duke's home on the Internet has a new look.

Jazz legend Sun Ra was born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, but told audiences and critics that he came from outer space. He was an avant-garde musician who—together with his big band—fused traditional styles like ragtime and swing with electronic synthesizer sounds, and pushed the boundaries of experimental jazz. And though Ra died in 1993, his band lives on.

Human beings have harnessed energy from nature for all of recorded history, but one potential source remains largely misunderstood and therefore unused: ocean waves.

 The Duke Alumni Association has named the first winners of the new Forever Duke Award, created this year, to recognize excellence in alumni volunteer service to the university, the alumni association, and their various constituencies.

Students on campus. Photos by Jon Gardiner

With the antibiotic Vancomycin, long considered a last resort in fighting infection, now plagued by the first signs of bacterial resistance, new research into an antibiotic known as Ramoplanin A2 is showing promise.

Honored: Brodhead with Lo. Les Todd

Hepatitis C affects 170 million people worldwide and is the leading cause of cirrhosis of the liver in North America. Treating the disease is particularly grueling: a forty-eight-week course of the antiviral drugs interferon and ribavirin is usually prescribed, though effectiveness varies widely depending on a patient's race.Research conducted at the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy's Center for Human Genome Variation has shown why the treatment is more successful in those with European ancestry than in African Americans.

 

Healthy growth: artist renderings of new cancer center. Courtesy Duke Medicine

 What does power look like in women's lives? How does power affect women physically, emotionally, and financially? How can women leverage their power to take bold risks and support others to do the same?

 

 

Jimmy Ryan

 Pam Knecht

 

 One of this semester's campus highlights, for those interested in the interplay of images and words, is "Picasso and the Allure of Language" at the Nasher Museum of Art. As the exhibition catalogue points out, throughout a lifetime of friendships with writers, Picasso developed an appreciation for—and a mastery of—language, both visual and verbal, and how it created meaning.

The Duke Alumni Association (DAA) and the Annual Fund have awarded Charles A. Dukes Awards to six alumni for outstanding volunteer service to the university. The awards, named for the late Dukes '29, director of the alumni affairs office from 1944 to 1963, honor individuals who reflect his dedication to the university. Dukes award winners are selected by the DAA board of directors and the executive committee of the Annual Fund.