Sep - Oct 2007 Issue

Follow the leader: A

I'm a liberal-arts grad who graduated from Duke several years ago. Although I've developed many skills that my bosses have found useful and I've received good evaluations, I'm already on my second career and third job. Is this normal?

Responding to popular demand for creative responses to global warming, FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, instituted a "carbon-neutral" policy for its 2006 World Cup in Berlin.

Standing for what's right: me

Megan Morr

Riddell: taking center stage in the president's office. Les Todd

An inconvenient puff: Smokers must walk off campus to indulge their habit. Megan Morr

An international team of researchers has identified three gene variants that appear to have helped some HIV patients fight off the virus and delay the onset of full-blown AIDS.The researchers expect the new findings to aid the search for an HIV vaccine that would work by boosting the protective effects of one or more of these genes and helping the body's own immune system overcome an infection.

Researchers at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will lead a two-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at finding out how Muslims in the U.S. address messages of extremism in their communities.The purpose of the project is to develop policy recommendations for reducing the likelihood that the U.S. will develop homegrown terrorist networks like those seen recently in Europe.

Former speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives and trustee Daniel T. Blue Jr. is leading a committee to assess Richard H. Brodhead's first three years as president of Duke University. A similar review was carried out for Brodhead's predecessor, Nannerl O. Keohane, after her first three years in office, and also in 2000, as part of a process established in 1982 to evaluate presidents, officers, and deans at regular intervals.

Students in my magazine-journalism seminar sometimes struggle to figure out the elements of a good story. Typically, I tell them, it hinges on something counterintuitive, surprising, or ironic. One of the stories they read, by Gay Talese, has as its starting point the odd situation of Frank Sinatra—a man who was inseparable from his singing voice—afflicted with a cold.

In late May, Great Britain's University and College Union, a professional association for academics, sparked controversy by voting to move forward with a proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Palestinian trade unions had called for the boycott to protest Israel's "40-year occupation" of Palestinian land.

Jon Gardiner

Shakespeare, William.

 

Stay tuned: instrument maker Talton with a restored bass violin.

 Manhattan is all about movement. This summer the Museum of Modern Art mounted a retrospective of the work of Richard Serra, who crafts enormous plates of steel into sculptures. When you enter one of the spiraling shapes, you're led to no visible destination; the tilted walls sometimes open up invitingly, sometimes close in claustrophobically.

If it's true that everyone loves a winner (just ask Mike Krzyzewski), and delights in knocking a loser (just ask a pre-2004 Red Sox fan), you might imagine that the Blue Devils gridiron gang would be in the doldrums. Last season's 0-12 record was painful for everyone involved. Duke is playing eight teams this season that went to bowl games last year (a postseason honor the program hasn't enjoyed in more than a decade). In November, they'll go helmet to helmet with Notre Dame, which has sent more players to the National Football League than any other program in the country.

An EA-6B Prowler jet swoops low into a valley, banking and weaving in perfect concert with contours of the terrain. It is a crystal clear day, the mountains' quietude broken only by the thunder of the aircraft's turbojet engines as they blast the plane through the valley at 550 mph.

Another Duke school is facing a change in senior leadership. Kristina M. Johnson, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering since 1999, has taken a post as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins University.

Step right up: Covington, second from right, is the Big Apple Circus' jack-

Cultural impressions: the Perjovs

Stacey Barrette

Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (annotated), 2005

Chameides: creating a new environment at the Nicholas School.

Megan Morr

None for the road: Cook advocates

Nowicki: helping to integrate the academic and social dimens

On their way: new arrivals to the Woman's College on East

Beata Szpura

Popular culture: Thousands turned o

Breakdown: cross section of human nerve highlig

BookMarks: Reading in Black and White, A Memoir By Karla F.C. Holloway. Rutgers University Press, 2006. 223 pages. $24.95.

In July, Duke's board of trustees welcomed seven new members. They include Benjamin S. Abram B.S.C.E. '07 of Chapel Hill; Jack O. Bovender Jr. '67, M.H.A. '69 of Nashville; Ben Kennedy '00, M.B.A. '07 of Atlanta; Elizabeth Kiss of Decatur, Georgia; Marguerite Kondracke '68 of Washington; Michael Marsicano '78, Ph.D. '82 of Charlotte; and Ann Pelham '74 of Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Twice as nice: The Nicholases are honored members of the Du

Joe Alleva, a key campus figure in the lacrosse incident, has been reappointed director of athletics. The reappointment followed a regular review process that is undergone by deans and senior administrators every five years. The review committee is made up of trustees, faculty members, and alumni, including former athletes. Alleva has worked in the athletics department since 1980 and became athletics director in 1998.Owen Astrachan M.A.T. '79, Ph.D.