Summer 2016 Issue

Four Duke students discuss the culture surround busyness at Duke. Seniors Dave Stewart, Michaela Fallon, and Fred Heller, and Junior Steven Katsohirakis offer their thoughts on the competition among Duke students to have the most packed schedule.

Sleeplessness is becoming a major issue on Duke's campuses. Two seniors and a sophomore sit down to explore the importance of sleep, dreams, and motivation. Produced for The Short Audio Documentary course taught by John Biewen at the Center for Documentary Studies.

A garden of musings and storiesOne would be hard-pressed to find a better origin story than the one that led Allen Lacy ’56, Ph.D. ’62 to gardening. “My love affair with horticulture began in the early spring of 1943, on the day I bit Mrs. Leghorn on the ankle,” he wrote in Home Ground, a book of essays.

In 1956, the man to watch at the Olympic trials was sprinter Dave Sime, Duke sophomore and athletic wonder. He arrived at Duke on a baseball, not a track, scholarship; he had been offered twenty-two college scholarships but chose Duke with an eye toward a medical degree. Known as the “blue streak from Duke,” he was clocked during a casual track practice his freshman year at 9.7 seconds in the 100-yard dash, fourth-tenths of a second shy of the world record set eight years earlier.

MAC or PC?Why choose? Both Apple and Microsoft are powered by alumni!Apple115,000 employees >100 are Blue DevilsHeadquarters: Cupertino, CaliforniaTim Cook M.B.A. ’87, CEOJeff Williams M.B.A. ’91, COOEddy Cue ’86, senior vice president, Internet Software and ServicesAlyssa Garver ’11, product design engineerAlice Kodama ’14, environmental engineer

Behind the scenes on BroadwayOn a January afternoon, in the otherwise deserted offices of Broadway producer Jeffrey Finn, Jamie Kaye-Phillips ’10 has called to pitch a former classmate on a $10,000 investment in the West Coast touring production of An Act of God.

Were there any favorite classes at Duke or professors who were particularly formative?

Featured book: The beast in meHow did a family dog breed favored by Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and The Little Rascals come to be seen as dangerous? In Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon (Knopf), essayist and journalist Bronwen Dickey ’03 reveals the complex social and cultural history behind the dog so many love to hate. Here, she shares what piqued her interest:

Shortly after dawn on a brisk April morning, steam rises from the cold, calm surface of Lake Michie. Except for the honking of Canada geese overhead, the lake is quiet. Two wakeless launches—quiet motorboats—shear through the water.“Make sure you’re rowing as straight as you can!” yells the woman piloting one of the boats. She has a megaphone.“Roll it hard!” barks the hoarse-sounding man, steering the other. “Legs! Legs! Harder, legs!”

To those who have studied Brazil’s complicated history of environmentalism, the fact that Rio de Janeiro has struggled to get its bodies of water Olympics- ready has come as no surprise. A year before the games, reports began to circulate that Guanabara Bay and several lakes hosting water sports had made athletes sick from bacterial and viral infections. More recent tests show improvement, but organizers and athletes alike remain concerned.

Eric Toone, vice provost and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, leads the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Initiative. He’s listed as an inventor on more than thirty biomedical patents and cofounded three pharmaceutical companies. From 2009 to 2012, he was a founding member of the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. Department of Energy. What’s the significance of your location in downtown Durham?

THE CATALYST: In 2008, English department professor Marianna Torgovnick and now-retired theater studies professor Michael Malone jointly launched this survey course to explore the role of movies in American cultural mythology. Seventy-five students enrolled in the first class; this year the student cap was set at 200. Elizabeth Landesberg M.F.A. ’13 is now the co-instructor.

This winter I had lunch with a Duke couple in the Bay Area. The husband had recently retired at an early age and was still marveling at the unfamiliar experience of freedom. He quoted to me a line he had learned in meditation: “There is nowhere you have to go, nothing you have to do, no one you have to be.”

After twelve years as president of Duke, Richard H. Brodhead announced that he will leave his post at the end of June 2017. “Dick Brodhead is one of Duke’s transformative presidents,” said David Rubenstein ’70, chair of the university’s board of trustees.

When she’s not fencing, she’s so charming; when she’s not fencing, she’s so lovable; when she’s not fencing, she’s so adorable,” Peter Westbrook says of Ibtihaj Muhammad ’07. “When she’s fencing, she’s like a lion. Like a lion. I like to deal with the other side better.”