<p>Mini: Thanks for your link to the Duke Women’s Initiative in post 28. </p>
<pre><code>Bananainpajamas: It may be a subset culture, I’m not arguing with you as I have never been to Duke. But subset or not, it seems to have been visible enough to have made an impression on the administration, hence the women’s initiative study referenced above.
I haven’t had time to fully read and digest what’s on that link, but it would appear that the initiative’s authors believe that there’s something in the campus culture that needs fixing.
To paraphrase: The goal is to have an educational community where the men don’t look at their female classmates as subjects for sexual predation…and where women don’t measure their self worth by how attractive they are to men.
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<p>One of my questions still is: whether the male-female dynamic described in the Rolling Stone article is limited to those campuses that put sports and athletes on a pedestal and are frat-dominated in their social culture, or if the influence comes from the fraternity culture itself, regardless of how the students on campus view athletics. </p>
<pre><code>The other question I throw out to parents is: should we be that concerned with the social culture on a campus which otherwise meets every standard for what our student wants in a college?
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<p>Do we cross our fingers that our kid won’t be influenced by a “toxic” sexual culture and will not join in the party-hearty “fun?” Do we start making sure that on our road trips we visit on weekend nights and check out that frat scene (if we’re going to embarrass them anyway…)</p>
<p>from banana: " content of the Rolling Stone’s article and labeling it “Duke culture.” What you’re taking about is a small subset of the student population"</p>
<p>I remember when I was in school back in the seventies Rolling Stone named my university the #1 party school in the nation and did a big article on the partying that went on there. Of course my parents heard about it and were horrified that they were spending hard earned money to send me to this place of sin and decadence. I lived on that campus and while there were parties, I had not seen anything like described in that article. I agree with banana, how many magazines would be sold with “boring” stories about excelling students, community service hours done by students, and caring and supportive relationships?</p>
<p>Kitkat, it’s only the women that are not in full control, the men are!!</p>
<p>Banana, the Rolling Stone article is one thing, Duke’s own report supports it. If you go to Duke, I’d love to hear your opinion. I don’t want to believe it. Though I’ll say this is a major topic of conversation on my HS campus and I have to think that combined with the other scandal, it’s going to seriously hurt Duke.</p>
<p>jazzymom - I agree that it is an important issue that needs to be addressed. I just think the Rolling Stone article made it seem more pervasive than it actually is.</p>
<p>mkm - Thanks. I think it is important to keep the source of the article in context. Duke is a diverse place and it’s impossible to group the entire student body under one particular lifestyle.</p>
<p>suze - Wait, so Rolling Stone DID accurately describe Duke culture as a whole and Duke women in general? As a Duke woman myself who is not even closely involved in anything described in this thread, I would appreciate you NOT making such a generalization.</p>
<p>I think they’re not in control either. I mean, they’re in control of the women, but I doubt they’re in control of themselves.</p>
<p>By that I mean that I refuse to believe that there are so many intelligent young men out there who would behave so reprehensibly if left to their own devices. They’re in control ostensibly, but they’re caught up in the whirlwind of the culture just as much as the girls are. Maybe they’re less victimized by it, but in a few years their consciences will trouble them something awful.</p>
<p>I doubt they mean to be that mean. They’re just not thinking about it. They’re doing and not thinking. And aren’t we all guilty of that sometimes, when we get caught up in things that are larger than we are?</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying it doesn’t make them responsible for their actions. Of course we should blame them for the harm they cause. I’m just saying that the culture feeds off itself, and if you stuck each of them in a room alone, I’m sure they’d all be much better people.</p>
<p>The girls say in the article, “I’m not really like that.” I’m sure many of the guys, if they stopped to think about it, would say the same. Maybe they’re not victims, but they’re still not in control of themselves.</p>
<p>Perhaps I just have too much faith in people. But I refuse to believe that so many people would knowingly cause harm like that.</p>
<p>Have you read the report??? I’m sure it’s not everyone, but I do enjoy being in the mainstream in healthy cultures and right now I’m kissing the ground I didn’t choose Duke.</p>
<p>Like I said, this describes a subculture at Duke that I, nor any of the girls I know, are involved in. I think it’s telling that the article focuses on the core four sororities, but eh, I will stop there before my bias against Greek life seeps in…</p>
<p>The less sensationalized Duke report seems more accurate, but even then, the “effortless perfection” vibe is not one I have picked up among Duke women in general. Again, that seems to be concentrated among a subset of the population. There is an emphasis on being physically fit though, among both males and females. Not everyone works out everyday, but I’d say Duke students on average spend more time in the gym than students at other schools.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, my brain is kind of mush right now so I’m having trouble putting what I want to say into words. FWIW, I have been one of the harshest critics of Duke’s social scene on the Duke board, even seriously considering a transfer because of it. But that was in no way related to what Rolling Stone reported. If you don’t want to be involved with that, you don’t even have to hear about it.</p>
<p>EDIT: You know, again, I’m going to have to ask that you stop calling the culture of a school you obviously don’t know much about unhealthy. What Rolling Stone described was not mainstream in the least.</p>
<p>Kitkat, I think you’re right. What’s so hard to understand is that such highly accomplished kids of either sex want to live this way.</p>
<p>Banana, relax. I don’t know what is fact and I’m not claiming to. It certainly is material for discussion though. How many girls are in the core 4? How many guys in the 5 top frats? Why is any significant percentage of a top 10 college engaging in behavior so demeaning to both sexes?</p>
<p>What about the social life made you consider leaving? I’m not asking lightly. I go to a school that sends many to top 10 schools and we look out for each other. I can assure you several girls in my dorm are thinking about applying to Duke in the fall. Should they?</p>
<p>I have no idea what social/academic life at Duke is really like. I have enough respect for the Duke administration that they wouldn’t pledge to spend up to $3 million a year to deal with a problem of a small subset of its student body. And I give Duke a huge amount of credit for their courage in tackling it (and wish the same could be said elsewhere.)</p>
<p>“The other question I throw out to parents is: should we be that concerned with the social culture on a campus which otherwise meets every standard for what our student wants in a college?”</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t think there is anything that is MORE important. With very rare exceptions, there are going to be at least a dozen or more colleges where virtually every student can flourish academically. Buf if the social culture makes him or her uncomfortable, s/he is just not likely to be able to take full advantage of it.</p>
<p>Having said that, cultures and/or subcultures continue to exist because the students LIKE them that way, which sometimes makes them extraordinary difficult to change. And some students don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they make the decisions they do, and make the best of them, and some of them transfer.</p>
<p>Best thing to have is truth in advertising, and let the market do its work.</p>
<p>"I have no idea what social/academic life at Duke is really like. "</p>
<p>That appears to be the sentiment of many posters. Unfortunately, those who DO know something about the atmosphere on campus (like some of the students and parents of Duke students) are often criticized for challenging the media’s description of the Duke “culture”. You can’t win!</p>
<p>Mini, I understand that you have a stepnephew(?) that attends Duke. I assume that you communicate with him regularly. Maybe he agrees with the media’s sensationalized view. As you know, I know someone near and dear to me who happens to disagree with the media’s description and has experienced another version after spending two years there. I think I have a pretty good feel of what the social and academic life at Duke is like. According to what I have observed and from what I hear continuously, “the culture” is not exactly what is depicted in the Rolling Stone article for many motivated intellectually driven students.</p>
<p>The one male student I know extremely well (:)) has been dating a woman he met at Duke for about a year now. This woman is an excellent student, an accomplished musician, and an excellent athlete who actively participates in a club sport on campus. She attends church and volunteers in the community. She has a great relationship with her family. They routinely attend concerts and movies and sometimes spend Saturday nights in the library. They are both leaning toward careers in medicine, and take 5 classses per semester. They have been involved in some community projects together, and both have worked as mentors to younger kids. They have gone to basketball games, and I am sure that they have attended a party or two where alcohol was present.</p>
<p>So, while the “culture” described by the media may apply to some, it certainly does not apply to the entire campus. It is too bad that more folks couldn’t actually spend time at Duke to get to know the “other side”. Those that do are amazed by their peers and professors on a daily basis.</p>
I can’t help but quote this from page one. It was one of my thoughts when I read the RS article.</p>
<p>Even if this group is a small subset of the college population, it’s still an intelligent, accomplished group of students engaging in deplorable behavior.</p>
<p>It’s so disturbing…and it has me wondering if every school has a segment of students like the one described in the article.</p>
<p>to this i can respond, DEFINITELY. i guess that’s why this article has very little impact on me; i see this stuff everyday. i think if you went to any top 25 school (with the exception of maybe 3 or 4 that i can think of right now), any tier 2 school, or any state school, you’d find this same social culture running rampant on the campus.</p>
<p>The ‘culture’ described at Duke - could well be applied to hundreds/thousands of other schools as well. Duke just happens to be on the platter for now. The number of students who are active in this type of behavior is quite a bit smaller than this article seems to imply - there is much more to Duke than this article could ever convey. Since the school itself has looked into their own problems - as the result of several events - and seems to be responding accordingly - being in the forefront of this issue is not surprising… now I would like to see 1000 other schools be scrutenized in the same way - and I can imagine some schools would have similar ‘cultures’ and others would not. Duke is not the singular 'sex/drinking/nasty women culture - but being in the limelight for the past 2 months certainly makes them appear to have even bigger issues than any other school could possibly have…NOT.</p>
<p>The article - like the one in Rolling Stone - addresses a certain amount of the student population and behaviors - but has certainly neglected to reflect what other sub-cultures that exist within the same general culture are involved in - so it seems to give the whole school a bad rap. One could look at other schools in the same general area - UNC-CH - NCSU - etc… and a similar sub-culture could be identified as well - with very similar behaviors - but it would be a certain percentage of students who imbibe in it - and there you would also have many students involved in very positive sub-cultures - just as at Duke. So IMHO I feel that the article is slanted and a very poor example of what college campus culture really is or could be.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I think the article accurately protrays at least a large cross-section of the Duke population.</p>
<p>As I have posted previously, I see a big difference in the high school students who choose Duke and those that choose other reach/elite schools. The kids headed for Duke are always trying to “be cool”. They are the ones who believe they have to hide their intelligence to “fit in” and be popular. They are the ones who are obsessed with driving the “cool car”, wearing the “cool clothes”, etc. They are the ones that may spend the night cramming for tests, but the next day pretend they “barely had time to look at the book.”</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, Charlotte Simmons and this article both give a pretty accurate look into Duke’s “culture.”</p>
<p>I’m a rising junior at Duke, so I feel like I can answer these questions although they are not directly addressed to me.</p>
<p>The Core Four is composed Delta Delta Delta, Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Kappa Alpha Theta. There are about 120 girls per sorority, so in all that’s 480 girls.</p>
<p>The top five frats are Delta Sig, Kappa Sig, Sigma Alpha Epislon, Sigma Nu, and Kappa Alpha Order, give or take. I can’t tell you how big they are, but isn’t as big as the Core Fore.</p>
<p>Effortless perfection is something that happens at Duke and other top schools. The Women’s Intiative found that other unis reported women feeling the same pressure. Think about it - women enter Duke feeling on top of the world. But they get there and suddenly, they’re not the smart one anymore - that’s not an edge. Additionally, Duke has a very attractive student body, one of the most attarctive of a top school that’s for sure. So everyone is smart and everyone is pretty and people start feeling insecure - they feel like if they’re perfect (Great grades, super pretty) then that will go away. Immature, but hey, we’re like 20 and still figuring things out. It doesn’t…this is where hooking up comes in. It works as validation. I would also argue that effortless perfection happens to guys too, they just don’t admit it. I’ve seen many guys counting calories, on the elliptical, and killing themselves to work for Goldman.</p>
<p>Parents, do not be fooled. Hooking up is not peculiar to Duke or to college in general. Based on similar atmosphere, I wouldn’t be suprised if Penn, Pton (maybe), Stanford, Vandy, Notre Dame had similar social scenes. As well, hooking up happens in high school. Hooking up is RAMPANT in high school. This behavior is learned somewhere. Hooking up is more noticeable in college because people dont have to hide to have sex - they have dorms. As well, due to dorm life, more people know about your hook ups.</p>
<p>Finally, the article is sensationlized but does have a grain of truth. I have never heard of the WWIII party and many of my friends in PanHel and IFC (the governing councils for sororities and frats) hadn’t either. While many people hook up at Duke, things to the extreme that you are hearing about are truly the life of a thin slice of Duke’s population. Here, I would like to reiterate that this just isn’t Duke. Don’t be fooled by prestige - many schools party and party hard. This is probably going on at your child’s university, he or she just may not be aware of it (like me, they may be on the periphery) or they are simply not telling me. </p>
<p>Personally, I do not do hook ups. I have no problem getting dates - probably because guys know that I’m not one to hook up with them casually. I’ve been invited to many fraternity formals and semi-formals (to popular frats)
and there was no expectation of sex afterward. Dating exists at Duke and in college in general. Don’t come here or to any college for that matter expecting to find a husband - most students have one serious relationship, if that, in college. But if you seek it (dating) out, and have an open mind, you will indeed date. And to that girl that had never been asked on a date - Yowsa. It’s probably because of how she’s allowing men to approach her. Oh and on that, guys at Duke are good guys. What’ve you read about is a small subset. And I know guys in those frats that are good guys. There are plenty of guys here I would bring home to mom and dad.</p>
<p>The social scene in general is indicative of any school in a small town. The girls in that article are the thin portion of Duke’s population that only goes to frat parties. ONLY. There are tons of things to do at Duke that don’t involved this type of life and students take part in them - concerts, plays, dinner, movies.</p>
<p>To conclude, yes your friends should consider Duke. It is an excellent university, one that I will always be proud to say I attended. Tell your friends to consider that everyone has a motive for writing articles, and a story about lots of hooking up is gonna sell better than one about community service. Also tell them that this they will encounter people WHEREVER they go who engage in action they don’t believe in. They simply need to be firm in their own beliefs.</p>
<p>Sorry to double post but I had to respond. I strongly disagree that students are Duke were always trying to be “cool.” Honestly, I was quite popular in high school and never hid my intelligence to be so. There was no going to Duke to prove my “coolness.” I was accepted to Duke, Gtown, Harvard, Yale, Wash U, Stanford, Notre Dame and UVA among others. I got likely letters from Duke, Yale, Wash U, Stanford, and UVA. I had a scholarship to GTown. I chose Duke because it fit.</p>
<p>At Duke we work hard and I will not stand for someone who knows NOTHING about MY university making comments about my lack of work. Walk through Bostock during midterms andfinals - its a zoo. People at Duke study hard, very hard, and deserve to have fun (whatever they define that as). Duke Unviersity is WELL-RESPECTED - there are members of my class that have patents, speak 7 languages, are world champion equestrians and so much more. Many people turn down more prestigious places to come HERE but it is well balanced and offers a great undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>The only students (of which I am aware) that chose Duke over more prestigious schools were those that Duke “bought”. These students were very open about their reasons for going to Duke. They would have preferred another college but the merit money was too good to turn down. I’m happy that they found what they needed at Duke.</p>
<p>But do you ever wonder why the other schools are considered more prestigous?</p>
I think it is important to keep the source of the article in context. Duke is a diverse place and it’s impossible to group the entire student body under one particular lifestyle.</p>