David Rubenstein, Trinity ‘70 and member of the Board of Trustees since 2003, is spreading his wealth.
Rubenstein donated $10 million to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Rubenstein added to the center’s $1.2 billion redevelopment project, and the center will name its new visitors and ticket space on Broadway the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, the Times reported. The site will offer discounted tickets and free shows, and it is scheduled to open Nov. 24.
The donation was sparked by Rubenstein’s 60th birthday last month, according to the article, which reports that Rubenstein made $2.7 billion as managing director of The Carlyle Group. Estimating that he could live to about 81 years old, Rubenstein has decided to give his money away to causes he supports before he dies.
“My view is, if you have money, you can spend it, you can save it, or you can give it away,” Rubenstein said to the Times. “I bought all the things I need to buy.”
Since Rubenstein co-founded The Carlyle Group in 1987, the company has expanded to house offices in 20 countries with more than 1,290 investors from 72 countries. The Carlyle Group manages about $86.1 billion in assets, according to its Web site.
Along with his commitment to the Duke Board of Trustees, Rubenstein also serves on the boards of 30 other institutions—which he also supports financially, the article states.
In addition to using his wealth to underwrite scholarships and fund arts centers, Rubenstein has purchased several historical documents which he has loaned to American museums, including copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation, according to the article.
“Being happy in life is not easy,” Rubenstien said in the Times. “I would give up all the money I have if I could be 50. You can always make money.”
Rogerson was one of several professors, presidential speechwriters and authors to comment on President Barack Obama’s frequent media appearances. Posts addressed whether the president is in danger of being overexposed.
In his post, Rogerson noted that Obama is “doing his job.”
“He is out among the citizens—both virtually and physically—promoting his policy agenda, showing support for existing programs and asking us to think hard about political decisions that are being made,” Rogerson wrote.
Rogerson added that still, Obama may be overexposing himself, leading citizens to prioritize consuming other information available to them in the “maze of modern technology.”
He contrasted the surplus of information about Obama and his doings with the author J.D. Salinger’s media shyness, noting it is “interesting” that Salinger’s reclusive behavior has made him more compelling to the public.
“The next time Salinger decides to say something in public, I suspect people will stop to listen,” Rogerson wrote.
Several people in the Sanford School of Public Policy want to help prevent people from making poor decisions when they drink.
Although they may not care whether people who imbibe keep their clothes on, Philip J. Cook, professor of public policy, and Maeve E. Gearing, a doctoral candidate in public policy, want to keep them off the roads.
Cook and Gearing co-authored an op-ed article that ran in the New York Times Monday about ignition-interlock devices. These devices are breathalyzers that attach to the ignition of a car and will prevent the vehicle from starting if the driver is intoxicated, which if widely used could save as many as 750 lives a year, according to a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration report estimate.
Currently, eight states require drunk-driving offenders to have ignition-interlock devices installed in their cars and 25 states require repeat offenders to install them, according to the article.
But in 2007, only 146,000 ignition interlocks were in use, they wrote, adding that the reasons were clear: the devices are expensive to install and there is little enforcement or oversight of their installation.
The authors suggest courts connect installing ignition-interlock devices with substance-abuse treatment requirements and only allow offenders to remove the devices when they do not try to start their cars while drunk over an extended time period.
“The ignition interlock could be an extraordinarily effective way to prevent drunk-driving recidivism,” Cook and Gearing wrote. “But it can save lives only if we make sure people use it.”
Despite the whisperings of incident reports at fraternities and Selective Living Groups across West Campus, this year’s orientation and move-in week has seen about as many write-ups as last year.
Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for residence life, said since Aug. 18 he has received approximately 15 behavioral incident reports across campus. Reports include vandalism, excessive trash and violations in alcohol and noise policies. He said most reports dealt with alcohol, noise or trash—and sometimes all three. These numbers are comparable to last year, he said, although last year’s numbers for the first week were higher than two years ago.
“In terms of behavioral reports, this is a fairly average week,” Gonzalez said. “We have seven quads on West and 14 buildings on East, so if you average that out it’s not even one per community. If you think about it in terms of communities, it’s not very high in my opinion.”
Sue Wasiolek, assistant vice president for student affairs, said a few students on campus had to be evaluated by Emergency Medical Services or transported to the emergency room, but none appeared to be serious.
Gonzalez said RLHS generally deals with incident reports that are first-time offenses, such as noise violations and alcohol policy violations. Some violations go directly to the Office of Student Conduct. When dealing with group incident reports, Gonzalez said each individual receives a report and RLHS will evaluate their history of violations and their involvement in the incident before deciding whether RLHS or the Office of Student Conduct will handle the report.
Students on campus were not the only ones cited this week. Wasiolek said there were five citations off campus—up from two last year. Three citations were by the Alcohol Law Enforcement division and two were by the Durham Police Department; the citations were for fake IDs, possession of alcohol by minors, open containers of alcohol and public urination.
Still, Wasiolek said she did not see the increase in off-campus citations as being significant or the result of more intense patrolling. The DPD and ALE patrolling methods in the Trinity Heights and Trinity Park areas were comprable to last year, she said.
Although many renowned speakers helped make the John Hope and Aurelia Franklin Celebration event memorable, who were the guests at the event and why did they attend? In this video series, The Chronicle interviewed students, university faculty and administrators and friends of the Fraklins who came to the Chapel. The series investigates why attendees felt it an important event to attend and what they hoped the speakers and the program would focus on. The series also features memories of the Franklins and attendees’ reactions to the even.
Celebration of the Lives of John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin (1/4)
Celebration of the Lives of John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin (2/4)
Celebration of the Lives of John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin (3/4)
Celebration of the Lives of John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin (4/4)
The juniors who make up a majority of Few Quadrangle are what Steve Nowicki, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, calls “housing independents”—students not living in an SLG or a large block like a fraternity section. Although Nowicki said the University does not do enough to serve those independents, Few became an unintentional experiment in what large-scale independent housing might look like in the future.
But not all independents want to live exclusively with other independents, said David Tat, a junior who previously lived in Edens 3B where lived within a section he did not block with.
“I’m an independent, but that doesn’t mean anything, I’m all over the place because that’s where my friends are,” Tat said. “Just because you put a bunch of independents together doesn’t mean it’s going to recreate that East Campus feeling—they’ve already been [at Duke] for a while, they have their own friends, they aren’t just going to assimilate and be best friends [with their hall mates].”
Though enjoying his experience in Few, Tat, and several other students, said he did not think the absence of SLGs and sections was necessarily Few’s biggest draw. Tat said that so long as independents are not embedded in a section, he supports having sections and SLGs.
Michelle Jablons, a junior Few resident who previously lived in Keohane Quadrangle, said though it is necessary to have a place on campus for independents who do not want to live near large blocks, she added that students know where SLGs and sections are located on campus and can, for the most part, choose their housing accordingly.
“If you don’t want to be around them you don’t have to, and I feel like forcing them off campus will just make people angry,” Jablons said. “I know already there’s stuff off campus, it’s your choice to make what you want of your social life, but I don’t know what I’d say about [section and large block rules changing]. There are girls on my hall in a sorority, but it doesn’t feel like a section… they don’t really have more than five or six rooms.”
Many of Few’s multitude of juniors are just returned from studying abroad. Jablons said she thinks the Few dynamic is an ideal way to help ease students’ transitions back into University life.
“I think it’s great this dorm got filled in with all new people so you’re coming back to Duke life, but you’re not coming back to a dorm where everyone’s been hanging out for a semester and you’re that one room.” Jablons said. “To move into a dorm that’d been empty for a semester as a big group is great, and I know a lot of sophomores are disappointed they won’t have that opportunity.”
