Founders Day Convocation 10/01/09 - Images by Michael Naclerio
By popular demand, here are the bulk of the photos from Founder’s Day. My apologies for the delay.
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From the category archives:
Academics
Brian Hare, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology, is opening the Duke Canine Cognition Center within the next two weeks. Hare and his team will test hundreds of dogs brought in by eager owners. Time magazine featured the team this week. The Chronicle’s Emily Stern sat down with him to discuss his inspiration for the project.
The Chronicle: How did you get involved studying dogs?
Brian Hare: The short version is that I had dogs as a kid. When I was growing up, my dog’s name was Oreo, and Oreo used to love to play fetch - and he could get three balls in his mouth, and so what that meant was that he would put all his balls on the ground - his slobbery balls on the ground, he would want you to throw all the balls, but sometimes you would throw them in different directions and they would get lost. I had seen that when his balls got lost when you were playing fetch with him that you could tell him where they were and he could go find them.
Later, when I was studying as an undergraduate, I realized together with my adviser that studying dogs would be really interesting because it ends up that they were doing some stuff that primates aren’t doing in terms of using human’s social cues, for instance, paying attention to pointing gestures that I’d seen my dog as a kid doing.
TC: What can canine behavior tell us about human behavior and evolution?
BH: What’s neat about dogs is that they’re all the same species and they’re very closely related genetically, but then they’re very, very different - each breed is very, very different. And so, that’s really fun and interesting because you can compare different breeds and try to understand why they’re different and why they’re similar than other breeds. And if by doing breed comparisons you can try and get an idea of why it is that some dogs can solve problems that other dogs can’t.
Ultimately, what I’m trying to study, as an evolutionary anthropologist, is human evolution, but there are not that many good models, there’s not that many good ways to study animals and understand how evolution changes cognition. So you can study an animal - I studied Chimpanzees and I studied Bonobos, and we study Great Apes, and Great Apes are really interesting and good because they can teach you how were similar and different from them and you can figure out how we changed, meaning what changed. But dogs are really useful because they can tell you how cognition changed, like what’s the process because you can compare lots of different breeds and figure out why it is that they became the way they were because there are so many of them but they’re all so closely related. So, it’s a really nice model for studying behavioral evolution, cognitive evolution, and they’re very unique that way. So it’s very useful, actually.
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Rep. David Price, D-N.C., came to Duke last Tuesday to talk about healthcare reform with students and answer their questions. Watch the video above, shot and narrated by The Chronicle’s Allie Prater, to see Price speak and hear an interview with one of the event’s planners.
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When I sat down with Fuqua’s Kathie Amato, assistant dean for executive MBA programs and associate dean for the Master of Management Studies program, and Deputy Dean Bill Boulding, or spoke via telephone with Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard about the new Master of Management Studies, the question of why Duke does not have an undergraduate business program often arose.
The University once had an undergraduate business program—it ended in 1979, the year Sheppard came to Duke.
“The reason we got out of it is a belief that business is inherently narrowing as a subject matter, and if it is the first thing you learn, you are really ill-prepared for the world you are about to enter,” Sheppard said. “We believe that, we inherently believe that.”
He said the creation of the Master of Management Studies program does not indicate that Duke should have an undergraduate business program.
“Is the existence of a law school evidence that we should be teaching law in undergrad—silly question,” he said. “I’d say the same thing about what we’re doing.”
Amato drew from personal experience to help explain the lack of an undergraduate business program.
“We really like the marriage of either the strong base in the liberal arts or the strong base in the sciences… with [the Master of Management Studies program] because we really believe that when you combine those two, it is a far more powerful combination and really gives someone the benefit of what we believe is a true Duke sort of education, quite frankly,” she said. “I was a religion undergraduate who immediately went to school and got an MBA. The fact that I have that very strong liberal arts, religion, philosophy background was very huge to me throughout my career.”
Duke does have a broader option for students interested in business, the Markets and Management Studies Certificate program.
“If you want to go into business, business school, start a business, or work for a business, this is the way to do it,” said sociology professor Lisa Keister, director of Markets and Management Studies. “The whole idea, especially at Duke, is that you have very broad liberal arts training…. That is still true in the certificate program.”
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Duke was ranked No.13 in the U.S. News and World Report’s “World’s Best Colleges” rankings, which was released last Thursday. The University came behind No.1 Harvard, No.2 Yale, No.5 Caltech, No.8 University of Chicago, No.9 MIT, No.10 Columbia, No.11 University of Pennsylvania, and No.12 Princeton.
It shares the No.13 spot with Johns Hopkin University, and is ahead of No.15 Cornell, and No.17 Stanford.
These rankings differ from the U.S. News National University rankings, released annually in late August. Duke was ranked No.8 in the national rankings last year, sharing the spot with University of Chicago and Columbia.
Related Story
From 8th to 80th: Duke’s rank varies by publication
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