Duke in the News: Aug. 23, 2006

DUKE, NEIGHBORS SEEK FRESH START (Raleigh) News & Observer, Aug. 23 -- Duke University's neighbors in Trinity Park greeted first-year students on Tuesday as they moved onto the campus. ... Full story --Also, (Durham) Herald-Sun: Newcomers' Support of Duke Is True Blue ... Full story MSNBC, NBC 17 News: Duke Students Focusing on School Year, Not Lacrosse Scandal (Video e-mailed upon request to dukenews@duke.edu.) ... Full story WRAL-TV: Duke Rape Investigation Not Concern to Parents, Students (Video e-mailed upon request to dukenews@duke.edu.) Full story Duke Chapel: Opening Convocation webcast ... Watch Duke News: Brodhead Urges Students to Become 'Active Seeker of Understanding' (text of convocation address) ... Full story Duke News: Duke and Men's Lacrosse (special website with background information) ... Full story

REFLECTING ON LESSONS STORM TAUGHT ABOUT RACE AND POVERTY (San Jose) Mercury News, AP, Aug. 19 -- John Hope Franklin, 91, a professor emeritus at Duke who chaired President Clinton's Initiative on Race, says "the New Orleans tragedy speaks in a loud but eloquent voice that racial inequities in the United States persist." Full story

DEATH BY BODY MASS: NEW INCREMENTS IN DEBATE NPR's All Things Considered, Aug. 22 -- Martin Binks, an obesity expert at Duke, says a significant shortcoming in a new study of body mass and the risk of early death is that researchers had to rely on self reports of weight and height from volunteers. ... Full story

NOTED ... FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 22 -- Economics professor Michelle P. Connolly, Duke's director of EcoTeach, has become the new chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission. She succeeds Leslie Marx, who will return to Duke's Fuqua School of Business, where she has been on leave. (Link for subscribers; e-mailed upon request to dukenews@duke.edu.) ... Full story for subscribers --Also, News & Observer: Duke Professor Takes Key FCC Post ... Full story Broadcasting & Cable: FCC Names Chief Economist ... Full story

GARDNER C. TAYLOR PBS' Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Aug. 18 -- Richard Lischer, a Duke Divinity School professor, says Rev. Gardner C. Taylor "almost single-handedly has elevated and made visible great preaching." ... Full story

SENIOR LIKES WORKING WITH YOUNGER PEOPLE AT RESTAURANT Chicago Tribune, AP, Aug. 21 -- "Get ready, America," says Sharon Rogers, a gerontology researcher at Duke University Medical Center. She promises that things will change when 20 percent of the population will be elderly. ... Full story

RELAX -- ANXIETY WON'T AFFECT PREGNANCY (Philadelphia) NBC 10 News, Aug. 21 -- Duke's Dr. Amy Murtha spends a lot of time reassuring worried moms-to-be. But the latest research has found that anxiety does not impact a baby's delivery date, birth weight or the Apgar score, which rates the general health of a newborn. ... Full story

ON THE AIR John Burness, senior vice president of public affairs and government relations at Duke, and Daniel Bowes, community liaison for Duke student government, will be among the guests on "The State of Things" Wednesday talking about how the community is coming together after a spring semester dominated in the news by the lacrosse case. Listen at noon or 9 p.m. ET on 91.5 WUNC FM, or later to archived web audio. ... Details