Even more crunchy goodness from Dick Brodhead

Brodhead and some of his Duke administration cohorts, as well as a couple of students, addressed some Duke and Durham community members last night. (Sorry, i had a neighborhood potluck dinner to host, and missed the big event.) Brodhead also addressed the Durham Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day as well.

The Herald-Sun has the details:

Earlier Thursday, at the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce's 100th annual meeting, Brodhead got two rounds of booming applause when he told business and industry leaders about the university's stance.

Whether the accusations prove to be true or not, other acts of misbehavior attributed to the lacrosse team were "abhorrent," Brodhead said.

"It's not the kind of behavior we have the habit of condoning," he said.

Well, habit as in addiction to narcotics? Or habit as in, we kinda do it all the time without really giving it much conscious thought at all? Because, Dick, it's exactly the kind of behavior that Duke has been tolerating from its undergraduates for, what, 30 years? 40 years? What city in the clouds did you just beam down from?

He praised the community for making Durham what it is today and for helping Duke to flourish.

He said it pains him to see the national media attention fixated on a story line that Duke is populated with ultra-rich students in a cultural oasis surrounded by a backward Southern city.

He said it is difficult for Duke administrators to explain that errant notion to the 40 percent of undergraduates who receive an average of $25,000 in scholarship money that makes it possible for them to attend the university.

Or you could have mentioned that Durham is a vibrant, diverse, and culturally enriched city with 20 times the population of your isolated little faux gothic university and more going on in it on any given day than many of your undergraduates will experience in a lifetime.

But it's all about dispelling the myth that Duke is for rich people, isn't it? Why, 40% of your undergraduates receive about 60% of the cost of attending your university in financial aid? So that means that 60% of them are footing the entire $40+k bill on their own, doesn't it? And even the ones receiving aid are, on average, kicking in over $15k per year, which is still a bit more than the cost of the state university education my daughter is getting up at Boone.

Come on, Dick, come on down to Joe and Jo's and have a beer with the little people once in a while. The windows in that ivory tower must be getting very dirty.