hello everybody i'm dan haggerty welcome back let's have a discussion about the news
for just a moment i'd like you to email me at dan wral.com if you have some thoughts do you trust me
wow what that's a nice way to get started don't you think i mean you you are supposed to trust
me i'm a journalist after all but honestly i know that most of you don't i mean not fully
anyway and people today are pretty wary of the media or anybody in power trying to tell them
the way it is so i'm always trying to think of ways to gain your trust the harvard business
review published a brief list in 2019 that that i like a lot it had the three elements of trust
number one positive relationships number two good judgment through expertise and number three and my
personal favorite is consistency that's a big one for me that's one that i think has gotten us into
a lot of trouble during this pandemic specifically with messaging consistency now if you don't know
what i mean by that here's a tweet that i saw yesterday that i think really sums up the current
state of messaging consistency it says stay indoors but also return in person wear a mask not
that one the expensive one the one you can't find take rapid tests which you also can't find but
if you find them don't buy them rapid tests don't work you need pcr there are zero appointments in
your area there's the tweet in all its glory now it's kind of funny i laughed when i read it and
then i started to think to myself except it's true when you're constantly getting information
from both sides of someone's mouth how do you know what to believe or who to trust see forbes did an
article about this danger of mixed messaging from trusted entities like the cdc in the white house
and how that confusion can open the door to misinformation they interviewed a crisis
management expert who said if there's one hard and fast rule in crisis communications its consistency
is king and details matter so with that why don't we turn to the devils for a moment this
week duke's students began the spring semester virtually even though they're fully vaccinated
a message over the holidays went out and told him to plan to do that until at least january
18th which makes a lot of sense we've seen tons of schools go that route because of omicron but duke
their policy has this little caveat this asterisk you see while vaccinated students aren't allowed
in the classrooms they're still allowed to fill cameron indoor stadium for duke basketball games
the number two ranked blue devils play georgia tech on tuesday they host miami on saturday fans
shoulder to shoulder screaming themselves raspberry raspy they're supposed to be in
masks but look at the video not everybody's in masks meanwhile finance students are forced to
log into the class that they're attending from their childhood bedrooms a graduate student at
duke told us he thinks it's the university's way of saying that basketball is more important than
the curriculum and he's got a great point that interpretation is completely understandable
i have a hard time justifying a hundred and forty thousand dollar mba program when i spend
almost 66 percent of it off campus i asked duke for an explanation but they declined to comment
i asked them pretty please saying this is a clear contradiction in policy but they never got back to
me but to be frank i don't really care if they prioritize basketball maybe you do i don't i
mean i don't go to school there most of you don't either i'm more interested in their take on covid
duke and its researchers and doctors and health care workers they have been a global example
in mitigating the spread of this pandemic since it began we hear from their experts almost daily
a lot of times on our air so are vaccinated students safe enough to be inside together or not
i mean classroom or courtside it shouldn't matter kovit doesn't care who coach k is either duke is
being too lacks with coveted safety at games or too strict with it in the classrooms it's one of
the other if it's worth the risk to see jump shots why not to see people solving equations in fact
i'd argue it's more important to foster a great engineer than a great power forward in literature
across the board is finding that restrictions in our classrooms are hurting our engineers and all
of our other students an economics professor brown published this article yesterday in the atlantic
universities need to catch up to the post-vaccine reality remote learning hurts students she
describes the rise in anxiety and depression with the top issue being loneliness and isolation
she explains the current risk factors for serious cases of covid in students which for vaccinated
college-aged people is extremely low especially with the omicron variant which is what spurred
all of these new restrictions recently again i don't care about the priorities at duke i like
basketball but let's admit what's good for the game is also good for a game developer
covid doesn't distinguish so why is duke consistency matters with messaging yes duke is
a private school yes this involves student staff and duke families no i am none of those things
but the community looks to duke and institutions like it for guidance during unclear times
the la times even profiled duke earlier in the pandemic as a place that schools
the country on how to stay open during the pandemic what duke does matters and i'm not
really sure what they're doing let me know what you think email me your thoughts at dan wrl.com