Duke's stake as hometown hero

Your crystal ball had better be polished and hitting on all cylinders if you want to try to predict the outcome of the case involving Duke lacrosse players that has become the nation's latest Sickeningly Sensational Scandal.

But beyond the fate of team members charged with rape and other brutalities -- two have been indicted, and prosecutors are trying to draw a bead on a third -- this episode's lasting significance likely will hinge on how it affects Duke's campus culture and the university's complex relationship with its host city of Durham.

Vital to that will be whether Duke finally can manage to put a stop to the drunken, obnoxious student behavior that has plagued nearby neighborhoods where many students live in rented quarters. It was at a house across the street from the university's East Campus rented by three lacrosse captains that a woman hired as an exotic dancer says she was assaulted during a team party.

Why shouldn't the university make it clear to its undergraduates that living off-campus from now on will be regarded as a privilege, granted only to those upperclassmen with clean disciplinary records and revoked when abused?

An even larger issue concerns what might be called the university's institutional citizenship. How much of an effort is Duke -- Durham's largest employer and the city's most imposing institutional presence by far -- willing to make to help advance Durham's civic goals and improve the lives of its residents?

Dukies not being dummies, it's no surprise that they're already making a considerable effort along those lines. A modest case in point is the university's purchase of off-campus "party houses" for resale to owners who will occupy them instead of renting them out to students. The scene of the alleged rape on North Buchanan Boulevard even happens to be one of those houses; the lacrosse players were living there because they still had a lease.

Much of the university's outreach takes place under the 10-year-old Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership. It is a broad attempt to improve the quality of life in a dozen neighborhoods near Duke on the city's west side, working through the schools and through investments in housing, public safety and health care.

Duke's students are heavily involved in all manner of volunteer service work. And speaking of health care, the university's renowned medical complex is a community cornerstone.

So where's the sweetness and light that should prevail in this town-gown marriage? Perhaps it's right there waiting to blossom. But as things stand, the marriage has some rough edges rooted in stereotypes, misperceptions and honest, hard-to-bridge cultural differences.

No use sulking about it, Blue Devil friends. Just accept your measure of responsibility and try harder to show that you understand the critical point: Duke's well-being and the well-being of Durham are totally intertwined.

President Richard Brodhead surely knows that's the case. After all, he spent his entire career until coming to Duke two years ago at Yale University, which in recent years has made impressive headway against many similar problems.

Durham and New Haven, Conn., have quite a bit in common. Both are medium-sized cities where traditional manufacturing industries have declined. Both have sizeable minority populations. According to the latest available census figures, the median household income in New Haven ($29,604) was lower than in Durham ($41,160) -- a sign of Durham's inherent strengths.

While the two universities also are similar in size, Yale is more integrated into New Haven's urban fabric. Perhaps that has helped give its community uplift efforts a sense of urgency -- that, and having gone through a period when some prospective students seemed to be having second thoughts about living in a city seen as depressed and dangerous.

The upshot was an aggressive effort to help New Haven turn things around. Yale employees, for example, are eligible for $25,000 in incentives if they buy homes in the city. It was reckoned in 2003 that the program by then had leveraged $85 million in home sales. The university's property management program has helped infuse the streets around campus with a lively retail mix.

An Office of New Haven and State Affairs is headed by a retired top executive of the Rouse Company who oversaw projects such as the South Street Seaport in Manhattan and Harborplace in Baltimore. The biotech industry is flourishing downtown under university auspices.

President Richard Levin, who made town-gown relations a top priority, campaigns relentlessly on behalf of Yale's stake in New Haven's progress. If Duke is angling to make a quantum leap as a force for civic betterment -- and to help itself at the same time -- Dick Brodhead can look to familiar territory for a textbook study in how to get it right.