Registration Avoider (Ignore Backdate) Duke Students Must Now Furnish Own i Pods

This article has been reprinted in its entirety.

Duke students will have to buy their own iPods next year
April 7, 2005
BY MICHAEL FELBERBAUM

RALEIGH, N.C. -- An iPod in every new student's hand?

Not this fall at Duke.

The private university in Durham has decided not to reprise last year's experimental mass handout to all incoming freshman of the pricey, hard-disk portable digital players.
Only students enrolled in certain classes will get the free gadgets.

The school, which hoped the $300 players would enhance students' learning by allowing them to record lectures, capture oral notes and play language-training recordings, spent $500,000 on the pilot project.

That covered the iPods, salary for an academic computing specialist and grants to faculty members who participated in the program.

Last year, newly arrived freshmen were given the high-tech welcome gift engraved with the school's crest and the words ''Class of 2008.''

Some students questioned the need for the giveaway, given many students already owned iPods or similar devices, with some saying the money would be better spent on financial aid or campus security. AP

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