ACADEMICS

  Academic Advisor

Illustrating Delta Tau Delta’s unique diversity of Pratt and Trinity students, the fraternity is honored to have Dr. Phillip Jones as its academic advisor. Dr. Jones informally counsels members with unsatisfactory pre-major advisors, consults on teaching at the Maureen Joy, advises upcoming Science Cafés, and has dinner with members of the fraternity each semester.

Dr. Jones has had a number of roles and positions at Duke including Senior Associate Dean for Education at the Pratt School of Engineering from 1999-2003. He has taught two members of the fraternity in his mechanical engineering classes.

His research involves using positron annihilation spectroscopy as a nondestructive, microscopic technique for evaluating the fine structure of a variety of emerging materials. Specific techniques currently employed are Doppler and lifetime spectroscopy. When injected into a material, positrons tend to become localized within regions which exhibit a depletion of positive charge and their subsequent annihilation characteristics are sensitively dependent on the local electron density. Thus, any structural perturbation that results in a change in the positive ion core density will be reflected in the annihilation spectra.

Science Café

Now that the Ciemas Café, Twinnie’s, has been completed, Delta Tau Delta looks forward to holding its first, in what it hopes will be a long-standing academic tradition of Science Cafes. The event seeks to create an informal environment in which students and faculty can interact and discuss the faculty member’s research. DTD believes that Greek organizations can bring more to the University’s academic community and hopes that this event will be a pioneer in future Greek development of innovative academic programming. The presenter at the first event will be Professor Cunningham from the Department of Biology.  

Academics and Brotherhood

The fraternity includes numerous members of the University’s Dean’s List and Dean’s List with Distinction. A member of the fraternity has been published for his research in the field of biology and another was the recipient of one of only four Inter-fraternity Council scholarships for his contributions to the Duke community.

As part of the pledge process, new members must report their grades on all assignments worth more than 10% of their semester mark to ensure that new members maintain a strong focus on their academics.

Contact us:

President Reed Shaffner
rhs9@duke.edu, 321-794-8072

Webmaster Dargaye Churnet
dhc3@duke.edu, 423-505-9852