Maybe the heat got to this employee's head? From the Duke University Police log:

July 22, 2008

2:13 p.m. Duke North Cafeteria. Larceny. An employee was reported for taking an ice cream bar without paying for it.

A group of Durham Public Schools teachers has traveled to Antigua, Guatemala, for a language and cultural immersion program.

David Stein, with the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, which organized the trip, has posted of the trip so far, including the educators' trip to a central marketplace, pictured here.

You might recall that DPS Superintendent Carl Harris was among the group that traveled to Guatemala last year, under the same program, which takes educators to rural and urban schools in the Central American country.

I was walking through Duke's Perkins Library today and stumbled upon an interesting art exhibition.

It is small and understated and doesn't take more than a few minutes to check out. So if you're gliding through the Perkins lobby, you might stop for a moment.

It's titled "Inside Out: Through a Photographer's Lens," and is a collaboration between 20 Durham School of the Arts photography students and 12 Duke University students from a writing class.

Remain Calm.

All is well.

If you're on the Duke University campus Wednesday or Thursday, you may be startled by a blaring emergency alarm. University officials ask that you do NOT call 911; they're simply testing the new emergency response system they purchased recently.

The tests will be conducted Wednesday from 2 to 4:30 p.m., and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Sirens will sound intermittently. If you're outside on campus or close to it you may hear loud tones and live and recorded messages.

As part of a new series on universities that are good to work for, the Chronicle of Higher Education has a story today about Duke University's employee development initiatives.

You may need a Chronicle password or account to access the story.

Duke University Libraries has launched a new digital collection of about 5,000 photographs, taken mostly in China between 1917 and 1932. The photos were taken by Sidney Gamble, grandson of Proctor and Gamble co-founder James Gamble.

Sidney Gamble was a sociologist and photographer who traveled extensively in China.

Check out the collection here

Fear not, Dookies: That blaring siren you may hear this month is only a test.

Duke this summer is joining a number of universities installing outdoor alarm and alert systems to use in case of campus emergency - a response to last year's massacre at Virginia Tech. 

The university has been installing the systems in recent months and will be testing them in July. Aaron Graves, Duke's security chief, told me this week the specific times of the tests aren't yet known, but will be done throughout the month.

Usually holiday weekends mean mayhem for police. On the campus of Duke University, police were dealing with some low blows. From the police log:

July 5, 2008

9:59 a.m. Duke Gardens. Larceny. An employee reported 150 gallons of gas were stolen.

July 6, 2008

8:54 p.m. Doris Duke Center. Larceny. An unknown male placed a flower pot inside his vehicle and drove away.

Also, at Duke Hospital North, a visitor demonstrates possibly one of the most abhorrent, not to mention dangerous, places for weapon storage:

July 3, 2008

10:02 p.m. Duke Hospital North. Weapon on campus. Security Officers at the entry screening area found a weapon in a diaper bag; the visitor was issued a state citation for same.

From the Duke University Police Log, just released this afternoon:

June 30, 5:35 p.m. Larceny. Parking Garage IV. An employee reported approximately $20 of gasoline stolen from his vehicle’s tank between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Twenty dollars worth. Hmm. With gas prices the way they are these days, I think that's about how much money I lose if the nozzle drips a little when I'm putting it back.

Abby Alger, a 20-year-old rising senior at Duke, has a simple political philosophy. She believes there are plenty of people her age with conservative beliefs. They're Republicans, she says. They just don't know it yet.

That's the idea behind her new blog, which she created in an attempt to create political conversation among college-age people perhaps put off by the traditional Republican talking points.

Read more here.