Say, you know that time-honored tradition in American high schools whereby freshmen are tortured physically and emotionally on a near-constant basis by the upperclassmen? You know what we're talking about: the locker-stuffing, the swirlies, the crippling humiliation of being forced to eat your own underwear while hanging upside-down and naked from the flagpole overlooking cheerleader practice (that... that wasn't just us, right?). Outside of the whole fraternity hazing scene, it's not quite as pronounced a dynamic in higher education, but we're starting to get the feeling that the "beat on the frosh" philosophy is about to graduate to college in a big way-- at least at Duke University.

We've already mentioned how every single member of Duke's Class of 2008 would be getting a free iPod, and faithful viewer Frozen Tundra informs us that the swag has been delivered. According to The Chronicle, the iPods were distributed to freshmen "after house meetings Thursday night," complete with "Duke Class of 2008" engraved on the back of each one and preloaded with "an audio tour of East Campus, the University's alma mater and fight song, phone numbers for campus health and safety resources, and a calendar containing basic dates on the academic calendar"-- otherwise known as "stuff that has already been deleted to make room for more Limp Bizkit bootlegs."

Ha! Just kidding, folks! No doubt the iPods will be used for extracurricular auditory purposes, but they'll also figure heavily in the Duke educational process over the course of the coming school year. iPod use has already been "incorporated into the curriculum of six classes this fall," with fifteen more in the works-- and now that Belkin has announced that it's celebrating the sale of its millionth iPod accessory by donating voice recorders to all 1,650 Duke freshmen, the 'Pods can play an active role in even non-iPod-enabled classes; we're certain that iPods will be recording many a lecture while their owners catch some much-needed shut-eye.

But back to the subject of Duke's imminent rise in campus violence: the thing to keep in mind, here, is that only the freshmen received free iPods, and the upperclassmen aren't terribly pleased with the situation. Views on the subject run the gamut from "I should have gotten one" to "how come I didn't get one?" to "one should have been gotten by me." Oh, and there's a classic argument against the iPod program by a senior who expounds, "if you want to put something on your iPod, it has to be on your computer. So, if it's already on your computer, why would you need an iPod?"

Uh... riiiiight. That's exactly why there are three million people walking around out there listening to tunes on their home computers, which they're lugging around with specially-constructed trusses while plugged into Really Long Extension Cords™. (Hopefully this isn't indicative of the sort of logical thinking that three years of a Duke education brings, but if it is, hey, at least now students get an iPod out of it.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that the upperclassmen aren't at all happy, and the freshmen are a little too happy-- can anything but a double-digit increase in the student violence rate come from such a mixture? Then again, if Duke's student-bribe-cleverly-masquerading-as-academic-experiment also results in a double-digit increase in the number of applicants for admission next year-- and c'mon, what high school student won't want to go to the college where they get a free iPod?-- the administration can look upon the whole thing as a net positive. The real question is, how long will it be before other schools are forced to offer free iPods just to stay in the running? With a little luck, iPods will be standard issue at all U.S. campuses by 2009. Plan your academic career accordingly.