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Engaging Students
As part of Duke’s decades-long focus on applying
knowledge to address social problems, a new $30 million initiative
called DukeEngage will make civic engagement an integral part of
the undergraduate experience.
DukeEngage will provide full funding and faculty and administrative
support to all undergraduates who want to stretch beyond the classroom
by tackling social issues at home and abroad, and, in turn, learn
from those beyond-the-classroom experiences. Projects could range
from learning about education challenges in Africa while volunteering
in a rural school to gaining insights into natural disasters while
working with Gulf Coast flood victims.
“The lasting products of a university education are the qualities
of mind and character that students carry forth into their adult
lives,” said President Richard H. Brodhead when the initiative
was announced in February. “We give our students superb academic
training, but we also want them to become active citizens and creative
problem-solvers, using their education to make a real-world difference.
Duke has always placed a special emphasis on using knowledge for
the greater social good. Today we’re committing ourselves to making
this opportunity a part of every Duke undergraduate’s experience.”
Beginning in the summer of 2008, any Duke undergraduate who has
completed at least two semesters of classes will be eligible to
participate in an immersive summer or semester-long service project
with Duke support. Duke funding will include travel expenses and
a cost-of-living stipend to cover the full experience. To ensure
that students receiving financial aid are able to participate,
Duke will assume responsibility for their “summer earnings” requirements
and cover the costs of their service experience. Forty percent
of Duke undergraduates receive financial aid. The university also
will provide stipends to faculty and staff members who serve as
mentors to the students.
Currently, more than 80 percent of Duke students volunteer with
organizations such as Engineers Without Borders and the Ronald
McDonald House. Each year, about 500 undergraduates participate
in some form of service-learning, combining classroom work with
public service, and nearly 100 devise their own summer service
projects.
DukeEngage will encompass three types of learning opportunities:
- Projects that Duke sponsors or organizes, either through
a class or an existing service-learning program;
- Projects that Duke coordinates with outside providers
or community partners;
- Projects that students themselves initiate (in collaboration
with faculty or staff members) through individual grant proposals.
Students who participate in DukeEngage will work on projects that
encompass a full spectrum of public-service issues, in local, national,
and international communities. University officials estimate that
over the next five years, at least 25 percent of Duke’s 6,250 undergraduates
will participate in DukeEngage, in addition to existing community-service
activities.
“Duke is already strong at producing a special kind of graduate,
a person of trained intelligence who is highly knowledgeable about
the world and has a strong desire to take on its most challenging
concerns,” Brodhead said. “Going forward, we want to make this
a signature of Duke undergraduate education.”
The Duke Endowment of Charlotte and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation of Seattle are providing $15 million each to endow DukeEngage.
The program’s national advisory committee will be chaired by David
Gergen Hon. ’93, a Duke trustee and former White House adviser
who is professor of public service at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership.
James Joseph, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa and director
of the U.S.-Southern Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values
at Duke, will lead the faculty advisory board. The board’s vice
chair is biologist Sherryl Broverman, who has helped lead a service-learning
project in Kenya in which Duke students are working to build a
boarding school for girls in Muhuru Bay.
Eric Mlyn, director of the Robertson Scholars Program since its
inception, chaired the provost’s committee that recommended DukeEngage
and will be the founding director of the program. The initiative
also includes the creation of a Duke Center for Civic Engagement
that will serve as a university-wide clearinghouse for civic-engagement
and service-learning projects. The center will be housed in the
provost’s office and will serve as the administrative umbrella
organization for all current and future undergraduate civic-engagement
activities at the university.
www.dukenews.duke.edu/engage
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