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Ben
Abram, architect for intellectual gatherings
It’s a long story, actually, how Ben
Abram came to invite Winston-Salem rapper Se7en to dine at the
Washington Duke Inn last fall and to speak to students in Alspaugh,
the freshman dorm where he was a residential adviser.
Abram was enrolled in adjunct assistant professor of music Robi
Roberts’ rap and hip-hop appreciation class. Through that
class, he met DJ Chela, a local club DJ, who for a time hosted
a weekly radio show on WXDU, the campus radio station. One night,
Abram was hanging out with her in the studio, and Se7en came on
the show to talk about black empowerment issues. “They were
going on the air, spinning rhymes about what they were passionate
about,” Abram recalls. He was intrigued. Se7en invited Abram
to a show he was attending in Durham, and, in return, Abram invited
Se7en to come and speak to his students in Alspaugh.
It’s a long story, but it’s really not all that uncommon
for Abram. In his four years at Duke, the senior, recently named
Young Trustee, has gained a reputation as someone who makes connections
with people. “Ben’s good at keeping up with people
and finding out what they’re about more so than anyone I’ve
ever met,” says junior Lee Pearson, whom Abram met when both
were East Campus residential advisers last year.
His task became easier when Duke instituted a program during his
junior year called “Duke Conversations” to encourage
students to invite interesting figures—activists, teachers,
politicians, athletes, musicians like Se7en—to campus to
chat intimately over a meal or in a small group setting. The university
agrees to foot the bill for travel and expenses on the condition
that the speaker is not paid an honorarium.
Abram took the idea and ran with it, initially using the program
to supplement the programming funds he received from residence
life to host events in Alspaugh. When he moved off campus this
year, he began hosting dinners in his off-campus house, often shuttling
the speakers off afterwards to address a freshman dorm or campus
organization.
“People say Duke lacks intellectual engagement,” Abram
says. “If that’s true, then it’s only because
of not having appropriate venues, not because students aren’t
intellectually engaged.”
During the fall semester, a dozen or more invited guests crowded
around the civil and environmental engineering and public-policy
studies double-major’s table to dine and converse with speakers
ranging from David Folkenflik, media correspondent for National
Public Radio, to Sonal Shah A.M. ’93, vice president of Goldman,
Sachs & Co., to Jeff Smith, founder of political-activism organization
the Oregon Bus Project.
Pearson, a frequent attendee, says that the presentations and discussions
brought together people whose social and intellectual paths might
not otherwise cross. “Most of the time, I didn’t know
half the people in the room, and that was true for everyone. Ben
just knows so many people in different circles, in different schools
and departments.”
Abram admits that often the group slants left, but that’s
not for lack of trying. He invited noted campus conservative Stephen
Miller, a senior, to one event, and Miller ultimately attended,
but not before calling back to ask, “Is this really just
a dinner invitation, or are you setting me up for something?”
Politics don’t get in the way of good discussion, either.
Of speaker Paul Teller ’93, deputy director of the House
Republican Study Committee, Abram says, “Yes, he’s
a Republican. Yes, he’s really far right. But when it came
to fiscal policy and government intervention and the way he saw
the government shaped right now, we had a lot of agreement in the
room.”
At times, Abram’s networking instincts don’t go as
expected. Abram tells a funny story about a time he introduced
journalist Fiona Morgan, whom he’d booked for a conversation,
to her own husband, who works as a researcher for Abram’s
academic adviser, public-policy professor Joel Fleishman, at a
cocktail party. You win some, you lose some.
“College is about bridging perspectives, making connections.
You’ve got to do that for yourself.” With his dinners,
Abram is once again doing just that.
“I wanted to engage with my friends, but also have them engage
with each other. This was sort of the ‘dot, dot, dot’ to
get the conversation going.”
—Jacob Dagger |
