Image
News
In Conversation with Duke’s Top Undergraduate Leaders
Loading...
photos by Taraka Volpe
In an up-close and personal event, Duke Conversations turned the Ruby Lounge in the Rubenstein Arts Center into a dining room for its “Meet the Deans” event on Tuesday, September 30. The event featured senior leadership from across the undergraduate schools, including Deborah Reisinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Manoj Mohanan, Interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, Jerome “Jerry” Lynch, Vinik Dean of Engineering for the Pratt School of Engineering, Lori Snyder Bennear, Stanback Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, Lee D. Baker.
Duke Conversations is an undergraduate-led program whose mission is to foster dialogue between students and faculty and to build community among different students. The program organizes free, catered dinners between faculty and 5-12 students typically hosted at a professor’s house, assisted by funding and administrative support from the Office of Undergraduate Education.
In this special “Meet the Deans” event, students were able to meet the heads of Duke’s four undergraduate-facing schools and the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education. The program consisted of a moderated panel that then transitioned into small group discussions over dinner. Topics included learning about the Duke administrators who are leading in the face of unprecedented disruptions to higher education, the future of Duke’s schools and cutting-edge research, and the leaders’ own undergraduate experiences.
Image
Chloe Balin, a Duke junior, the Duke Conversations’ Director of Data Analytics, and the moderator for the evening, broke the ice with a question to the administrators panel, “We want to hear a little bit more about you guys and your college experience. Can each of you tell us a crazy story from your own college experience? Perhaps a roommate story, a party story, any wild card?”
Over 25 student participants laughed as Dean Bennear chuckled her way through her story about driving a minivan for her professor in a field geology class as an undergraduate.
“It turns out that after we got back and turned the van back in that, apparently, somewhere, at some time during the trip, about $15,000 worth of damage was done to the undercarriage of that minivan. But fortunately, I didn’t have to pay for it; that’s my crazy college story,” snickered Dean Bennear.
Image
Students, unmoved by the aroma of food sweeping the lounge or the lure of their phones tucked away in their bags, were dialed in as Vice Provost Baker offered up an anecdote of his own funny college story.
The new Vice Provost waved his hands around and smiled through a story about studying abroad in Northwest Australia and Fiji. During his week-long search of the wonders of the island of Fiji, Vice Provost Baker explained how he lost track of time and of the fact that it was October 1, the day his return flight took off to Australia.
“I will never forget that there are not 31 days in September,” said Vice Provost Baker. The room exploded with laughter as students and educators reacted to his story.
For the first thirty minutes, students clung to every word from the administrators on the panel as they bounced between topics such as their daily lives as educators, funny college stories, or best student excuses.
After the storytelling panel, the students and administrators filed to the back of the room to fill their plates. When students sat back down, each table was joined by one of the panelists as they started their dinner conversations.
Image
Vice Provost Baker, who is appointed in the Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and African and African American Studies departments, was asked this question by a student over dinner, “I feel like the Duke undergraduate population is very interesting to study from an anthropological standpoint in terms of the way that it divides itself—the way things like class and race divide the population. I’m curious as to what your observations have been on that?”
The newly appointed Vice Provost launched into his cultural anthropological analysis of Duke as he touched on the social dynamics of Blue Devils.
“Sometimes it’s an unforgiving social hierarchy,” said Vice Provost Baker. “When you do a bonfire [at Duke], all of that hierarchy goes away. People aren’t Black or white, they’re just blue. That’s a sense of community that you can’t make up; it makes Duke really distinct.”
Duke Conversations is made possible by the executive team: Lolo Goddard, Nia Huff, Owen Dong, Chloe Balin, Lillian Gessner, Montana Lee, the co-presidents: Emily Zhao and Dhruv Rungta, and advisor: Theo Cai. Duke students interested in attending an upcoming Duke Conversations event should join this listserv: https://dukeconversations.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e1f6ee96991bba4b9c595a979&id=bcf3221a55.