Hey everyone!
My name is Cyan and I am currently a freshman here at Duke. I’m from New York so I’m a bit far from home, but my experiences at Duke make it worth the travel. What I really love about my school, and part of my decision to come here, had to do with all of the opportunities that are offered. I came here telling myself to take advantage of the resources that I have while I can.
Dear Duke Families,
As I look out my office window, I have the privilege of seeing our students walking (and rushing) by between classes, meals, meetings and study venues. So many things are apparent on the rare occasion that I get to just pause and admire the passersby. I notice that many seem either immune to the winter chill or in denial about the need to wear warmer clothes! I notice that rarely is anyone walking alone. Students travel in pairs, groups and masses! I notice that some kind of technological device is apparently welded to their ears or their palms (hopefully talking or texting with you). But, I also notice how remarkably different they are, reflecting the substantial and wonderful diversity within the Duke student body.
Maya Angelou entered my life at a time when I very much needed to see someone who looked like me, both in body and in spirit, doing and being something unconventional. I remember reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and hanging onto every word. I was in my first semester of college, at Pace University in New York, and dealing with a particularly trying and debilitating trauma that had recently occurred in my life. A dear friend had recommended this text to me. I didn’t know then that it would serve to reconnect me to pieces of myself that had been silenced/I had silenced.
It is a special cohort of students that is able to claim itself as Literature majors at Duke University, and I consider myself extremely lucky to call myself one of that small group of ten that graduated from the department just two years ago. However, I must warn you - though I am proud to call it mine now, it wasn't always so.
When asked to submit reflections on leadership, I immediately desired to have the reflection correlate with the topical focus of ethos and leadership.
Dear PNMs,
By Write(H)ers participant Lillie Reed, T'14
In fourth grade, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. I wore pants to school that were fully ripped up the butt, and not just one time. I let my mom give me a bowl cut – again. I allowed my classmates to nickname me “Beaner”, which neither they nor I realized was a racial slur (made especially inappropriate by its application to the only mildly Hispanic person in the class). Exercising a complete lack of oversight, my mom then let me sew this name on a backpack. This is, perhaps, the most embarrassing thing I have ever worn on my body for two straight years.
Submitted by Deja Beamon.
Summer in the city means … Deja’s broke. That was all that was on my mind as I boarded a plane back to Duke. The new housing model had made me opt to move off campus and it was time to grow up. I didn’t exactly know what was in store however. And did you know that real life apartments don’t come with furniture? Yeah, me either. So I was on a plane to a new home but did not know how I’d buy a mattress. Sounds fun, right?
Submitted by Dr. Zoila Airall, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs for Campus Life
Blogging towards cultivating consciousness
