This week we travel to South America to visit Chile, one of the longest and narrowest countries in the world. One theory of the origin of the name “Chile” is that it came from the indigenous Mapuche word “chilli”, which means “where the land ends” or “the deepest point of the Earth”. Another interpretation is it came from the Mapuche imitation of a bird call, “cheele cheele”.
Yui Tsuzuki arrived in Durham six months ago with her husband, who is a visiting scholar at the Duke Law School. They call Japan home. In the following interview, Yui shares about her experiences as an International Spouse in the U.S.
How did you feel when you first arrived in the United States? What surprised you?
This week, we received a request from a member of our undergraduate international student community. As the only Gambian undergrad at Duke, he suggested that we highlight the flag of the Republic of the Gambia. We thought it was a great idea!
This week let’s explore the country where you can ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon of the same day!
Lebanon is located in the rocky area of West Asia known as the Levant, surrounded by Syria and Israel. The country is divided in 4 main geographical regions with the capital city located in Beirut. The other famous cities are Tripoli in the north and Tyre in the south. The name Lebanon means “white” in Phoenician, referring to the snowy mountains.
Collaboration & Change for a Common Good
A Reflection on Collaboration in Campus Life
India Pierce and Sean Novak
One way that we can work effectively to create change for a common good is to work collaboratively across communities. With this in mind, India Pierce from the Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity (CSGD) came together with Sean Novak from the Center for Multicultural Affairs (CMA) to create a program that explored the intersections of race and sexual orientation. As part of the CMA’s En/Countering Racism series (E/C), they created a program for students to gather and explore intersectionality. This was done in order to deepen participants’ understanding of themselves and others as a means to building stronger coalitions for social justice.
"I realized that by basing judgments about people off numbers (the statistics of 'illegals' who don't have documents) we take away the personal histories of this collection of people with different experiences. It's like saying, 'You are just a number. You are not who you think you are. You do not deserve your own personality. You are a number that I can manipulate as I please in an equation. I can reduce you. I can find your lmits. I can eliminiate you.' " Leslie Niiro, Duke Univ. Class of 2016
In honor of National Food Day and the beginning of the Green Devil Smackdown Competition, here's a blog written in April 2012 by Julianne Chiraz ('13), who was inspired by her experiences in a Duke Food Studies course in the spring of 2012.
My name is Kimberly McCrae and I recently transitioned to the Women's Center, as the Program Coordinator. My beginning date was August 1, 2012 and things have been moving at a rapid pace ever since! One of my first official engagements in this new chapter in my life was co-teaching a workshop with Sean Novak, a man of many talents, (Did you know he can rap?) for Project Change. This small group of incoming Freshmen was somewhat omnipresent during their week-long experience in the program...they were EVERYWHERE! They had a full week of immersion experiences, explicitly intended to prepare them for life here at Duke, in Durham and in the world at large. I must say that these P-Changers were energetic, inquisitive, intelligent, bold, talkative and creative. There are many ways to be a leader and this group held within it many great examples of leadership that I'm sure will emerge m
