Blog

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

There are those who talk and there are those who do.  WHO (Women's Housing Option) does.  This living group has set themself apart as more than just a place for women to live.  Concepts like "safe space", "social advocacy" and "community efficacy" come to mind when looking at the stirring and dynamic new campaign that was launched last week.  Body image issues are a reality in many of our lives.  The statistics that support this truth are alarming as words are spoken with little or no thought given to the lasting psychological impact that is left in the wake of commentaries on women's bodies.  It is encouraging to see that, with the photo expertise of Ashley Tsai, this group of women has created space to invite conversation, expand thought provoking images and develop the tools to initiate positive change.  All of our lives are affected when even one life is disrupted by the inability

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.

Many folks around the nation have embraced the “Eat Local” movement, in regard to meat, produce and dairy, but not much attention has been paid to fish. EAT LOCAL FISH DAY on Tuesday, 9/25 will introduce you to sustainable seafood.

Please join Duke Dining and Bon Appetit Management Company at the Marketplace on East Campus on Tuesday, 9/25 at lunchtime, for the Eat Local Fish Challenge. Helpful apps, recipes and extensive research will be available to all and sustainable fish populations will be highlighted.

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

Greetings all!!  I'm a Program Coordinator at the Duke Student Wellness Center, and I have the privilege on reporting from an incredibly exciting event!