Members of the America’s Hallowed Ground Bass pose in front of their table at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections showcase. From left to right, curriculum designer Kendall Surfus, Duke University sophomore Irma Lopez, co-director Mike Wiley, Duke University Master of Public Policy student Crystal Card, and co-director Charlie Thompson. Photo credit: Sarah Rogers.
What do we mean when we say “hallowed ground”?
A signature program of the Kenan Institute for Ethics, America’s Hallowed Ground works with communities to tell the stories of sites connected to broader conflicts and struggles in American history. Often, these stories are about moments when America has fallen short of its ideals — like equality, justice, and democracy. In a term inspired by Lincoln’s Gettyburg Address, the sites are “hallowed” by the sacrifices of those who fought for these ideals — or were harmed by others’ attempts to subvert them.
One of these sites is in Wilmington, North Carolina, where white supremacists overturned the city government and massacred Black citizens in 1898. In a 2023 workshop, professional artists associated with America’s Hallowed Ground, including muralist Cornelio Campos, led Wilmington community members in unpacking the painful legacies of 1898 through painting, movement, song, visual arts, and writing.
Through a 2023–2024 Bass Connections project, which focuses on creating curricular materials, America’s Hallowed Ground hopes to help 7–12th grade students connect with local histories. As co-director Mike Wiley has noted, the arts are not only a powerful way of teaching us about the past: they help us to remember it. By taking part in virtual workshops, students can explore the meaning of historical sites in their own communities — deepening their connections to their homes, to our nation’s past, and, hopefully, to our nation’s future.
Watch the America’s Hallowed Ground Bass Connections Team talk about this project in the video below.
Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kenan Institute for Ethics hosted the three-day event “Ukraine at War: Life in a Time of Fear and Hope” on March 27–29, 2024. Traveling to Duke University from New York, California, the Hague, and even the frontlines of the war itself, “Ukraine at War” speakers shared their experiences with hundreds of students and community members through class visits, workshops, performances, and events.
Highlighting the war’s devastating impacts on the country’s infrastructure, military, civilians, and even ecological health, “Ukraine at War” and its associated events explored the ways in which people respond ethically to war — whether by witnessing, fighting, commemorating, or repairing. At the same time, it showcased the remarkable resilience of the Ukrainian people and the ways that they sustain themselves and their community through their national identity, language, and arts. “Including the arts and personal narratives in this program really brought together the local community and a real sense of hope — something as equally necessary as the historical facts and socio-political analysis of this war,” wrote one audience member.
Through their words and actions, the speakers of “Ukraine at War” emphasized that even when a society is confronted with an all-encompassing crisis, we are not powerless: everyone has agency, and everyone has something they can do. The photos below touch on some of the stories they shared.
Through Documentary Films, Portraits of Ukraine at War
On the evening of Wednesday, March 27, two events showcased the experiences of Ukrainians in the first months of the war. An interview with champion rock climber Jenya Kazbekova highlighted one athlete’s commitment to representing her nation, and a screening of the Academy Award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” showed audiences the devastating human costs of the city’s siege in the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Champion rock climber Jenya Kazbekova speaks to a capacity audience at Yonderlust, a cafe and outdoor recreation shop in downtown Durham. The venue held a sneak preview screening of a REELROCK 18 documentary on Ukrainian rock climbers returning to Kyiv for a national competition after the war broke out, titled “Climbing Never Die.”
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Dima Zlenko (left), a graduate student at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, and David Toole, director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics, speak to the audience before the screening of the Academy Award-winning documentary film, ”20 Days in Mariupol.” About 100 people attended the screening.
Photo by Summer Steenberg.
The documentary covers Russia's 2022 siege of the city of Mariupol and its devastating human impacts. Members of the audience audibly wept at the scenes in which doctors were unable to save the lives of children fatally injured in bombings.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Lunch and Learning Across Duke’s Schools
Showcasing speakers’ remarkable breadth of expertise, midday events on Thursday, March 28 focused on issues such as mental health resources for Ukrainians impacted by the war, the ecological impacts of war on Ukraine’s soil, and the documentation of war crimes for international criminal court cases. Events took place at the Sanford School of Public Policy, the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Duke Law School.
Clinical psychologist Alla Prokhovnik-Raphique speaks during an event at the Sanford School of Public Policy's Child & Family Policy Center.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Dr. Prokhovnik-Raphique describes the devastating psychological impact of the war on Ukrainian families and the pressing need for mental health services. “There is a risk of vicarious psychological trauma and numbness even for those who are not directly affected," she said.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Ecologist Nina Fontana faces the audience at a lunchtime event at the Nicholas School of the Environment hosted by the Duke Conservation Society and Net Impact Club UNC.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Fontana's work focuses on the ecological impacts of war, such as the contamination and compression of soil from land mines.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Viktoriia Grivina gestures as she speaks at the Nicholas School of the Environment alongside Dr. Fontina. A Ph.D. candidate in anthropology, her work focuses on the ecology of cities — such as Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine that has faced heavy bombardment from Russia.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Ewa Hofmańska speaks at the Duke Law School in an event cosponsored by the Center for International Comparative Law. A lawyer, Hofmańska is the project manager for Project Sunflower, which collects evidence of war crimes committed in Ukraine for use in post-conflict accountability proceedings.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Finding Respite in Traditional Ukrainian Arts
Pysanky, or Easter eggs, are a traditional Ukrainian folk art. Amid “Ukraine at War” events, which happened to be scheduled during Easter week, Duke Arts Create hosted a pysanky workshop for students, staff, and other community members in the Duke Arts Annex.
A workshop participant gestures at a sheet displaying several designs for Pysanka, or traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs. Duke Arts Create partnered with the Kenan Institute for Ethics on this workshop in the days leading up to Easter.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Nina Fontana (right) speaks to a workshop participant. In addition to presenting her ecological research, Dr. Fontana led this workshop on creating pysanky, an art form she learned from her mother, a refugee from Ukraine.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
A participant laughs as she writes her design. The inspiring and sustaining role of the cultural arts during dark times was a key theme of the three-day event.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Showcasing the Power of the Arts Amid Conflict
The keynote event of “Ukraine at War” shared the struggles of Ukrainians, whether refugees, soldiers, or those with loved ones living or fighting in war zones. But it also showed the places where they find strength — singing together, writing poetry, and in the belief and knowledge that they are not alone.
The event opened with Ukrainians in the Carolinas' Spivochi Ensemble singing traditional Ukrainian songs, including "Shchedryk," whose melody was later adapted into the English "Carol of the Bells." Several members of the ensemble are Ukrainian refugees.
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
David Toole, Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics, introduces Yaryna Chornohuz. Toole credited the Katz Family Fund for Women, Ethics, and Leadership for making the event possible.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Yaryna Chornohuz, a poet and combat medic who currently serves in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, addresses the audience. Chornohuz's address focused on her pride in fighting for her national identity as both a cultural ambassador for the Ukrainian language and on the frontlines of the war with Russia.
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
The poster for the event, featuring imagery from photographs of Kyiv in the aftermath of Russia's invasion, stands in the foreground as Chornohuz delivers her address.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Chornohuz says that Ukraine is fighting against "ten times bigger forces." In response to the rhetorical question “Why don't you just give up? Give Putin the land that he wants?” she described a class visit earlier that day, in which Professor Orin Starn displayed a map of Ukraine's occupied territories. "These cities [are] just not a map to us...To the end of my life, these territories will be Ukraine, and I’ll never stop thinking they are Ukraine.”
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
Chornohuz described the importance of United States support for the Ukrainian cause. "We still will fight, but if we [have] weapons, armed vehicles, tanks — we’re able to save these borders and liberate territories without paying a very high price and casualty rate." Chornohuz closed her remarks by reading several poems that she wrote on the war's frontlines.
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
Nadia Tarnawky, a singer and musicologist who specializes in Ukrainian folk singing, performs "Postcards from Another World," a multimedia presentation blending song, imagery, and video footage.
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
Tarnawsky coaches the audience to sing different melodies of a song, offering a simple, low-note version to reluctant singers.
Photo credit: Anna Wheless.
Bringing the event to a close, Tarnawsky leads the audience in the singing of a traditional Ukrainian song, ”Svyatyj Vechor.”
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Offering Perspectives From Research and Lived Experience
On the final day of “Ukraine at War,” speakers shared diverse perspectives from across their areas of expertise in two midday panels: “Sites of Violence, Sites of Resistance: Bodies, Ecologies, Communities & Music” and “Witnessing and Responsibility: Allocating Care in an Age of Global Crisis.”
Ecologist Nina Fontana points to an image of newspaper headlines reporting on the environmental devastation caused by the war in Ukraine. Her presentation demonstrated the impact of military strikes with a map showing artillery craters across Ukraine's landscape.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Following Fontana's presentation, which pointed out that the etymology of "ecology" comes from the Greek for "a place to live," Viktoriia Grivina discusses the ecology of cities through the example of Kharkiv, where she documents the urban population's resilience and ingenuity in the face of Russian bombardment.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Professional rock climber Jenya Kazbekova describes her journey to rediscover her purpose after fleeing Ukraine in the early days of the war. Initially despondent, she found inspiration by thinking about how she could promote the Ukrainian cause through her athletic competitions. "Since August 2022, I have competed and represented my country and the anthem of Ukraine has been played," she said. "It felt so meaningful that I can influence the situation just a little bit and show to the world how resilient is Ukraine."
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Alla Prokhovnik-Raphique speaks to the audience about the importance of ensuring that mental health services are prioritized along with aid in order to minimize trauma.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Nadia Tarnawsky speaks about the role of music in places of conflict in a time of war, its function as a "uniter of people," and the importance of preserving it.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
Mila Yutskevych, a master's student at North Carolina State University, responds to another audience member's question about misinformation on Ukraine during a post-panel Q&A.
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.
The audience waits for the second panel to begin after a lunchnbreak. Over 50 people attended the closing "Ukraine at War" events at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
Ewa Hofmańska describes the role of international criminal court proceedings in driving accountability for war crimes. "Nothing can happen unless evidence can be gathered," she said, hence the importance of organizations like Project Sunflower, which are dedicated to that purpose.
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
Hanna Dosenko (left), a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology, speaks about her fieldwork tracking how the bodies of Ukrainians killed in battle are returned home. "I wanted to write about a terrible job that is invisible," she said.
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
Yaryna Chornohuz gestures to the areas of Ukraine where she fought on the frontlines of the war. Most people have heard of the war's devastating impact on cities like Mariupol, Chornohuz said, but "there's lots of small villages that even Ukrainians don’t know these names" that also suffered attacks.
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
"My most difficult experience as combat medic is evacuating from a basement a wounded ten-year-old boy," Chornohuz said. "We heard the screams in this house, and found there the boy who was very pale. And he said he has pain in his chest. [We saw] a small wound where shrapnel came." She and her unit transported the boy and his family members out of the war zone to a hospital. "[His mother] asked me, "'What am I to do?' I said, "Go wherever, but don’t go back to here.'"
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
American journalist Terrell Starr speaks about his experiences covering the war on the ground in Ukraine, embedded in military defense units. "Why the hell are we not supporting Ukraine?" he asked, referring to the 2024 aid package that was stalled in the United States Congress at the time of the event. Starr called upon the audience to challenge power in "an equitable, morally consistent way.'"
Photo credit: Sean Taylor.
Acknowledgments
The Kenan Institute for Ethics is grateful for the Katz Family Fund for Women, Ethics, and Leadership for making these events possible. We also owe thanks to our partners in the Duke and Durham communities who hosted “Ukraine at War” speakers for class visits and other events, enabling them to connect with much wider audiences during their brief time in Durham.
Professor of Cultural Anthropology Orin Starn first proposed that the Kenan Institute for Ethics organize an event on Ukraine during the fall of 2022. We are grateful for this inspiration of his, as well as his persistence amid many delays and obstacles in bringing it to fruition.
Summer Steenberg, a Duke University Ph.D. Candidate in Cultural Anthropology, played an essential role in organizing “Ukraine at War” events — both in conceptualizing them and in making them happen. This event would not have been possible without her.
”Ukraine at War” speakers pose with Kenan Institute for Ethics staff and collaborators. From left to right, Kenan Institute for Ethics Program Director Hillary Train, Summer Steenberg, Yaryna Chornohuz, Hanna Dosenko, Ewa Hofmańska, Viktoriia Grivina, David Toole, Alla Prokhovnik-Raphique, Jenya Kazbekova, Nadia Tarnawsky, and Nina Fontana.
The Kenan Institute for Ethics seeks applications from current, regular-rank Duke faculty to become the Peter Lange Director of DukeEngage. The deadline for applications is April 8, 2024.
The ideal candidate will have a record of community-engaged scholarship and teaching, the capacity to collaborate with peers and staff members, and experience with academic service and/or community-building that demonstrates excellent potential for leadership. We are looking for an energetic person who will help lead ongoing efforts to adapt the past and current successes of DukeEngage to the shifting landscapes of higher education and the world.
Background
DukeEngage was launched in the summer of 2007 with the ambition to change the way students learn about the world, about the challenges facing specific communities, and about the potential to draw on community assets to address those challenges. Since then, more than 5,500 Duke undergraduates have participated in the program. DukeEngage now sends roughly 200 students into the field each summer for eight-weeks of immersive experience in communities in the United States and around the world.
In summer 2023, students participated in twenty-two programs in thirteen countries outside the United States, from Paraguay and Brazil to Oman and Jordan to South Africa and South Korea. Sites for domestic programs included Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, Orange County, CA, and Washington, DC. Programs are populated with six to ten students and designed by Duke faculty and staff in collaboration with community partners on a wide variety of topics: health, education, conservation, sustainable development, immigration, democracy, science and technology, and so on.
Job Description
The director will work closely with the director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the associate director of DukeEngage on all aspects of the design and implementation of DukeEngage, from strategic and financial planning to the successful fielding of summer programs. Responsibilities include:
adapting the program to a changing culture inside and outside the University;
integrating DukeEngage with other projects in the Kenan Institute;
assessing existing projects, via site visits when time allows;
developing pilots to experiment with new models;
connecting with similar programs in other institutions;
articulating the program’s strategic vision to diverse audiences;
recruiting and onboarding directors for new summer project teams;
aiding with project design, and mentoring project team leads as appropriate;
convening project directors and marshaling their input on program aims and implementation;
guiding the development of content for pre-program trainings and post-program reentry for students
strengthening the curricular aspects of the program’s co-curricular identity;
linking DukeEngage appropriately to Duke’s efforts to build enduring partnerships with Durham and other communities in the Carolinas; and
developing collaborations with other Duke units and programs, not least Duke Service Learning, the new Center for Community Engagement, the Office of Durham and Community Affairs, the Focus Program, and Bass Connections.
The DukeEngage director, in their role as director, will report to the director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics and will work closely with the four full-time staff who run the day-to-day operations of the program. In addition to the above duties, expectations are that the faculty director will direct a DukeEngage program each summer and will continue to teach in a way that models possibilities for making connections between DukeEngage programs and the wider curriculum. Effort percent is negotiable, but will be substantial; as a result, the endorsement of a candidate’s department chair, or school dean as applicable, will be crucial.
Send queries to David Toole (david.toole@duke.edu). To apply, candidates should send a letter of interest, a two-page statement discussing their philosophy of community engagement, a CV, and the names of three references to Kim Dorman (kimberly.dorman@duke.edu). The deadline for applications is April 8. The goal is to have a director in place by July 1.
Part of the The Purpose Project at Duke, What Now? is a network of first-year courses across the disciplines where questions of happiness, purpose, and other ethical concepts are key. Once-a-week experiential learning sessions bring What Now? students and faculty together to explore resources at Duke, develop connections, and to reflect on the ideas presented in their courses.
What Now? also offers three-week “mini-courses” that allow students to learn from faculty members across the network. Written by Audrey Patterson, this article about Lisa Andres’s mini-course on Taylor Swift was originally published in the Duke Chronicle.
After a three-week lesson series on the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs, these students knew “All Too Well” about the broader implications of what the pop singer represents.
Lisa Andres, lecturing fellow of the Thompson Writing Program, has been delving into the lyrical prowess and rhythms of Taylor Swift as part of the “What Now?” ethics half-credit course.
Throughout the three-week miniseries, Andres guided her class through an exploration of several albums including “Midnights,” “Reputation” and “Lover.”
Andres wrote in an email to The Chronicle that Swift’s autobiographical songwriting traced her “shifting conceptions of happiness in the wake of broken hearts, media scrutiny and emotional growth,” as well as the cultural response to these changes.
While the series offers an outlet for Swifties to find new songs to add to their playlists, Andres hopes that exploring the lyricism and cultural context of different phases of Swift’s life will help students consider their own journeys and interactions with the changing world around them.
In one class, Andres projected the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “I Forgot That You Existed” and pressed play on her computer. After a couple of minutes of foot tapping, lip-syncing and head bobbing, Andres asked the class how they perceive the lyrics in the wake of a male artist’s public bashing of Swift.
Lisa Andres, lecturing fellow of the Thompson Writing Program, speaks to her class. Photo credit: Amy Zhang.
Andres delved into a discussion about indifference and moving on as a takeaway for students.
“I think for me personally, when I listen to music I don’t often think about the lyrics behind it or the meaning … I think analyzing it is really important because you can learn more about the artist,” first-year Saanvi Cherukumalli said.
Despite teaching about Swift’s musical work, Andres wants students to learn beyond Swift and more about what she represents.
“Things that belong to popular culture — like Disney, like Harry Potter, like Taylor Swift — are often more powerful teachers because people don’t see them as purposefully pedagogical,” Andres wrote. “Yet they often reveal — with startling clarity — the larger questions and struggles we’re currently trying to navigate.”
Andres showed clips of Taylor Swift’s documentary “Miss Americana,” which captures moments from her early life and her humble beginnings as a young country singer. First-year Andrew Sample spoke about how the documentary juxtaposes Taylor’s massive success and how it has “weighed on her in a way that very few have ever experienced.”
Students in the course also analyzed “You’re On Your Own Kid,” a personal narrative on Swift’s recent “Midnights” album.
“To hear that message even though we have very different opinions on her and her music … There is something unifying about a statement of ‘You have what it takes to take the next step,’” Sample said.
Andres hopes that even if students aren’t fans of Taylor Swift, the class at least gives them a new perspective they can approach her and her music with. She wants students to ultimately reflect on their own growth throughout their lives and first year at Duke.
“Do I think students need to know about Taylor Swift specifically? Not necessarily. But I think looking at her catalog of music — the stories she tells, the growth she demonstrates — and at her cultural impact provides fascinating insight into how we’re navigating this current climate,” Andres wrote.
In this column, originally published in the Duke Chronicle as “DukeEngage Democracy at Risk: An Unlikely Ally,” Gabrielle Mollin T’26 reflects on how working on common goals can bring people from across the political spectrum together — and make it harder to stereotype your political opponents.
Illustration by Yunyi Dai.
As campus conversations begin to spiral about finding the right summer internship, I can’t help but think about my time last summer at DukeEngage’s Democracy at Risk program. Upon arriving in D.C., I had my work cut out for me. Our program’s goal of helping fix American democracy was lofty, and on top of that, I would be working for the “other side.” This Republican organization was committed to defeating Donald Trump in 2024, even if it meant turning against the majority of the Republican Party. Yet as I embarked on my internship at Longwell Partners, where I would devote hours a day filming testimonials with two-time Trump voters regarding their decision to move on from the indicted, impeached and immoral former president for the 2024 election, I often found myself wondering: how did our country get here?
In search of answers, I quickly found my way back to a trusty book from my political science class at the start of my first year at Duke that I’d brought along as a D.C. read (thanks Professor Vanberg). As I opened my heavily annotated copy of “How Democracies Die,” I slowly peeled off the first pink sticky note I saw and dove into the section on the “closet autocrat,” where I soon found some answers.
Gabrielle Mollin. Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Mollin.
The “closet autocrat” bore all too many similarities to the man I’d spent my whole summer crusading against: Donald Trump. The chapter explained the nuances of outsider politicians — how they can rise to the top of a democratic institution with “rebel appeal” despite closeted disdain for democratic values.
As Donald Trump campaigned to label the media and political opponents as “terrorists,” with which his followers swiftly agreed, it became easier for him to justify actions against such groups and our democracy as he took the White House and fought back against leaving it. Even further, because Trump’s claim to fame deepened our culture of polarization and hostility, his words had a “boomerang effect.” Threatened, the media ditched restraint and professionalism in an attempt to undermine the government. Embattled, political opponents ditched restraint and professionalism in an attempt to undermine the government. The very people and institutions Trump baselessly condemned turned into what his voters feared most.
So it seems Trump invented a democratic crisis to get elected, but then he created that very crisis by stoking fear throughout his base. And when people are afraid, it’s easier for them to support quasi-authoritarian expansions of executive power (look at public favor for the USA PATRIOT Act after 9/11 or for Japanese internment camps during WW2). When these crises are invented by demonizing political rivals, thereby furthering polarization, politicians like Trump may feel justified to employ any means necessary to defeat opponents. And even if such actions are antidemocratic, citizens support them because they too fear the opponent.
But while Trump poses a definitive threat to our democracy, his power came from a fault within our political system: people don’t feel represented by their government. On nearly every testimonial call I had while interning at Longwell, two-time Trump voters cite Trump’s business skills and real-life experience as his primary appeal in 2016. Though they grew to resent his narcissism and vindictive rhetoric, Trump’s uninhibited politics managed to break down the barrier between most everyday Americans and the political sphere. So while Trump arguably embodies patient zero for the deep polarization that infects American society, he also signals a yearning within the American public for their politicians to fulfill Lincoln’s famed national promise of “government of the people, for the people, and by the people.”
The Republican firm I worked at knew where our democracy was headed with Trump, and like me, they wanted to change it. My friends jeered at me, a left-leaning New Yorker, spending eight weeks in a D.C. office with a bunch of Republicans. I laughed along, but after some time I didn’t find their jokes all that funny. Republican or not, the people at Longwell were committed to our democracy. They were committed to defending their party from Donald Trump. And they were committed to including me in the process, even though they knew I belonged to a different side of the political spectrum. What good was it to laugh at this group who had only been honorable in my eyes?
Now I’m no democracy expert, but I do know people. I know how easy it is to judge, to criticize, to laugh. I know it’s tempting to write off your political opponents when you’ve never even spoken to them, fomenting caricatures of uninformed bigots. I used to do that. But after talking with Stephen from South Carolina, Ross from Utah, Joanna from Tennessee and many more two-time Trump voters around the country who are now committed to his exile from the Republican party, I came to see our country in a new light.
I’m miles away from identifying with the Republican party, but I can no longer impose false narratives onto their voter base. And even though I never fully agreed with these people, I came to understand them. They were scared. They were angry. They were isolated. They wanted change. And I want change for them. We cannot continue to exclude them from our political future; that’s why we are where we are today. Continued isolation will only bring about more polarization, which will only further damage our democracy. We should know better by now.
So instead of sticking with people who think like me, comfortably yet critically looking down at the “other,” I spent my summer in deep conversation with fellow Americans whom I once foolishly perceived as the enemy, working together towards a common cause many want to claim as their own. And now, I’m urging you to try something like it…you might be surprised.
The Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics launched in 2022. Among its ongoing projects is the Duke in Prison educational initiative, which is currently recruiting Duke faculty interested in offering courses to Duke students and incarcerated students in local prisons.
Co-director James Chappel, Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History, taught in a prison in Butner, North Carolina last year — his first experience teaching in a prison. This interview with Chappel has been edited and condensed.
Chappel says that the differences between the Duke students and the incarcerated students “melted away” after the class got going — but reemerged, heartbreakingly, after class was over and only the Duke students were free to go home. Illustration by Yunyi Dai.
When did you first become interested in working in prisons?
Before I decided to become a historian, I wanted to be a lawyer, and I interned for a few summers at a public defender’s office in Florida, which led me to spend a fair amount of time in prisons working with clients. And this was before “The New Jim Crow” — I didn’t know about any of this stuff. It was heartbreaking just to see these people — almost entirely people of color — in prison for minor drug charges, and being treated in completely inhumane ways.
When I was post-tenure, and wondering how I could do the most good in the world from the position of a tenured faculty member, I returned to that experience. I’m a Christian, and I wanted to think about how I could serve the most marginalized groups in our society from an elite place like Duke. Prison education seemed like an obvious place to go.
How did you go about teaching in prison as a Duke faculty member?
Unlike a lot of our peer schools, Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences doesn’t have a prison education program. But the Duke Divinity School does. Its program has been around for 10 or 15 years, and it’s an awesome program.
Because my academic work is on religion, I was able to put together a graduate course, cross-listed between Trinity and the Divinity School. I taught a course on the history of theology at Butner Prison last year, to a class of about 10 incarcerated people and 10 Duke students, some from Trinity and some from Divinity.
I assume you had to do background checks and go through a process to get approved to teach at Butner?
Yes, I had to go through a long training, as did all the students, about how to comport yourself in a prison. We had to be certified and fingerprinted and things like that. It was kind of a process, and it’s one of the barriers to student participation, including the fact that students have to be 21. So, basically, they have to be either seniors or graduate students. And it requires a fair amount of flexibility in your schedule. This place is half an hour away, and you have to have transportation.
What do you think motivated the students, especially from Trinity, to take part in the class?
I think students are drawn to different kinds of educational experiences. It’s important to say that is not charity work. This is not an internship. This is actual learning, alongside incarcerated people in a space where the Duke students and incarcerated students are treated exactly the same. They get to have the same assignments, they have the same grades, they have the same materials — everything’s the same. I think that’s a pretty unique experience for Duke students, to have those kinds of lateral relationships with a population that we would not generally spend time with at all.
The context right now is that we’re in a moment where many of us, whether we’re students, faculty, or administrators, are a lot more aware than we were 10 or 20 years ago about the injustices of mass incarceration, our complicity with it, and our responsibility to do what we can about it.
How did you set up your classroom to help bridge the divide between the Duke students and the incarcerated ones?
I was more worried about it than I needed to be. For one thing, I was mentored by faculty with experience in the Divinity program, and I also had a teaching assistant, Rev. Dr. Louis Threatt, who has a lot of experience in these spaces. They helped me set up the class in a way that made people feel more comfortable. We staggered the seating to make sure that there was no physical separation between the Duke students and the incarcerated ones, and we built in way more time than usual for group projects and other ways to get to know each other socially. Both communities were very interested in getting to know each other.
It probably sounds a little bit hard to believe, but it really did feel like the differences between the two student groups melted away once the seminar got started. It was incredible to see the bonds of genuine connection and friendship forming between Duke students and incarcerated students.
What was your experience like, teaching incarcerated people?
I have never encountered a hunger for knowledge or education like I did with the incarcerated students, who are so grateful to be there. They would always tell me: “This is the part of my week that I look forward to the most, because we are talking about ideas. I’m being treated like a human being. You call me by my first name, instead of by a number.”
James Chappel
These people are smart. It did not feel like I had to talk to or teach them differently than the Duke students. They might have less formal education, but they have skills in reading and critical thinking. In my class, in particular, we were talking about religion, race, and power. In addition to their academic knowledge, which many of them did have, they also had life experiences that gave them, in some ways, a lot more insight than Duke students into how these things operate in the world.
I think a lot of Duke students — and Duke faculty, to be honest, including myself — we know the numbers. We know how bad it is. But it is a different feeling to spend two hours with these people talking about scholarly stuff, and then half of the group gets to go home, and half of the group doesn’t. The door slams behind you, and you see them walking back to their cells. And your heart just breaks for these people.
I think anybody who does it leaves thinking, “I can’t abandon these people.” We were allowed to have some email correspondence with the incarcerated students during the class, and at the end, one of them sent me this heartbreaking note that ended with “Don’t forget about us.” I think they feel so forgotten, and they are so forgotten.
One of the moral challenges of our time is: What can we do? What can we do from where we are? And because of where we sit at Duke, there is something we can do for this population. It’s something small, and it won’t solve the problem, but it’s something important nonetheless.
What can people at Duke do to help incarcerated people?
I want to acknowledge that there is already a lot of great work going on at Duke. The Prison Engagement Initiative was founded by the leaders of the Divinity School program, and it spent the first year of its operation doing a survey about what kind of work was happening at Duke. And a ton of work is happening at Duke. A lot of people are working on mass incarceration, especially in the Law School and in Public Policy. We want to build on that work and add to what Duke is already doing.
We are starting a Duke in Prison educational initiative, which will be led by myself and Chris Wildeman in Sociology. We are trying to bring together faculty who are interested in this work. Within, let’s say, the next two years, we hope to have a pipeline of classes between Trinity and a local prison.
Even if faculty aren’t sure they’ll be able to teach a whole class, they can still come in, because there are other opportunities — for instance, just coming in and giving a lecture about your research. Also, it’s important to say that if you want to get into this work, you’ll be trained. I had access to a lot of support.
The Prison Engagement Initiative is also organizing a Piedmont Prison Consortium, which is bringing together interested faculty from, right now, NC State, NC Central, and UNC-Chapel Hill. We had about 30 people from those schools at Kenan for a launch meeting in January. It was so exciting to see undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and administrators from across the region who are drawn to this work. We hope to move this forward with the help of Kenan, Duke’s new Center for Community Engagement, and university and community colleges across the Triangle region.
The goal is to set up a bachelor’s degree-granting program for incarcerated people. It’s very hard to get that set up. It requires a lot of classes. You have to deal with admissions, financial aid, degree credit transfers, and more. We’ve been working very hard on this, and we think it’s possible. We need help, though, so I hope that if anyone reading this feels called to this work, they’ll drop me a line. There’s always more to do.
An interest meeting for the Duke in Prison educational initiative is scheduled for Monday, February 19, 2024, at noon. If you are a Duke faculty member interested in joining, please email James Chappel and Chris Wildeman.
The Kenan Institute for Ethics seeks applications from current, regular-rank Duke faculty to become the Peter Lange Director of DukeEngage. The deadline for applications is April 8, 2024.
