Each summer DukeEngage relies on full-time Site Coordinators to support our faculty-led programs.
The Site Coordinator, reporting to their program director(s), is a key member of each DukeEngage program. Programs include evening commitments throughout the week, and on-site residence is required. Site Coordinators are on-call 24/7, and may not hold other employment or enroll in courses during the DukeEngage program. DukeEngage covers all site coordinator costs, including travel, housing, meals, and transportation, as well as necessary visas, vaccines, and other prophylactics. Site coordinators will be compensated $7,500 for the eight-week period.
Teaching on Purpose is an opportunity for Ph.D. students to cultivate their own sense of purpose as aspiring teachers who soon will be (and maybe already are) playing a vital role in the flourishing of undergraduates.
Teaching on Purpose will help you develop a robust teaching philosophy, create compelling courses, and incorporate pedagogical approaches that will enliven students’ intellects and shape the lives they lead. Moreover, as a Teaching on Purpose Fellow, you will be part of a dynamic interdisciplinary community of doctoral students and engage with faculty who care deeply about teaching.
Those pursuing the Certificate in College Teaching can earn course credit toward the certificate for participation in Teaching on Purpose.
HOW TO APPLY
Applications for spring 2024 are due December 1, 2023. Please review eligibility requirements and commitment before applying.
Faculty are also invited to nominate graduate students from their departments whom they believe are excellent candidates for this fellowship. To do so, please email Katherine Jo at katherine.jo@duke.edu.
Commitment
Weekly 2.5-hour sessions (Thursdays, 12–2:30PM, lunch provided), January 11–April 11 (no session March 14)
Final dinner on Thursday, April 18, time TBD
Must be able to attend most sessions, with no more than 2 absences due to prior engagements (prior notification required).
Weekly readings, written reflections, and practical assignments (3–4 hours/week
Award
$1000 upon completion of the program and fulfillment of the above commitments
Eligibility
Discipline: Ph.D. student in any discipline taught at the undergraduate level (at Duke or other institutions)
Status: Must have passed preliminary exams
No conflicts with other funding: Participation in this program must not conflict with policies of departmental or external funding sources.
Approval of DGS: Applicants must confirm at the time of application that their DGS is aware that they are applying. The Purpose Project team will reach out to the DGSs of selected applicants to confirm approval of participation.
Application questions
What would you say counts as successful teaching in college? How has your own undergraduate education informed your idea of what successful teaching is? What do you most want to learn in order to succeed as a college teacher? (500 words max)
How did you come to care about your discipline and the research you are pursuing? Why do you believe study of your discipline is worth pursuing? (250 words max)
If you could develop your own courses on any two topics, what would you love to teach? Write a brief but compelling description of each that not only informs students about what they will learn but also suggests why the subject is worth their attention. (150 words max each)
The long-running Kenan print publication “Good Question” has a new name and a new look. Now titled “Good Pursuits,” this series features reflections by Duke community members on how ethics animates their work.
In the new issue, we interview Michael Kliën, Professor of the Practice of Dance and director of the Laboratory for Social Choreography at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
By creating the conditions for groups of people to experience and imagine new possibilities through movement, Michael Kliën says, we can change the world.
“We can dig a lot into the structure of socialization simply by moving our bodies and asking questions.” – Michael Kliën
Print copies of the new issue of “Good Pursuits” are available at the Kenan Institute for Ethics office in 102 West Duke.
How does telling your own story help you figure out how to live your life? With the help of great thinkers, poets, and mystics, a new initiative of Duke Chapel and the Kenan Institute for Ethics offers students the chance to explore their own internal ethics through storytelling — and to ask how they might direct those beliefs into external action.
People typically think of college as a place for young adults to embark on journeys of self-discovery — getting to know people who are different from them, exploring new hobbies and intellectual interests, and learning how to be independent.
For Leah Torrey, college is also a time of moral formation, and with the help of storytelling, this can be just as fun as it is meaningful.
As the director of Say the Thing, a storytelling initiative launched by Duke Chapel in partnership with the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Torrey creates “meaning-making opportunities” for students to engage in ethical self-reflection. These can span from writing a poem at a pop-up event (or “Lark”) to six weekly sessions at “the Studio,” which helps students tell their own stories through reading and discussing works from “big thinkers” from across the disciplines.
“We’re trying to create a program where you can walk in from every door,” Torrey said.
During a “Lark” on the Bryan Center walkway on a sunny day in October, a student volunteer called out “Free art for your dorm!” to passers-by — who, after stopping out of curiosity, learned that they would be making the art themselves.
A prompt on the table read “What makes you come alive?” Taking up markers and sheets of pages from books, including a humble dictionary, participants blacked out words, sentences, and entire paragraphs, leaving their answer in a cluster of words comprising a mini-poem.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Taking up markers and pages from books, students blacked out words, sentences, and entire paragraphs, leaving their answer in a cluster of words comprising a mini-poem. Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
A student pauses between classes to respond to a question posed at a pop-up event organized by Say the Thing. Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
While Say the Thing is a secular, inclusive project, it draws from many influential thinkers, both religious and not. One key figure is Howard Thurman — professor, chaplain, and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., who is known as the “spiritual godfather” of the Civil Rights Movement.
“He’s often overlooked, but his philosophy undergirds all of this,” Torrey said.
Thurman’s book “Jesus and the Disinherited” focuses on a “minoritized man living in an oppressive society, who uses non-violent tactics to create systemic change,” Torrey said.
“You don’t need to be Christian to read it,” she added.
Another is “Meditations of the Heart,” she said, which drives home the message that “one has to look inwards and move outwards, back and forth….the inward analysis directs one’s outward actions.”
This resonates for Torrey, a former community organizer.
“In organizing,” she said, “the idea is that your story informs how you’re civically engaged, the actions you take.” She created the “Studio” curriculum to guide this kind of self-reflection.
The next phase of Say the Thing will see the launch of storytelling booths around campus. Supplying participants with prompts on ethical questions, these custom kiosks will record their responses, providing a record of their moral reckoning during a certain time.
Only the participants will have access to the cloud-hosted recording, which expires after a week. “You can download it or let it go,” Torrey said.
While Say the Thing playfully engages with technology, “it encourages a slow-down,” Torrey said. “The limits of older technologies have gifts to offer us.”
This is why she offers a Polaroid portrait to the people who stop and write a poem during a “Lark” — as a physical artifact of a potentially transformative moment in one’s life journey.
Learn more about Say the Thing doings and happenings by following their Instagram.
DURHAM, N.C. — The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and the Warren County Environmental Action Team will host an event at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 14 to showcase the exhibit “We Birthed the Movement: The Warren County PCB Landfill Protests, 1978-1982.” Speakers will include two community members who played leading roles in the original protests, Dollie Burwell and Wayne Moseley, and Director of the Warren County Environmental Action Team, Rev. William Kearney. This event is free and open to the public. Through archival photographs and materials, “We Birthed a Movement” offers a retrospective of a large, community-driven protest against N.C. Governor Jim Hunt’s 1978 decision to place a landfill for toxic waste in the small, majority Black town of Afton in Warren County. A multiracial, intergenerational coalition of citizens fought against the landfill for years, eventually committing civil disobedience in a 1982 protest, lying down in the roads to block the passage of the trucks carrying the PCB-laden soil.
Though the protests were ultimately unsuccessful at preventing the landfill, their legacy has endured. Forty years later, they are widely considered the beginning of the environmental justice movement.
“We Birthed a Movement” was originally created by staff at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library in collaboration with Warren County community members to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the protests. It is now on display at the Kenan-Keohane Gallery on the first floor of the West Duke Building on Duke University’s East Campus.
A photograph from the “We Birthed a Movement” exhibit shows Dollie Burwell (center, holding her hand against her neck) and Wayne Moseley (left, in striped polo shirt), as they gather with a crowd before a 1982 protest. Photo Credit: Jerome Friar.
In addition to viewing the exhibit, attendees of the public event on October 14 will have the opportunity to hear from two community members who played pivotal roles in the protests, Dollie Burwell and Wayne Moseley.
This event is brought to you by the Warren County Environmental Action Team, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and one of its signature programs Just Environments (a partnership with the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability).
Dollie Burwell led her community in the Warren County protests, organizing local meetings at Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church and recruiting national civil rights leaders to join the fight. She was eventually arrested and imprisoned for blocking the trucks carrying the PCB-laced soil. Later, she chaired a task force that secured over 25 million dollars from the state of North Carolina to detoxify the landfill. Widely recognized as a committed fighter for environmental justice in numerous media outlets, she was recently featured in The Washington Post’s coverage of the 40-year anniversary of the protests. She currently serves as Vice Chair on the board of directors of the Warren County Environmental Action Team, a dedicated network of organizations and individuals working together to document, celebrate, and share Warren County’s environmental justice legacy, natural resources, and diverse culture.
Wayne Moseley was one of the first Warren County citizens to be arrested during the protests. He co-directed “Warren County: Birth of a Movement,” a documentary that tells the story of the citizens of Warren County and their contributions to the movement for environmental justice. Retired in 2019 after a 47-year career in post-secondary education, he continues to advocate for social justice. He is a member of the Warren County Environmental Action Team board of directors.
Rev. William Kearney will join the two speakers in reflecting on the movement’s legacy and will moderate a conversation to follow. Rev. Kearney is Director and Board Chair of the Warren County Environmental Action Team and the organizer of the Warren County African American History Collective. He partners with UNC-Chapel Hill on several community-engaged research initiatives, in addition to advising and consulting with other universities and organizations across the state and nation. He currently serves as Associate Minister and health ministry coordinator at Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church.
The program will be followed by a light reception.
Parking on Duke University’s East Campus is free and open to the public and operates on a first-come, first-served basis. A few spots close to the building are reserved for attendees requiring greater accessibility. If you find East Campus parking full, free street parking is available along Buchanan and the adjacent side streets. Should you or someone you know require accessible parking, please reach out to Jac Arnade-Colwill at jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu. The Kenan-Keohane Gallery is wheelchair accessible via a basement entrance on the north side of the building and the elevator to the first floor.
Event Details: Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023 Time: The gallery will open at 3:00 p.m., the program will take place between 4–4:45 p.m., and the gallery will close at 6:00 p.m. For those who cannot attend the event, the exhibit will remain on view until mid-November. The gallery is open during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. Location: Kenan-Keohane Gallery, on the first floor of the West Duke Building, East Campus, Duke University
Duke Today recently surveyed ongoing environmental justice research at Duke, highlighting the work of Kay Jowers, the Director of Just Environments at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability.
Jowers emphasizes that transforming existing physical infrastructure to address persistent racial inequality is a challenge. While attitudes around race may have changed over the past century, the legacies of segregation still shape the built environment. This can lead to disproportionately negative environmental impacts on Black communities.
“This is about the built-in environment that already exists. So we are not going to wipe the slate clean with the existing landfills. We cannot rebuild all the housing stock in Durham,” said Jowers.
Jowers says we also have to acknowledge that institutions like Duke have contributed to these conditions; for instance, by selling properties with racial covenants in the neighborhoods surrounding West Campus in the ‘30s and ‘40s.
“It’s important to be sensitive to the role institutions have played in the impact of racially restrictive covenants.” – Kay Jowers
Read the full article by Thomasi Mcdonald about Jowers and other environmental justice programs on the Duke Today website.
Each summer DukeEngage relies on full-time Site Coordinators to support our faculty-led programs.
Duke Today recently surveyed ongoing environmental justice research at Duke, highlighting the work of