Teaching on Purpose is a fellowship program that prepares doctoral students as educators who are committed to helping today’s undergraduates lead lives of meaning and purpose.
Teaching on Purpose brings doctoral students and faculty together to explore what it means to be a good teacher of undergraduates and to learn educational practices that will help their students flourish. Today’s college students are grappling with questions of purpose and meaning — questions about who they are and want to become and how to make sense of life — amidst the pressures of college and the increasing uncertainty and complexity of the world. Professors (and graduate students who teach) are uniquely positioned to help students explore how they understand themselves and the world during this pivotal time in their lives.
Teaching on Purpose is an opportunity for graduate 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.
This fellowship will benefit any doctoral student with a heart for teaching undergraduates regardless of teaching experience. If you have taught previously, you’ll be able to reflect on your teaching experience in concrete ways and gain a deeper and broader understanding of your practices. If you are currently teaching, you’ll have the opportunity to discuss some of the challenges you are encountering and immediately try out some new approaches. If you don’t have experience teaching yet, you can develop a foundation for your teaching practice that will enable you to be intentional in your role as an educator.
Questions we’ll explore include:
- What’s the purpose of college and the university, and how might that inform one’s purpose as an educator?
- What kind of teacher-student relationship supports meaningful learning?
- What are the challenges college students face as emerging adults, and how do we meet them where they are to help them flourish not only as students but as human beings?
- How do we connect our subject matter to the “big questions” that undergraduates are grappling with?
- What is our responsibility in responding to students’ anxiety and other mental health issues?
- What role do higher education institutions and our classroom practices play in promoting (or undermining) democracy and justice?
- How do we create a classroom community that is a safe learning environment for students to take risks and discuss difficult topics?
How to Apply
Applications are closed for the Fall of 2022.
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 Jesse Summers at jesse.summers@duke.edu.
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 DGSs are aware that they are applying. The Purpose Project team will reach out to the DGSs of selected applicants to confirm approval of participation.
Commitment:
- Weekly 2.5-hour sessions (Tuesdays, 12-2:30PM, lunch provided), September 6-November 29 (no session October 11)
- Must be able to attend most sessions, with no more than 2 absences due to prior engagements (prior notification required).
- Modest preparation outside of sessions, such as short readings and written reflections (~2 hours/week)
Award
- $3000 stipend
Application requirements
Short essays
- What do you find most rewarding about teaching undergraduates? If you have not had the opportunity to teach undergraduates yet, what would you most look forward to? (200 words max)
- Why are you interested in the Teaching on Purpose Fellowship program? (200 words max)
- If you could develop your own course on any topic, what would you love to teach? Write a brief course description. (150 words max)
Questions?
Contact Katherine Jo (katherine.jo@duke.edu) or Jesse Summers (jesse.summers@duke.edu).
Congratulations to our Fall 2022 Teaching with Purpose Fellows!
Christina Carnes Ananias
Christina Carnes Ananias is a candidate in the Doctor of Theology program at Duke Divinity School, where her research focuses on the intersection of systematic theology and modernist visual art. Having worked with artists and students for over a decade, Christina taught various art history courses at Charleston Southern University before returning to Duke and now speaks throughout the U.S. on Christianity and the arts. In her doctoral work, she weaves together Christology, late modern philosophy, and the paintings of the French modernists. Carnes Ananias was the inaugural holder of the Bowden fellowship for theology and the visual arts at Duke. An example of her work can be found in Contemporary Art and the Church (IVP, 2017).
Fernanda Andrade
Fernanda Andrade is a Ph.D. candidate in the Social Psychology program. She was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and moved to the U.S. in 2011 to pursue her B.A. in Psychology from Millersville University. Fernanda studies the skills and strategies that people use to pursue their goals, especially as they relate to health, and why people do not always succeed. Fernanda received her M.A. in Psychology from Duke University in 2020 and an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Towson University in 2018. In her spare time, Fernanda is an aspiring artist and avid reader of fantasy novels.
Suhyen Bae
Suhyen Bae is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science. Her research explores how social isolation and loneliness affect political participation and attitudes with a focus on political extremism on social media. She is broadly interested in advancing computational social science research, also working on projects involving Twitter networks and social media campaign advertisements. She is passionate about translating her research into teaching and hopes to learn diverse pedagogical approaches to teach about emerging topics on social media and political science in a way that is relevant to students. Before coming to Duke, she received her BA and MA in Political Science and International Relations with honors and distinction from Seoul National University in South Korea.
Ryan Bouabid
Ryan Bouabid is a Ph.D. candidate in the Physics Department. He is a nuclear and particle experimentalist who works on detecting rare physics events. Since coming to Duke, he has been passionate about teaching. In 2020 he won the Mary Creason Memorial Award, and in 2021 he won the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)’s Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Ryan is from Morocco and immigrated to the United States at a young age.
Cristina Carnemolla
Cristina Carnemolla holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and a M.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Catania (Italy). She also obtained a M.A. in Romance Languages from the University of Oregon. Her academic interests are multiple, and encompass gender studies, especially intersectionality, Mediterranean and transatlantic studies, and critical theory. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Romance Studies at Duke University. Her dissertation project, entitled “From the ‘Southern Question’ to ‘Southern Thought’: South as a Method”, attempts at bridging the gap between decolonial theories and Global South studies, by focusing on literary and cultural production in Spain, Italy, and Latin America at the turn of the 19th century.
Aidan Combs
Aidan Combs is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology department at Duke. Her work centers on how identities affect and are affected by interaction, especially interactions that occur in anonymous contexts or between strangers. She holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics and Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She believes it is important to teach undergraduates of all academic backgrounds to see and think critically about the social forces that shape their work, lives, and world, and is pursuing the Certificate in College Teaching.
Richard Hall
Richard Hall is a Ph.D. candidate in the Pratt School of Engineering, where he works in the Bridgeman Lab. His research interests include model predictive control and switched systems. Richard grew up about an hour east of Dallas in Lone Oak, TX, where he discovered a love for engineering. While studying at LeTourneau University for an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, he developed a passion for teaching. Since then, he has been pursuing a teaching career and came to Duke with that purpose in mind. Outside of school, Richard serves as a youth leader in his church, goes backpacking with his wife whenever possible, and tinkers on random projects (especially 3D printers and espresso machines).
Dana Hogan
Dana Hogan is a PhD candidate in Art History and is enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Gender & Feminist Studies as well as the Certificate in College Teaching. Her doctoral project, “Expanding Worlds: Women Artists and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Early Modern Europe (Working Title)” foregrounds women in the study of cross-cultural circulation of artists and works of art, as well as their subjects and objects. While at Duke she has mentored other graduate students and undergraduate students through the Bass Connections projects Building Duke and Project Vox, and as a Trinity College Peer Mentor. Her approach as an instructor is grounded in connecting historic subject matter and methods with students’ individual goals, strengths, and opportunities for growth.
Arvind Krishnamurthy
Arvind Krishnamurthy is a Ph.D candidate in Political Science at Duke. Prior to Duke, he graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 2017 with a B.A in Political Science. His research focuses on the relationship between democratic institutions and the criminal justice system in America. His dissertation examines how democratizing policing changes the behavior of police officers and attitudes of the mass public.
Anna Kudla
Anna Kudla is a PhD candidate in Biology. Her research focuses on insect diversity, which she studies through investigations of development and evolution. Her recent work concentrations on the shape differences among species in the insect Family, Membracidae. The amazing 3D forms they take on to look like plant parts, wasps, caterpillar droppings, among other things arises from a single structure called the pronotum. In most insects, the pronotum is a simple flat plate just behind the head. Prior to Duke, Anna worked as a Teach for America corps member in Tulsa, Oklahoma teaching 9th grade biology. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor’s in biology and a minor in English.
David Leonhardt
David is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Duke Religion Department specializing in the New Testament and Second Temple Judaism. He received a BA in Religion from Western Kentucky University in 2013 and a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity in 2017. David’s research focuses on the development of Jewish and Christian identities in antiquity, and he has presented his research at the National Society of Biblical Literature Conference. David’s main passion is teaching and has taught “Introduction to the New Testament” at Duke University in 2021. He looks forward to designing new courses that will engage student development and curiosity.
Vladimir Lukin
Vladimir Lukin is a PhD candidate in the Program in Literature. He is a film and media studies scholar who is interested in how cultural imaginaries shape our vision of technology and account for the differences in its cultural acceptance. In his dissertation, he traces the cultural history of cybernetics in the USSR and explores how Soviet media—pop-science magazines, films, and sci-fi novels—produced a distinct ‘trustful’ image of the computer. Prior to his time at Duke, he worked as a cultural journalist and managing editor for various Russian media outlets and became interested in pedagogy while working as a mentor for interns.
Josue Nataren
Josue Nataren is a PhD candidate in the Biomedical Engineering program studying the heart and developing computational models to study diseases from a multi-physics, multi-scale perspective like Fibrosis and Atrial Fibrillation. He was born and raised in El Salvador. He came to the US in 2015 to Michigan State University to get his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Biomechanics. After graduating in 2019, he started the PhD program here at Duke that same year. Josue enjoyed being an undergraduate learning assistant in his undergrad career for two years; that motivated him to seek opportunities to keep teaching. He taught a pre-college program the summer of 2022, and he is excited to keep developing his teaching skills.
Matthew Reale-Hatem
Matthew Reale-Hatem is a fourth year Ph.D candidate in the University Program in Environmental Policy. Their research interests are in the economics of natural resources, and currently include projects exploring disease management in aquaculture and ecosystem restoration programs. Prior to Duke, Matthew received a B.A. in Mathematics with a minor in Economics from Pomona College, and has worked as an educator in elementary schools, including a term of service with AmeriCorps.
Anita Simha
Anita Simha is a community ecologist interested in how legacies from the past can influence ecological communities in the present day. Currently, they are a PhD candidate in the University Program in Ecology and are jointly pursuing a Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and a Certificate in College Teaching. They received a BS in Quantitative Biology from UNC Chapel Hill in 2017. As a member of Duke Biology’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) graduate committee, they co-created “IDEA in Biology,” a graduate seminar. Additionally, they have taught about cultural influences on botanical research at the Durham County Library and Duke Gardens. Since 2018, they have served on the Board of Directors of Clean Water for North Carolina.
Kara Stark
Kara Stark is a Ph.D. candidate in the Genetics and Genomics Program. She is from St. Louis, Missouri and earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Butler University in 2020. At Duke, her research examines mobile DNA elements called endogenous retroviruses. Prior research has categorized endogenous retroviruses as ‘parasitic DNA’ which can be damaging to human health. However, Kara is exploring how activity of endogenous retroviruses during development may be beneficial. Kara is also passionate about science outreach and hopes to share her love of research with young scientists.
Liann Tucker
Liann Tucker is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology. She is from Los Angeles, California and received her B.A. in Sociology from University of California, Davis in 2017. Her primary research areas are social network analysis and adolescence. She use network analysis to study adolescent mental health and health-risk behaviors. Other areas of her work include social network methodology and interracial victimization and friendships. In her dissertation she focuses on adolescent friendship stability, specifically the consequences of low stability and factors that are related to enduring friendships.
Hwai-Ray Tung
Hwai-Ray (Ray) Tung is a 5th year PhD candidate in the math department. With the guidance of his advisor, Rick Durrett, he has used stochastic processes and dynamical systems to work on a variety of problems in mathematical biology, including cancer, epidemic and ecological modeling. Ray has taught multiple times as a TA and an instructor, and he has had the privilege of mentoring undergraduate research thrice through the Duke math department's DOmath program.