DukeEngage international application deadline approaches

02 Nov 2011, Posted by Andrew Luo in News, 0 Comments

Frank Lee/The Chronicle

Students rush to piece together their applications for the DukeEngage international group programs, which are due Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Now entering its fifth year, DukeEngage is an eight-week program for Duke undergraduates to participate in immersive civil engagement work during the summer time. Launched in 2007 through a $30 million endowment from the Duke Endowment and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the program has since funded more than 1,400 students to service communities in more than fifty nations around the world. Participating students worked on mentoring programs, health education initiatives and even environmental education documentaries.

“While focusing primarily on civic engagement, DukeEngage tries to expose students to the cultural and political atmospheres of the communities as well,” said Eric Mlyn, executive director of DukeEngage. “This year, we are planning to send around 435 students to our various programs.”

Although DukeEngage has only been running for five years, it has already produced visible results, Mlyn said.

“Our research shows that students find DukeEngage to be a high-impact program,” he said. “It not only helps students gauge the type of academic and career paths they want to pursue, but also influences how they see themselves in the world.”

The perks of DukeEngage are multifaceted. Depending on the location, students will also be able to participate in language training classes, enrichment activities, and trips to town hall to immerse themselves in the community. In addition, all expenses relating to DukeEngage from travel to meals are accounted for, either from a stipend or directly from the program itself. Participants who are receiving need-based financial aid will also receive a summer earnings waiver.

With so many offerings available, DukeEngage has become widely popular among undergraduates on campus.

“The applications for DukeEngage really track the demographics on campus, from all majors and all years,” Mlyn said.

The rise in popularity, however, also brings about a heightened amount of competition for the program.

“In general, our international programs have more demand, but there are domestic programs that have more demand than some international programs,” Mlyn said. “For example, applications for DukeEngage in Ireland, New Orleans and Cape Town, South Africa are typically more than double the number of slots available.”

Despite the odds, many students are still willing to test their luck in hopes of joining on this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I know it’s a pretty difficult application process,” said freshman Jason Pedowitz. “But the experience of DukeEngage is not something I’m willing to pass up on.”

For prospective students who are still wishing to apply for this summer’s DukeEngage programs, there are some tips to follow. To maximize your chances, students are encouraged to apply their freshmen year and get a glimpse of the application process.

“One thing to pay attention to is that students should not limit themselves to just international programs,” Mlyn said.”In fact, there is a fascinating array of domestic programs. The DukeEngage program in South Carolina is very involved with teaching youths in the area.”

With the success of DukeEngage growing, the program will surely expand in the years to come.

“My hope is that DukeEngage will be able to spread its offerings and meet student demand,” Mlyn said. “We are currently talking to friends of the university to raise money for more resources to give to our students.”

Soundoff: a Blue Devil’s Halloween

01 Nov 2011, Posted by Raisa Chowdhury in News, 0 Comments

For Halloween, some flock to Franklin Street, others go to class dressed as critters, some knock on doors for candy and the really adventurous stay home. The Chronicle‘s Raisa Chowdhury spoke to students about their thoughts on the holiday this year.

“I dressed as a ladybug to class because Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year except my birthday—which, yes, I consider to be a holiday—so I want to celebrate it as much as possible.”

-Ayan Salah, junior

“We have beards. I was wearing a beard and people were staring at me. It was a good conversation starter. I recommend people experience this once in their life.

-Angel Thompson, freshman 

“YMCA all night.”

-Pete Chhoy, graduate resident 

“I’m going home to help my mom pass out candy for two hours, and then I might go to Shooters.”

-Zuri Milanzi, senior

“Halloween is a great time for people to get together and show off their creativity to varying degrees of sluttiness.”

-Stephen Howell, sophomore 

“I’m being Aladdin because it’s an easy costume and I don’t have to wear a shirt, only a vest. “

-Ishan Thakore, freshman 

“I was a character from the ‘Dick in the Box’ music video. I made the costume all on my own. I don’t know how to wrap gifts so my friends helped me make the box. They wrapped my package. I also put condoms and glows sticks in the box. I’ve been planning this costume since spring because I had talked about it at Blue Devil Days. I also grew out my beard all of October for the costume. I’m saving the box for another day. “

-Mansoor Safi, freshman

“It’s so hard to stay warm if you’re a girl but I figured out how. I wore like three layers of shorts and three layers of bra and wore three socks. My arms were freezing, my feet were freezing and my stomach was freezing, but it was ok.”

-Priya Achaibar, freshman

“As a guy, I enjoy the tendency of girl’s costumes to be pretty revealing. I love candy. I love Halloween in general, as it’s just a blast. I wish I was able to trick-or-treat from door to door. I do have a pumpkin outside my door. Actually two.”

-Hamid Ali, senior

“Although Halloween in college is great, sometimes I miss the good old childhood days of trick treating with friends, going through our evening’s harvest to trade the candies we didn’t like with those of our friends  and finally ending the night with a good movie while eating our prized candy until we got stomachaches.”

-Nazanin Amini, junior 

“Well for me, Halloween means 31 percent discount on Duke apparel, but you know I outgrew Halloween 21 years ago. All of the naysayers about Christmas music are put to rest after this night. I start my Christmas music about Oct. 13, and Oct. 31 marks the decline of the anti-Christmas-music lobby on Duke campus. And that’s how Will sees it.”

-Will Beckman, senior 

“We should bake for Halloween. Make some Halal-oween.”

-Ruba Ahmad, senior

“My Halloween was awesome. Had good times with my tissue box and drowsy cold medicine.”

-Noreen Khan, sophomore

“We’re not doing anything. We were going to go to Franklin Street. We hear that you have to get there before 7:00 p.m. and stay pretty much all night and it’s really hard to get back after you go there so we’re not going.”

-Aruni Gunaratne, freshman

“First of all, if you had to dress up on Monday, you’d be dressing up during the daytime which is not part of the Halloween tradition, and if you dress up at night you’re too old to trick-or-treat and where would you trick-or-treat? I’ve never been allowed to dress up, so I really did want to dress up. But the problem is it would be socially unacceptable.”

-Esiyena Abebe, freshman

“Out of all the smart people at Duke, who decided to put Parent’s Weekend on Halloween weekend? I had a good Halloween costume idea, but now I cant use it because I had to be with my parents, but I did make an awesome pumpkin. It was not a triangle face one. It was awesome.”

-Catrina Mancini, freshman

“I didn’t go out. Way too much work. Plus my parents were here. And it was raining.”

-Biqi Zhang, sophomore

“I felt my time was better spent focusing on my work.”

-Maha Mourad, junior

“I’m not going out. I’m doing my homework. I’m serious. I can’t go out at all. Really.”

-Sandra Schiller, graduate student

The haunting of Perkins

01 Nov 2011, Posted by Ibe Alozie in News, 0 Comments

Special to The Chronicle

This Halloween, the Rubenstein Library (the Rare Book Room) of Perkins Library hosted its first-ever Haunted Library Screamfest.

This novel event, planned as an “Open House for Students,” was open to everyone from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Various niches of the Duke community contributed to this event. Representatives from the Rare Book Room brought out a sample of its rare and spooky items for the event. Patrons of the Advertising Collection brought out Martha Stewart’s Halloween cover magazine and old Halloween candy advertisements. The History of Medicine collection was represented by a display old amputating saws and old books on amputation. Among the books was an amputation manual, published during the 1550s.

One of the novel items of the collection came from the Hartman Center Collection. It featured a “Jack the Ripper” board game and original Halloween editions of comic books.

Duke displayed its own haunted past.

The University Archives provided pictures of a cemetary, located on campus, and the documents for the “relocation” of the bodies of three patriarchs of the Duke family into the Duke Chapel. Also, they put on display a letter regarding a child, who was believed to be cursed by a “devil.” The child turned out to be the subject of the hit movie, “The Exorcist.”

According to the Duke website, The Rare Book Room focuses on seven major centers of documents and archives, and “holds rare books, manuscripts, audio recordings, moving images, artifacts, digital files, and other materials that together document over 20 centuries of human history.”

Laura Ingold, Curator for the History of Medicine Collection of the Rare Book Room, says the idea came about as a novelty. Ingold and the 40 workers at the Rare Book Room decided that the archives were the perfect source for scary items, and a Halloween showcase would be a great way to engage Duke.

“We found that the History of Medicine Collection has plenty of interesting items like eyeballs and amputating saws, and the other six collections also contain considerably spooky items,” Ingold said.

And students came away impressed, if not slightly spooked. Michael Mayo described the showcase as “macabre.”

“It was creepy especially the eyeballs. The pictures were really scary, and I could feel the passage of time rising from the eerie dust,” said junior Nairuo Zhu.

If the spooky artifacts were not enough for students, the Rare Book Room had candy available for Duke students and faculty.

Ingold and the Rare Book Room hope that this “trial run” Halloween event introduced Duke students and faculty to the Rare Book Room and that the “Haunted Library Screamfest” becomes an annual Rare Book Room open house.

“We put on this ‘Haunted Library Screamfest’ to display a small sampling of what the Rare Book Room has to offer Duke students and faculty,” Ingold also said.

This week in Chronicle history: housing models and seating charts

01 Nov 2011, Posted by Hong Zhu in Backpages, Chronicle History, 1 Comments

Melissa Yeo/The Chronicle

Evidently, Duke does not easily tire of housing issues.

On Halloween day 25 years ago, the Chronicle ran a front page article on a proposed new residential college system. In true Halloween spirit, the article bears an eerie resemblance to contemporary ones about the housing model.

First, some background from the depths of the 1986 archives: a residential model was proposed in the mid-1980s to foster a greater intellectual atmosphere. Dubbed Bassett-Brown College, the project was received with skepticism, paltry financial support and low student interest. As reported in an article from Oct. 24 of that same year, only 3.5 percent of student respondents in a school-wide survey said they were very interested in living in a residential college.

To add even more meta-ness, the article from Halloween 1986 talks about how a similar experimental residential model had been implemented in 1970. This program (named Students’ House for Academic and Residential Experimentation, or SHARE) provided Duke with its first co-ed residential hall. In other words, you are reading an article (about a little-known residential model from 25 years ago) based off of an article from 1986 (about a little-known residential model from the ‘70s).

Melissa Yeo/The Chronicle

On a different note, another article from Oct. 27, 1966, displayed a delightful seating chart for football games. As the caption explains, “the cheerleaders have drawn up this revised seating chart for the football game with Georgia Tech Saturday afternoon. The student section of the stadium will be divided up by living groups, with a sign marking each area.” And thank goodness for the signs; God forbid anyone sit outside of their fraternity section, or disrupt the cheerleaders’ carefully crafted social hierarchy!

Duke vs. UNC: Free Hugs campaign

31 Oct 2011, Posted by Lauren Carroll in News, 1 Comments

Melissa Yeo/The Chronicle

Even Blue Devils need hugs every once in a while.

About a month ago, two friends left behind their lives in the Northeast to take a road trip across America—sharing free hugs with universities in more than 23 states, from New York to California, with no defined end date. Matt Wargo, the hugger, and Jarrett Gardner, the photographer, arrived in North Carolina last week to see who likes to share the love more—Blue Devils or Tar Heels.

At Duke, Wargo and Gardner attended a football game, rode the C1 and took a promenade on the BC Plaza, while holding up a bright yellow “Free Hugs” sign—clicking his hug counter each time he collected handshakes, casual embraces and bear hugs.

Although he received 222 hugs here—including one that carried him clear across the Plaza, nicknamed “the capture”—Wargo said Duke was flush with the “iPod syndrome.” With the ability to put in earbuds and tune out one’s surroundings, people are actively avoiding human contact, Wargo said. That is, until he mentioned he would also be visiting the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Some [students] either avoided eye contact or came up with excuses to not come up for their hug…. They just seemed too shy or busy to connect,” Wargo wrote in his Facebook blog. “But when we let them know UNC was also participating in this national competition anyone within earshot wanted a hug just to beat them. Nothing wrong with being competitive.”

One student told Wargo that his sign was upside down, after he had been carrying it that way for several minutes, but did not stop for a hug.

But some who welcomed the hugs said Wargo and Gardner’s project can really turn someone’s day around.

“This is a really nice gesture—if I was having a bad day, this would really make me smile,” said sophomore Vanessa Nwaokocha, after getting up from the blue swinging chairs on the Plaza for a hug.

At UNC, they received several more hugs—250. They have about 18,500 undergraduates, however, and we have 6,400, so our student-to-hug ratio is about three times as high as theirs. But UNC does get some extra points for Zombie and Zombie Hunter hugs—part of some sort of school-wide zombie game.

Wargo said it was worth quitting his job as a clerk to take this “trip of a lifetime,” staying with friends and family along the way. He was inspired by the Free Hugs campaign, which encourages people to brighten up a stranger’s day with something as simple as a hug.

“I’ve always wanted to take a road trip,” Wargo said. “Just drop everything and go do what makes you happy in life. It was difficult to do… leaving the most comfortable situation I’ve had in my life.”

Spending five hours each at various universities with some sight-seeing in between, Wargo and Gardner have uplifted spirits all along the East Coast—giving much more than 1,000 hugs so far. At Delaware State University, they gave more than 500.

“At one school, we talked to this kid for a couple hours who had been depressed for weeks and didn’t have anyone to talk to,” Gardner said.

Wargo and Gardner have received various courtesies in exchange—free beer, cigarettes, food, boogie boards, headphones and a zombie dart. At Duke, they were treated to a meal and a football game.

“I respect your work,” said freshman Stephanie Ogwo.