We are now a few weeks into the new academic year, which means many of us are inevitably transitioning into our latest campus leadership roles. I remember being surprised when I got to Duke that so many of these positions were held by sophomores or juniors. In high school, at least in my experience, seniors essentially had a monopoly on most of those positions. But in college, when the tenure of a position formally ends, the student holding it oftentimes won’t yet be graduating. On the contrary, they may have one or two years left at Duke, which poses a question: should those students continue to serve in their positions or pass them on to others? There are a lot of reasons that people seek
This past week, the Duke University Honor Council selected several winners for the annual Summer Reading Contest. Three winners, one first-place and two runner-ups, were chosen from over 50 applicants. The contest required each applicant to submit an essay based upon the First Year Experience book, There There by Tommy Orange, which was selected by the University. Each first-year student receives a copy of this book and is encouraged to read and reflect on its messages before arriving to campus. This year, Honor Council challenged students to answer the following prompt: There There details historical narratives from a variety of perspectives. How do we prioritize certain histories at Duke a
