We asked Maureen Farrell ’01 about The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion (Crown), which she cowrote with Eliot Brown—the saga of the rise and fall of one of the most-valuable and most-hyped start-ups and its unusual leader.

We asked Monica West ’99 about Revival Season (Simon & Schuster), a coming-of-age story about the daughter of an evangelical preacher who each year takes his family on the road to heal souls and bodies. On her not-straight-path to becoming a novelist

WE ASKED Theodore D. Segal ’77, a lawyer, Center for Documentary Studies board member, and author of Point of Reckoning: The Fight for Racial Justice at Duke University (Duke University Press), about his deep dive into the university’s history.

WE ASKED Marjoleine Kars ’82, Ph.D. ’94, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (The New Press), about how she found this untold story and what compelled her to write about it.

Years before COVID-19 turned the educational world topsy-turvy, Douglas Michelman ’82 was concerned about the “homework gap.” Michelman had joined Sprint as the chief communications officer in 2014, and because his portfolio included corporate responsibility, the CEO asked him to reimagine how Sprint could create social impact in a relevant way.

We asked Laura Huang B.S.E. ’00, M.S. ’01, an associate professor at Harvard Business School and author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, about why she believes you can flip stereotypes and obstacles in your favor. On how her research reconsiders hard work:

We asked Jason DeParle ’82, a New York Times reporter and author of A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century, about what he learned about global migration from following a family for thirty years.

Tonight, take a moment to gaze toward the heavens and salute the moon. After all, it was fifty years ago this month that Apollo 11 launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and Neil Armstrong took his “small step.” And, on the team it took to pull off such a historic feat were three Duke alumnae. Parrish Nelson Hirasaki ’67, Julie Isherwood ’68, and Lindsay Robinson ’67 all worked on the Apollo program. And by their telling, they had the time of their lives doing it.

There are parties and then there are parties—the kind of gathering that gets talked about with giggles and winks in a hungover haze. Apparently, in September 2008, there was a party at the Lofts at Lakeview on Erwin Road that neither Beth (formerly DeFrancesco) Hatef J.D. ’10 nor David Hatef M.B.A. ’09 attended.

With the preponderance of available data has come a preponderance of concern about how the information is used and who possesses it. Kristian Lum M.S. ’08, Ph.D. ’10 counts herself among those concerned. And as lead statistician at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, she’s in a position to help elucidate data use. “A lot of my work touches on the ways in which data and machine learning may not work in the way you’d like or hoped,” she says.

“I don’t understand why we don’t understand grief,” says Kimberly Holmes Wiggins ’02. It’s a frustration both immediate and ongoing for Wiggins. On April 16, 2016, her husband, Rasheed Wiggins ’99, M.B.A. ’10, was killed in a still unsolved hit-and-run crash in Orlando, Florida. That was the beginning of a new title for her—widow. The label, she says, was hard to accept, hard to even verbalize.

Among other things, February is known as a month in which we should consider matters of the heart. Which means, in a way, every month is February for Arun Sharma ’12.

In the romantic-comedy movie version, the love story between Megan Forlines M.M.S. ’12 and Devon Bostock ’11, M.M.S. ’12 would unspool something like this: Young members of rival families meet and, like their family members before them, instantly dislike each other. They date more “suitable” choices, bumping into one another only to trade insults. Then, one day, circumstances force them together. The ice starts to crack. She notices he’s not that bad after all.

In less than a week, Duke made decisions that were criticized and praised and launched a national and campus discussion about religious pluralism and the chapel’s role. After an announcement that the traditional Muslim call to prayer would be broadcast weekly from the top of the chapel, the university reconsidered the decision and moved to an alternative approach.

THE CATALYST: Blake Goodner ’96 believes he’s gained much from his Duke experience. As a cofounder of the investment company Bridger Capital, he also has gained financial expertise, including hedge-fund analysis. A class designed to “provide current Duke students with a real-world Wall Street experience” would be “a powerful and enduring way to give back,” he says.