Duke Engage Magazine Articles




September 26, 2020

Writer:

Thalia Halloran

I can’t exactly pinpoint the day I realized I could no longer plan for my future, but it wasn’t long after I received an e-mail informing me that I could not return to campus. I was alone in New Orleans on spring break—a trip I’d planned months in advance. I had bought my plane tickets seven weeks ahead of my departure to ensure the cheapest prices, and I researched places to stay.

February 8, 2019

It really wasn’t a case of sophomore slump. His return from a DukeEngage summer in Vietnam, where, among other projects, he had taught English to rising high-schoolers, was a tough transition point for Grant Besner. He was struggling with “the many privileges of my upbringing and also of the material excess that defines so much of the American experience, particularly at an elite institution such as Duke,” says Grant, now finishing his senior year.

February 7, 2018

Writer:

Scott Huler

The most frustrating thing was the mason. “He spoke, maybe, two words of English,” says senior Lily Coad, who spent the summer after her sophomore year as a DukeEngage student in Kochi, India, surprisingly, building a garden. Nobody expected him to speak English, of course. But nobody had expected to be working with him in the first place.

Kevin Schafer/Minden Pictures/Corbis

November 14, 2013

Writer:

Karl Leif Bates

Cloud-draped Marojejy National Park rises like a deep green island on a pastel sea of human disturbance. In each muddy quadrangle of rice paddy around the island’s feet, a single cow is staked out to graze and defecate. This rainforest preserve is a dwindling refuge of Madagascar’s native biodiversity, 80 percent of which exists nowhere else on Earth.

November 12, 2013

Since launching in 2007, DukeEngage has aimed to give students an immersive experience that enhances them and community partners. In October, the initiative added four programs to its roster of thirty-six, allowing students to go deep into the culture and issues of cities in the U.S. and abroad.

Students—up to eight in each program—can now engage in Detroit; Miami; Belgrade, Serbia; and Seoul, South Korea.

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July 25, 2013

Growing up in New York in the 1970s, Michael Marsicano ’78, M.Ed. ’78, Ph.D. ’82 loved the English horn and the oboe. But with his sights set on medical school, he couldn’t see himself going to a conservatory. Instead, he chose Duke—a place known for training doctors that also had an outstanding wind symphony. Under the leadership of longtime music professor Paul Bryan, Michael went to Vienna with the Wind Symphony for a semester-long study-abroad program and concert tour.

Don't blink: Ben Ramsey '15 has a staring contest with three girls in Kuwdé, a small village in northern Togo. Credit: Maria Romano '14.

May 14, 2013

 

Though this summer marks the inaugural DukeEngage program in Togo, its faculty director is quite established in the West African country. Since the mid-1980s, cultural anthropology professor Charles Piot has studied the politics, economies, and traditions of the Togolese people, conducting his twice-a-year fieldwork primarily in northern rural villages.

February 13, 2013

For the discerning Duke student who wanted to jumpstart his or her international exposure and couldn’t get enough of the freshman Focus experience, last year’s Duke INtense Global (DIG) fit the bill. The three-semesterlong interdisciplinary program had its test run in India and Russia and featured culture-and language-immersion components.