​Finding roots in Durham

North Carolina will hold its municipal elections on November 3 in which residents will elect governing officials for the cities, villages and towns of the state. Today, we encourage Duke students to register to vote to be able to participate in this and future North Carolina elections. In the run up to the election and next year’s national elections, students should find North Carolina polls to be an avenue for change in local politics and the state’s swing electoral college. Especially given the influence of Duke in Durham, our student body should feel a consequent need to acquaint and involve themselves in local affairs.

Even though undergraduate students live mostly on campus, there is ample reason to become involved in political action in Durham. Students can channel nationally-felt frustration with national politics into Durham-based campaign efforts, which is particularly effective for students who come from clearly red or blue states where policies tend to fall as predicted. Even on the state and local levels, students should not dismiss the fact that many of them will go on to live off campus in later years or become graduate students living local to universities either at Duke or elsewhere. In these positions, state and local issues become relevant and staying informed is in the best interests of any citizen.

Indeed, Duke is the largest and most influential institution in Durham, a relationship most apparent in the fact that it has long been Durham’s largest employer, dwarfing the next several employers. In recent years, students have thrown themselves into local volunteering, service-learning classes and community activism. Duke has commendably enabled and promoted these avenues of engagement. Yet even with our involvement in Durham, the asymmetries of power manifest in how many other students think of Durham either with apathy or condescension. To the former, Duke students should encourage education about Durham’s history as a city of cultural import in the broader South. Through classes and lectures, shining light on the city’s history and realities lays a foundation for better involvement and attitudes. The Franklin Humanities Institute recently hosted speakers from the Durham Living Wage project to speak to Duke students on gentrification as a human rights issue, and we see a call implicitly made to Duke students to concern themselves with the issues developing just beyond the borders of campus.

The University best serves students through the programs that come out of the Office of Civic Engagement and the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs. We recommend that students be given the opportunity to learn about the history of Durham through more curricular offerings and perhaps through Orientation Week events. It is important to lay a foundation of knowledge that pushes students to join in the programs that engage Durham’s culture and community.