How class is lived at Duke

Last summer, like many students, senior Peter Fleming decided to stay at Duke to take physics. But he also had to work full-time to support himself, his schedule culminating in 80-hour weeks and a bout with bronchitis toward the end of the summer.

"Other people can spend the day at the pool, then go home and do five hours of physics homework--meanwhile, I'm still at work," says Fleming, a chemistry major.

Approximately six months later, over winter break, senior Margaret Gleason traveled to London to ring in the new year and invited several of her friends to join her. The trip would be all-expenses-paid by her father, with the exception of airfare.

Even then, some of Gleason's friends had to decline the invitation for financial reasons.

"Sometimes it's hard if I want to do things my friends can't afford to pay for," she says, recognizing the social dilemma present when economic disparities are involved. "I wish it weren't that way."

Welcome to the (country) club

A cursory scan of the student body reveals a population of southern gentlemen and belles and well-dressed young cosmopolitans--not so different from the composition of any other elite university in America.

"The perception is always that Duke students drive Beemers and come from homes with a white picket fence," says freshman Trip Wagoner. "That's definitely the prevailing climate."

Wagoner agrees. "[Economics] doesn't affect life that much, other than what you bring to the dorm and what car you drive."

But the reasons behind this economic uniformity, many students say, are not only because most students at Duke are wealthy, but also because many try to achieve a certain economic status in appearance, regardless of their actual financial backgrounds.

"I think most [students] try to appear more well-off than they really are because Duke is supposed to be prestigious and its students are supposed to be intelligent and rich," says sophomore Julia Grammatikopoulou. "Sometimes I try to do that myself."

Incidentally, an e-mail sent to the Duke Progressive Alliance mailing list Jan. 20 proposed the formation of a support or action group for working class Duke students.

"This is a call to all of us who know what it is [like] to go to one of the richest schools in the country and go home to work-worn hands and stories of struggle," wrote Bridget Newman, a sophomore. "This is a call to all of us who are caught between remembering our roots and wanting to get away from the struggles of being poor."

Gleason says she has seen the tendency to equalize, especially in the greek system. "On an individual level, people can be insecure about social status.... It can be really intimidating for some people," says Gleason, a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority, which conducts informal recruitment.

But despite the semblance of an economically homogeneous campus, a closer examination reveals the existence of class disparity in the Gothic Wonderland--a disparity that, in some instances, is large enough to affect student life significantly.

The hidden class

Peter Fleming has attended private schools since the fourth grade. As a white male student at Duke University, he appears to be the picture of entitlement--unless you know that he has received full scholarships throughout his academic career and was raised by his divorced mother, who works full time and has attended night school for the past six years.

"I can look like a [Kappa Alpha Order fraternity member] but people are going to find out I'm not," Fleming says. "You can look at someone and tell their race immediately, but it takes longer to figure out their economic background.... I may speak coarser, I play basketball instead of going skiing. I don't play tennis."

Fleming says he has felt alienated from most of the students at the "very wealthy, mostly white schools" he has attended. He says he has had trouble finding common ground at Duke as well.

"How do you explain your experiences to a white-collar audience in the 'Gothic Bubble'?" he asks, recalling the time he was asked to discuss his employment at the Winn-Dixie supermarket in his hometown of Greensboro, N.C., during a merit-based scholarship interview. "If a scholarship committee can't act like you're normal, who will?"

Fleming says he feels more comfortable around the graduate students--who come from a more diverse array of economic backgrounds and for whom Fleming believes material prestige is less of a focus--at the chemistry lab where he works and receives independent study credit.

At Duke, white students from low-income backgrounds remain one of the most invisible minorities on campus. "The only alternative lifestyles at this school revolve around ethnicity or religion, and I'm an agnostic," Fleming says. "If I went to Barnes & Noble, I would probably find only one book on being poor and white in America."

Touched by fortune

By contrast, Sarah Struthers' family background more closely resembles the typical Duke image. A graduate of an all-female private school, Struthers describes her family's downtown Charleston, S.C., community as "pretty affluent," with its culture of debutantes, junior leagues and country clubs.

Struthers is grateful for the positive upbringing her parents provided for her and her siblings, both in terms of monetary as well as emotional support. "I've never wanted for anything.... I pay for my schooling based on stocks my parents bought when I was younger. My parents do pay me an allowance every month, but I do earn secondary or tertiary income on my own," says Struthers, who works at the Office of Special Events.

In considering her imminent post-graduation life, Struthers, a French major, is realistic about the type of lifestyle she has been raised with and to which she is accustomed. "I live fairly comfortably. I'm much more likely to go home and have a job that pays $30,000 rather than to try to make it in New York," she says. "There's definitely that 'I've been to Duke, I've gotta show something for it' feeling. [My parents] would like to see me at law school, but I'm not necessarily in a position to pay for it now. They would pay for me, but I would rather strike out on my own than live off my parents for an indefinite period of time. It's an economic mindset--I want to know, 'What am I contributing?'"

Struthers agrees that economic lifestyle also plays a significant role in student life, sometimes determining the types of organizations a person joins. A member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Dukes and Duchesses and the Episcopal Center, she admits that the former two organizations are both similar in terms of socio-economic status, but notes, "Organizations by virtue of being organizations are somewhat homogeneous."

Raising class consciousness

Much of Duke's apparent class homogeneity, then, may be a result of economic segregation, a tendency that serves as both cause and effect of factors such as housing, participation in certain student groups and general social relationships.

Students note that those with greater financial need may be more likely to choose a Central Campus apartment, which is cheaper than a dorm room on West Campus, or to live in Trent Dormitory, which offered single rooms at the price of a double for the first time this year. In addition, the room and board stipend for resident assistants may also motivate students looking for an extra break to apply for a position.

Students at an economic disadvantage may also be disinclined to join a selective house, fraternity or sorority because of the dues that are required each semester. In addition, they may be be precluded even from joining organizations that do not entail direct costs because of the necessity to budget time for holding down jobs. But any form of socialization can become a potentially problematic situation when the spending of money is involved.

"If your friends want to go shopping, it can make it harder to socialize with them if you're not on the same economic level," says junior Sarah McBride.

Fleming agrees. "In terms of social life, I do not seek out other people based on their finances. However, it's hard to be friends with someone who is really affluent because everything they do is grotesquely expensive," he says.

When it comes down to the bottom line, economic segregation is often simply another natural factor in choosing associates with whom commonalities are shared.

"It may be because all of your friends back home [share your economic background], you just look for the same thing here," Wagoner suggests.

Gleason believes her economically diverse group of friends--mainly from her sorority as well as the Arts Theme House--may partly be a result of her experiences under relative financial hardship as well as ease. After her parents divorced when she was four years old, her father's near-bankruptcy in the Texas oil industry reduced the amount of child support he was able to pay her mother, and Gleason spent most of her childhood as a regular middle-class, public-schooled kid in Fort Worth, Tex.

"My mom was really frugal about spending money, but when I was sixteen, my dad's career took off," the physics and philosophy double major says. "Since then, I haven't really had to worry about money.... At Duke, I'm not on financial aid and I could go live off campus in a nice place and not have to worry about it."

Gleason, who says she has moderated her spending since her freshman year and currently describes her habits as conservative, says the diversity of her friends' economic circumstances have raised her awareness about her own situation. "I'm completely financially dependent on my dad. It's starting to get uncomfortable because I have friends who are starting to get concerned about [their own financial states]," she says. "My dad told me not to worry about it until I want to, but I'm on the fence about it."

Struthers also sees the incredible value of financial stability.

"Economic security is a part of personal security. You don't need to be well-off, but I definitely think it helps to be comfortable. I don't necessarily think those who are economically secure are the most secure, but I think that those who are secure are economically secure in some capacity. They may be on loans, but they've figured out a way. It's not up in the air.... If you know the money's going to be there, you don't have to worry about paying for school. You can worry about what you're going to wear to round four of rush. The issues in your life are different."

Fleming knows this truth all too well. When he shattered his face during an altercation on the basketball court last year, he cried not out of physical pain, but because he didn't know how he would be able to afford the necessary surgical procedures.

"A normal person would worry, 'Am I going to be okay, am I going to look the same?'" he says.

Fleming ended up paying thousands of dollars for surgery. He was reimbursed by financial aid, but the ordeal cost him nearly a year's worth of work and left him with trichiasis, an ingrown eyelash condition that affects his vision. The problem can be corrected with electrolysis, but Fleming can not afford such a procedure--not if he hopes to pay for a preparatory course for the MCAT exam, which he plans to take after graduating this summer.

Fleming doesn't want people to feel sorry for him or to feel guilty about what they have, but he wants his fellow students to see the reality of the economic situation at Duke.

"Money does talk, and it's the story of the world. If you don't have any, you really do have the smallest voice.... [Class difference] is one of the most divisive things. You can always get by regardless, but how well will you fit in?"