Girls call him a brainy Brad Pitt look-alike.
He's that kid in a tie and slacks sitting near the front of the class, the one who knows the answer to the teacher's every query. In a school of nerds, Joe Fore, Duke Student Government's vice president of academic affairs, could be seen as the king of them.
But he's well-rounded. In a lot of ways, Fore is the collegiate version of your favorite childhood Disney hero. He is the chaplain in his fraternity, Theta Chi; he learned life lessons as a first baseman for the Wildcats, his high school baseball team.
"Baseball was good for me because everyday you had to do a little bit of work," Fore muses.
This work ethic drove him to make Duke culture--influenced more by basketball than by biology--more intellectual.
"If the faculty see the students are engaged, willing to change their culture and thinking seriously about these problems, faculty will have to join in," he says.
Fore's helped open up the library and classrooms for longer hours, and he was instrumental in creating the syllabi and upcoming course evaluation websites.
And under his pressure, the Arts and Science Council reconsidered their opt-in policy for course evaluations; Fore helped successfully increase the percentage of professors opting in to about 25 percent.
But few students see the impact he is making overall. "One of my favorite quotes is, 'It's amazing what you can accomplish when nobody gets the credit. If nobody recognizes us, that's alright," he says.
Pretty modest for a politician.
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