Many people both on and off campus have heard of DukeEngage, but fewer are familiar with the Duke Center for Civic Engagement, DukeEngage’s overseer.
Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education, said he wants to change that with the Civic Engagement Committee, which aims to figure out what DCCE should be doing.
“The idea was that the center would have as its flagship program DukeEngage, but would also be a coordinating point for all the civic engagement activities that go on on campus,” Nowicki said. “After DukeEngage was effectively launched, it became apparent that a lot of thought had gone into DukeEngage and not that much thought into what, other than DukeEngage, the Duke Center for Civic Engagement should be doing.”
Nowicki appointed Dean of the Chapel Sam Wells and Emily Klein, senior associate dean at the Nicholas School of the Environment, as committee co-chairs. The committee is composed of 10 faculty and staff members and two students.
“The co-chairs come to issues from different directions,” Nowicki said. “[Klein] is a scientist that has been involved in civic engagement in a practical ‘how do we correct this problem’ sort of role, while [Wells] is a preacher and he has a very different angle.”
He added that the rest of the committee is composed of people who come from various backgrounds such as public policy and humanities, and that the range of perspectives that come from the committee will be useful.
Committee members include Suzanne Shanahan, associate director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Associate Dean of Students Todd Adams and David Schaad, adjunct assistant professor and assistant chair of civil and environmental engineering.
Nowicki noted that the committee has received reports from about 25 stakeholders across campus such as the Hart Leadership Program, the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs, the Service Learning Program and every professional school, Wells wrote in an e-mail.
The committee consolidated all the recommendations it received, both broad and specific, and is trying to establish the key problems and solutions.
Nowicki will receive recommendations from the committee at the end of the Fall semester, he said. The committee’s report will also be publicly available.
Nowicki added that he hopes the center will centralize the information for all of the civic engagement opportunities on campus, and make the information more accessible to students.
“[Students] don’t need to know that some programs are involved in the Religious Life, Durham Affairs, Civic Engagement Center or Student Affairs,” he said. “They just need to know what the options are, and when they find it, the infrastructure will be whatever it happens to be.”
Alma Blount, director of the Hart Leadership Program, submitted a report to the committee.
“Before DukeEngage, there were many interesting projects and programs that Duke was known for nationally that were very creative and diverse efforts,” Blount said.
She wrote in an e-mail that it has always been Duke’s strength to provide a variety of civic engagement programming on campus and that DCCE could highlight what is unique about civic engagement at Duke.
The center could also make important contributions to a national conversation about the role of civic engagement in higher education, she noted.
The committee is in the process of writing a draft report that will be distributed to stakeholders for their input before the final report is published, Wells said.
“The civic engagement activities are becoming a significant part of Duke’s identity,” Wells said. “We need to think about the University as a whole and not just what the center will do.”
Wells added that one point of discussion is whether civic engagement is primarily an academic experience or an extracurricular activity. He said the signature program, DukeEngage, does not connect to students’ classroom experiences.
Senior Adam Nathan, who is on the committee and participated in a DukeEngage program in Bangladesh, said he would like to resolve this problem.
“My experience with DukeEngage is that it’s really hard for students to connect from their experiences with actual opportunities here at Duke, like classes, extracurricular activities and research opportunities,” he said. “One of my goals on the committee is to make sure that we’re creating sustainable civic engagement experiences across four years so that students don’t feel like they’re just collecting experiences.”
DukeEngage is not the only program run by DCCE—the Community Service Center was split last year between Student Affairs and DCCE.
The portion of the Community Service Center now run by DCCE is called DCCE-Durham Programs.
Eric Mlyn, director of DukeEngage and DCCE, said he hopes to offer the center’s programs and other programs around campus to students who wish to get involved in civic engagement, especially to returning DukeEngage students.
Mlyn is not on the Civic Engagement Committee but has been given many opportunities to participate in the process.
“We had a lot of input in the committee’s deliberations so I think it’s been a really open and transparent process,” he said. “I am really looking forward to their recommendations.”
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