As a candidate for undergraduate Young Trustee, senior John Harpham hopes to repay his “debt to Duke.”
The former chair of The Chronicle’s editorial board and an Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship recipient, Harpham believes his broad Duke experience will serve him well should he be elected to the Board of Trustees.
“My time at Duke has put me in the unique position to translate the experiences of an undergraduate to the expertise of a Board member,” Harpham said.
As a four-year member of Duke’s club baseball team, three-year member of The Chronicle’s independent Editorial Board and a member of the Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship selection committee, Harpham said he has experience working with diverse groups of people toward a common goal.
Harpham believes the activity that has given him the most knowledge about Duke has been his work on The Chronicle’s independent editorial board, which he joined in the Fall of his freshman year before becoming its chair as a junior.
“His work for The Chronicle... really exemplified his interest in the welfare of the University,” said Michael Moses, an associate professor of English who has worked closely with Harpham.
Harpham said he hopes to help realize President Richard Brodhead’s goal of internationalization at the undergraduate level. He has studied abroad in Oxford, Paris and Dublin and is also a member of Wayne Manor, a selective living group.
“I have lived the full range of a typical undergraduate life at Duke,” Harpham said.
He sees the Young Trustee position not as a prize to be won, but as a way to thank Duke for the six years he has spent on and around its campus. Harpham started visiting Duke as a high school student in Durham and has long-known that he wanted to attend the University.
It was during this time that Harpham met Moses, who became his mentor.
“I think he’s one of the most intelligent, talented and public-spirited students that I’ve known in my 23 years at Duke,” Moses said.
Having spent much of his life around large universities, Harpham said his plans to become an academic will add perspective to the Board.
“There are four people on the Board who are academics,” he said. “It would be beneficial to add the perspective of an academic.”
Harpham plans to use his undergraduate studies to inform his work on the Board. In his time at Duke, Harpham has received the Robert F. Durden Prize for excellence in research, as well as an honorable mention for the Faculty Scholar Award from the political science department.
He has also received endorsements from the University for the Rhodes Scholarship and the Marshall Scholarship. He is the current co-president of the Political Theory Colloquium, which brings students and professors together for discussions. Harpham was one of the two students responsible for reviving the inactive organization.
In an interview, Harpham recalled the moment he knew he wanted to run for the Young Trustee position.
“When [The Chronicle’s editorial board] interviewed the Young Trustee candidates my freshman year, I heard them talk and saw their love of Duke,” he said. “I knew this would be the best way for me to give back to Duke.”
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