A word on the summit on gender relations

I still remember stepping onto the stoop of Southgate Residence Hall for the first time. I was 17 years old and nervous, but above all proud that for the next four years, Duke would be my home. Now I write this as a 21-year-old senior on the brink of graduation. During my time here, I have realized that our community is not as equitable as I once imagined. However, the feeling that rose within me as a first-year has not waned in the slightest. I am still proud to call the Duke community home.

With this in mind, it is all the more biting when on numerous occasions this semester, I have been asked, “What’s wrong with Duke?” I am sure a good deal of our own community has asked this as well. Yet it takes a great amount of courage to critically reflect on problems facing a campus so dear to us all. Thus, the recent three-day DSG Summit on Gender Relations represents a first effort to organize a neutral venue for students to coalesce as a community in order to dialogue and to devise an action plan for change.

Compellingly, all participants agreed on three main issues: 1) Sexual Assault, 2) Campus Space and 3) the Dominant Social Culture. Among many other initiatives, the working groups called for: more transparency and student input in the house model, the randomization of all living group assignments equally between West and Central for the first phase of the house model, more administrative input on women’s issues and the institutionalization of sexual assault prevention training. I challenge and encourage all students to read what our peers have produced. The full notes are publicly available at dsg.duke.edu.

As the daughter of a peripatetic military officer, “home” is one of the highest honors I can give. Despite impending graduation, I am convinced that Duke will always have that honor. I am sure that this is not a singular sentiment. Duke is our home. And there is a lot that is right with Duke. From DukeEngage to Marshall Scholars, we are an active community that strongly believes in our capacity to make a difference in larger society. Why not at home too?

Michelle Sohn is a Trinity senior and Liason to Gender Issues for Duke Student Government. She resigned from the Editorial Board Nov. 2.