Low enrollment numbers led to the cancellation of one DukeEngage program scheduled for this summer.
Only four students applied for the summer 2012 DukeEngage in Quito, Ecuador. All were admitted, but after one student dropped out, the program was canceled Wednesday. The abrupt change now leaves little time for students to find an alternative summer program.
“I felt really upset,” said freshman Tess Harper, who was slated to travel with DukeEngage to Ecuador this summer. “It was nice to have my summer already planned out”.
No Duke professors had yet been appointed to lead the immersion program as of its cancelation, Director of DukeEngage Eric Mlyn said.
Harper said she received an e-mail last week stating that one of the four students who originally signed up for the program stepped out, and given the low participation rate DukeEngage would not go forward with the program.
Mlyn confirmed that the program was canceled due to low enrollment, noting that most group programs usually have a minimum of six students participating.
As of Monday, no other programs had been canceled.
Sophomore Adriana Guzman, who also applied to DukeEngage Ecuador, said administrators did not inform her why she was unable to attend the program.
“They just called and said the program was canceled,” Guzman said. Mlyn added that there are alternative opportunities to DukeEngage in Ecuador. The students can apply to participate in a domestic program that will accommodate them at this time, though the deadline for domestic programs was Jan. 12, or work with a volunteer group in Quito as an independent project. Because the applicants are not rising seniors, they can also wait and reapply next year.
“ I just found out two days ago,” Guzman said in an interview Sunday. “So I haven’t figured out what I am going to decide yet.”
DukeEngage in Ecuador, which was created in 2010, is an eight-week summer civic engagement program centered on environmental justice. Students focus on the impact that the extraction of natural resources has on the health and culture of a local community in Quito, which is located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The students work with a nongovernmental organization to educate the local population about the effect of oil company Texaco’s practices on their community.
Harper said she has not yet decided what she plans to do this summer instead of DukeEngage, but expressed an interest in participating in a similar independent program with a nongovernmental organization in the Galapagos Islands.
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