Letter to the Editor

I write to point out that The Chronicle would serve the Duke community better if it understood the civic engagement scene at Duke more consistently than Wednesday’s two articles show. The editorial in particular does not seem to get that the Duke Center for Civic Engagement (DCCE) is a University center that is separate from DukeEngage and that programs such as Civic Thursday are run by the Center, which is independent of DukeEngage. The call for sustaining civic engagement is well made. Indeed, the DCCE’s mission is to help cultivate an ethos of civic engagement at Duke; it partners with various civic engagement programs across Duke, including DukeEngage, academic departments, professional schools, centers and student organizations such as dPS. The DCCE has many initiatives toward this end of culture-building.
For example, the “Knowledge Maps” on the DCCE’s website help students and faculty build creative and robust curricular connections to field-based civic engagement experiences. The Civic Engagement Studios are year-long forums run by faculty, students, staff and external community partners engaged in social change, and the Civic Summer Research Fellowships encourage strong links between undergraduate research and civic work. In addition, the DCCE supports a number of faculty-led community research collaboratives. All of these are geared toward creating an environment where civic engagement is a reflexive, ethical and critical endeavor—more a sustained habit of citizenship—rather than being a one-time, stand-alone experience.

Leela Prasad Faculty Director, DCCE and Associate Professor of Ethics & South Asian Studies, Department of Religion