Duke’s permanent office in the nation’s capital is scheduled to open by the end of the month.
The new office seeks to facilitate greater interactions with the federal government and Duke alumni, as well as provide academic programs for students, such as the Duke in D.C. program that will launch Spring 2013. The office will serve as a centralized hub for members of the Duke community who find themselves in D.C., said Landy Elliott, assistant director of the Office of Federal Relations at Duke.
“On any given week, there’s a ton of Duke activity going on in Washington,” Elliott said. “The idea is that we have a sort of embassy, a point of first contact in the city, so that we can raise Duke’s visibility in the nation’s capital.”
The office—which will be located at 1201 New York Avenue—will house a number of Duke’s academic programs and will sponsor other events in D.C., such as briefings, seminars and alumni events, Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in an email Monday.
“While the office is part of the Office of Public Affairs and Government Relations [at Duke], it is really a University-wide resource that I expect will continue to evolve as more schools and units at Duke become engaged in D.C.,” Schoenfeld said.
Although an official grand opening for the new space has not been set, the office is expected to be fully operational by the end of April. While waiting for the permanent office to be finished, Duke has been operating out of an interim office that was created in December 2010, said Elliott, who currently directs the interim office in D.C. and will serve as a full-time staff member at the permanent office.
The Duke in D.C. program, hosted by the Sanford School of Public Policy, will be based in the new office. In its first year, the program will focus on the developments of the first 100 days of the new presidential administration, said Kristin Goss, assistant professor of public policy and political science.
The program will benefit from being in the nation’s capital where potential changes in the White House and Congress will occur following the November election.
“We’ll have just had a presidential election, so we might have a new president, and we’ll certainly have changes in Congress,” said Goss, who will serve as director of the Duke in D.C. program.
The program will consist of four classes, including a course on political participation, a course on the media and an internship with an organization in D.C. All current Duke undergraduates who have taken the introductory public policy course are eligible to apply to the program, Goss said.
A federal relations office in Washington is a common practice for many universities. The city is the third largest Duke alumni base in the country and hosts more than 100 interns each year. According to the Career Center’s annual senior exit survey results, Washington, D.C. has ranked in the top five job locations.
Melissa Vetterkind, director of the Office of Federal Relations, voiced enthusiasm for the office.
“It’s a really great opportunity for expanding Duke’s presence in D.C.,” Vetterkind said. “We have such a huge alumni base up there, and this will enable us to have a permanent space both for our academic programs and for connecting with those alums.”
Elliott expressed the same optimism about Duke’s new home in the capital.
“We all do a lot of individual Duke activities, and we’re really hopeful that this office will bring us together into a capital ‘D’ Duke and show folks here in D.C. what we have to offer,” Elliott said.
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