DukeEngage is expanding civic opportunities in the United States to include new programs in Detroit, Miami, and Washington D.C. for this coming summer. These programs, announced in early October, seek to provide service opportunities for students and faculty alike. The new programs are inspired in part by DukeEngage 2017: a strategic plan to promote “deeper and broader engagement”.
Since its inception in 2007 through the Duke Endowment and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DukeEngage has funded 2,400 Duke students across 75 countries. As for the three new domestic programs, proposals were approved in late August, and the final decisions were released early October.
This year, each of these new programs focuses on pressing issues unique to their locations. For instance, the Detroit program aims to address financial and environmental challenges following its recent bankruptcy, DukeEngage Miami hopes to encourage socioeconomic development in low-income, multiethnic communities, and DukeEngage D.C. will partner with government agencies and NGOs to address human rights and health policy.
“We see social entrepreneurship as a specific form of civic engagement, and we are excited that our students will have the opportunity to engage in this unique approach to addressing societal challenges,” wrote Eric Mlyn, executive director of DukeEngage, in an email Monday.
DukeEngage Detroit
Prompted by the drastic economic decline in the Motor City, DukeEngage partnered with the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative in an effort to promote reinvention through social entrepreneurship, said Christopher Gergen, program leader for DukeEngage Detroit and chief executive officer of Forward Impact, a company focused on community development through leadership.
Program directors Matthew Nash and Christopher Gergen expressed confidence that through their extensive networks in Detroit, they are well poised to create meaningful partnerships while tailoring the service experience to each individual student. Potential partners include non-profit organizations such as The Empowerment Plan or the Urban Innovation Challenge.
DukeEngage Miami
Building on the Tuscon program which addresses U.S. Mexico border issues, DukeEngage Miami seeks to deepen engagement with the Latino/a community by providing new perspectives.
“I chose Miami for its unique identity as the ‘capital of Latin America’”, wrote Jenny Williams, executive director for the Latino/a Studies, who facilitates both the Tuscon and Miami programs.
“Through [the program], Duke students will be ‘vertically integrated,’ simultaneously learning from the enthusiastic leaders of UNIDAD [non-profit organization in Miami], while also themselves mentoring high school students and thus developing leadership skills,” Williams said.
DukeEngage Washington D.C.
DukeEngage D.C. shifted its focus from political engagement to science, ethics, and society for 2014. Led by Robert Cook-Deegan, director for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy, participating students will partner with government or nongovernment organizations to “assist with the formulation of policy options or make policy choices”, according to the program description.
“I love that there are options to not only serve those in developing countries but also those here at home,” said junior Alexis Macdermott, who participated in DukeEngage DC in 2013.
Macdermott noted that the thematic shift in the D.C. program is a positive transition, citing that students did not apply to Washington D.C. in the past because “it didn’t fit their pre-med resumes.”
“We have seen domestic programs attract applications whose numbers are on par with some our most competitive international programs,” said Mlyn, who added that average acceptance rate for all programs is between 50 and 60 percent.
According to their respective program leaders, DukeEngage Detroit intends to take on 10 students, DukeEngage Miami 8, and DukeEngage D.C. 10.
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