Duke has bludgeoned, not coddled me. I believe I am not alone when I say this.
Columnists and writers have oft criticized our generation for being coddled and protected from scary ideas. My reality has been far different than the idyllic campus portrayed in admissions brochures.
Most people I know have been forced to grapple with more than what Duke promises in its brochure. Whether it’s a sexual assault, a struggle with depression or other mental health issues, body image, questioning one’s sexual orientation or gender identity, institutionalized racism and implicit bias, an institution that has failed its students or its values. Whether it's a chronic illness, a death in the family or simply self-doubt about what comes next, in the world of Duke, you pick your poison.
Perhaps this awakening to life and all the things that make it hard is a natural occurrence as we grow up. Perhaps it’s a necessary lesson that sometimes the world hands you lemons, and no matter what you do, the lemonade you try to make is going to taste terrible. Perhaps Duke as an institution should reflect the conservatism of the world around it as a way to expose students to new ideas and challenge them to become activists early and often.
But we are students before anything else. We shouldn’t always have to bear the burden of telling administrators what they should do to make the campus a more inclusive and equitable place. We shouldn’t have to be assaulted by our peers and forced to deal with an exhausting system to get some semblance of justice alone. We shouldn’t have to organize a rally every time someone does something racist, homophobic or generally wrong in our community.
It is not our responsibility to always be the ones who are left to be both student and whistleblower/activist/organizer/leader. Without fail, these so-called distractions do more to detract from our ability to succeed as students, our primary responsibility, than any tent in K-Ville or extracurricular activity ever could. Most times they are far more than distractions. There is no choice involved. And the pain is far too real to ever be considered a trifle of fancy.
Once the failings of this community become a central part of your psyche, it’s hard to begin to see the glimmers of joy and privilege endowed by being a student here. Duke is still a great place to be from but most certainly not the best place to be. That midterm still matters but not as much as the hearing for your sexual assault next week or your friend who has been in and out of the emergency room suffering from an illness. Duke begins to feel more like a long battle with the world versus the enlightening intellectual journey you envisioned when President Brodhead welcomed you to campus at convocation.
My mind has wandered often to this train of thought over the past few months. However, the prospect of my impending graduation has brought me back to thinking about what has made the past four years great, in spite of all there exists to the contrary.
I could have chosen to attend a different college. I could have decided to build different friendships or join different organizations. These thoughts are easy gateways to regret. There are things completely out of our control, but we share in the agency to choose how we respond and whether we stick by our friends and what is right no matter the consequences. After a Young Trustee campaign that required a great deal of energy and a “Satan will not win this day” mentality, I had one of those rare moments of pure joy that reminded me why I came to Duke.
When I started writing this column, I envisioned a message that life was all about the choices you make to care about a problem that isn’t yours, to support a friend or stand up for an issue. But as I reflected, I recognized such words were a trifle to the authentic nature of Duke for many who spend anywhere from one month to four-plus years on this campus.
Beyond the effortless perfection myth, there is so much more that we are expected to be and that we expect Duke to be for us. The truth for many is that they leave on or before graduation having lost their self confidence, perhaps their core identity or more frequently a part of themselves in the process. I believe we have the ability to choose how we respond when things outside of our control conspire to harm us, that we can say “Not today Satan” to power through it.
Time and again on days like today that belief has been tested. There are, however, little things we can look toward in the midst of the swamp of life, those glimmers of hope. I’m going to choose today to embody that spirit and seek it even when it seems ultimately lost. That’s the hope I choose to put my faith in.
Jay Sullivan is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
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