As undergraduate students vote for their new Young Trustee this week, graduate students will also be choosing a new representative on the Board.
Unlike undergraduates, the Graduate Young Trustee is not chosen by a popular election. Instead, the Graduate and Professional Student Council’s General Assembly will elect the trustee Tuesday night.
Here are the three finalists vying for the position, listed in alphabetical order by their last name:
William Brody
William Brody is a recent graduate of the Fuqua School of Business, who earned his degree in May 2018. Before receiving his master of business arts, Brody graduated from Duke’s Trinity College in 2012 with a major in economics and a concentration in markets and management studies.
During his time at Fuqua, Brody served as co-president of the Fuqua MBA Association for a year, serving the 900-person student body and managing the $550,000 budget that provides for more than 60 student organizations.
“Above all else, I feel obligated to use my skill set and sincere commitment to service to benefit our university,” Brody said.
He created a “Gender Working Group” to address gender issues at the school, which led to the creation of a women’s leadership elective course, funding to recruit more female applicants and supplementary education for the student body about sexual assault. The program saw a 9-percent increase in female enrollment the next year.
“I think it’s a direct result of the efforts we took, and I think it’s just the beginning of positive results from a collaborative effort,” Brody said. “It’s indicative of that can-do, team approach I would like to use as a trustee.”
As an undergraduate at Duke, Brody was a senator in Duke Student Government, a student manager for the football team and president of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.
“I bring forth a breadth of experience, which I accumulated through my time as an undergraduate at Duke and in the workplace as a professional, and most recently as co-president of Fuqua,” Brody said.
Since May 2018, when Brody graduated, he has been a managing director at BlueDot Properties in Durham.
“I’m a big believer in Duke’s vision, and I see the University as a driving force for good—both in the people it serves and in the community it’s a part of,” Brody said. “That’s not something that just happened, it’s the result of folks working hard year after year.”
Nathan Bullock
Nathan Bullock is pursuing a Ph.D. in the department of art, art history and visual studies. His dissertation is on “Architecture and the Performance of Citizenship in a Global City: Singapore, 1965 to 2015.”
Bullock said he plans to pursue a career in higher education.
“I’m really motivated to serve the University,” Bullock said. “I think it’s really important to be involved at all levels.”
He earned a Master of Science degree in human geography and urban studies from the London School of Economics in 2014, and a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College in 2012. Bullock came to Duke because he was drawn to the interdisciplinary style of the program and the faculty.
Bullock completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond in 2010, majoring in international political economy with minors in French and Chinese studies.
At Duke, Bullock has been a research assistant on the Bass Connections team called “Building Duke: An Architectural History of Duke University Campus.” The project includes archival research in the University Archives about how architectural decisions were made in building the University.
“I’ve gotten a lot of historical insight into how these decisions get made at Duke, as well as the historical perspective that I think is really necessary for guiding Duke into the future,” Bullock said.
He already has experience on the Board of Trustees, as he currently serves on the Board’s task force planning the future of Central Campus. Bullock highlighted the connection between his study of architecture and the University’s needs in determining the future of Central Campus.
“I feel that I have a really great relationship with the members of this task force—that includes trustees as well as administrators,” Bullock said. “So I understand already how the Board of Trustees works, the various policies and procedures of their governing structure.”
Sam Howe
Sam Howe is pursuing a juris doctor at the School of Law, and he expects to graduate in May.
He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Duke Law Journal for its 68th volume, is a board member for Duke Moot Court and worked as a case manager for Duke Law Innocence Project and as the Veterans Assistance Project co-director.
Howe also completed his undergraduate career at Duke, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in public policy studies in 2008. Then Howe joined the Marine Corps, serving for eight years.
“I went to Duke as an undergraduate, so my wife and I met here,” Howe said. “So we’ve been part of Duke for a long time. Our son was actually born in Duke Hospital.”
Starting as a communications officer in June 2009, Howe led a 50 Marine detachment for a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan. Afterwards, he was a congressional fellow for a year in D.C., working with the legislative director in the office of Representative Ken Calvert on matters related to defense and veterans.
Howe then became a legislative liaison, working in the Marine Corps House Liaison Office, developing the 2015 congressional engagement strategy for senior leaders and coordinating and carrying out several congressional and congressional staff delegations for more than 100 days of travel to 38 countries.
“If you kind of think about it like Congress is the Board of the whole government, and you have all the executive agencies—or in my case, the military service—we were sort of that interface for what questions and policies Congress had for the Marine Corps,” Howe said.
His time at Duke began in Randolph dorm his freshman year, but Howe hasn’t gotten too far away a decade later.
“We take our son on walks around East Campus, so it comes full circle,” he said.
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Bre is a senior political science major from South Carolina, and she is the current video editor, special projects editor and recruitment chair for The Chronicle. She is also an associate photography editor and an investigations editor. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief and local and national news department head.
Twitter: @brebradham
Email: breanna.bradham@duke.edu