Office of Undergraduate Education

I  am not Indian, but over the past several months, I have been rehearsing for a South Asian cultural celebration called Awaaz. Sponsored by Diya, Duke’s South Asian students association, Awaaz brings students from different cultural groups across campus to perform  music, comedy, and dance. All proceeds benefit the Duke Microfinance Leadership Initiative, which sponsors startups in the developing world.

Article by Naureen Khan originally appeared in the November issue of Towerview Magazine:

You can tell a lot about a person’s worldview from their Facebook statuses. OK, maybe not a lot. But definitely something. Take, for example, what Ben Bergmann and Vikram Srinivasan—arguably the most visible political figures on campus as far as Duke students go—had to say on their respective pages the day it was announced President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Bergmann, a junior and the president of Duke Democrats for two years running: “Ben will have a permanent quizzical expression for the day because of the Nobel Prize pick. But isn’t it great when the RNC, John Bolton, Hamas, and the Taliban can agree on something?”

Srinivasan, a senior and the ex-chair of the Duke College Republicans, now the organization’s Executive Director: “First the nobel—next, sainthood.”

They’re both a bit clever and a good deal snarky and, most important, they definitely hint at their disparate political affiliations and ideologies. But they’re not as different as you might imagine for two people who are on diametrically opposite ends of the political spectrum.

I found it odd, too, when I spied Bergmann and Srinivasan haunting the third floor of Perkins together in the wee hours of morning in the throes of midterm week, their laptops open side by side, each with a browser tab set to Politico—although it is also important to note that Srinivasan was rocking a stylish pair of yellow earplugs, and that Ben likes to talk. As former Local/National editor of The Chronicle, I’m well aware of what can happen when people of opposing political persuasions and high passions are put in the same room, especially when they know, or think they know, what they’re talking about. Think Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly. Think of the protests that devolved into shouting matches outside each of the campaign rallies for Obama and McCain last year in North Carolina.

But could it be possible that Srinivasan and Bergmann have actually figured out how to see past the fact that they disagree on just about everything, all to forge a real friendship?

The best way to test such a theory was to convene Towerview’s first-ever Beer Summit, à la the meeting President Obama called to order on the Rose Garden Patio with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, in the aftermath of their infamous dispute. This round, Bud Lights would have to do.

We met on a Friday evening in Bergmann’s Central Campus apartment, where, by my count, 10 Obama posters adorned the walls—not including stickers and miscellaneous other political paraphernalia. Walking in and looking around, Srinivasan shrugged, looking slightly amused. He’s used to being surrounded by Obama-philes among college-age students; his own roommate has decor to rival Bergmann’s.

“I’ve been in liberal environments my whole life,” the California native said. “I can handle it.”

As they settled in on the couch and forgot the tape recorder was rolling, a few things were immediately apparent. First, Bergmann and Srinivasan are easy friends, of matching political fervor. In fact, they might be the only two people on campus who can keep up with each other. Despite the subtle jabs they not-so-infrequently lob at the other’s political stripes and the equally subtle eye-rolls that follow such remarks, there isn’t the slightest hint of animosity. If anything, the rivalry is more comedic than dramatic, with the two going off-the-record during bits and pieces of the conversation to get in a little gossip.

“We realize we both come to our positions independently and at some point there are irreconcilable philosophical differences, and you can respect that,” Srinivasan said.

“You can disagree and not be disagreeable,” Bergmann chimed in. “And we do agree on some things.”

Like farm subsidies, for example. Or the Student Organization Finance Committee’s process for funding student groups.

“Fairness is not a partisan issue!” Bergmann said emphatically.

It was also clear that the two have an encyclopedic, borderline obsessive knowledge of all things politics. In a friendly Sporcle-esque competition staged by yours truly, Srinivasan rattled off 59 senators in 10 minutes. Bergmann came in at a close second with 57, although both insisted on snatching their pieces of paper back to write down the ones that eluded them for just a second too long. (“I can’t remember the gay guy from South Carolina! I know him, I can tell you everything about him, but I can’t tell you his name,” Bergmann muttered as his hand moved frantically down the page. “We don’t know for sure that he’s gay!” was Srinivasan’s response as he jotted down name after name. “Do you want the parties too?”)

But Bergmann and Srinivasan are political purists at heart, not just junkies. There’s a difference, they insist. They get just as excited about discussing the minutiae of policy as they do about predicting the results of the 2010 midterm elections. They fill in each other sentence’s when speaking of their respective experiences working on various political campaigns. Both are even-keeled and respectful of their other’s positions.

And that just might be the cornerstone of their amicable friendship and professional relationship.

Both have found the level of policital activity and engagement on campus—with the exception of the run-up to the 2008 elections—to be something of a let-down, especially after spending summers in D.C. immersed in politics. (As a sidenote, guess who happened to waltz into The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank where Srinivasan was interning? Bergmann, of course. He was a representative for the Center for Think Progress, The Heritage Foundation’s liberal counterpart. They just can’t seem to stay away from each other.)

“It was frustrating for someone who was into that environment and wanted to continue and I knew Ben was on the same page,” Srinivasan said. “We thought this was part of a campus culture that needed to change. And it was something that Democrats and Republicans could agree on.”

Who knows? Maybe in 30 years, you’ll see Sens. Srinivasan and Bergmann shaking hands over a bipartisan bill in Congress. Maybe it will even concern farm subsidies. “I think Vikram’s a nice guy who believes in crazy things,” Bergmann explained. “And I’m a nice guy who also believes crazy things.”

It’s an unusual claim to fame. Swathi Padmanabhan, a public policy major from Columbus, Ohio, has read every one of Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times columns since she was in the 10th grade. No wonder she was so excited to attend the fall lecture and booksigning at Duke of the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who often writes on global health, poverty, and gender issues in the Third World — and to attend a reception for him hosted by the Baldwin Scholars and WISER programs. Padmanabhan, a Baldwin Scholar herself, has dedicated her Duke research experience to getting a less expensive cervical cancer vaccine to Indian women.

Kristof didn’t disappoint. Here’s Padmanabhan’s take:

“In this increasingly global world, Duke students are often hyper-aware of issues plaguing society. We discuss them and offer our own solutions to them, yet bemoan our inability to actually do something. We put our heads down, push through exams and papers like automatons, and trust that someone else will pick up the torch and make a difference. So, when we encounter a man like Nicholas Kristof, a journalist who has transformed his career into a bully pulpit for change, we must ask ourselves whether we truly are incapable of having an impact in this world. We are receiving world-class educations that, because of globalization, have become more forward thinking and practical than ever before. Our public policy and political science courses emphasize policy issues that governments around the world currently grapple with, our English courses consider present day implications of classic literature, our engineering and science disciplines focus on structural innovations and advancements in health care respectively. We, more than anybody in our generation, have the tools necessary to go out and enact change. Until now, however, we have largely confined ourselves to believing in the change that others can bring. Kristof serves as a real life example of how one person can make a difference. His commitment to freeing victims of sex trafficking is inspiring. We, as citizens of the world, should embrace his optimism and his willingness to champion humanitarian issues that are often neglected. Indeed, President Kennedy once asked our parents and grandparents to do something positive for their country. I think it is time for our generation to step forward and do the same for our world.”

Recently Business Week compiled a list of America’s brightest and youngest entrepreneurs, many of whom have made millions before the age of twenty-five.  One highlighted young businessman was Duke alumnus Dylan Smith, T ‘07, an economics-major from Seattle with a penchant for taking calculated risks. Smith left the West Coast for Duke University expecting to be pre-med.  By his sophomore year, however, Smith had changed his sights to business and had begun raking in winnings from online poker tournaments.  At this point, Smith’s childhood friend Aaron Levie contacted him about an online venture in data storage solutions.  With an investment of $11,000 of Smith’s poker winnings, the young Blue Devil and his buddy at USC founded Box.net, an online collaboration tool now used by more than 50,000 companies worldwide.

You can read more about Box.net and its CFO Dylan Smith in this Seattle Times article.

Do you know how smart your neighbor is?  If you live in NC’s Triangle then odds are that they are pretty intelligent, says the online publication The Daily Beast.  This week the web magazine released a list of America’s most intelligent metropolitan areas; with a whopping Daily Beast IQ of 170, the populace of the Raleigh-Durham area topped the list. The Daily beast  explains that the  proximity of  “two of the nation’s elite schools (Duke and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)”  were major factors contributing to RDU’s first-place ranking, citing that the schools of the Triangles have “led to one of the nation’s great technology incubators.”

Of course, the intelligence of the denizens of Durham would not surprise any members of the Duke community—but we aren’t just smart; we’re cultured too, or at least well fed, says Bon Appetit Magazine, which selected the Durham-Chapel area as the “foodiest” small city in America.  With all these accolades, there’s no wondering why US News ranked Durham number five in their listing of the top places to live.

It’s an accepted fact around campus that Duke students can sell Duke best–whether it’s to the media or for admissions. Dan Piech, T ‘09, took his Duke-love one step further and created a Duke infomercial for his senior capstone project. After his final product was posted on YouTube, several Duke administrators came across the informative and edgy piece. Admins were so impressed that the piece was edited down to become Duke’s official thirty-second commercial spot.

You can read more about Dan’s transformation from student-filmmaker to university marketer in this Duke news article:

http://news.duke.edu/2009/09/tvspot.html

One day early in my Duke career, I was speaking to a family friend, Dr. Bret Fisher, T ‘82, Med ‘87. He asked me if I had taken a course with one of his favorite professors, Dr. Bonk. I smiled and let him know that I was enrolled in Dr. Bonk’s chemistry course for the following fall. There are many experiences that two Dukies, separated by some 25 years, would normally share: Convocation in the Chapel, studying in the Gardens, games in Cameron. But as I sat in Chemistry 83 and watched as Dr. Bonk perfectly fit Dr. Fisher’s description, I realized that sometimes even personalities can transcend decades. Now in his 50th year at Duke, Dr. Bonk is still shaping the lives of students. You can read more about Dr. Bonk’s impressive life at Duke and his great chemistry with students here in this Duke News feature:

http://news.duke.edu/2009/09/bonk.html

Just under two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join a small group of my classmates on what Duke calls a “Faculty Outing” to the historic (and small) town of Pittsboro, N.C. Pittsboro, which is the county seat of Chatham County, was established in 1785 and looks and feels like a quintessential small, southern town. There’s a main street lined with small, locally owned shops and a statue of a confederate solider in front of a historic courthouse.

Dr. Michael Munger, who is a professor of economics, public policy, and political science at Duke, chair of the Political Science Department, and the former Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina, led our tour around Pittsboro. He explained some of the town’s Civil War-era cultural and economic history in the context of what was happening in the area at the time. We then explored a few of the local shops and went to the classic S&T’s Soda Shoppe for lunch.

Each Faculty Outing had a different theme and set of activities. Some were designed to be fun, others had the intention of providing some quality exercise, and some were designed to introduce first-year students to their new homes. Regardless of the particular outing’s agenda, each student who participated in a Faculty Outing got to meet and spend time with a professor or administrator who they might not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.

Three Augusts ago, Mike Posner found himself sitting in the Duke Chapel across from President Brodhead about to sign the Honor Code.   Last week Mike was sitting across from Sony/ATV music CEO Marty Bandier about to sign a record deal.   The savvy of Marty Bandier in catching Mike and Mike’s own journey are chronicled in a recent New York Times business piece.  Since matriculating,  Mike has formed a band “Mike Posner and the Brain Trust,” performed on Duke’s campus and beyond, and managed to be a full-time student.  Consequently, 2010 will be the year of his graduation and his album.

Check out the whole  NY Times piece here.

Arun Sharma did not expect that serving as a Howard Hughes Research Fellow in Dr. Gerard Blobe’s cancer research lab would teach him more than how to cultivate cells. Instead, Arun discovered the myriad skills of a biological scientist, from the importance of sterilizing equipment to the ease of befriending his fellow researchers. Since 2006, the Howard Hughes Research Fellows program has given undergraduates the opportunity to engage in mentored and interdisciplinary biology education. Arun’s research seeks to explain how certain proteins help the protein endoglin move into endothelial cells, which line blood vessels. Read more about Arun’s summer here.