Office of Undergraduate Education

Someone once sneered at my description of Duke as a place of “nonchalant excellence.”  It wasn’t the excellence part that spurred their disbelief, but rather, the idea that Duke is nonchalant—rankings and towering spires aside, I still contend such is the case.  This weekend the New York Times featured a story on the selection of two new chess grandmasters by the World Chess Federation.  One of them, Lev Milman is an ’09 Duke graduate and my fraternity brother.  Lev earned the classification of grandmaster, the highest level of player, by his high ranking at the recent New York International chess tournament, but his selection has been long in the making.  While many students were in the library or out with friends, Lev was sneaking away to chess tournaments across the country—all the while still graduating with a BS in Economics and being a member of AEPi fraternity, the Chess Club, and the Duke Entrepreneur.  Even more amazing to me, Lev, like so many students here who have achieved much, does not boast about being a  chess champion.  I had to read about his triumph in the newspaper.  Lev begins this fall with a position in sales and trading at Deutsche Bank in New York.

Graduation is a profoundly personal accomplishment in one’s life, but graduation ceremonies are rarely personal. Between large majors’ ceremonies and commencement, few Duke students and their families are fortunate enough to share an intimate ceremony with faculty and staff. Recently, I was able to observe such a ceremony at the Baldwin Scholars graduation. Co-directed by our office’s own Donna Lisker, the Alice M. Baldwin Scholars program supports undergraduate women in becoming engaged and confident leaders, at Duke and now beyond. Last week, the program feted the 18 young women who will become the second class of Baldwin alumnae. (more…)

For her 100th birthday, philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis committed $1 million to fund one hundred $10,000 projects to commemorate her 100 years on this Earth.   Now known as Davis Projects for Peace, her vision has emerged as an international competition for funding student-led service projects.  This year  two selected projects originated at Duke, and five students will see their proposals materialize.  Rebecca Agostino, Joshua Greenberg, Erica Jain, and Eddie Zhang — who worked with Dr. Alex Cho from the School of Medicine and Dr. Alessandro Tarozzi from the Department of Economics — will spend this summer trying to reduce malaria cases in western Uganda.  Also in Africa, graduating senior Jane Chong will teach English in Nigeria in an open-air classroom.  Jane is also a  Hart Leadership fellow.

Maria del Mar Suarez, T’12, has been selected as the Young Humanitarian of the Year by the Charlotte Coalition for Social Justice, one of North Carolina’s first social justice organizations. For over fifty years, the Coalition has annually selected three community members, with one being a young humanitarian, from Charlotte/Mecklenburg County who have made significant contributions to improving the quality of life for members of the community by challenging discrimination and promoting improved relationships between people of different groups, races, religions, cultures, and nationalities.

Suarez, born in Bogota, Columbia, has been an active member of the Charlotte community throughout her adolescence. She tutored elementary school children in English as a Second Language classes and currently tutors adults who are learning English for the first time through a student-run volunteer program at Duke. Maria’s interest in social activism was inspired by her earlier participation in Charlotte Coalition for Social Justice. (more…)

Everyday on campus students, faculty, and staff offer their time and service to great causes, both big and small—they might never win a Rhodes or get promoted, but nevertheless they persist. This spring, the Division of Student Affairs will honor these unsung community members in their third annual Distinguished Leadership and Service Awards ceremony. Nominations are open to all students, faculty and staff members including individual awards for student organizations and administrators. You can nominate individuals or groups online at the student affairs website. The event, taking place April 15th, will be open to the public.

Each year hundreds of Duke students conduct research across campus and the world, but very few students earn international awards for research during their freshman year.  This past fall, however, Duke first-year Kapil Ramachandran took home the Addiction Science prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.  At only seventeen, this Austin native is one of Duke’s youngest award-winning researchers.  His research into the science of chemical dependency has many implications for the future of alcohol-addiction treatment.

You can read more about this promising young scientist’s work at the DukeReasearch Blog

A 2007 Duke University graduate who created a program in which college athletes go to rural communities in developing countries to work with middle school-aged children was named one of 32 Rhodes Scholars this weekend.

Julia Parker Goyer, a 23-year-old native of Birmingham, Ala., was chosen from among 769 applicants at 207 colleges and universities throughout the country. She is the 42nd Rhodes Scholar from Duke, including 21 in the past 15 years, and will study international comparative education at the University of Oxford in England. (more…)

Two Duke University public policy students are among 15 college students nationwide selected as Federal Service Student Ambassadors (FSSA) for the 2008-09 school year.

Jeremy Cluchey, a second-year master’s degree student at Duke’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and Nick Campisano, a senior, were selected by the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that works to revitalize the federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve. (more…)

Two Duke University seniors actively involved in laboratory research have been awarded Marshall Scholarships to continue in their respective fields of study after graduation.

Sally Liu, from San Diego, Calif., is a pre-med student and accomplished laboratory researcher who pole vaults on the Duke track team. She intends to study public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics for the next two years.

Dan Roberts, from Melville, N.Y., is an engineering student involved in research to create electromagnetic devices that function as an “invisibility cloak.” He will be earning a Certificate of Advanced Study in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and then joining the lab of Sir John Pendry, a pioneer in the field of transformational optics. (more…)