Office of Undergraduate Education

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.

There is nothing atypical about a Duke professor sending her students to the library, but when cultural historian Trudi Abel gives her troops marching orders, she has a mission.  This mission is the Digital Durham project.  Begun in 1999, Abel’s initiative to map Durham’s history  has become central to her courses such as “Digital Durham and the New South.”   Supported by Trinity College and Duke’s Center for Instructional  Technology her website, which is open to the public, contains public and private records, photographs and maps–and nearly all of this was found by her and her students in Duke’s special collections library.  In her class, students not only have their own part of the historical project, but they also serve as mentors to middle-school students at Durham School of the Arts. Abel’s work with undergraduates has led her to a new research interest in the study of how technology can be used in the classroom.

For more on Abel and her students, check out this DukeToday story on the Digital Durham project.

Duke faculty members are committed to giving students the individual attention that nurtures ideas and pushes them to excel.  As the following story about Aleks Klimas E’09 and Professor and Chair of Physics Daniel Gauthier shows, these relationships are built not only in the classroom, but also through jobs, hands-on research projects, independent studies and lab assistantships. They can change a student’s intellectual and career paths. (more…)

Recently the Duke Alumni Association and the Duke Career Center joined forces to put together DukeConnect, a website aimed at providing both academic and career advising to undergraduates with the help of Duke’s expansive alumni network.  The site, located at www.DukeConnect.com, is looking for alumni volunteers and is already inviting students to participate.  Check it out!