Knight Talks Goals as Trustee
“Nothing she can’t do”
When her term begins, Knight will be the only female undergraduate Young Trustee on the Board | Page 3
Women’s basketball’s Azura Stevens is poised to replace Elizabeth Williams as the next great post player | Page 7
The Chronicle T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015
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PoliSci uses new strategies to compete in majors market
‘Stretched thin’:
ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH YEAR, ISSUE 78
For some professors of color, lack of faculty diversity can lead to burden
Adam Beyer The Chronicle Although the political science department has suffered a decline in student enrollment in recent years, faculty emphasize its continuing relevance as both an academic discipline and a path to the job market. Last Thursday, Peter Feaver, professor of political science and public policy, spoke about ways to get a job in politics after graduation at the new “Pizza and Politics” luncheon series. Feaver talked about a growing concern that students are choosing majors perceived as more pre-professional, such as public policy, over more traditional fields of study, attributing this to the economic recession and parental pressure. While the political science department’s enrollment numbers have dropped, enrollment in the public policy major has increased—leading some to speculate that the trends are correlated. “Of course people who graduated with political science degrees have had jobs, and indeed, some have been phenomenally successfully,” Feaver said. “Part of it is clarifying for students that you can get a job from [political science].” Between the Class of 2010 and the Class of 2014, there were 73 fewer students with political science as their primary major—a 49 percent drop. Meanwhile, the number of See PoliSci on Page 4
Thu Nguyen | The Chronicle
“Having too small a pool and constantly drawing from it will make the well run dry,” says BSA president Kirby Wilson The Chronicle As an associate professor of political science, Kerry Haynie juggles research and teaching, among other scholarly responsibilities. But as a black faculty member, he feels a burden that his white colleagues do not—the
obligation to commit time to sharing his underrepresented perspective. Duke’s lack of faculty diversity has left some professors of color reporting that they feel overworked. Several black professors have voiced the concern that the cultural perspective they offer can be a double-edged sword, often forcing them to wear many time consuming hats outside of their academic work. Black faculty members are asked to sit on committees much more frequently than their white counterparts, Haynie noted. For some black faculty, he said, participating feels more like an obligation than a choice.
“Often, many of us do not want to be stretched thin, but we see no way around it because we are not comfortable not having eyes and ears in certain rooms,” Haynie said. Advisory and administrative committees cover everything from academics to athletics to infrastructure. The University’s Academic Council alone has 41 distinct President or Provost-appointed committees, creating a situation where the same black faculty might be asked repeatedly to participate when white counterparts are not. See Faculty on Page 12
Durham lays out strategies for anti-poverty initiative address, in which he highlighted his hopes for poverty reduction in Durham.
Aleena Karediya Local & National Editor Durham’s Poverty Reduction Initiative met last Wednesday to lay out strategies for reducing poverty levels in Durham. The initiatives center around Durham’s Census Tract 10.01, a large section of Northeast Central Durham with high levels of residents living below the poverty line. The strategic plan builds on poverty initiatives introduced by Mayor Bill Bell at the start of 2014. Task forces working for the initiative reported progress on employment levels, public safety, finance, health, housing and education in area of Census Tract 10.01. This task force was initiated after Bell’s 2014 State of the City
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Bell’s visions at the start of 2014 With close to 20 percent of Durham’s population—or approximately 44,600 residents—living under the poverty line In January 2014, Bell highlighted two key aspects of relieving poverty he planned to focus on in Mayor Bill Bell years to come—relationship-building across poverty lines and the creation of social and educational opportunities for Durham’s youth. “We as a city and county are rich in many resources,” Bell said in his 2014 speech. “We
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must find a way to harness those many resources to focus or target the reduction in poverty in our community.” Among the organizations mentioned in his speech, Bell targeted two that are key to paving the way for poverty elimination— REAL Durham and Made in Durham. REAL Durham was initially a part of the National Circles Institute, an organization that focuses on mentoring, peer-to-peer counseling and youth development to build relationships within disadvantaged communities across the United States. REAL Durham, however, has since then shifted its focus to a smaller, more interpersonal structure that has been found to work well for the Durham community. Camryn Smith, coordinator of REAL Durham, said that the group’s focus is mainly on
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educating and forming small, interpersonal relationships across the lines of poverty. “What we do is educate,” Smith said. “We educate the middle class about systemic racial biases and educate people internalized in the system. It’s not just solely their acts, but its also systemic biases that are playing a role here.” Made in Durham is a public-private partnership initiative which aims to offer Durham’s youth a career by the time they are 25. With only half of Durham’s youth going on to complete high school, go to college and get a job by the age of 25, Made in Durham fills an important niche in Durham’s community, said Richard Hart, communications director of Made In Durham. “It is absolutely imperative that students be
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See Poverty on Page 9 © 2014 The Chronicle