Program in Education
Assistant Professor of the Practice Kisha Daniels is on a mission. As the new director of Duke’s Secondary Teacher Preparation Program, her job is to let students know that on a campus full of emerging consultants, engineers, and doctors, there’s also a pathway to becoming a teacher. While many departments at Duke are highly visible, the Program in Education still flies under the radar. It offers a minor for undergraduates who’d like to become elementary and secondary teachers and a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) for… read more about Inspiring Change: Students in the Program in Education Find Their Calling to Make a Difference in Education »
Growing up in the Bronx only three blocks from Yankee Stadium, it’s no surprise that baseball is in Harris Cooper’s DNA. So much so the retired dean of social sciences and chair of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke found a new lab for his tireless study of people: Working as an usher at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. “One night game, I saw a guy who had on a shirt that said ‘Rebel Scum,’” Cooper says. “He had on baggy camo shorts, a scruffy beard, hat backwards. He walks by me and a little later, another guy walks… read more about Harris Cooper: Psychology, Baseball and the History of Whiskey »
Six members of Duke’s Class of 2023 have been named to the second class of Nakayama Scholars. The Nakayama Public Service Scholarship is part of the university’s efforts to encourage students to use their Duke experience to engage with the large challenges facing communities around the world. The students represent multiple disciplines across Duke’s academic departments as well as a variety of future careers. Juniors Alexandra Bennion, Bentley Choi, Garrett Goodman, Shreyas Hallur, Andrew Liu and Nellie Sun were chosen… read more about Duke Names Second Class of Nakayama Scholars »
Duke TeachHouse was featured by Duke Interdisciplinary Studies in March 2022. The article entitled "Duke TeachHouse Recognized as Successful Model Supporting North Carolina Public Education" highlights TeachHouse's recent selection by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction as a Promising Practice and celebrates recent achieves by TeachHouse fellows and alumni. Click here to read more. read more about The TeachHouse Story: Duke's Office of Interdisciplinary Studies »
Fifty years separate the days when Claudius “C.B.” Claiborne and Michelle Staggers completed their undergraduate degrees at Duke. But a conversation held February 28 made clear that the former student-athletes had plenty of shared experiences, along with a few key differences. Now a professor of business and marketing in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University, Claiborne was the first African American basketball player at Duke and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Staggers was a member of… read more about Two Former Student-Athletes Discuss Duke History and Hope for the Future »
In February 2022, Duke TeachHouse was recognized by the Department of Public Instruction as a "Promising Practice" in North Carolina. The mission of the Promising Practices initiative is "to promote practices that motivate, engage, and provide measurable results in North Carolina's public school units" with the goal of "improving educational opportunities for all 1.5 million public school students in North Carolina." Click here to read more. read more about TeachHouse recognized as a "Promising Practice" by NC Department of Public Instruction »
More than 50 people gathered in a Duke classroom both in-person and remotely this September to consider whether “Truth is a Linguistic Question” – a prompt provided by faculty leading the ongoing Sawyer Seminar Series on language discrimination in fragile and precarious communities. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the series launched in spring 2020 and continued throughout the pandemic thanks to a combination of perseverance and the power of Zoom. This latest seminar kicked off a slate of events for this fall.… read more about ‘Truth is a Linguistic Question’ Talks by Five Trinity Scholars Relaunch Series on Language Discrimination »
Senior year for Duke’s Class of 2020 did not go as expected. As they look toward their long-delayed, eagerly anticipated, in-person commencement ceremony on Sept. 26, members of the Class of 2020 share their memories of Duke and how they learned to cherish ordinary moments of connection and community. Katie Cassedy Katie graduated in 2020 with an economics major and a minor in visual media studies. She is currently a UK Agency Associate in LinkedIn’s Business Leadership Program based… read more about The Class of 2020 Remembers Duke »
When he was an undergraduate political science student, Kerry Haynie was never taught about the 1921 Tulsa massacre. Nor was there much discussion about the role of race in the founding political documents of this country or much examination of how race influenced public services such as sewer lines and zoning. In one sense, a lot has changed. In 2021, Duke’s faculty includes a strong lineup of leading scholars who examine how race is embedded in issues that cross all the schools of the university. This fall, many of… read more about University Course Raises Race as a Central Element of Undergraduate Education »
Six members of the Class of 2022 have been named to the inaugural class of Nakayama Scholars. Juniors Sydney Albert, Carlee Goldberg, Erica Langan, Yi Xian “Lyndon” Lee, Ahn-Huy Nguyen, and Micalyn Struble were chosen for their stellar academics, leadership and demonstrated commitment to a career in public service. The Nakayama Public Service Scholarship is part of the university’s efforts to encourage students to use their Duke experience to engage with the large challenges facing communities around the world. The… read more about Six Students Named Inaugural Nakayama Public Service Scholars »
TeachHouse Nechyba Innovation Fellow Carter Zenke was featured in an Innovation@Duke story regarding a computer science curriculum that helps overcome barriers to learning. Read the full story. read more about Bass Connections Team Creates Computer Science Curriculum for NC Elementary Schools »
State leaders and education officials weighing whether to re-open schools are considering myriad factors, from infection rates to vaccine rollout to a reluctance on the part of both teachers and families. Three Duke experts, including a pediatrics professor co-leading a National Institutes of Health-funded study on how to reopen schools safely, spoke to journalists Wednesday in a virtual media briefing. (Watch the briefing on YouTube) Here are excerpts: DR. IBUKUN CHRISTINE AKINBOYO, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF… read more about Masks, Distancing, Hand-washing Crucial for Reopening Schools »
“It’s—it’s been rough,” Katrina Herrera said in late December 2020. It was the last week of the fall semester at East Garner Magnet Middle School, where Herrera teaches science. The Wake County, North Carolina, school had moved to remote learning, so Herrera taught virtually all year long. Course schedules, lesson plans, activities: they were all upended. But Herrera was resilient, as were thousands of other public school teachers around the country. “I think it was easier to prepare for because we had March through June to… read more about The MAT Program Is Training Educators Who Are Ready for Anything »
Our pilot UnConference in Fall 2020 was a huge success! The UnConference is a new model that amplies teachers' power, autonomy, and voice by inviting educators to determine discussion topics, facilitate conversations, and document actions to solve problems of practice. The model allows authentic conversations and community building across teachers working at different schools and in different content areas/grade levels. It is a unique model which recognizes the expertise and skills of educators and creates an inviting… read more about TeachHouse UnConference Proves Successful »
TeachHouse fellow Katie Cassedy was recently featured in Duke's newspaper The Chronicle in an article titled, "Setbacks and silver linings: Class of 2020 reflects on graduating during a pandemic." When Cassedy found out in May that her start date had been pushed from October 2020 to July 2021, she was excited that she would have the opportunity to do something unique for a year without having to deal with the stress of finding a job. Since traveling wasn’t a feasible option, she decided to pursue opportunities… read more about TeachHouse Fellow Katie Cassedy featured in Duke University's The Chronicle »
William A. Darity (Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, Economics and African and African American Studies), Malachi Hacohen (Professor of History) and Adam Hollowell (Adjunct Instructor of Education) co-wrote an article for Inside Higher Ed about Duke's new inequality studies minor, arguing that students, professors and administrators need a deeper understanding of how human disparities have developed, why they persist and how they evolve over time. read more about The Importance of Inequality Studies »
DURHAM, N.C. – Two Duke University seniors were among 32 recipients selected this weekend for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships. Kendall Jefferys, from Keller, Texas, and Jamal Burns, from Saint Louis, Missouri, were chosen from among 953 applicants at colleges and universities throughout the country. The scholarships provide all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. Recipients are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and… read more about Two Duke Seniors Awarded Rhodes Scholarship »
More than 100 faculty, staff and students paused amid the relentless pace of the fall semester to gather and reflect on finding purpose, the Duke academic experience and the challenge of systemic racism as part of an annual event hosted by Service-Learning. “The Fierce Urgency of Now” – its title a reference to a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. – featured more than an hour of frank discussion, frequently punctuated by student voices and featuring Dean of Students John Blackshear and Martin Smith, Dean of Academic Affairs… read more about Deans Blackshear and Smith Talk Anti-racism, Finding Purpose and Life's Unexpected Paths »
A faculty member in the Program in Education has been named the new Dean of Academic Affairs for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Martin Smith will join Dean Valerie Ashby’s leadership team and fill the vacancy created by John Blackshear, who is leaving Trinity on Aug. 1 for his new role as Dean of Students for Duke. “This is a critical moment for higher education and for Duke,” Ashby said. “We need a leader in Academic Affairs who can clearly envision the future we’re moving toward – someone who understands the… read more about Smith named Dean of Academic Affairs for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences »
What cancelled summer plans—and new ones—say about the Duke student body. One was supposed to be saying goodbye to her childhood home on the other side of the Atlantic. Another was meant to be working with refugees in Ireland. Two more had plans for research projects in Africa. None of it happened. With international travel grounded thanks to COVID-19, all of the plans that Duke students carefully laid for the summer came apart at the seams. But Duke’s inherently global nature remains—evident in its diverse student body… read more about Purpose from Disruption »