This poem by Kimberly Gaubault appears in the Duke Magazine Special Issue 2021, in which all the stories focus on freedom. Gaubault (McCrae) graduated from Duke in 2000 and is an intentional lover of people and advocates for defining one's personal freedom.

Anthem For You

In 2020, as the Black Lives Matter protests gathered strength in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, Duke President Vince Price released a statement committing the university to “take transformative action now toward eliminating … systems of racism and inequality.” He listed expected steps: diversity in hiring and admissions, additional aid, salary equity, Juneteenth as a Duke paid holiday. More, he pledged to “incorporate anti-racism into our curricula … across the university.”

One of the first places that led was to UNIV 101: The Invention and Consequences of Race, a new universitywide course addressing the very concept of race, and how it was created and what it has wrought. That 14-week course was the first time Duke had addressed a topic like this in a universitywide course.

When it was time to create the UNIV 101: The Invention and Consequences of Race, professor Kerry Haynie had an issue. The course came about as part of Duke’s antiracism effort, and Haynie’s central concern was simple: “I don’t know what people mean by antiracist,” he said. “I mean, I think I have an idea of what they think they mean.


“But I don’t know how to do that. That is not what I do as an academic.”  

It was a heavy lift. How do you create a course with a goal like that? How do you make sure you're teaching, not proselytizing? It's a complicated issue, so the Devils' Share attended that course to document. How'd it go? Did the students like it? Did they learn things? How'd the professors feel it went? What was it like to create such a course? What worked and what didn't? And, of course, what did everybody learn about race?

So take a listen to "The Race Course," as The Devils' Share documents a university taking steps towards antiracism -- whatever that turns out to mean.

Here's episode 1.

The Race Course: Episode 1, FIrst Steps

Duke's UNIV 101 course, The Invention and Consequences of Race, gathers momentum. We learn about the sociology of race and "immigrant whiteness," and how whiteness isn't a color, it's a social status that can be aspired to. Different groups, for example, both become and stop being white. How whiteness has a lot more to do with politics than skin color. And how the professors and the students feel the class is going, and how they chose to discuss or not discuss things.

Race Course: Episode 2, How to Become White

In 2020, as the Black Lives Matter protests gathered strength in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, Duke President Vince Price released a statement committing the university to “take transformative action now toward eliminating … systems of racism and inequality.” He listed expected steps: diversity in hiring and admissions, additional aid, salary equity, Juneteenth as a Duke paid holiday. More, he pledged to “incorporate anti-racism into our curricula … across the university.”

One of the first places that led was to UNIV 101: The Invention and Consequences of Race, a new universitywide course addressing the very concept of race, and how it was created and what it has wrought. That 14-week course was the first time Duke had addressed a topic like this in a universitywide course.

When it was time to create the UNIV 101: The Invention and Consequences of Race, professor Kerry Haynie had an issue. The course came about as part of Duke’s antiracism effort, and Haynie’s central concern was simple: “I don’t know what people mean by antiracist,” he said. “I mean, I think I have an idea of what they think they mean.

“But I don’t know how to do that. That is not what I do as an academic.”

It was a heavy lift. How do you create a course with a goal like that? How do you make sure you're teaching, not proselytizing? It's a complicated issue, so the Devils' Share attended that course to document. How'd it go? Did the students like it? Did they learn things? How'd the professors feel it went? What was it like to create such a course? What worked and what didn't? And, of course, what did everybody learn about race?

So take a listen to "The Race Course," as The Devils' Share documents a university taking steps towards antiracism -- whatever that turns out to mean.

The Race Course: Trailer

A special compilation of the trailer and the first two episodes of The Race Course, to support its entry for a CASE Circle of Excellence Award,

The Race Course: Compilation

This month Devils and Details meets with David Ntim, a sophomore studying biomedical engineering and computer science, who was chosen as this year’s Duke Chapel Student Preacher. Ntim speaks with us about faith and hope (and finals). Here’s a link to the entire service where he delivered his sermon. 

To learn about alumni events we meet with Lisa Weistart ’92 to learn about Details of the Devil: The History of Duke’s Mascot, a new documentary about the history of the Duke Blue Devil. The Duke Alumni regional teams have taken the documentary to several regional events and plan to take it to more; Lisa tells us about that, and Ann-Louise Aguiar tells us about upcoming events in Philadelphi and Boston, including one at the Philadelphia Free Library, designed by Julian Abele, who also designed Duke’s West Campus. And David Lindquist ’86, Duke Alumni Association assistant vice president, tells us about an upcoming event in Shanghai.

In our Everybody Comes to Duke segment we visit with Emmy-winning television writer and producer Michael Schur, who visited Duke to discuss his recent book, How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question.

Devils and Details, episode 1

Duke University on October 5 inaugurated its tenth president, Vince Price. That gave Duke the opportunity to celebrate for a couple days in its own style. Duke Magazine produced this audio postcard.

dukeinauguration

Every Thanksgiving, residents at Duke internal medicine square off for a flag football game -- lightly organized along the lines of who is serving at Duke Hospital and who is at the Durham VA, over the years the game has become a beloved tradition and opportunity for competition, camaraderie, and trash talk.

Duke Turkey Bowl

Stepping aside after 29 years as Director of the Duke Chapel Choir at Duke University Rodney Wynkoop shares thoughts and musical highlights.

TRANSCRIPTION:
TRACK
We walk to the front of Duke chapel, dim and empty.

ACTUALITY
So you can adjust this. This is where I sit on Sunday mornings. Is this good?

TRACK
It’s very good. It’s a moment to sit in one of his favorite spots with Director of Chapel Music Rodney Wynkoop, retiring from that position July first.

ACTUALITY
So we are sitting in the chancel of Duke Chapel. I am sitting in my usual place, which is at the front end and a place I’ve sat for 29 years. 

TRACK
A few days before he had stood in front of 200 or so members of the Chapel Choir and its alumni, singing together as a farewell. He told them how much he would miss the beauty of the chapel. Each week he would see windows, spires, organ -- but of course...

ACTUALITY
And then I always look at the most beautiful thing in this chapel, which is the singers who sit in the chapel choir. I will miss this truly beautiful, wondrous sight, more than anything else. Now let’s get to singing shall we?

[LAUGHTER]

NATSOUND
[SINGING]
Beautiful Savior, lord of the nations….

[UNDER]

TRACK
Though Wynkoop will no longer conduct the choir or serve as Director of Chapel Music, he isn’t leaving Duke; he’ll continue teaching and conducting choirs in Durham. Leaving musicmaking in the chapel, though, means saying goodbye to something very special. 

ACTUALITY
Through whatever kind of intentionality each of the singers and I brings to the music to offer an opportunity for people perhaps to think about, be taken to, metaphorically, someplace that may be divine, that may at least be out of the ordinary. That makes music a special kind of language. That it’s really a portal into something finer and more imaginative and perhaps faith filled.

NATSOUND: Music
“Beautiful Savior” up then finish.

NATSOUND
“Hallelujah” instrumental up then under

 ACTUALITY
The Chapel Choir has done Messiah in December since the Chapel opened.

NATSOUND: Music
“Hallelujah” voices up then under


ACTUALITY
And it is just brimming with energy and I find myself incredibly moved. But what’s equally exciting to me is after the performance usually at least one new member will come up to me and say something like you had told me, you had told all of us, that we couldn’t possibly imagine what this experience would be like until we actually did it. And with tears in their eyes usually they will  say it was unbelievable i cannot believe what we have just lived through.

NATSOUND: Music
“Hallelujah” up then back under

ACTUALITY
But at the very end there is this thunderous chorus, “Worthy is the Lamb that Was Slain.”

NATSOUND: Music
“Worthy is the Lamb” up then under 

ACTUALITY
And it’s followed by an “Amen” that to me is one of the most beautifully constructed pieces in the repertoire. It builds and builds and comes in waves and backs up and builds again. And it’s pretty cathartic. One of my favorite moments every year that we do Messiah is  hearing that buildup at the end and knowing that this amen is strong enough to be a stamp, a goal, at the end of that three hours of music and that this says, “Yes, it shall be like this.”

NATSOUND: Music
“Amen” up to finish

NATSOUND: Music
“God Be in My Head” up then under

TRACK
At the end of most services the choir processes down the center aisle and then comes back around the sides, surrounding the worshipers and singing to them, to the chapel, to each other. A last moment of embrace of the holy before departing.

Rodney Wynkoop retires as Director of Chapel Music at Duke.

At the closing events of the grand opening of the SNCC Digital Gateway (snccdigital.org/), a repository of audio, video, text, and photography about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC members raised their voices in song.

Transcript:

This is an audio postcard from Duke Magazine

[music]

Duke Libraries and the Center for Documentary Studies played a large role in the creation of the new SNCC Digital Gateway, an online repository of text, images, videos, and recordings documenting the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the national student-run group of civil rights activists in the 1960s (snccdigital.org). At closing events at Duke in March surrounding its creation, SNCC members talked about the importance of sharing their stories with today's student activists. They talked about not reinventing the wheel, about the importance of organizing, rather than merely mobilizing. The new website provides an almost limitless treasure of stories and examples. At the end of the first day of the closing conference an audience member noted that she had never seen so many SNCC members together without hearing them sing. Chuck Neblett, a member of the Freedom Singers, stood up, literally rising to the challenge. These are hard days. Here then is a gift of song from those who have been through hard days before.

NEBLETT:
I think we all got to sing.

[SONG: Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round...]

Audience member: One more!

[SONG and clapping: This little light of mine]

Audience member: You still got it!

TRACK: This has been an audio postcard from Duke Magazine.

SNCC Digital Gateway

In Duke Magazine's Summer 2018 issue we covered the Duke Honor Council, a student organization working, as it has worked for years, to create an atmosphere of honor on the Duke campus. The piece inspired a response by an alumna, who shared with us a noteworthy expression of honor by an athlete and further tales of Duke's earliest run at an honor council.

Transcript: 
TRACK
We’re an alumni magazine, so we hear from alumni. It’s a treat. Sometimes they tell us amazing stories. Here are a couple that came in response to our piece in the Summer issue about the Duke Honor Council.

ACTUALITY
For saved messages, press 1.
Saved messages


“Hi I read your wonderful article in the duke mag today i graduated in 1956 and I thought you’d be interested in a story”

In those days we helped tutor the athletic folk and there was a young man who was a football player who was injured and out that year.

TRACK
Actually he was a baseball player -- this would be William Donigan, who lettered in baseball and soccer after transferring to Duke from Notre Dame. 

ACTUALITY
Anyway we helped to tutor him and he took a lot of the classes we took and one of them was Greek architecture, which didn’t come easy to him. SO the boys made up a cheat sheet and gave it to him the day of the test.  And we went in, we all had our blue book, and at the end of the test  And we said how did you do? And he said I turned in an empty blue book. We said you turned in an empty blue book? And he said yes I looked around the room and i was so honored by going to school with people like you, I couldn’t cheapen it by cheating.


TRACK
Your storyteller by the way is  Maryann Stevens -- Maryann Dumont, if you knew her when -- and reading about the current honor council brought up those old memories.

ACTUALITY
I’ve told that story to all my children, my grandchildren, other people’s children, other people’s grandchildren, a truly truly wonderful young man. He did marry coach Murray’s daughter Cissie, and invited us all to the wedding. It was just a wonderful story, and you know, we always did have really outstanding people at Duke

TRACK
No doubt. Still on the topic of the honor council, in the story associate provost Noah Pickus described the importance of ritual -- things like public signings of the honor code -- to the success of an honor culture. As Stevens recalls, Elizabeth Hanford Dole clearly thought so when she stumped for an honor code during Stevens’ student years.

ACTUALITY
“I also remember and I believe it was Liddy Dole when she was coming to all the dorms, we came in after the dorm was closed, we came into the parlor and no lights were on it was just candles and she talked about what we should do about having an honor. And i do remember a couple of us said we would be glad to talk about it, but turn the lights on and ditch the candles. Anyhow I do remember so many wonderful wonderful things at Duke.”

TRACK
No doubt! Maryann has stories about meeting Eleanor Roosevelt, about serving in the White House visitors office under two presidents, and about writing “Breathing Easy,” a book about raising her asthmatic children. From our perspective, the point is: we love hearing from Maryann and people like her. From her perspective, the point is …

ACTUALITY
Going to Duke was just one of the most wonderful times of my life and I thought I’d pass those remarkable stories along. Bye bye.

You have no new messages. To send a message, press...

TRACK
Well, press 919-684-2863. Tell us a story and maybe we’ll share it.

Honor Council Response

In support of its 2018 Special Issue devoted to the topic of fear, Duke Magazine asked 2018 graduates what they feared as they left Duke. These are their answers.

Facing fear: New Duke grads talk about what they're afraid of

For the first series of The Devils' Share, a podcast from Duke Magazine, we focused on the topic we called "Now What?" -- about those early-career moments when you begin understanding how work ... works. For our first episode, Duke '82 engineering grad Danal Blessis shares stories of his career path and gives some wise advice on how to get where you need to be.

Episode 1: Danal Blessis

As part of Duke Magazine's podcast The Devils' Share, Duke grad Aileen Reid describes how she has found her way and advises people to .

Episode 2: Aileen Reid

Tania Hossain Caravella '96 graduated from Trinity with a dual major in biology and history. But that wide range of study did not leave her feeling ready for anything; she instead felt almost clueless about what to do next. Things have worked out extremely well, and has a job she loves in research: "I ended up doing exactly what I'm meant to be doing." How'd she get there? Take a listen.

Episode 3, Tania Hossain Caravella

Reid Lewis '84 thought of himself as a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates guy who would grow an enormous company. He turned about to be better at the growing part than the enormous part and has become a specialist in entrepreneurship, and though he wouldn't mind a little more stability, he's found that he loves the challenge and personal nature of his work. For our fourth episode he explains how that all happened.

Episode 4, Reid Lewis

It was professor Plum, with the candlestick, in the conservatory! Paul Kim, '97, is a forensic accountant, a career you might not have known exists. It does, and in this episode of our "Now What?" series, he describes his breakthrough moment and explains how he got there.

Episode 5, Paul Kim

Jim Fleming '09 is an IT project manager but thinks his work came less from specific courses he took at Duke than from his background in coaching, plus "a combination of luck and hard work." It's rather a story.

Episode 6, Jim Fleming

Leslie Lewis '79 calls herself "one of the lost Dukies." In a world where our alumni offerers of advice in general suggest pursuing what interests you and letting things shake out from there, she looks back from her 60th birthday and wonders whether more planning might not have helped her. Mind you, she's accomplished great things, and her look backwards might suggest more about Duke alumni and their high standards than anything else. Her story ends our first season of The Devils' Share. Don't forget to email us at dukemag@Duke.edu if you have thoughts or suggestions for upcoming seasons or stories.

Episode 7, Lesley Lewis

Dr. Kenneth Lyles of Duke University School of Medicine has developed a subspecialty -- in pound cake. He explains how he has come to bake and share some 5,000 pound cakes.

Poundcake

In February 1969, African American students at Duke seized the Allen Building, the university's main administration building. A daylong standoff ended with the students leaving the building at the same moment that police in riot gear stormed the building. Police subsequently engaged crowds of students in its main quad, using clubs and tear gas. The protest and its results has left a long shadow at Duke. In 2019 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the takeover brought original protesters back on campus for panel discussions, storytelling, and reconnection with old friends and places. Using those discussions, interviews, and archival tape, Pivot Point tells the story of the occupation and its aftermath. This is part one of a three-part series.

Pivot Point Part I: Boiling Point. The Allen Building Takeover at Duke, 50 Years Later

This is part two of a three-part series. In February 1969, African American students at Duke seized the Allen Building, the university's main administration building. A daylong standoff ended with the students leaving the building at the same moment that police in riot gear stormed the building. Police subsequently engaged crowds of students in its main quad, using clubs and tear gas. The protest and its results has left a long shadow at Duke. In 2019 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the takeover brought original protesters back on campus for panel discussions, storytelling, and reconnection with old friends and places. Using those discussions, interviews, and archival tape, Pivot Point tells the story of the occupation and its aftermath. This is part two of a three-part series.

Pivot Point, Part II: Confrontation. The Allen Building Takeover at Duke, Fifty Years Later

This is part three of a three-part series. In February 1969, African American students at Duke seized the Allen Building, the university's main administration building. A daylong standoff ended with the students leaving the building at the same moment that police in riot gear stormed the building. Police subsequently engaged crowds of students in its main quad, using clubs and tear gas. The protest and its results has left a long shadow at Duke. In 2019 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the takeover brought original protesters back on campus for panel discussions, storytelling, and reconnection with old friends and places. Using those discussions, interviews, and archival tape, Pivot Point tells the story of the occupation and its aftermath. This is part three of a three-part series.

Pivot Point Part III: Aftermath. The Allen Building Takeover at Duke, Fifty Years Later

A Religious Studies class at Duke University called "The End of the World: Apocalyptic  Arguments from Antiquity to the Present Day" seemed rather well timed even before the onset of COVID-19. But in a time when many seemed to fear they were facing the end of the world, the class decided to write a manifesto expressing their feeling that it was not. This podcast tells the story of that manifesto, and the students read portions of it.

Not Necessarily the End of the World

In our series on realizations, Duke Forest communicator Blake Tedder tells us about the many realizations he experienced when he underwent the process of recovering from a major burn injury. That leads to a discussion of the realizations he experienced when he believed he was going to die in the plane crash that caused the burns. He uses the phrase "instant satori," and he's not wrong.

Realizations: Blake Tedder's Instant Satori

In our series connected to our 2020 special issue on Realizations, physical therapist Callie Beasley talks about her belief that she had to give up her practice of music to take up her practice of physical therapy. It took a curmudgeonly client, a piano, and "The Sound of Music" for her to realize she didn't need to give up music at all.

Realizations: Callie Keeps the Music

Eric Dozier grew up in a tiny Tennessee town and got his education at Duke. But when it came time to make his contribution in the world, he was drawn back to the music traditions of his background. He now uses that music in performances and presentations, in which things like gospel and call-and-response music help bridge societal divides. Here he even manages a call and response on Zoom!

Realizations: Call and Response

A podcast sharing the voices of Duke alumni. Presented by Duke Magazine.

Popular tracks by The Devils' Share: The Podcast of Duke Magazine