Newly declared members of the sophomore class united on the Chapel Quadrangle Wednesday to kick off a new tradition.
The inaugural Academic Homecoming was created to celebrate the sophomores’ declaration of majors, which occurred before spring break. Faculty and upperclassmen representatives from each major attended the event to mingle and field questions from the new members of their departments. The event represented an attempt to create a new academic annual tradition at the University.
The event was meant to show that declaring a major is something to look forward to, said Baishakhi Taylor, assistant dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and one of the organizers.
“This is a rite of passage,” she said. “It’s literally celebrating half your life at Duke.”
Interacting with peers and professors in an informal setting was valuable, said sophomore Nick Yam.
Assistant professor of public policy Jay Pearson said he enjoyed the conversations he had with students at the event.
“I did not know what to expect, but I am impressed by the turnout and I am also impressed by the quality of questions the students have,” Pearson said. “The questions are very directed [and] very focused.”
The Academic Advising Center, the Sophomore Class Council and the academic affairs committee of Duke Student Government collaborated on the event, which was spearheaded by sophomore class president Bret Lesavoy and sophomore DSG senator Laurel Kaye.
It is important to mark students’ transition from pre-major advising to advising by faculty within a department because strong relationships with those professors often correlates to a better Duke experience, said Alyssa Perz-Edwards, assistant dean of Trinity College.
In addition to creating an opportunity for interaction between faculty and students, the event aimed to acquaint sophomores with their peers of the same major.
“There’s a lot of potential that isn’t being tapped into,” Kaye said.
She added that Duke students could apply their collective enthusiasm for sports toward creating greater intellectual community.
“Most of our traditions revolve around tenting for basketball games or tailgate,” sophomore peer advisor Ben Wang said. “At Duke, people often affiliate themselves more with their living groups or their clubs. We are trying to foster an academic environment where students feel close to their majors.”
The event organizers wanted to promote greater academic engagement, Yang said. Publicity for the event advertised T-shirts for each major as part of students’ induction into their new departments. At the homecoming, though, newly declared sophomores were given tickets to claim their T-shirts at a later date.
One of the issues the students, deans and advisors organizing the event hoped to combat was the feeling among many students that declaring a major is anticlimactic, Yang added.
“When you finally discover something and you declare your major, you just get a sheet of paper that says congratulations,” he said. “We want to recognize that this is something to celebrate.”
In the past, some students have felt apathetic about declaring majors due to the impersonal process. Sophomore Shelby Leverett for example, did not physically deliver her long range plan, the final step of declaring a major. She heard the process was anticlimactic, so she sent her paper with a friend to turn in.
Taylor said she has hopes academic homecoming will make declaring a major a more exciting and meaningful experience.
“What makes Duke special in so many ways is that we’ve built a community,” she said. “It’s not just coming to class, going home and doing research–it is more that, it’s fostering intellectual relationships.”
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