In Their Element

A debate is in progress in a second-floor classroom of the Carr Building on East Campus. The issue at hand: Is affirmative action reverse discrimination? The two opposing groups-the Vegetarians and Utopia-are lined up in desks on either side of the room. Members of each group hurl point and counter-point at each other. Utopians suggest that affirmative action be replaced by a lottery system and additional scholarships. The Vegetarians don't buy it. "We're in a deadlock here," someone announces.

Across the quad in the Art Museum, a Southern-literature class analyzes the narrative structure of William Faulkner's celebrated story, "The Bear." Several doors down, students have just begun Act 2 of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. They are acting it out to get a feel for the work's pageantry.

And in a West-Duke classroom where sophisticated mathematical equations are scrawled on the chalkboard, students armed with glue guns and drilling tools put finishing touches on popsicle-stick bridges. In several minutes these constructions will meet the test of a lever to see how much weight they can withstand.

It is not Duke students who are undertaking this rigorous and intense curriculum but precocious 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th graders taking part in Duke's Talent Identification Program, more commonly referred to as "TIP." TIP's East Campus Residential Program consists of two three-week terms from the end of June through the beginning of August and offers a range of classes including Musical Expressions, Writing with Power, American Government and Discrete Math-along with three college-credit courses in Computer Science, Logic and Psychology.

Administratively, TIP begins with a talent search in the 16 Southeastern states-the program's service region. Seventh graders in the top 3 percent of their class in terms of standardized grade-level tests are offered the chance to take the SATs. This year, according to Randy Green, coordinator of the search, 69,000 students were given this opportunity. Students must get a score of 570 on either the math or the verbal portions of the test-or a 520/520 combination-to qualify for the program. Out of the original 69,000, only about 8 percent met this mark.

The program started in 1981, when then-Provost William Bevin suggested that something similar to Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth might be implemented at Duke. According to Ramon Griffin, TIP's director of operations, the initial philosophy of TIP has not changed during its 17-year span. TIP aims to identify and guide those students who "were left to fend for themselves" in their school environments because they sought a depth in their studies that often was not offered. Gifted students need guidance and challenge, Griffin explains. "If you do not provide these things then you are, in effect, wasting a tremendous resource," he says.

The program has evolved to meet these goals in more creative ways. TIP's East Campus Residential Program, with 321 students and 77 staff members, is the "grand-daddy of all [of TIP's programs]," according to Hollace Selph, director of educational programs for the summer and a teacher of accelerated English classes at Durham's Jordan High School.

Since its inception, TIP has branched out to include a number of different regions and disciplines of study. TIP offers programs at three other universities, Davidson College, Appalachian State and Kansas; on-line curriculum in conjunction with Stanford University; scholar weekends throughout the school year and marine labs at Beaufort, N.C. and Corpus Christi, Texas where students can go trolling in estuaries and study biology of the oceans. In addition, TIP offers field study and international programs in which participants can choose to study tropical ecology in Costa Rica, learn about ancient civilizations and Renaissance art in Italy or get lessons in Chinese art and culture in mainland China. (In fact, TIP is the only organization with the Chinese government's permission to send students to study there.)

In his first year with TIP, Clay, who is a history teacher in Kansas during the school year, taught a class titled "Fads and Fading Dreams." He took students to the Advertising Archives in Perkins Library and the Duke Homestead, held a mock trial and videotaped a student-produced newscast.

"We want students to learn," Clay says. "But we want them to enjoy learning."

Field trips and guest speakers abound at TIP. Math classes go to the grocery store, architecture classes take walking-tours of downtown Durham and students enrolled in a class on game theory once went to a Durham Bulls game. A NationsBank executive recently spoke to a finance class and professors from Fuqua Business School often give class lectures.

To give students a change of scenery, a class on Emerson and Thoreau went to the gardens for an hour of peaceful reading. In the Musical Expressions class, students occasionally have jam sessions and learn to trace the roots of music from gospel to the present-day alternative sounds of Marilyn Manson. The Engineering Problem Solving class recently held an egg-drop competition from the third floor of Bassett Dormitory.

The program provides ample reward for teachers as well. Clay, who came to TIP three years ago, describes the program as "a teacher's dream" and says he is impressed every single day-often to the point of goose bumps-when he visits classrooms and interacts with students in their dorms. Many teachers come back year after year and former TIP students occasionally return to the program to assume staff positions. "You can make more money doing something else," he explains, but the happiness and quality of life is high at TIP.

At the end of each term's three weeks, students will have theoretically amassed as much information as one would have in a year of high school or a semester of college. Students receive a qualitative written assessment of both academic and social progress at the end of the term rather than grades.

Although gifted students tend to be highly competitive, TIP-sters contend there is little rivalry at this program. "There's an enthusiasm, an energy, a push between the students," Pottharst says. But he is also reluctant to call TIP competitive. "It's not competition. It's more like cooperative competition."

Amanda Munilla, a rising high school junior, feels, if anything, that she is competing against her own personal standards rather than those of others. "You just compete to see how well you can do," she says.

A nightly one-hour review session led by the TA is often devoted to reading, writing and academic games intended to reinforce ideas learned during the day; but because classes-usually comprised of about 16 students-are so time-consuming, teachers rarely give homework. This provides the time for students to engage in social activities like making tie-dye and playing Twister, taking trips to local stores such as Ben & Jerry's and Bruegger's, having chocolate chip cookie baking sessions and making Spam sculptures.

This time outside of the classroom is one component of TIP's two-fold mission, Clay says-social growth is stressed just as much as academic growth. Many students who come to TIP feel ostracized in their home environment, Clay says, but blossom socially when they are surrounded by kids of similar intellectual ability.

Of course, there are still "some guys who just sit in the computer lab all day," as rising high school freshman Laura Goodman admits, but TIP tries to give students an environment where they can be themselves. "It's a really safe place for gifted students to enjoy being gifted students," says Hollace Selph says, educational programs director "If you love classical music, you can tell your roommate you love classical music and not be called a fruitcake."

Clay recalls a student who approached him and said, "This is the only place where I truly feel I can be myself." "It's heart-wrenching," he says, "but it suggests what a student can find at a program like this."

Pottharst and rising high school sophomores Alexis Sanders and Jessica Krug agree. Students, who live in Brown, Bassett, Pegram and Alspaugh Dormitories, form bonds in the more social dorm environment, Pottharst says. He speaks of a guy who lives three doors away and tells "the coolest" stories and two girls right down the hall who will give him hugs whenever he needs them. "If it wasn't for this experience, I really wouldn't have had the chance to grow socially," he says. "It's half the reason everyone comes here."

The social aspect of the program is what Sanders, in her third year at TIP, says she treasures most. "When you look back on it you don't think 'Wow, I had seven hours of classes!'" she says.

Although Krug feels there are different groups of friends at TIP, she feels that students separate into cliques much less frequently, and for different reasons when they do at all, than in a typical high school environment. "In high school, [grouping] seems to be more based on your economic status or appearance," she says. "[At TIP], it's more divided on interest." TIP, Krug explains, gives her the freedom to express herself without being stereotyped. Krug highlights her point with a story: The day before she had been dressed in baggy black pants, a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses and "the Dockers men," as she calls students wearing more preppy styles, still came up and talked with her. She believes this wouldn't have happened at home where, she laments, "people are so afraid of the naked truth."

Teachers have noticed this openness as well. There is no such thing as "a typical TIPster," Selph says-students range from student council presidents to those that are ostracized in school. But, she adds, "they are all very accepting of each other."

Leaving the East Campus environment and the friends they have made is often the hardest part of the summer, according to many of the students. Several weeks of post-TIP depression commonly ensue. Kids do not want to talk to their parents or friends from home about the program.

"I feel like this is something I have that no one else does," Munilla says. "[My home friends] don't understand. They think I'm going to some smart-kid camp." Attending TIP is like being in "a different world," Sanders adds.

And truly, TIP is a different world-a world where kids who still wear braces refer to Beatnik authors in casual conversations, swing their identification cards unbridled on neon shoestrings but still apologize for using double negatives in sentences and describe themselves in polysyllabic phrases like "overly gregarious," but still slap each other five, proclaiming things "cool!" and "neat!" The purpose of this world is to cultivate gifted minds but-more importantly-to respect that the inhabitants of TIP's world are kids.