This is the first of three stories profiling the Young Trustee candidates.
Growing up, Trinity senior Justin Fairfax had a routine: daily trips between his row house in impoverished northeast Washington, D.C. and an exclusive, predominantly white Catholic school.
Coming from a neighborhood where many take up crime and drugs and few finish high school, Fairfax stands out as a success story simply by graduating from college, much less Duke, much less by becoming a Young Trustee finalist.
For Fairfax, it's all part of the routine.
"I've seen all that there is out there that's offered to people that will work hard, and I don't want to waste that," he said. "It's more about the broader picture-what I can help others achieve-than what I can do for myself."
Fairfax, a public policy major and French minor, believes the Young Trustee is in a unique position to convince students of the importance of The Campaign for Duke. "One role of the Trustee is to serve as a strong link between the Trustees and the rest of the undergraduates, to show them that this is how the capital campaign affects you," he said.
He is especially interested in ensuring that the campaign's resources are distributed to financial aid, an issue that hits close to home.
Fairfax is financing all of his education through scholarships, grants and summer jobs. He receives 75 percent of his tuition from the Reginaldo Howard Memorial Academic Scholarship organization, a group which he served as co-president of last year. Partly as a result of his work, the scholarship will offer full tuition next year.
Through his experience on the scholarship committee, Fairfax gained a better understanding of the complete commitment needed to expand the financial aid program. "There was a willingness to recognize need when I worked with specific people, but there needs to be University-wide effort, dedication and commitment," he said.
As Young Trustee, Fairfax also pledges to improve Duke-Durham relations. He is currently program coordinator for the Big Brother mentorship program, and through his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., he helped organize a fall bus trip to East Carolina University to help Hurricane Floyd victims.
"I've seen firsthand the failure and unwillingness of colleges and universities to invest in neighborhoods," he said. "There's a lot of thriving universities in D.C. surrounded by impoverished neighborhoods."
Fairfax sees his upbringing as a strength and a distinguishing factor from most other students at the University.
"That can benefit the Board to be able to see things from a variety of perspectives," he said. "Being exposed to something a little bit different opened me up to the dynamic that exists at Duke."
Fairfax also points to "housing and space-related needs" as issues of paramount importance, particularly the new dormitories, the campus master plan and affordable housing for graduate students.
At Duke, one of Fairfax's main areas of involvement is his fraternity and the greek system as a whole. He currently serves as president of the National Panhellenic Council, which governs minority greek organizations.
"He's a people person," said NPHC Vice President Stefan France, a Trinity senior. "He has very clear-cut goals and ideas, and he knows the best way to go about implementing them."
While Fairfax serves as a leader in many campus organizations, he has also spent time in numerous summer jobs and internships. He worked as an intern for Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., and as a research assistant for Harvard Law School professors Randall Kennedy and Judge Leon Higginbotham.
Fairfax plans to return to D.C. after graduation, working either on Capitol Hill or for a non-profit organization. He will probably live with fraternity brothers, in a neighborhood far removed from the one where he was raised.
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