Most Duke students have bemoaned the lack of Durham cultural opportunities at one time or another but almost always without an avenue for their complaints. With the recent efforts to develop the Durham Cultural Master Plan, however, the Duke community now has an opportunity to play a significant role in shaping the city's future.
The Durham City Council formed this one-year project to improve Durham's cultural weaknesses and to determine how best to allocate financial resources to this end. Since last spring, DCMP has conducted several surveys of the community to determine which aspects of Durham cultural life require attention, and Duke administrators involved in the formulation of the plan have emphasized the importance of Duke's role in Durham culture.
MaryAnn Black, director of community affairs for Duke University Health System and co-chair of the DCMP steering committee, stressed that Duke's involvement in supporting culture is essential for Durham to have the financial capability to build better facilities and to have larger and more numerous cultural offerings.
"Duke is such a big institution in Durham and is a good corporate sponsor," she said. "Duke gives money to Durham public schools, to the Carolina Theatre and to many other organizations in the community. With the big emphasis that Duke places on culture, it's very appropriate for Duke to be included in the plan."
E'Vonne Coleman, assistant director of continuing education and a member of both the DCMP executive and steering committees, said Duke's heavy involvement in DCMP planning was in part owing to its interest in the fine arts.
"Duke students and faculty are both the creators of art and culture and consumers of art and culture," she said.
Black said the master plan has already progressed through several stages, including interviews of community members conducted by consulting firm Wolf, Keens & Co. and various committee and town meetings.
Kathy Silbiger, director of the Duke Institute of the Arts and DCMP steering committee member, said Duke was a major cultural resource despite the Durham community's lack of awareness of the cultural activities offered on campus, which are open to the general public.
"[We need to find a way to] raise the visibility of what's here and make it more accessible to people," Silbiger said. To improve cultural offerings and attract more students and members of the community, the master plan must include provisions for coordinated event planning and promotion and for better performing arts facilities to bring in more renowned productions, she said.
Silbiger also cited the current lack of facilities both in Durham and at Duke to hold operas, dance companies, symphony orchestras and world music groups. New facilities could portend even more elaborate productions which would be able to financially sustain themselves, she said.
However, Silbiger said, Duke students and faculty do not seem to take advantage of activities currently offered on or off campus, and she said she was concerned by the lack of Duke student involvement in cultural affairs.
"I don't think a lot of Duke students think of Durham as a place where things are going on," she said.
Officials at the Durham Arts Council said they were working with the Duke University Union to create student focus groups in an attempt to heighten student involvement in the master plan and are targeting college students for the next community meeting Wednesday. Charlotte Vaughn, vice-president for programming at the Union, could not be reached for comment.
Community members have supported the master plan for more than five years. Coleman, who was previously the executive director of the Durham Arts Council for nine years, said one of Durham's weaknesses is a lack of programming for youth--an issue that specifically pertains to Duke students.
"Durham needs better opportunities and programs for young people, determined [and] controlled by young people to do what young people want to do," Coleman said.
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