Summer programs target minorities

Splashing, sleeping, sweat are all synonymous with summer. But school?

Of all the summer programs the University hosts, a few are specifically focused on benefiting minorities academically by communicating issues and connecting communities. The common goal is to interest minority students in achieving doctoral degrees in the fields in which they are currently underrepresented.

The American Economics Association's Summer Minority Program focuses on undergraduates. Created 31 years ago to increase the number of minority students entering and surviving graduate school in economics, the program will be based at Duke, its ninth host, for the next three to six years.

Although it is primarily aimed at benefiting its students, the program produces results that the University can learn from as well, Director Charles Becker said. It provides Duke with an opportunity to forge bonds with colleges like North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, its partner in the program and a historically black university.

"It is important for Duke to develop formal ties with historically black and Hispanic colleges and universities so that those schools are accustomed to sending their students to graduate school at Duke, and so that what they're teaching prepares people," said Becker, who is also a research professor of economics. "That's the legacy."

Program leaders hope that such personal contact will spur the students into academic careers in the field. Currently, Becker estimates that only about 5 to 7 percent of new economics doctorates go to minority students. Through programs like this, he hopes that number will rise to 9 or 10 percent within the next decade.

The Ralph Bunche Institute, a similar program, strives to do the same for minority students in political science.

The Institute, named after the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in political science, is open to African Americans, Latinos and American Indians during the summer before their junior years in college.

"The name signifies that what we're trying to do is continue the legacy of Bunche and encourage students to go to graduate school in political science," Director Paula McClain said.

In addition to offering two courses in American politics and quantitative analysis and race, the Institute reveals to students what life is like as a political science faculty member. Faculty from around the country come to describe the research they do and why they think they make a difference as professors.

"The program only has 20 students a year. If we can convince at least 10 of them to go to graduate school and maybe five to seven of them finish, that's our goal," said McClain, a professor of political science.

Duke's efforts, however, do not only focus on college students. Another program, aimed at Durham students ages 12 to 15 years old, seeks to make the University accessible to the community.

Youth Documentary Durham allows students to view taboo topics--such as racism, sexual health and violence--through a documentary lens. Run by Duke's Center for Documentary Studies, the program teaches participants the hows and whys of documentary creation through photography, audio, writing and performance classes.

The summer session programs revolve around a central purpose: to unite. They expose adolescents to knowledge, connect Durham with Duke and link youth with peers from an array of circumstances.

"We're not changing the world yet," said Hong-An Truong, director of Youth Documentary Durham, "but I feel like every student who's coming to the program is coming in at a different place, from different backgrounds--racial, economic, and academic--and they're learning from each other. It's an important opportunity for them to have conversations with kids they might never have conversations with."

The program also opens up communication lines between University members and locals residents, illustrating the Center's belief in collaboration between the two seemingly separate entities.

"Duke is a really elite institution in the community," Truong said, "and community programs [like this one] try to change the image of what Duke is to the community."