As the Duke University Union, the largest student programming body on campus, prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, members reflect on the organization's strengths and groundbreaking role on Duke's campus.
Hooking up with someone in your residence hall or involved in the same extracurricular activity isn’t uncommon. Even a seemingly straight-edge organization stocked with strong senior leaders can’t avoid DUU-cest. Indeed, there is more to the Duke University Union—the largest student programming body on campus—than meets the naked eye.
“The rumors of DUU incest are quite true,” Union president Kevin Parker said. “A couple of years ago, a man proposed to a woman down in the Cable 13 television studios because that was where they had first met.”
Publicly, DUU showcases entertainment for the Duke community and provides a breeding ground of student leaders with practical opportunities to develop networking and event planning skills. Even though they present a professional persona, the members of the Union still know how to party with the rest of ’em, as they will exhibit during their 50th birthday celebration this April with bonus programming on East and West Campuses.
Born in 1955 as the Duke Student Union when the University administration chartered it to develop programming for students by students, the group has reeled in such famous speakers as Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy, developing a reputation for progressive action.
From the 1950s through the ’70s, the Union lead the implementation and acceleration of racial and gender equality at Duke. In 1956, Ella Fountain Pratt, the first program director of the Union, ended racial segregation in Page Auditorium, where the Union showed movies for students. Until Pratt made her move, black students could only sit in the last three rows of the theater.
Before Trinity College even admitted women into the school, a woman was already leading the Union. In 1970, Laurie Earnhardt, Woman’s College ’71, took over as president of DUU. As the first major campus-wide organization to have a female president, Earnhart and the Union paved the way for women to assume major leadership roles on campus, preceding the merger of the Woman’s College and Trinity two years later.
At the first segment of the ’Dillo Concert Series this year, senior Linh Le watched over the pleasingly large turnout for the student band Kody at a campus bar, with “all the people just digging the music.” As chair of the All Campus Entertainment branch of the Union since January, she coordinates small performances for students six times a week.
Senior Charlotte Vaughn, chair of the OnStage committee and a three-year member of the Union, said her involvement in recruiting acts and working with media agents through DUU has become a substantial but welcome investment of time. “Over the years, I’d say I’ve spent almost as many nights sleeping on the couch of the Union office as I have in my own bed,” she said of the group’s headquarters in the Bryan Center.
With so many independent-minded leaders with separate agendas working for DUU, opinions understandably conflict. But an executive board, led by Parker, resolves the different views on the direction of the Union.
“Although the Union has changed physically and technology-wise, the mission has remained the same,” Parker said, “to provide entertainment to students on campus.”
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