Forget MTV's Carson Daly and his pool-partying cohorts. Many Duke students will put partying aside this Spring Break, as they devote their vacations to community service projects around the world.
Members of campus organizations such as Break for a Change and the Duke Chapel will be joined by an assortment of participants in academic classes and Durham initiatives to bring the fun and unity back into "functioning community." And they are doing it voluntarily.
"If you have the option of going to Cancun versus making a difference in people's lives, it's not even a question," said junior Ali Herman of her decision to spend her break in New Orleans.
Herman will be traveling with the other members of her 18-person Documentary Studies class, "Social Activism Motivations." With them, she will tackle the issue of prisoners' rights violations that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Her classmates' tasks will include home construction and food distribution.
David Schaad, assistant chair of the civil and environmental engineering department in the Pratt School of Engineering, has also organized a Duke initiative to assist in the hurricane relief effort in New Orleans. More than 50 independent student volunteers will join 90 of his engineering students in a Habitat for Humanity effort to rebuild areas decimated in August.
"I'd just be sitting around home sleeping and watching television if I wasn't going to New Orleans," said sophomore Kim Griffith, who will be joining Schaad. "I've been waiting for the opportunity to do this anyway."
Indeed, many Duke students jumped at the chance to volunteer. "One senior guy turned down a group of girls who wanted him to come to Florida," Scott Hawkins, international student ministry coordinator, said of one student's decision to volunteer in Gautier, Miss. "It's a great way to express faith in a God who cares and comes along in our times of need."
Craig Kocher, assistant dean of the Chapel, said 11 religiously affiliated student groups comprised of approximately 175 students and staff members will travel to Belize, Honduras, Mississippi and New Orleans to offer community and home-building aid.
Kocher will be leading a six-person prayer retreat to a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico for yet another alternative to the classic Spring Break. He said amid paper deadlines and grade pressure it is important that Duke students break to "find our value in being rather than our value in doing."
Just "being" is a central theme for many a Spring Break-er, as the student body will be scattered everywhere from Vail, Col., to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for much-needed retreats from Duke's daily grind.
Freshman Kelly Jones has planned a trip first to her home in Pittsburgh, Pa., and then to the suburbs of New York City where she will be shopping and visiting friends. "I think a lot of freshman are going home, like me," Jones said. "The idea of doing nothing is so relaxing right now."
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