Age: 51 | Hometown: Palmer Springs, Va.
If it weren't for the influence of a particular physics professor, Calvin Howell would have never come to Duke.
Nearly 30 years ago, Howell was a physics major at Davidson College deciding where to apply to graduate school. He expected to attend a Washington, D.C., area university, but his plans changed when he met Horst Meyer.
Meyer made an out-of-the-blue donation of necessary equipment to Howell's senior thesis research-but he can also be credited for another turn of events. After Meyer sparked Howell's interest in Duke, the young physicist made an impromptu visit to the University and is still here today.
"I applied to Duke with the intention of working with him," Howell says. "It just amazed me, even to this day, that he was interested.. That had an effect on me."
Howell-who received his Masters and Doctorate from Duke in 1980 and 1984, respectively, and currently serves as director of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory-says he hopes to follow in his role model's footsteps and meaningfully affect his students.
Howell says he can do so by helping to alter cultural norms. As an African American professor with a Ph.D. in physics, Howell acknowledges that he is a rarity in his field, but he uses his unique role to challenge stereotypes and ease biases among students of all racial backgrounds.
"That's what universities are about-to broaden the way people think," he says. "I might be, in introductory physics, the first African American science teacher some Duke students have had in their lives."
Howell says being a minority has not been detrimental to his career-but adds that based on comments from members of the Black Faculty Caucus, he laments the fact that other African American professors have not been so fortunate.
"I've always been very pleased with the professional environment I've had at Duke," he says. "It troubles me, some of the things that I hear.. They almost seem foreign to me."
Before he began teaching, Howell was no stranger to racial issues in the classroom. Although he values his education in Davidson's tight-knit community, the junior year he spent "abroad"-as he says-at historically black Howard University allowed him to observe great differences in racial culture and academia between the two schools.
"There was an undertone when we talked about the black community as if we were a problem," he says of a sociology course he took at Davidson. "I always remember feeling a little inhibited to express my experiences.. I never wanted to contradict another African American in class."
Howell says the racial homogeneity of Howard allowed for a more open environment for debate where "everything felt so natural."
"People, when they're in a minority setting, they tend to try to have camaraderie. If you're small in number, and you have different opinions, you tend to de-power each opinion," Howell says.
Howell believes today's culture of debate and the way in which divergent points of view are perceived is the greatest racial issue in academic settings today. He says that when academics of different races disagree, the disparity is often attributed to racial differences instead of differences in opinion, and that this phenomenon must change.
"When we move to that point, that's when we're free to become scholars," he says.
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