Lose your niche

Purple." Junior Sam Bowler's face splits into a huge grin. "When I was a child, our family shared this purple blanket, that we would wear when sick. So, for me, purple is a color of healing, of community, of emotional connection and caring. What do Duke students care about, what causes are we emotionally connected to? I believe that each Duke student has an individual story that connects him or her to a larger social need. And that's why I founded Purple."

Sam is one of those students with an ambitious goal: to change the Duke community in a fundamental way. His recently established organization, Purple, aims to shake up the way friendships and communal bonds are formed here at the University. The premise is simple: This week, Duke students will vote on the social causes that are nearest to their hearts. Purple then creates a grafitti T-shirt for each cause, with profits from the shirts going to affiliated local organizations. Then, Purple arranges an entire week of events affiliating Duke's social scene with an activist bent, including a concert where a T-shirt serves as the price of admission. The festivities will also give Duke students a look at local organizations, and other Duke students, which are committed to addressing societal issues.

It's a cool idea, but what distinguishes Purple is not its concert plans or T-shirt designs. Its goals of raising money and social awareness are secondary to its true goal: making Duke students think about how Duke operates as a community.

Now, it seems like every day there is another attempt made to change Duke's communal structure. But the change comes from the wrong direction: top-down. The administration has expanded the BC Walkway into the West Campus Plaza, to create a place for students to congregate. Different departments and organizations have thrown extravagant soirees at the Nasher and Bostock, so that our Friday-night social scene is not monopolized by a minority of the student body. Speakers are brought in, at the rate of several a week, to share their insight and wisdom. Student Health has created The Oasis, where students are encouraged to take study breaks in a relaxing atmosphere with flawless feng shui.

But none of this will have any meaningful impact without student commitment. The University can build communal areas and host inspiring events, but it's up to us to decide how to utilize these areas and build upon this inspiration; in essence, to decide what kind of community we want to build here at Duke.

In this sense, we students are the ones who are truly endowed with the capacity to make lasting change on campus. It's counterintuitive: most students spend much of their time, from the moment they arrive on East Campus, figuring out where they fit within the University. We plan out the ways to avoid what (or perhaps, who) we dislike at Duke, and surround ourselves with the parts of Duke that align closest with our interests. But instead of finding our own niches, we need to carve out spaces on campus for our passions.

The good news is, a lot of students are accepting this challenge, stepping up to the plate by creating student groups with the goal of building a more unified Duke. Some of these groups, like Purple, are making a visible splash on campus. Other groups are not so visible. An example would be the work of my friend Oshri, who came back from Israel this Winter Break right before the latest outbreak of hostilities in Gaza. Realizing that we have the opportunity, here on campus, to have conversations that would be almost impossible in Israel, he formed an Israeli-Palestinian discussion group. This forum doesn't have administration money or a well-designed logo; it doesn't even have a name. Instead, it's just a group of friends who meet up every Friday to cook, talk and share their life experiences. But I believe that these sustained activities, forming bonds between people who otherwise might even have avoided each other, hold a promise for the way Duke students can interact in the future.

One thing that describes all of us Duke students: We're ambitious. We want to have an impact, somehow, somewhere. I think the perfect place to start is right here at Duke. Maybe you want to change the way that music, fashion and activism connect at the University, like Purple does. Maybe you just want to meet up with a few friends and discuss something that's been on your mind. Either way, don't leave it up to others to decide how this university should operate, or how Duke students interact. Don't just figure out where you fit in; figure out how the Duke community can better reflect what you believe in.