Small steps toward big ideas

The Intellectual Climate Committee report, released Tuesday, should be the starting point for a serious ongoing discussion about undergraduate intellectual life. Wednesday, we discussed the thorny structural problems that prevent students from pursuing credentialism and intellectualism simultaneously at Duke. Today, we focus on several smaller areas identified by the ICC: faculty involvement and sophomore and junior malaise—that indicate a lack of resources and can be helped through more concrete and immediate action.

First, only half of undergraduates surveyed believe faculty catalyze extracurricular conversations at least moderately. Close relationships with passionate faculty can vault a student into the intellectual stratosphere. That’s why programs like FOCUS, DukeImmerse, DukeIntense or Winter Forum exist—to break down classroom walls, making learning a round-the-clock adventure.

Duke should continue creating and enhancing innovative University academic programs. At the same time, individual departments must also create opportunities to deepen student-faculty relationships. For example, the psychology department implemented advice from a student focus group, initiating “brown bag” lunches that brought students and faculty closer together. Where FLUNCH and Faculty Outings stop, departments should start by offering tailored programming. Each department knows its own strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to best cater to the intellectual needs of their students. The ICC suggests that professors lack incentives to foster relationships with students, mostly due to tenure track and publishing pressure. These claims should certainly be investigated further, perhaps even warranting a study of their own.

Sophomores and juniors also reported markedly less satisfaction with their intellectual experiences outside of class. While this extended “sophomore slump” could be partly caused by the high expectations of freshmen year and the nostalgia of senior year, it is undeniable that academic and social support drops off significantly one’s sophomore year. Without Faculty in Residence and programs like FOCUS, FroshLife and Writing 20—compounded by the fracturing of East Campus communities—sophomores can feel discouraged from building more intellectual relationships. The problem continues junior year with many students choosing to study abroad. Furthermore, the house model means that most sophomores no longer share a year living together on West Campus.

The obstacles to buoying the sophomore and junior intellectual experience are formidable. But a good start are class councils, which should continue to imagine more ambitious agendas—merging the academic and the social—to drum up greater opportunities for intellectual exchange. The house model can also be harnessed to connect sophomores to juniors and juniors to seniors. The University should not underestimate the house model’s potential to enhance intellectual climate.

The issue of intellectual climate is a complicated one involving entrenched policies and systems, like the curriculum or grade point average, which should certainly be scrutinized. However, a student’s intellectual experience at Duke is also shaped by the smallest of acts, like a dinner with the members of her seminar course. It will take both types of problem solving, big and small, to foster intellectualism at Duke, and the time to start brainstorming is now.