Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series evaluating DukeEngage since its inception in 2007. This article addresses critiques of the program and discusses DukeEngage’s responsive strategic plan. Part 1 examined the student experience with DukeEngage and Part 2 analyzed the relationship between DukeEngage and the Duke brand.
As an international service program, DukeEngage faces the challenge of proving that it offers students more than just a free trip abroad.
DukeEngage’s strategic plan for 2017 outlines ways to address several shortcomings of the program, which has a $4 million annual budget and fully funds more than 400 students to participate in immersive service projects around the world every year. For instance, the one-time, rather than sustained, nature of DukeEngage prompts criticism of this particular service model. Additionally, students consistently show more interest in international offerings than domestic sites, raising questions about what makes overseas service more attractive. Duke also faces a challenge in connecting students’ summer experiences into their broader Duke career.
Episodic engagement
Some of the most pervasive critiques of DukeEngage are, firstly, that students see the program as a travel opportunity as much as a service experience and, secondly, that engagement projects are episodic. Inherent constraints of the program—a typical duration of two months and little infrastructure and resources for students to return to their project site—make it hard for the program to combat the critique that it offers short-term “voluntourism.”
Higher student interest in international opportunities over domestic opportunities may support this argument. For example, Mlyn noted that the program in Cape Town, South Africa—a location that would be expensive for many students to travel to on their own—consistently yields the highest application numbers. Still, he argued that most participants do not view it as a free travel opportunity.
“It would be hard to find a large group of students who experience it as voluntourism,” Mlyn said. “We don’t want to be a voluntourism program.”
The episodic critique is difficult for the program to dispel, because its structure has students intensively engaging in service for a short period of time rather than over an extended period.
Edward Skloot, professor of the practice of public policy and director of the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society, said the fact that DukeEngage runs based on an academic schedule is unavoidable, but it might weaken the program.
“People come, people go, kids come, kids go, faculty come, faculty go,” said Skloot, a member of the DukeEngage National Advisory Board. “There might be very little overall long-term effect.”
Sherryl Broverman, associate professor of the practice of biology and program director for DukeEngage’s WISER program in Muhuru Bay, Kenya, noted that she tries to give opportunities for students to return to Muhuru Bay after their DukeEngage summer there. The community finds more value in continued relationships rather than one-off encounters, she said.
The strategic plan does not note critiques of voluntourism or episodic service specifically, but it does mention the need to create a stronger tie between DukeEngage and a student’s overall Duke experience. Helping students tie their summer back into their four years at Duke will help the program reply to some critics who argue that the program is short-term voluntourism.
“It’s not episodic if students link it back,” Mlyn said. “Ultimately, we’re limited by the fact that we’re a University, students go to school during the year, that you’re all 18-21, and the skills and energies you bring to this are all determined by that.”
International trumps domestic
DukeEngage has seen consistently lower student interest in domestic programs as compared to the international ones. This raises questions about the role that location plays in students’ choice of programs.
Since its creation, 25 percent of DukeEngage students have participated in domestic programs and 75 percent in international programs, according to the 2017 strategic plan. Independent project proposals similarly had more focus on international work than domestic—in summer 2012, only one independent project was domestic.
Even now, DukeEngage is adjusting to make domestic programs more desirable to students. After a period of low interest expressed in DukeEngage Durham, the program changed this year to include time spent in both Durham, North Carolina and Durham, England. Students will spend a month in each location.
“Students vote with their applications, and they stopped applying to our Durham program,” DukeEngage Executive Director Eric Mlyn said. “But we’ve always wanted to try a program that linked the local to the global. We try to create student demand.”
For summer 2013, there are 11 domestic programs and 28 international programs. By 2017, the program plans to increase the share of participation in domestic programs to 35 percent of DukeEngage participants. It also plans to increase the share of domestic independent projects to 15 percent of all independent projects. To promote interest in domestic programs, DukeEngage will replace outgoing international programs with domestic projects and will offer more domestic programs in urban areas.
“Domestic is not sexy, rural is really not sexy,” said senior Emily McGinty, who works with the DukeEngage program in Hot Springs, North Carolina. “People say DukeEngage is my ticket to go someplace I may never go otherwise.”
Although students who seek domestic programs are in the minority, many say that their experience is more rewarding and deserving of more attention. According to survey findings collected by DukeEngage during summer 2010, students in domestic programs reported gaining more insights about themselves and greater gains in self-confidence than students in international programs.
Improving connections
DukeEngage administrators agree that the best way to address critiques and weaknesses of the program is to help students to synthesize DukeEngage and to tie its experiential nature back into the more traditional Duke education. In this vein, the strategic plan calls for establishing more curricular connections and increasing faculty engagement.
“We need to help students connect their DukeEngage experience with the overall arc of their educational trajectory,” said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education.
Existing structures like Duke’s global advising program—started in 2011—help students integrate DukeEngage into their overall Duke experience. The proposed experiential learning certificate, approved by Academic Council in February, is another mechanism the University hopes will help with this.
Having faculty members on campus will bridge the gap between the summer project and the school year, Mlyn said. Beginning 2013, no new programs will be started without leadership from a Duke faculty or staff member. Before, new project ideas were often driven by volunteer-sending organizations, such as Social Entrepreneur Corps, which leads DukeEngage Guatemala-Antigua and Nicaragua-Granada.
“We are convinced that having faculty attached to programs deepens the impact after students come back and before they leave,” Mlyn said.
DukeEngage has created a new position called the faculty liaison—a faculty member who advises students before the summer, when the students are in the field and after the summer. DukeEngage will eventually attach a faculty liaison to every program, starting with DukeEngage Guatemala and Tucson, Arizona in summer 2013.
Bringing on more faculty mentors may be a challenge, Broverman noted, because many faculty who are active in student mentoring already participate in some facet of DukeEngage.
In addition to greater faculty involvement, long-term evaluation of students’ experience with DukeEngage will help frame improvements to how it fits into the rest of a Duke student’s life, Skloot said.
“How has this altered young people’s career paths, life paths, relationships with people?” he said. “It’s still a little early to see the outcomes. This is how we’ll see if the mission is accomplished.”
The reporter participated in DukeEngage South Africa-Durban 2012.
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