Meet this year’s Graduate Young Trustee finalists

Three graduate students have been chosen as finalists for Young Trustee for the graduate and professional student body.

Alisha Hines, Daniel Goltz and Erika Moore are eligible to be chosen for the position, which consists of a two-year tenure on Duke’s Board of Trustees. The candidates will be presented to the General Assembly of the Graduate and Professional Student Council Feb. 21, according to Travis Knoll, chair of the Graduate Young Trustee selection committee and a graduate student in the history department.

Alisha Hines

A fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the history department, Hines noted her passion for issues affecting graduate students.

“I decided to run because I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between graduate students and ‘big Duke,’ and what our role is or could be in forging the University’s future,” Hines wrote in an email.

Hines has served as co-president for the Hurston James Society, an organization that provides support for minority graduate students in the social sciences and humanities, and an executive board member for the Black Graduate and Professional Student Association. She also previously served on the Graduate School’s Council of Presidents.

She explained that taking on these services roles on campus has allowed her to see the institution from many different perspectives—including those of students, faculty and administrators. These discussions have expanded her knowledge of “the wide-range of concerns” of the graduate students.

“A newly invigorated conversation about the role of institutions of higher education, especially liberal arts institutions, as well as their responsibility to students, is under way,” Hines wrote. “Graduate students are major stakeholders in the emerging new order.”

Goltz noted that he co-founded a community service project that has touched the lives of more than 50 low-income elderly people in Durham, which was later developed into a Bass Connection project.

He also has won the Duke Chancellor’s Service Fellowship and was named a national Albert Schweitzer Fellow in Service for his work in the Duke and Durham community in addition to serving as the first-year president of the Health Providers Association.

Goltz explained that being a representative for Duke Graduate and Professional Student Council has enable him to understand the issues and challenges central to life as a graduate student in any field.

“I’ll be an advocate for all, not just a vocal few,” Goltz wrote.

Erika Moore

Moore, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering, said her experience being a graduate resident for three years and working with undergraduates, graduate students, staff and administrators has given her a great appreciation for the sense of community on campus.

“I like to describe the Duke community as a meshwork. Each voice contributes a thread—but right now, not every voice is heard,” she said. “I want to be setting a tone through the Board for the president, about the value of diverse voices and of everyone’s voices being heard.”

Moore has started a Pratt mentorship program this year, called “Engineering a Community,” to pair undergraduate students with graduate students and provide them with guidance in navigating everything from financial aid to finding internships.

“I want people to know I see this position as a position of service," she said. "I am very dedicated to fulfilling that service and being the best representative of graduate students as I can."