Offering our skills; gaining new understanding
Applying knowledge in service to society is among Duke’s strategic goals. It also is a key component of the undergraduate curriculum and a driver of the successful DukeEngage program.
We want to apply that same principle to your Duke Alums Engage experience.
So what does that mean?
There's a difference between simply volunteering and participating in a service-learning experience like Duke Alums Engage. In service-learning, you grow in your understanding of a societal issue and the people involved – and your own potential to affect it – while you begin to help.
We set the stage before the DAE experience by building an understanding of the societal issue our partner organization is addressing. We then observe and talk openly with others during the work. Afterwards, we gather briefly for a group reflection to discuss the civic, ethical, and personal implications of the work performed within the context of the issue being addressed.
Here are the types of questions we might discuss:
- Is the service I am doing worthwhile? What is meaningful service?
- How does being engaged in this civic/service effort with other Duke Alums engage me?
- What are the strengths and limitations of this organization and the work it is doing?
- What social constraints shape or inhibit the work here? What might we do to overcome some of their constraints?
- How is my experience challenging or re-shaping my sense of how to make a difference to the next generation?
- What is difficult about this work for me? What am I learning about myself through these difficulties?
- What larger issues of social justice, policy, and politics are implicated in or raised by this partner's work? What do I know or need to learn that could make me more helpful?
"Thirty first graders were easily engaged by stories read to them in small groups of three or four... All concurred that the children seemed to respond not only to the stories and art work, but more than anything to the fact that these adults were working so closely with them. In other words, the book or project was the vehicle for the 'I care about you' message that these children seem to crave so much. Over lunch, we all agreed that the greatest impact was made simply by our presence, showing the students that they matter, we care, and we had chosen to spend the morning with them."
– Detroit Duke Alums Engage participant