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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2019 DUKECHRONICLE.COM
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 31
Professors share their stories as low-income, first-gen students By William He Staff Reporter
Higher education institutions like Duke are gateways to opportunity and success for many low-income and first-generation college students. They are also home to professors who once stood in those students’ shoes and used their education to get into academia. Here are some professors from Duke who were low-income, firstgeneration college students.
Jen’nan Read
Jen’nan Read, Sally Dalton Robinson professor of sociology, chair of the department of sociology, was born in the United States and moved to Benghazi, Libya at six months old, attending an international school there. When the Reagan administration ordered attacks on a nearby town, Read immigrated back to Texas for high school. Read was a first-generation college student, as her parents did not complete their bachelor’s degrees. Growing up, her mother did not work and Read’s family received food stamps. While attending Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, Read worked at Albertsons and as a contractor for 30 to 35 hours a week to fund her education. In addition, she served as student body president and was working toward a degree in sociology. “Having worked three jobs through college gave me that little bit of edge because I never took anything for granted,” Read said. After graduating from Midwestern State, Read worked toward her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin and did postdoctoral work at Rice University. During that time, Read’s
mother finished her bachelor’s degree at Midwestern State, an event Read described as an “empowering” experience. Read recognizes the impact that being a low income, firstgeneration student had on her. She emphasizes that her busy schedule forced her to allocate time and compartmentalize effectively, making her appreciate her time more. “That taught me that there is no way to do a little bit of everything,” Read said, “you’ve got to focus.” Read’s college experience has also impacted the way she interacts with undergraduate students in her sociology class. At the beginning of each course, she hands out a questionnaire to better understand her students’ backgrounds and struggles, as she acknowledges the diversity at Duke. “Just because students are at Duke doesn’t mean that they got everything handed to them,” said Read, “I see a lot of students who are really stressed out and I feel like I understand where they’re coming from.” Read’s current work focuses on Middle Eastern immigrants and assimilation, health care inequality and gender.
Terrie Moffitt
Terrie Moffitt, Nannerl O. Keohane University professor of psychology and neuroscience, grew up in rural North Carolina in a dairy-farming family. A low-income, first-generation student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Moffitt studied psychology as an undergraduate. To help finance her education, Moffitt worked at the parking lot for the city every night from 6 p.m. to midnight. Moffitt’s strict schedule of work and study held her back from See PROFESSORS on Page 3
INSIDE • The official campus hot chocolate rankings. PAGE 2 • Color the Chapel. PAGE 4 • Draw something happy. PAGE 4 • Word search places to study/cry on campus. PAGE 4 • Four (yes, four!) NYT crosswords. PAGE 13
Board of Trustees learns about Durham economic development By Jake Satisky Editor-in-Chief
At its Friday panels and Saturday meeting, the Duke Board of Trustees affirmed its goals of promoting development and entrepreneurship in Durham and discussed the limitations of the new NCAA rules. President Vincent Price and Board Chair Jack Bovender spoke with The Chronicle after the Saturday morning meeting.
Durham, America’s next hotspot?
Special to The Chronicle From top left, going clockwise: Terrie Moffitt, Kishor Trivedi, Kenneth Brown, Jen’nan Read.
On Friday, trustees heard from three panels. The first dealt with Durham’s economic development, featuring city and regional leaders such as Durham City Manager Thomas Bonfield and Johnson Akinleye, chancellor of North Carolina Central University. The second panel informed trustees on Durham’s entrepreneurial scene. The panel was made up of business leaders, investors and researchers. Finally, trustees learned about what peer institutions like Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University are doing in regard to research commercialization. Price said that Duke’s long-term goal is to promote economic development and innovation in the region, which requires finding the best faculty, investing in science and technology and establishing formal systems for research commercialization. “More than anything else, it means cooperation with community leaders, local corporations to create a system where there’s as little friction as possible and as much promotion of these research discoveries as possible, so you shorten the timeline from when something’s discovered on campus and its See TRUSTEES on Page 3