Morning sunshine pours through windows of Blue Devil Tower club area, where staff and faculty receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
A Dose of Hope
For many Duke employees, the start of the end of the pandemic began in Blue Devil Tower
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hen Jannice Stratton arrived for her morning appointment in Blue Devil Tower, the sun was climbing above treetops, pouring golden light through windows that looked out onto Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium. About nineteen months earlier, alongside her boyfriend and daughter, Stratton sat in the stadium seats below, cheering on the Blue Devils football team. But on this Friday in late April, Stratton returned to Blue Devil Tower for her second free dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, moving her and thousands of other Duke community members closer to once again experiencing moments of human connection. “I miss that camaraderie,” said Stratton, staff assistant for Duke’s Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. “You don’t realize how valuable that is until it’s taken from you.” When Blue Devil Tower opened in 2016, suites, event spaces and state-ofthe-art video production facilities made it a showpiece of Duke Athletics. But
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WORKING@DUKE
between March and May of 2021, the tower’s spacious 6,536-square foot club area was transformed into a mass vaccination clinic for staff, faculty and students, and by early summer, most of Duke’s workforce had been fully vaccinated. Many employees received the vaccine in Blue Devil Tower, where, to a soundtrack of pop music and happy chatter, around 20 volunteers and Duke University Health System staff spent each day playing their part in Duke’s journey out from under COVID-19’s shadow. “Everybody here works together so well, and is so upbeat, because they know the purpose of what we’re doing,” said Lucas Collins, who served as a site coordinator for the Blue Devil Tower clinic.
A Precise Process In a suite on the second floor, Pharmacy Technician Courtney Pringley and Clinical Pharmacist Wennie Huang worked to the fast, staccato beat of pens tapping on syringes.
Clinical Pharmacist Wennie Huang measures a dose of the vaccine.
