Duke Freshmen get a plateful of Durham

By Paul Bonner

Nothing says "welcome" like a home-cooked meal.

That's the early assessment of Duke-Durham Community Dinners, in which about 100 first-year students at Duke University visited the homes of 40 to 45 host families for repast and a chance to get better acquainted with the city and some of its residents.

"I think everything has progressed really well," said Josh Parker, who suggested the dinners as part of freshman orientation at Duke. The university soon will survey participating students and their hosts, but indications are it will be repeated next fall, if Parker or someone can again help coordinate the host homes, officials said.

Parker said he also hopes to include N.C. Central University students next fall.

"All the initial feedback I've received is very positive," Parker said.

Parker is on the executive committee of Durham's Inter-Neighborhood Council but suggested the sessions in no official capacity, just out of his interest in town-gown relations, he said.

The idea coalesced after Duke officials allowed him to sit in on freshman orientation in 2004 as an observer, he said. The experience confirmed his suspicion that the sessions didn't present the world outside the campus walls in much detail or in an inviting way.

"They didn't say anything about Durham," he said, and spoke about town-gown relations as if those entities really were monolithic.

"I thought, 'Wait a minute, these are real people. We can discuss and be part of a community and work out our issues,' " he said.

Families and couples responded from several areas of the city, he said.

During orientation week in August, Duke also took the students to a Durham Bulls game and dinner at the American Tobacco historic district next door. The home dinners took a little longer to get organized, getting under way in October.

About two weeks before the Christmas break, Duke freshman Mary Via and two other students dined with a downtown resident, his girlfriend and several friends. The man is a teacher at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics.

"We as freshmen had been frustrated that we hadn't gotten off campus more often; we felt trapped in a bubble," said Via, who came to Duke from Richmond, Va.

The students learned about Durham's history and cultural attractions, she said.

The session provided an antidote to stereotypes she had heard.

"People at Duke make fun of Durham a lot," Via said. "We had heard that it's not safe, not fun, not a lot to do." And she learned that Durham residents likewise often harbor stereotypical ideas about Duke students, which she hopes their foray helped dispel, she said.

In their creativity and knowledge, Duke students represent a potential asset for Durham, Parker said. The city should be doing what it can to keep them here after they graduate.

"I think it's important for students to realize early on that the Durham community has something to offer them," he said.

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