For the first time ever, this fall semester Duke will offer an Indigenous United States language course — Cherokee.
“When you're studying the Cherokee language, you're learning philosophy, science and cultural practices,” said Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology Courtney Lewis, enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and inaugural director of Duke’s Native American Studies Initiative. "It's about exposing ourselves to new ways of thinking across a broad spectrum of subject areas.”
Following two years of work by the Trinity Curriculum Development Committee, the Arts & Sciences Council adopted a new curriculum that will take effect in Fall 2025. The A&S curriculum governs much of undergraduate education at Duke and the changes will speak to the interests and needs of our students in the coming decades.
Duke students teach sixth graders in Deja Simms’ class at Neal Middle School as part of Assistant Professor of the Practice of Education Kisha Daniels’ Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop course. The students are helping the middle schoolers learn vocabulary and write lyrics for an original hip hop song. The course is also part of a Bass Connections program: Hip Hop Pedagogies. The course examines the role of critical pedagogy in developing learning environments that engage and empower youth. Emphasis is placed on the context of hip hop as a foundation for instructional decision-making and social justice advocacy/activism.
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
