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- The DGHI Team
By Bethany DiPrete, current MSc-GH student
Last Thursday, the Duke Global Health Institute hosted a very successful MSc-GH Admitted Students Day! More than a dozen MSc-GH admitted students traveled to Duke from both near and far to participate in the day-long event. As part of the event, my classmates and I had the great privilege to share our stories and the many reasons why we decided to join the DGHI family as global health master’s students.
After sitting in on our Epidemiologic Methods 2 class and learning the ins and outs of the program from our wonderful faculty and staff, prospective students joined me and three other MSc-GH students for a student panel. This opportunity to share my experiences with them made me realize how much I’ve learned and grown during my two short semesters here at Duke. We covered topics ranging from housing and nightlife to finding engineering classes that focus on global health engineering issues. We also had the chance to learn about the diverse backgrounds and interests of the new group of admitted students. It was fascinating to hear about all the different paths they have taken to get to this point! Joining us were social science majors, engineering and medical students, and even students interested in molecular science of food (sounds so interesting!).
The admitted students spent the afternoon taking a campus tour, and then about 20 of us headed to Bull City Burger and Brewery for some food, drinks and socializing! It was nice to hear their perspectives on the MSc-GH program, engage with DGHI alumni, and of course, enjoy delicious food. Several of us took advantage of Bull City’s “exotic meat month” and ordered the reindeer burger with a blackberry sauce — it was incredible. Thanks to Bull City Burger and Brewery for helping us show the admitted students how awesome Durham is!
After a great day, we all had to part ways, but we hope we were able to give students a unique look into the MSc-GH program. One of the students told me how awesome she thought we all are! Another prospective student shared with me that “everyone was so welcoming and I felt I could really connect with the students and faculty.” She also enjoyed being able to talk with us about our experiences, especially as we are in the midst of planning our field research projects. I believe the event was a success, and I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in making it worthwhile for our prospective students.
To our admitted students: We hope you choose Duke and look forward to seeing each of you in the Fall!
By Ben Silverberg, MSc-GH student
Photo by Conference on Inter-Americas Peacebuilding
A peace activist, local author, and former Fulbright fellow. These were a just a few of the global health scholars speaking at the Conference on Inter-Americas Peacebuilding, hosted this month by the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. Just as we recognize there is a world beyond the US borders, there is one outside of Duke, and the highly-educated region around Durham is no exception. The student-led conference hosted 40+ attendees from five area colleges and universities, including Duke, and we were privileged to hear from locally-based representatives of non-profit, governmental, and community organizations seeking to make the world a better place not just abroad, but here at home.
“Do something about it!” was the rallying cry from Gail Phares, regional director of Witness for Peace Southeast. Through observing conflicts abroad firsthand, her NGO seeks to report back to American policymakers and bring about change. Whereas charity has a built-in hierarchy, this solidarity implies equality. It also teaches us to be humble, which reduces the chance of future conflict. In a very timely reflection, she observed that with the recent Papal selection of the Argentine archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, disagreements between Latin American nations were temporarily forgotten. Indeed, equality is the foundation of peace-building, and she and others were hopeful the new Pope can affect change not just for Catholics, but for the global community.
Peace is not just the absence of violence but the process of healing and growth. This profound insight, made by a later panelist, reminded me of my coursework at Duke in social policy. I also thought back to what I’ve learned in my bioethics class as I heard other remarks on the “crisis of justice” and whether justice and peace were mutually exclusive. As speakers from Curamericas Global and RTI International, also based in the Triangle area, detailed their organizations’ projects, I was excited to see current work in my own communities of interest, even as specific as Huehuetenango in Guatemala. It is amazing to me how rich central North Carolina is in terms of collaborations and opportunities at local institutions and organizations. Like a push-pin on a map, there are many threads branching out, but all roads return home.
Sometimes it feels like working in global health is a Sisyphean task, where some other problem will become the biggest once efforts to stanch another are successful. This conference detailed specific, varied projects that lead to education, policy, and change – a focus on successes rather than perseveration about all the work that remains to be done. Indeed, keynote speaker Dr. Jennifer McCoy, who, among her many accomplishments, worked with the late President Hugo Chavez, former President Jimmy Carter, and others to broker peace in Venezuela, reminded us to reflect on why successful interventions were successful, but also to analyze past mistakes and missed opportunities.
I’m continually amazed at the plethora of opportunities to meet and learn from North Carolinians who are working to drive change in some area of global health. With such high-caliber, eloquent, and prolific speakers, I left the conference inspired and ready to bring my learning and passion back to Duke, and then around the world.
