About Us

Andrew Park, Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Communications

Andrew Park joined the Provost’s Office in 2024 after more than 10 years at Duke Law School, most recently as associate dean for communications, marketing, events.

He also serves as one of the co-chairs for the Diversity Action Alliance at Duke, a global coalition of public relations and communications industry associations and leaders who are working to accelerate progress of meaningful and tangible achievements in diversity, equity, and inclusion in the profession.

Park came to Duke in 2013 from Information Services Group, a publicly traded business and technology consulting firm, where he was director of global communications and branding.

A former journalist, Park has been a staff writer for BusinessWeek and a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman and The (Raleigh) News & Observer, and his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Wired, Slate, Salon, Fast Company, Inc., and other publications. He is the author of Between a Church and a Hard Place: One Faith-Free Dad’s Struggle to Understand What It Means to Be Religious (Or Not) (Avery/Penguin).

Park received his BS in international politics, cum laude, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and his MA in journalism and mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The New New South, a publisher of longform multimedia journalism, and has taught digital publishing at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies.

Park lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Cristina Smith, and their two children.

Candis Watts-Smith, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Professor of Political Science 

Candis Watts Smith, oversees Duke’s Office of Undergraduate Education and provides strategic vision and leadership for the many facets of the undergraduate educational experience, including academic, co-curricular, and residential aspects of Duke student life.  Working closely with the president, provost, senior administrators, faculty, and students, Candis develops and articulates Duke's vision of a transformative undergraduate experience designed to prepare students to become engaged global citizens and leaders in the 21st century.

The division delivers on Duke's promise of providing undergraduates a transformative education by providing resources and programs for students across Duke's four undergraduate schools: Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, the Pratt School of Engineering, the Sanford School of Public Policy, and the Nicholas School of the Environment.

Smith’s scholarly expertise highlights the role that race, racism, and structural inequality play in shaping the American political landscape. She is the author or co-author of several books: Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Identity (NYU Press, 2014), Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making Black Lives Matter (NYU Press, 2019); Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2020); and The History of Race and Politics in America, 1968-Present (an Audible Original, 2022). In addition to dozens of academic and public-facing articles, Smith has given a TED talk on three myths about racism in America that has been viewed over 2 million times and is a co-host of the Democracy Works podcast.

Smith serves as faculty director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, on the Interdisciplinary Strategy Council, and on the President’s Athletic Council. She and her family live on East Campus, where she serves as Faculty in Residence for the Southgate residence hall.

Before joining Duke in 2021, she served on the faculties of Williams College, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Penn State in departments of political science, public policy, and African & African American Studies.