Spotlight on a Scholar

 Meet Cynthia Chen, a senior who hails from Greenville, South Carolina.  She's an English major and Psychology minor, who has taken on leadership roles throughout most of her college career.  She enjoys a real sense of community with her Selective Living Group of coed upper and under classmen at Maxwell House in Keohane Quad.  Besides keeping up with her academics, she manages to find time for artistic interests as well as student government activities.  According to Cynthia, "Ive tried to see college as both preparatory for ensuing careers and a vehicle by which to study everything that most interests me.  So my classes have always been pretty fun - they have ranged from Music in South Asia to African Dance to Art History."

The summer following her Freshman year, Cynthia participated in her Carolina Summer of Service in Greenville, North Carolina, where she worked for the Guardian Ad Litem, documenting proceedings for child custody cases and also at a rape crisis center, taking crisis phone calls and designing a training booklet for counselors.

In her Sophomore year, Cynthia was elected Senator for Duke Student Government, where she organized a Majors Round Table to facilitate communication between students, faculty and administration.  In addition, she surveyed students about class demand, problems with registration, and interest in potential half-credit classes.  Cynthia eventually founded and served as President of the English Majors Union.  She used her position to organize help sessions for students writing honors theses, as well as solicit student input for faculty searches.  That summer she participated in a study abroad program in Oxford.

Cynthia joined Duke Raas, an Indian dance team, during her Junior year.  She continues to perform with them on campus in Awaaz and Lunar New Year, as well as compete with them against similar teams across the U.S.  Most recently she helped choreograph Senior Bhangra for Duke Diya's annual South Asian Cultural Showcase in the fall.  "One of my biggest beliefs is that nothing about you should preclude you from trying new things and getting to know different kinds of people."  Because of this, Cynthia also enjoyed serving as Arts & Culture Chair of Maxwell House, where she helped organize cultural events for her Selective Living Group, in order to experience some of these new things.

Following her Junior year, Cynthia worked with Projects Abroad, a human rights organization, for her International Summer of Service in Cape Town, South Africa. There she designed and conducted  legal and human rights workshops for women in local townships, and provided training for workplace re-entry for women at a shelter for victims of domestic violence.  She also conducted an HIV/AIDS workshop for  convicted juvenile males at a safety house, and worked with an LGBTI group to organize a protest march for a lesbian murdered because of her sexual orientation.  Using her creative talent, she produced a poster and flyer for the event.  Reflecting on these experiences she said, "I have found it incredibly meaningful to have lived in these places and truly immersed myself in the culture - you don't really know the feeling and flavor of a place until youi've put down stakes for two months and taken a good look around."

This year Cynthia was elected DSG Vice President of Academic Affairs.  She leads a committee of ten senators on various projects and is currently working with administration to develop a new domestic study program in Washington, D.C., and to improve the course evaluation system at Duke.  In her current role, she represents students on the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, Academic Standards Committee of the Arts & Science Council, and the Library Council.