Endowments for highly successful civic engagement program take a hit

By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- Duke University has taken over the funding of its highly successful civic engagement program for students.

DukeEngage, which sends students around Durham and across the world to do community service, was launched with much fanfare three years ago, with almost $30 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Duke Endowment.

But the economic downturn has cut funding from the endowments and the university itself has had to pick up the full tab for DukeEngage this year -- $4 million annually.

"Like the rest of the university, we've had to become leaner and more efficient," said Eric Mlyn, director of DukeEngage, which has cut its budget by 7 percent over the past year. "But we knew the university would step up, because when Duke announced DukeEngage , it made a commitment to be a leader in civic engagement in higher education, and that commitment included financial resources."

The program, which placed 350 students last summer in a variety of service projects ranging from a pre-K school readiness effort in Durham to supporting migrant workers in Beijing -- has just started taking applications for next summer. Mlyn expects that the program once again will receive twice as many applications as students it can place.

The Durham-based part of the program seeks to offer participants a more enriched understanding of the community and its needs. Each DukeEngage participant is matched in advance with one of 30 local agencies.

"'The 'Great Recession' has taken a devastating toll on many of the public programs Americans expect to keep communities safe, healthy and educated. This is as true in Durham as many, many other towns and cities across the country," said Elaine Madison, the program's associate director and head of its Durham-based efforts. "In this time of great need, DukeEngage students serving in Durham play a vital role."

Lucy Harris, executive director of SEEDS -- a nonprofit community garden in Durham -- said that a program like DukeEngage emboldens nonprofits with limited resources.

"No small nonprofit ever has enough staff hours to complete what we wish to accomplish," she said. "There are always special projects and research that we just don't have time to do. With a full-time summer intern, like a DukeEngage student, we can broaden our horizon, while giving the student a great opportunity to learn and feel like he's making a real contribution."

Because of the popularity of DukeEngage, administrators had hoped that it could expand. But the funding crunch has put a halt to those plans for the moment.

"I don't think we envisioned the amount of demand from the students," Mlyn said. "It's really been beyond our expectations, and over the long term, we'd like to expand what we do. But for now, DukeEngage will stay right where we are."

But the curtailment of any immediate expansion plans has a positive side as well, said Madison.

"We're taking advantage of the slow growth to take a look at what we are doing," Madison said. "This gives us a chance to make our existing programs as strong as they can be and give us a bit of time to figure out what we can do better. Even though the economy is a puzzle right now, we're seeing this as an opportunity."

DukeEngage hasn't just been successful on campus, Mlyn pointed out. Nearly 10 percent of high students who applied for admission to Duke last year cited the program as a factor in their desire to attend the university.

"In a very short period of time, DukeEngage has become a central part of what Duke does," Mlyn said. "It's very much part of the university's strategic mission."