REAC Subcommittee: Communications

Overview

The Communications Subcommittee works to increase transparency and engagement related to race and equity work on campus. By sharing stories that honor the lived experiences of people across Duke, we are fostering opportunities to learn, engage and provide feedback on how we are living our Duke values and responding to our climate data in ways that make a meaningful and measurable difference in people’s lives.

Initial Priorities

  • Develop a strategy for broad communications and micro-messaging
  • Identify and address key audiences
  • Communicate Duke values and accountability

  • Highlight Black excellence throughout the campus community and increase the visibility of Black scholars, students’ staff, and alumni.
  • Redouble our efforts to support our alumni who are Black, Indigenous and people of color, including expanded opportunities for networking and professional mentorship.
  • Assist in mobilizing Duke alumni to be agents of positive change in their communities.
  • Strengthen relationships with the City of Durham and support the empowerment of underrepresented communities.

Year 1 Update

The REAC Communications Subcommittee is focused on helping to create transparency and awareness of insights gleaned from the survey and actions Duke is taking in response. This work will be done in collaboration with and support of communicators across Duke. During the spring of 2022, working groups came together to determine activities that will inform the ways in which REAC will communicate with and receive communications and feedback from members across the Duke community.

Read more about the work of the Communications Subcommittee.

The following items reflect our focal points for the Subcommittee’s work in Year 2:

  • Solicit personal stories for storytelling on the lived experiences of Duke community members (planned launch in 2022-23)
  • Update racialequity.duke.edu website (ongoing)
  • Define the relationship between advancing racial equity and Duke Values (ongoing)
  • Create and monitor feedback channels to support the resolution of feedback and concerns related to race and racial equity (fall 2022)
  • Create and manage an editorial calendar for communicating about racial equity work and Duke (summer 2022)

Membership

Co-chaired by Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African & African American Studies, and Rob Odom, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer and Vice President, DUHS.

  • Blyth Morrell, Assistant Vice President of Digital and Brand Strategy
  • Erin Kramer, Assistant Vice President of Media and Public Affairs
  • Tracey Temne, Associate Vice President of Marketing, Communications, Stewardship
  • John Zhu, Senior Public Affairs Officer and Communications Strategist, TGS
  • Minnie Glymph, Senior Executive Director of Communications and Marketing, Pratt
  • Bernadette Gillis, Senior Public Relations Specialist, SOM
  • Nan Jokerst, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt
  • Julie Edell, Associate Professor of Marketing, Fuqua
  • Valerie Gillispie, University Archivist, Libraries
  • Kathryn Kennedy, Executive Director Communications, Trinity
  • Drew Greene, Undergraduate Student, Public Policy, Trinity
  • Unique Whitehurst, Masters Student, DUSON
  • Paul Grantham, Assistant Vice President, Communications Services
  • Joyce Gordon, Director, Jewish Life at Duke
  • Dane Whicker, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
  • Joshua Socolar, Professor of Physics, Trinity
  • Lawrence Kluttz, Director of Communications, Office of the President
  • Catherine Angst, Director of Communications, Division of Experiential Education, Office of Undergraduate Education
  • Warren Lattimore, Th. D. student, Duke Divinity School
  • Samiha Khanna, Senior News Writer and Producer, University Communications