“My sophomore year, Barney Frank, a former congressperson and a pretty notable one at that [was here]. If I’m not mistaken he championed a lot of LGBTQ rights policies and was also just outspoken for his support for disenfranchised persons.
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After a class he came out and sat at one of the tables in the Commons and I sat down next to him and we basically just shot the dirt. I got to talk to him a little bit about his journey, how he got to be where he was, where his beliefs came from. And he asked me things about my life and how I came to Duke and why I chose public policy.
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I think that the Commons has a really amazing way of humanizing people and it feels like a level playing field. It’s a place where you go and you have to drop your preconceived notions. I hope it’s a place where people can just talk openly and earnestly and hopefully build some sort of empathy so that we can better understand each other’s experiences and build from there.”
– Lee Evans, PPS‘19 #humansofdukesanford #DukeStudents #undergrad