2016-17
If we gave you a microphone, a stage, and an audience, what would you say?
Five Duke students and staff shared their personal stories about Teachers and Mentors at the second annual “What’s Your Story?” event, a live storytelling performance co-sponsored by The Monti, on April 23, 2016. The What’s Your Story series encourages members of the Duke and Durham community to deepen their engagement with the public and experiment with new communication forms.
Hannah Jacobs
I’m the Multimedia Analyst for the Wired! Lab for digital art history and visual culture in the Art, Art History & Visual Studies department. I teach web technologies, mapping, and 3D modeling, and I consult on digital humanities research projects. I’m a Durham native, sometime potter, and former English and Theatre major. Despite my thespian background, this my first time telling my own story.
Listen to Hannah’s story: While a senior in college, a first time potter learns to be present at the potter’s wheel.
Matthew King
I’m a sophomore political science major from Richmond, Virginia. Sometimes I think the show “Modern Family” was written about my family. I don’t know exactly where I’m headed after graduation, but I know I want to be a good teacher and a good father and the rest is immaterial.
Listen to Matthew’s story
Monique LaBorde
I was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. I’m a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill. I’m also a student at Duke University, a “dual citizenship” facilitated by the Robertson Scholars Leadership Program. At UNC, I study American studies and women’s and gender studies. I study audio documentary at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. Outside of the classroom, I write short fiction, practice yoga, and help organize campus activism. I don’t know what I want to be doing in twenty years, and you should be wise enough not expect me to have answers like that.
Listen to Monique’s story
Beverly Meek
I grew up in an all-kin black community, deep in the Appalachian foothills of Northwest Georgia, on land where my family had been held as slaves. When freedom came, they bought land and stayed put. I grew up there, in a family and a landscape where both held me close and kept me safe. I hope to find a voice that can tell about that time – the terror of Jim Crow, love of family, and how landscape can imprint, as it did when my feet first touched the ground in Curryville.
Listen to Beverly’s story: A brave mother stands up to segregation in northwest Georgia.
Vicki Stocking
I run the Summer Programs for the Robertson Scholars Leadership Program. I love working with students over the four years of college and beyond, but I also look forward to eventually spending more time fishing off Johnny Mercer’s Pier in Wilmington. I live in Chapel Hill with my husband, Bob, and dogs, Rusty and Penny. Our kids are in Atlanta (Bobby recently graduated from GA Tech) and Harrisonburg, VA (Valerie is a junior at James Madison University), so I do a lot of driving and mail a lot of packages. I have a full and wonderful life and, in a strange way, am grateful for the extremely diffi cult task of preparing this story.
Listen to Vicki’s story