Consensus is a hard thing to come by these days, but if you ask anyone who was involved in the inaugural 2025-26 Mary Duke Biddle Duke Arts Fellows Program, they will say it has been a triumph.

In 2024, then vice provost for the arts John Brown invited several Duke students to imagine a program connecting arts students at Duke with Durham Public Schools (DPS). Musicology Ph.D. student Devon Carter was a member of the 2024 Arts+ cohort, the first of three student teams convened by student engagement manager and program director Anna Wallace to turn Brown’s vision into a reality. “We researched existing programs nationwide and gathered insights from 39 DPS teachers, because we knew it had to be driven by the teachers and their needs,” says Carter. 

From there, the Fellows program was born, featuring a three-way collaboration between a Duke student, an arts faculty member, and a DPS arts educator. “One of the ideas that came up again and again was centered around a final showcase or performance that would bring the DPS students to campus and feature their work.”

So on March 17th, students and teachers from participating schools gathered at The Rubenstein Arts Center (The Ruby) for a visual arts show and The Nasher Museum for dance, writing, and theater presentations. (A music cohort will join next year.)

The atmosphere was electric. Many of the students had never shown their work or been to campus, and their excitement was palpable. 

The evening started at The Ruby, where students from Northern High School displayed portraits they had painted. Duke student Olatomi Gabriel was on hand, as was his Northern High School mentor, art teacher Myra Stotesbury, and his Duke mentor from art, art history & visual studies Raquel Salvatella de Prada. They were a proud trio describing what they all considered a highly successful collaboration.

Stotesbury especially enjoyed watching her high school students have their horizons widened over the year as they peppered Gabriel with questions about what life was like in college and realizing they could combine fields like earth and climate science and visual art & art history in their studies, as Gabriel is doing.

Sophomore Julia Libhaber also made the weekly trek to Northern High School to teach dance. A public policy and dance major mentored by dance professor Michael Kliën, Libhaber says,

“Being alongside all of these talented dancers and my co-teacher Ms. [Lori] Madl has been the most incredibly rewarding program, and it has reinforced my love for dance and education.”

Northern student Jacob Johnson, new to dance, now sees many more possibilities for himself. His mom went to Duke, and watching Libhaber combine her varied interests at a liberal arts college has opened his eyes to incorporating the arts into his college education. “It is an infatuating idea,” he says.

Bhavika Verma, an English and cinematic arts major mentored by Duke faculty member J.P. Gritton loved both teaching her creative writing students and learning with the students from Carrington Middle School teacher Shamia Truitt-Martin.

Verma and Truitt-Martin agreed it was a symbiotic relationship, learning so much from each other. “It was really nice to see where the students started and where they are now,” says Truitt-Martin. “This has been an awesome experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life.”

Director of Theater at Hillside High School Tiffany Agerston says it has been enriching for them to have a student come over from Duke and work with the young people, and she looks forward to continued collaboration. Her Duke collaborator, Jackie Park says, “Being an Arts Fellow this year, I have had the joy of working with so many phenomenal people who remind me constantly why I do theater.”  

Park, a psychology, theater studies, and chemistry major continues, “Not only have I learned so much about life and art in the community, but I have also met people who have changed my career aspirations. Ms. Agerston’s care, love, and the way in which she commands a room full of teenagers were truly traits that inspired me.”

“I’m incredibly proud of the work that Jackie Park did,” says Park’s theater studies faculty mentor Torry Bend. “The young performers were glowing on stage, and their connection and dedication to Jackie was clear.” 

“There is a rapidly growing body of scientific literature that articulates the critical role the arts play in brain development in childhood and in adult brain-body health,” says Jules Odendahl-James, director of engagement for Duke Arts. “The Fellows are reinforcing the integrated learning/doing/making philosophy of their Duke experience by supporting doing, making, and interpreting in their DPS classrooms, modeling full and fulfilling lives of curiosity, resilience, and ingenuity.” 

Anna Wallace made closing remarks at the jubilant event. She thanked the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation for their support, the student researchers that brought the program to life, the whole Duke Arts team under the leadership of now vice provost for the arts Deborah Rutter and the faculty mentors. But she conveyed special thanks to the DPS students.

Speaking to them, Wallace said, “We are all here for and because of you, and I hope that you continue to identify as an artist for the rest of your life. We need you and each of your unique voices and perspectives.”

In closing, Wallace said with obvious pride and affection, “I saved these names for last. Our inaugural Fellows, Jackie Park, Olatomi Gabriel, Bhavika Verma, and Julia Libhaber, you have my deepest respect and awe. How you balance your work and numerous other responsibilities and artistic practices while being a present and vital resource in your classroom, I will truly never understand. But thank you for your passion and your commitment to supporting arts education in Durham.”