Mary Duke Biddle Duke Arts Fellows is an academic yearlong program that brings Duke undergraduates together with Durham Public Schools educators and Duke faculty mentors. Open to students of any major with a passion for the arts, the program offers Fellows (Duke undergraduates) the chance to support Durham Public Schools (DPS) through creative, hands-on classroom work.
Fellows are paired with a DPS teacher whose focus aligns with a specific artistic discipline, collaborating in the classroom throughout the year. This work culminates in a spring capstone experience, such as a production, performance, or gallery, featuring work by DPS students. Additionally, Fellows also meet regularly with a Duke faculty mentor who shares expertise in the same artistic discipline.
Applications are now open! Duke students who are passionate about supporting arts education are strongly encouraged to apply. Students must be able to commit to participation for a full academic year.
Assistant Professor of the Practice of English
JP Gritton’s novel Wyoming, a Kirkus best debut of 2019, is out with Tin House. His awards include a Cynthia Woods Mitchell fellowship, the Meringoff prize in fiction, and the Donald Barthelme prize in fiction. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Greensboro Review, New Ohio Review, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. His essays have appeared in Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor of creative writing in the department of English at Duke University.
Durham Public School to be announced.
Esbenshade Assistant Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History and Visual Studies
Hayes earned a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta in 2010. His thesis exhibition, “Cash Crop,” has been traveling and exhibiting for nearly a decade. In his work, Hayes uses three symbols: a pawn, a corn, and a horse to explore America’s use (or misuse) of black bodies, black minds, and black labor. Artists, he believes, are as much translators as they are creators. He started teaching at the college level in 2011; currently, he is an Esbenshade Assistant Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University. He recently created a monument for the Colored Troops that marched through Wilmington, NC. “Boundless” it was unveiled November 13, 2021. In 2025 Hayes, started an international project Reclaiming the Current dedicated to the diaspora. Stephen continues to create and exhibit artwork publicly and privately.
Faculty Mentor paired with Fellow at Northern High School.
Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies
Torry Bend is a puppet artist and scenic designer, her Scenic design has been seen in New York at La Mama, Incubator Arts Project and Dixon Place. Additional design work includes: Animal Dance Children’s Theater Company; Corduroy Seattle Children’s Theater; Temples of Lung and Air, Playmakers Theater, Pygmalion, Southwest Shakespeare Co.; Agamemnon, Getty Villa. Bend’s puppetry has been seen at puppet festivals across the country. The Paper Hat Game was a New York Times Critic’s Pick, received the Best Toy Theater award for 2015 at the Puppeteers of America Conference and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. She has received grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Henson Foundation, Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
Durham Public School to be announced.
Professor of the Practice of Dance
As a leading voice in contemporary choreography, Michael Kliën has pioneered a 21st-century ecological approach to reimagining how humans move and exist within society ethically and sustainably. His extensive body of work—both emotionally resonant and intellectually rigorous—spans interdisciplinary thought, critical writing, pedagogical initiatives, and, at its core, groundbreaking social choreographic works that transgress both the performing and fine arts. Kliën is a Professor at Duke University and serves as the Director of the Laboratory for Social Choreography at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
Faculty Mentor paired with Fellow at Northern High School.
Lecturing Fellow of Music
Dr. Allan Friedman is proud to direct both the Duke Chorale and SONAM (Singers of New and Ancient Music). He also teaches a variety of courses in the Music Department. Recently he was awarded Duke’s Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award for the 2023-24 Academic Year. In addition to this teaching and conducting work, he serves as the Director of Music at Judea Reform Congregation. He is a proud alumnus of Duke University (T ’99) with a Music Major, including studies in South Africa with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a Masters in Music (Musicology) from UNC – Chapel Hill (2001), and a D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from Boston University (2005) with a dissertation on Russian Jewish Choral Music where he led several different choral ensembles.
Faculty Mentor paired with Fellow at James E. Shepard Middle School.
This academic year, five students joined the inaugural 2025–26 cohort of Duke Arts Fellows—Duke undergraduates who are paired with a Durham Public School (DPS) educator and a Duke faculty mentor. The …
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