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NCCU and Duke Students Deepen Understanding of Religious Diversity in Durham

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Pictured above: the Bridge Internship students with program leaders and internship supervisors.
 

This summer, six students from Duke University and North Carolina Central University (NCCU) deepened their understanding of the city where they attend college and learned skills for relating across religious and cultural differences. As participants in the Bridge Internship program, the students lived together in Durham’s West End neighborhood, served in community organizations, and discussed readings about faith, character, and purpose.

A two-story white house with a wrap-around porch and a ramp leading up to it. A group of people are gathered on the porch and on the wooden stairs leading to the front door. A few balloons are tied to the railing of the stairs.
The Duke Chapel PathWays House where the students lived together for the summer.

The Bridge Internship is the result of a partnership among the NCCU Office of Community Engagement and Service, NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry, and Duke University Chapel.

A celebration at the end of the summer brought together the student participants, their internship supervisors, program leaders, and community partners at Duke Chapel’s PathWays House. With a wide front porch, the house is where the students shared life together for the summer.

In reflecting on their experiences, the students described how their internships built on what they have learned in the classroom, how they feel more connected to the city of Durham, and how conversations with each other formed friendships across their different religious backgrounds.

A photograph of a young woman with long brown hair, holding a framed certificate and speaking to a man on her right. Both are standing on the front porch of a house. The woman and the man on her left are wearing white t-shirts with a "Bridge Internship" logo. The man on the right is wearing a light brown collared shirt and glasses.
Duke senior Amei Gove (center) speaks as the Rev. Bruce Puckett (left), assistant dean of Duke Chapel, looks on.

“There are a lot of elements of cross-cultural communication and cultural humility,” Duke senior Amei Gove said about her internship with World Relief Durham, through which she assisted refugee families, even learning some words in Swahili. “I learned about what it must be like to experience this country as a refugee."

For NCCU sophomore Angel Bowden, her internship gave her practical experience related to her pre-nursing major. She worked at Armstrong Center of Hope, a counseling and psychotherapy practice that strives to inspire hope, renew the mind, and cultivate peace for its clients.

“It really taught me that mental health is important, and it's always okay to ask for help, and it's always okay to check in on yourself to make sure everything's good,” Bowden said. “It also taught me a lot of office skills for a mental health facility.”

A group of seven people standing on a grassy lawn in front of an old, weathered wooden house with a large brick chimney. The house is surrounded by trees.
The Bridge Interns visit the Historic Stagville State Historic Site in Durham.

In addition to working at the internships, the students visited places of worship for the major religions in the area and went on a one-day interfaith pilgrimage of historic sites in Durham.

“I never thought I would be interested in exploring Durham,” said J’Nyia Monroe, a sophomore at NCCU from Fayetteville, North Carolina. What changed her mind was an interfaith pilgrimage led by the Rev. Breana van Velzen, executive director of Durham Congregations in Action. “We went to an area with three different religious buildings all within walking distance from each other,” Monroe said. “We learned about the Stagville historic site, when I didn't even know there was a plantation in Durham.”

“We just learned so much,” she said. “It was a very eye-opening experience.”

A group of six people standing on the front porch of a house. A woman in the foreground is speaking, with her hand outstretched. She is wearing a white t-shirt with a "Bridge Internship" logo, as are two other people in the background.
Duke senior Raaiqa Zahid speaks; to the right of her is the Rev. Dr. Gloria Winston, executive director of NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry.

Duke senior Raaiqa Zahid got to know Durham through her internship with the Durham County Department of Public Health, attending community awareness events about gun violence and drug overdoses. A double major in public policy and psychology, Zahid assisted with a community health assessment survey.

“Durham residents fill out what their problems might be and what they like about the community and where there can be improvements,” Zahid said. “The health department is working on aggregating that right now, and then they use the data to inform hospitals, public sector, and the government about what changes should be made.”

The students also learned from one another, sharing meals, chores, and conversations that were sometimes structured around assigned readings and sometimes spontaneous and informal.

A young woman with dark, curly hair and a white t-shirt with a "Bridge Internship" logo is smiling and speaking with an older woman with short hair and glasses.
Duke senior Pratikchhya Rimal speaks with her internship supervisor Elizabeth Barber, executive director of Threshold.

As someone who comes from a Bhutanese refugee community, Duke senior Pratikchhya Rimal said she is used to engaging with people from other cultures but hadn’t previously been in a setting where she could deeply explore those differences.

“Living in the PathWays House and being deliberate in recognizing our differences in religion and backgrounds and learning to live with them and understand more about them—that’s something I hadn’t really done before,” Rimal said. “That was really fun.”

A senior mass communications major at NCCU, Sarah Affiah said she was not exposed to religious diversity growing up.

A photograph of three women smiling and laughing on a front porch. A woman in a blue dress and a pearl necklace on the left is laughing and looking at the woman in the center. The woman in the center is holding a framed certificate and laughing while looking at the woman on the right. The woman on the right is bending over while holding a black folder and is also laughing.
Sarah Affiah, a NCCU senior, holds up her Bridge Internship certificate. To the left of her is her internship supervisor, Wendy Hower, founder of Words That Work.

“What was most challenging at first was adjusting to the fact that we have different religions,” Affiah said about living and learning from the other Bridge Internship students who are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Unitarian Universalist. “Seeing the kindness of these women’s hearts, and how people from other religions are still loving, has opened my mind.”

“I look forward to keeping in touch with everybody,” she said.

The Rev. Dr. Gloria Winston, one of the Bridge Internship’s leaders and the executive director of NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry, said she noticed how the students opened up to one another and the program’s approach to bridging differences.

“It doesn't matter whether they're preparing meals together or touring a historic location—when they reflect on those experiences, they find commonalities,” Rev. Dr. Winston said. “We know there are differences, but when they are together in the Bridge Internship, there's a oneness that comes out of it that says, ‘I'm a Bridge Intern.’”

“Understanding your own faith and the faith of others is so important for living in Durham and in the wider world,” said the Rev. Bruce Puckett, another program leader and the assistant dean of Duke Chapel. “This summer, I saw these students grow in their interfaith literacy and in their sense of this city’s religious diversity.” 

It wasn’t just the students who found the program valuable. Community leaders who supervised the students expressed their appreciation for the talents and dedication the students brought to their internships.

A young man in a yellow t-shirt is hugging a young woman in a white "Bridge Internship" t-shirt on a front porch. They are surrounded by other people, with two of the people in the background smiling and clapping.
NCCU sophomore J’Nyia Monroe (left) shares a hug with her internship supervisor, Noah Penny, the director of programs at the Durham Center for Senior Life.

Noah Penny, the director of programs at the Durham Center for Senior Life, directed the internship of J’Nyia Monroe. 

“J’Nyia is a sports medicine student, so we had her working with our evidence-based health promotions program, which are exercise classes that research has shown to be beneficial for seniors,” Penny said. “She did a lot above and beyond that, too…. The seniors really enjoyed having her there.”

Dr. Tonya Armstrong is the CEO of the Armstrong Center for Hope, which provides psychological services for mental and spiritual wellness. A Duke alumna, Dr. Armstrong has had a Bridge Intern work at her practice for three summers in a row, with Angel Bowden interning this year.

A young woman in a white "Bridge Internship" t-shirt is holding a framed certificate and smiling at a woman in a pink patterned shirt and magenta pants. They are standing on a front porch next to a door.
Angel Bowden, a sophomore at NCCU, holds up her program certificate; to the left of her is her internship supervisor, Dr. Tonya Armstrong, CEO of the Armstrong Center for Hope.

“The concept of a young person garnering new administrative skills, while also keeping an eye on their overall career trajectory is one that I am very devoted to,” she said. “We support the mission of bridging different communities, and as a Durham native, I have a special commitment to making sure that Durham thrives.”

The program has attracted interest and support beyond Durham, recently receiving a grant from Wake Forest University’s Character Education Initiative. The program leaders plan to use the capacity-building grant to consult with faculty and students at the two universities to see how the Bridge Internship can deepen its focus on character education and intersect with coursework.

"This partnership has been invaluable to the students from each of our institutions who had the opportunity to engage in a transformative experience,” said Calleen Herbert, another one of the program’s leaders and the director of the NCCU Office of Community Engagement and Service. “This grant will provide a space to explore scaling the components of this unique internship program and to extend its impact to a broader cohort of students." 

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