Hank & Billye Suber Aaron Young Scholars Summer Research Institute

Program Description

The Young Scholars Summer Research Institute is a three-week program that provides high school students enrolled in Durham Public Schools (DPS) with training to enhance their writing, research, and presentation skills.

The program is sponsored by the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University in partnership with Durham Public Schools (DPS). In keeping with the Samuel DuBois Cook Center’s central mission as a community of scholars engaged in the study of the causes and consequences of inequality, program participants explore curriculum related to the economic, social, and political dimensions of inequality.

During the Young Scholars Summer Research Institute, students receive instruction from distinguished teachers, university professors, and leaders from community organizations. The program’s main focus is on the development of the students’ research, writing, presentation, and critical-inquiry skills, culminating in a capstone presentation of students’ individual or group research projects.

Program Goals

• Enhance student research, writing, and presentation skills within an academically high-achieving environment
• Facilitate student ownership of learning and develop tools for critical inquiry
• Foster collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the causes and consequences of inequality
• Enable student production of individual research related to the varied causes and consequences of inequality and possible remedies for achieving equity and social justice (involving the intersections of class, income, wealth, gender, race, health, law, employment, and education)
• Identify and recruit the next generation of scholars engaged in the study of inequality and design of remedies for addressing group-based disparities and conflicts

Program Administration and Faculty

Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity

• William A. Darity, Program Founder
• Gwendolyn Wright, Program Administrator
• Erica Phillips, Program Coordinator

Durham Public Schools

• Daniel Kelvin Bullock, Program Liaison; Executive Director for Equity Affairs with Durham Public Schools

About Durham Public Schools

Durham Public Schools serves more than 32,000 students in 53 schools across the city and county. Student-participants in the Young Scholars Summer Research Institute must be currently enrolled in Durham Public Schools and entering the ninth, tenth, or eleventh grade.