The Bridge Internship is a residential summer program that brings together students from Duke University and North Carolina Central University (NCCU) to live together across typical divides and to connect more deeply with the history and communities of Durham, North Carolina.
Now in its third year, the Bridge Internship recently received a grant of $49,994 from Wake Forest University’s Educating Character Initiative. The grant supports institutions seeking to educate and embed character in their distinctive contexts of higher education.
The Bridge Internship is offered through a partnership among the NCCU Office of Community Engagement and Service, NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry, and Duke University Chapel. Students in the program develop their character by serving in community organizations, learning about one another’s faith traditions, and visiting historic sites in Durham reflective of the city’s cultural diversity. They live together in Duke Chapel’s PathWays House in Durham’s West End neighborhood, sharing meals and having discussions of purpose and meaning.
Program leaders are using the grant to explore how the program can expand, adjust, and develop its curriculum with a focus on character education. They are doing this through surveys, focus groups, and public conversations with community leaders, as well as students and faculty at NCCU and Duke.
"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, 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."
The Rev. Bruce Puckett, one of the Bridge Internship leaders, is the assistant dean of Duke Chapel.
“After three summers of building and learning with our students, this grant positions us to move this program to the next level by integrating it more deeply into our respective universities,” said. “Over the next eight months, we will consider how character education, as it connects to the Bridge Internship Program, fits into the broader curricular and co-curricular programs of our universities.”
Another one of the program leaders is the Rev. Dr. Gloria Winston, executive director of the NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry.
“My hope is that this will truly be a program that each intern can integrate fully into their way of life,” Rev. Dr. Winston said. “The tools that they receive in bridge-building, the respect for other faith traditions, and the humanity that goes along with it—I hope that these become part of their character.”