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The Academic Advising Center supports Duke University’s mission to provide students with a superior liberal arts education, attending to their intellectual growth and to their development as adults committed to high ethical standards and full participation as leaders in their communities. The AAC supports this mission by encouraging students to utilize a broad array of advising resources that can help them identify and pursue their academic interests and personal goals. In particular, the AAC supports the work of college advisors to establish strong advising relationships in which students identify opportunities to grow as learners and citizens and to embrace the value of a liberal arts education. In this role, the AAC strives to help college advisors endorse and model an appreciation of different perspectives, backgrounds, and identities as an integral part of a rigorous and inclusive learning environment. 

Our mission emphasizes and incorporates, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which are core values of the Academic Advising Center. We strive to create an advising system for students that is inclusive, welcoming and respectful, and that contributes to all students' feelings of belonging and recognition of their whole selves at Duke. We welcome input from students, advisors and others that can contribute to our efforts to attain this goal. Recent efforts we have taken in support of this goal include:

  • Incoming students are invited to share aspects of their identity that are important to them as part of the first-year questions. This can alert advisors to identity issues for discussion as well as campus resources to share.
  • We strive to have a diverse staff and abide by OUE best practices for conducting equitable and anti-racist job searches.
  • We provide ongoing training for college advisors including a three session presentation on "Anti-Black Racism and Advising", "Gender Pronouns and Identity Conversations", and "Advising with an Intercultural Mindset".
  • We have made a concerted effort to diversify our college advisor pool to fully represent the student body.
  • All staff participate in ongoing training, including Groundwater Training by the Racial Equity Institute.