Reflection Paper: Interview with Frank Dukes

When I reached out for this interview, I was expecting a conversation similar to the one we had with Gillikin, since Dukes has also criticized UVA a lot historically, and his background founding UCARE (who produced a damning report on UVAs legacy of slavery, segregation and its ongoing impact on the community). Going in I thought we would see a pretty similar track to what we experienced with Gillikin, but the whole conversation, Dukes was very vocal about the fact that recent progress, especially under Jim Ryan, has both been meaningful and received well by the community. He was very clear that this good progress can still be undone and what the job is now (especially in this transition period post-Ryan), is to keep up the momentum that already exists and fulfil the promises made to the community. What seems to be most important is still delivering on those plans despite the leadership change and his hope is that the presidents community board continues to do the good work it has been doing for the last couple years. This seemed to be echoed by the panelists from a couple weeks ago who also advocated for the work that has already been done and is still underway.

The assignment's question: What did you learn you didn't know already?

Dukes co-founded UCARE in 2012 and has been one of UVA's biggest critics, but gave genuine credit and had good things to say about Sullivan and Ryan in terms of making real progress. He didn't see the housing work that UVA are doing as performative which surprised me and was stark contrast to Gillikins comments, despite seeming to have similar directions and approaches in terms of vocalization and criticism for the institution. Also the West Haven/Mainstreet example was a concrete case where distrust is playing out right now which was a helpful example. I was personally unaware of this so definitely adds to the full picture we are trying to grasp here.

The assignment's question: What surprised you?

That someone with his history of criticizing UVA was inclined to defend the institutions recent efforts so much. It really drove home that recent work has been impactful and meaningful to the wider community or at least to his assessment of the wider community. He also framed UVA not as a villain but as "the big gorilla" that is too large to do anything without having knock on effects and that these almost always are not malicious and just a part of the way that this works. I was surprised to hear that there are not many successful case studies and that most are measure in level of impact.

The assignment's question: What changed or deepened your perspective?

I came in mostly thinking the institutional engagement was mostly PR or to placate some of the community when things got intense but Dukes and also the panel members really made me consider the distinction between genuine and performative is harder than I imagined and that it is a very complex and nuanced subject overall, with a lot more research to be done in certain areas before conclusions or consistent and widespread change can be implemented