While it may seem uncommon for someone with a doctorate degree to team up with an undergraduate student to organize a conference at Duke University, Piedmont Community College (PCC) English Instructor, Dr. Chandler Fry and PCC alumna and NC State undergraduate student, Maci Mize are doing just that.
Fry is a firm believer that something can be learned from others regardless of credentials. The upcoming conference “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” challenges common practice in higher education conferences and brings together high school students from PCC, undergraduates from NC State, UNC, and Duke, along with graduate students, deans and professors from Duke. With credentials and experience set aside, these individuals will have the opportunity to read and discuss original essays surrounding the topic, “Beautiful World, Where Are You?”
Fry and Mize first collaborated in 2023 while Mize was a PCC student. She spoke to fellow PCC students about her passion of global wildlife conservation during a Global Distinction passport event. After graduating from PCC in 2024 and enrolling at NC State to study Wildlife Science, Mize returned to PCC to speak at another Global Distinction event during the Fall 2024 semester to recap her experience of spending the summer in the Peruvian Amazon. These two events, along with other opportunities to collaborate with each other, are what inspired the idea for the upcoming conference.
“Each has grown in impact and built off of the others in some way,” Mize said. “It has given me the chance to grow as an educator in conservation and share the knowledge and experiences that mean so much to me. That is what makes our work together so special – joining together these intellectual spaces and conversations to create something unique where people can not only see a clearer, more beautiful picture of the world, but feel they can be part of it.”
The title of the conference, “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” is also the title of a book by Sally Rooney, a writer admired by both Fry and Mize. The topic is also derived from Mize’s experiences in the Amazon and the opportunity she had to see the world in a different light.
“I think that book articulates wonderfully something we’ve been obsessively thinking and talking about together for the past three years,” Fry said. “How do we live meaningful lives when our world is set on the commodification, marginalization, or outright elimination of so much that we find beautiful about life itself?”
“Experiencing a completely different way of life during my time in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon interning in wildlife conservation reaffirmed for me the possibility of a world that hasn’t yet experienced the immense environmental degradation that we see globally,” Mize said. “And yet, despite its immeasurable value and beauty, it still faces a multitude of threats. The conference is an opportunity to elaborate on what makes this beauty so crucial and how it shapes our lives.”
After deciding on a theme for the conference, Fry and Mize received support from Dr. Michael Cornett, a director of undergraduate studies at Duke; Dr. David Aers, a professor at Duke; and Dr. Ted Leinbaugh, a professor at UNC who runs UNC’s Transatlantic Forum for Education and Diplomacy. The conference is being sponsored by Duke’s Medieval and Renaissance Studies and UNC’s Transatlantic Forum for Education and Diplomacy. Duke has already extended an invitation for Fry and Mize to hold another conference in the fall.
Fry says that the response to the conference has been beyond what they ever imagined. They have had double the number of submissions that they are able to accept to present at the conference.
The conference will be held on March 21 at 3:30 p.m. in the Breedlove Room of Duke’s Rubenstein Library. There will be time for eight presenters and a time for questions at the end. Participants can expect a friendly and open intellectual conversation. Students interested in attending the conference should RSVP to Fry at chandler.fry@duke.edu by March 14.
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