Tuesdays in the Orchard

History and Beginnings

Tuesdays in the Orchard is a community-building initiative born from the 2021-2022 DEI Student Advisory Committee. The following spring, the Nicholas School Student Council (NSSC ’22) collaborated with more than 13 student groups to build community through the Tuesdays in the Orchard event series. Organizers included the Nic School Energy Club (NSEC), Duke Sustainability Board (DSB), Student Association for Geospatial Analysis (SAGA), Coding for the Environment, Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG), Diverse and Inclusive Community for the Environment (DICE), Duke Environmental Justice Network (DEJN), Society of American Foresters (SAF), the Ocean Policy Working Group (OPWG), Net Impact, Duke Society for Ecological Restoration (DSER), the Nic Queer Network (NQN), NicNats, Duke Water Network (DWN), and Duke Conservation Society (DCS). Special thanks to Madeline Bowers, Beste Elverdi, Emily Wood, Erin Keleske and countless others for their efforts to bring this initiative to life!

More Recently

The 2023 Nicholas School Student Student Council (NSSC ’23) inhereted Tuesdays in the Orchard to continue growing and shaping it. NSSC ’23 collaborated with many student groups including those previously mentioned as well as the Working Group for the Environment in Latin America (WGELA) and the Black and Latine Club (BLC). NSSC ’23 wanted to exapand the scope of the initiative to include cultural celebrations. The most notable events of the year were the Nic Holi celebration in March 2023 and the Moon Festival celebration in September 2023. Both events drew a large crowd and promoted cultural exchange lasting hours. The DEI Office is proud to have supported and collaborated such resplendent events. In total NSSC and the DEI Office supported 8 Tuesdays in the Orchard during 2023. Special thanks to Alex Urbina and Roo Jackson for molding Tuesdays in the Orchard into an even richer event series in its second year of life.

What’s Next?

The DEI Office looks forward to collaborating with NSSC ’24 to keep up this wonderful and highly anticipated tradition. The DEI Office hopes to establish a once monthly cadence to keep Tuesdays in the Orchard fresh and relevant. If you would like to provide input into how we can improve please click the button below.

Check out some Tuesday in the Orchard highlights on the Nic School Instagram!