Welcome current students! From current courses to internship requirements - here you'll find everything you need to successfully complete your major.
Student Handbook
GET INVOLVED
There are lots of research centers and programs at Sanford. From ethics and leadership, to food policy, to child and family policy to global health, the Sanford School has more than thirty groups focused on specific topics. Some opportunities are designed specifically for undergraduates.
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Suzanne Pierce
Student Services Coordinator
Suzanne Pierce is the Student Services Coordinator for the Public Policy Undergraduate Program. She has over 24 years of experience at Duke University working with undergraduate students.
GLOBAL EDUCATION
EVENTS
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PUBLIC POLICY MAJORS UNION
The Majors Union is the official organization representing undergraduates at the Sanford School.
Terry Sanford Leadership Award
The Terry Sanford Leadership Award is the most prestigious undergraduate award at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. The award is named for Sanford’s founder, who was known for ethical leadership. Each year the award is given to one or two students who embody leadership.
2025 Terry Sanford Leadership Award
Chloe Decker won the 2025 Terry Sanford Leadership Award. Chloe was Chair and Student Voting Director of Duke Votes, Duke’s largest nonpartisan political club, for the national 2024 General Election. Under her leadership, Duke Votes registered more than 3,000 students to vote and recorded the highest-ever turnout at Duke’s on-campus early voting site at the Karsh Alumni Center.
2024 Winner Chloe Nguyen
Chloe Nguyen is passionate about understanding the psychological drivers of intergroup conflict like political polarization and developing interventions to address them. With Polis, Duke Sanford's Center for Politics, she developed a pilot program to improve political discourse on college campuses based in psychology research. She worked with Braver Angels and Polis to hold debates on controversial topics amongst the campus community. And she founded the Duke Justice Project, an organization working to reduce mass incarceration and assist people who are formerly incarcerated with re-entry.
2024 Winner Grace Endrud
"If I could tell my freshman-year self what I'd been doing right now, she’d just be amazed," says Grace Endrud. "Freshman-year Grace would be very proud of the person I've become and the person I'm still becoming." Grace says when she first came to Duke, she didn’t see herself as a leader, instead she focused on her work in the classroom. But when she applied for Duke’s Nakayama Public Service Scholars program, something clicked. "The idea of a ‘public service ethos’ really impacted my perception of what leadership is. And I began to view leadership as an act of service.”