Only about 30 of 600 seats of Reynolds Theater were filled at the Aug. 30 Sophomore Spark Summit despite a week-long campaign of emails, yard signs and tabling.
The trend of low attendance is not entirely new: The Career Center has faced ongoing challenges in engaging sophomores. Of the over 1,200 members of the Class of 2027, only about 255 registered for the event.
The Spark Summit was first launched in spring 2022. Now in its fourth iteration, the event aims to be an “intervention that helps sophomores find tools and resources that will ideally diminish what often gets referred to as the ‘sophomore slump,’” according to Greg Victory, assistant vice president of student affairs and Fannie Mitchell executive director of the Duke Career Center…