Seth Napier: Becoming a World Citizen through Study

On paper, Seth Napier is the consummate world citizen. Born in the U.S., he and his family have lived in Verona, Italy, since he was six. He's traveled to more than 40 countries and is fluent in Italian, English, French and Romanian.

Before coming to Duke, he took a year off to volunteer in a Romanian orphanage. And as an undergraduate, he performed field-based research on Malian street children and tutored and mentored Kenyan children living in an at-risk environment ravaged by AIDS.

This weekend, he'll graduate Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor of science degree in biology and a minor in Comparative Area studies.

In person, Napier is amiable and understated. His reluctance to talk about his accomplishments owes less to self-consciousness than it does to genuine modesty. It takes more than a little prodding to get Napier to reveal his perspectives on service, community, and why he'll probably never settle down in the suburbs.

For example, when asked why he would opt to spend the summer between high school and college working with abandoned and orphaned children in Romania, Napier initially says he needed time off between his high school exams and enrolling at Duke. (In Italy, students take the oral portion of their baccalaureate during the summer, possibly as late as the end of July.)

Then, why not tour Europe or work closer to home? "Well, I had visited my aunt and uncle in Bulgaria in 1991, shortly after the fall of Communism," he says, revealing more of his motivation. "That was the first really different experience I had ever had. It made quite an impression on me as a 10 year old, to see people standing in bread lines and police stopping cars to take gas because they didn't have any.

"But Eastern Europe also has a romantic allure. There are horses pulling carts and beautiful, idyllic countryside. It's almost like going back 100 years into a fairly tale."

Napier admits he was na¯ve when he went to Romania because he expected the people running the orphanage to share his values and objectives about caring for children. Instead, he found "a pervasive lack of integrity among the leadership" due to Communism's lingering effects. Co-workers spied on one another, phones were tapped, and money often went unaccounted for. Still, he resisted the temptation to leave because he wanted to show the children that someone cared about them.

"I knew they were well worth the effort for me to persevere through the oppressive atmosphere in order to show them real love. In the end, I became the only friend most of them had, which made surmounting the difficulties one of the most rewarding trials of my life."

In making the transition from the dire circumstances of Romania to the easy ambiance of Duke, only two things caught Napier by surprise - the lure that drinking holds for many undergraduates and such signs of socioeconomic status as designer clothes and expensive cars. "In Romania I had friends whose salaries meant they could barely put food on the table and here we take so much for granted. Most people I know in Romania don't even have savings accounts; they keep $50 in a sock for special occasions. That doesn't mean I am bitter because my friend has a car; you can't fault Americans for being well off."

Overall, Napier is extremely pleased with his Duke experience. "There are superficial parts to (the social scene), but it's been a ton of fun." He rattles off the accomplishments of friends and peers - a young woman who organized a house course on the refugee experience after working in seven different refugee camps; another who worked in Swaziland and Brazil with the World Health Organization. "And these are the same people who are also involved with a capella groups, or cultural organizations like DIYA. I've met so many people who are incredibly talented."

Academically, Napier immersed himself in tough subjects like genetics and cell biology, immunology, organic chemistry, physics and calculus. Other coursework included the democratization of Eastern Europe, global human geography and comparative approaches to global issues.

It's no surprise that Napier has been drawn to the Hart Fellows Program, a post-graduate fellowship administered through the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy's Hart Leadership Program. Napier will most likely work in Cambodia with an organization called Homeland, where he'll work to find suitable foster homes for AIDS orphans.

"My passions and interests draw me to other countries. I'm interested in cultural differences and serving as a bridge between cultures. Wherever you are there are places to make an impact."

Given his peripatetic nature, Napier plans to continue working in international settings where he can learn new languages. "In America things work too well, it feels too efficient. You pick up the phone and dial an 800 number, or you hop in your car and easily get to where you need to be. But in Northern Italy, you could get in your car and within 45 minutes you could be in one of three different countries, all with different dialects and architecture."

If he continues his worldly journeys, Napier could surpass the accomplishments of his paternal grandfather's best friend, who earned the moniker of "The World's Most Travelled Man" in the Guinness Book of World Records. "I'd like to travel to any place that's off the map and not a tourist destination - Central Asia, Madagascar. I'd rather go to Kyrgyzstan than Australia."