Several Duke faculty and students will participate in a live Twitter chat during Republican nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech Thursday night. The speech is scheduled to begin after 10 p.m. EST. Professors David Schanzer and Don Taylor of the Sanford School of Public Policy will join religion professor Ebrahim Moosa, English professor Maurice Wallace and black church studies professor J. Kameron Carter. Bruce Jentleson, a professor of public policy and political science at Sanford who is an advisor in the Obama campaign, will also join the chat. Undergraduate students Chloe Rockow, Ryan Boone, Jordan DeLoatch and Maggie Spini will also tweet. Rockow is deputy vice-chair of the Duke College Republicans and Boone is a member of the right-leaning Alexander Hamilton Society. DeLoatch and Spini are members of the Duke Democrats. The chat will be a "public classroom" and tweeters will offer non-partisan, respectful analysis and commentary in real time, reacting to Romney's speech. Members of the Duke community are welcome to join the Twitter chat using the hashtags #DukeChat and #RNC2012 with these rules in mind. Follow the chat here. Romney's nomination speech is expected to highlight his leadership background as a corporate CEO, Massachusetts governor and steward of the 2002 Olympics. The theme for this year's convention is "We Can Do Better." Romney's remarks will conclude the three-day event which is being called the "convention without walls" because of the GOP's social media efforts. Duke will hold a similar Twitter chat during President Obama's acceptance speech in Charlotte Sept. 6.
