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Tony Brown Takes Your Questions on Turning Students into Leaders, Today at Noon

Brown's classes have inspired many students to create community service organizations

            Tony Brown

Duke Professor Tony Brown challenges his students to put their values into action. For 15 years, Brown has taught courses on leadership, social entrepreneurship and moral courage at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy. Projects begun by students in his class have turned into established campus and community organizations. In a live "Office Hours" conversation at noon Thursday, March 1, Brown will take questions from viewers about his philosophy of leading through service.

"The classroom is a laboratory," Brown said about his approach to teaching. "It's not as if we have all the answers; we want to use the students to help us ask the questions and answer them."

To submit a question for Brown -- before or during the webcast -- send an email to live@duke.edu, post to the Duke University Facebook page or Tweet using the hashtag #dukelive. Watch the webcast live on the Duke Ustream channel.

Brown describes the Enterprising Leadership Initiative in this video.

Brown came to Duke in 1993, after a career as a business executive in the insurance industry. On campus, he developed courses that emphasize putting ideas for community service into action. Organizations created by his students include: Student U, a Durham nonprofit that supports middle- and high-school students pursuing a college education; the Center for Race Relations, an undergraduate organization that promotes interracial understanding on campus; and Crayons2Calculators, a service that supplies Durham public school teachers with classroom supplies at no cost.

In addition to his role as a professor of practice of public policy and sociology, Brown is co-director of Duke's Hart Leadership Program and founder of its Enterprising Leadership Initiative. From 2007 to 2010, he served as president of the Robertson Scholars Program.

Duke's "Office Hours" webcast series allows members of the Duke community and others to engage in live conversations with faculty about their research and scholarship. Visit the Office Hours website to see a schedule of upcoming topics, watch past episodes and sign up for email reminders.