Meenakshi Chivukula Graduates from Duke University

Meenakshi V. Chivukula of Medfield, Massachusetts (USA) recieved her Bachelor of Arts in International Comparative Studies from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, on May 13, 2007. Duke has been consistently ranked among the top ten national universities in the United States over the past many years.

Daughter of Suresh and Lakhimi Chivukula of Medfield, Massachusetts. Grand daughter of Srimoti Komol Kumari Baruah (social worker) and the late Sri Hem Chandra Baruah of Jyotinagar, Guwahati.

Meenakshi attended Medfield High School until 11th grade before moving on to Armand Hammer United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico. Meenakshi received the prestigious Robertson Scholarship to attend Duke University. She played hockey (goal keeper’s position) at school and was awarded the Most Valuable Player award. She was also class president for three years in a row.

Meenkakshi is a very well-traveled woman. For example, during summers she travelled all over the world. She spent a summer in New Orleans, Louisiana (USA) Summer, another in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Summer, and a third summer spending time in the Indian sub-continetnt understanding well-being as an outcome of culture.

In college, Meenakshi was one of the leaders of the Phenomenal Women community service project. For an hour once a week, Meenakshi met with twelve year old girls at a local middle school and talked about vital issues including self-respect, gender roles, and body image. They christened the club “Phenomenal Women” after the Maya Angelou poem of the same name. She also is a role model to her peers, serving as a resident assistant for a dorm of 50 girls at her residential high school. On a community service trip to the Chihuahua State of Mexico, Meenakshi did not allow her ignorance of the Spanish language to distance her from the Spanish-speaking native Tarhuamara children she encountered and instead communicated non-verbally with “giggles and smiles.” An esteemed leader, Meenakshi served as class president for three consecutive years at her former high school. Courageously, she left this familiar environment to spend two years at the United World College in New Mexico where she lived and studied with students from throughout the world. It is for all of these reasons and more that Meenakshi is a phenomenal woman.

One of her accomplishments was visiting Cuba, a place prohibited to most Americans by law, as a member of the Duke Students of the World Team in 2004. Meenakshi was also an outspoken representative of the students at Duke and was extensively quoted in the news media on several occasions.