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Daily Life at the Duke Youth Academy
Life at the Duke Youth Academy will likely be different than anything you have experienced thus far, though parts of it will be similar to youth groups, camps, and retreats in which you may have participated in the past. We intend for the two weeks of DYA to be formational in many ways: we hope to influence the way you think about the day-to-day aspects of being Christian while we help you grapple with broader theological ideas; we do all of this in the context of an intentionally Christian community. We bring you out of the context of your high school, church community, and extracurricular activities and gather you with the one purpose of discovering the calling of our baptisms. In doing so, we study, play, pray, worship, and serve together in the name of Jesus Christ while learning how to live abundantly and think deeply about being Christian.

The two weeks on campus will be rigorous in schedule and in mind, as well as sometimes in body. We try to allow each student and staff member to get adequate amounts of sleep each night, and encourage each participant to eat nutritious and balanced meals to sustain you throughout the program. We also encourage students and staff to discover ways to rest and enjoy Sabbath time, even in the midst of their busy schedules. Even so, most students and staff will be exhausted by the end of the two weeks. Their minds, spirits and emotions will have worked very hard during the program, and their bodies will call for rest, which we encourage!

We attempt to pattern our life at the Duke Youth Academy on a rough monastic pattern: studying in the mornings, working with our hands/bodies in the afternoons, and worshipping and reflecting in the evenings. Below is a tentative daily schedule from the 2007 DYA:

7:30 am Wake up!
8:15 am Meet in the quad for morning watch, walk to breakfast
8:30 amBreakfast with mentor groups in the dining hall
9:10 am Morning Prayer in Duke Chapel
9:40 am Announcements
9:45 am Morning plenary: Plenary speakers are members of the Duke Divinity School faculty, and may include such noted theologians as Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, Dr. Amy Laura Hall, Rev. Dr. L. Gregory Jones, and Rev. Dr. Fred Edie
11:30 am Snack time!
11:45 amWorship workshops – learning how to lead and plan worship, then planning and preparing to lead a DYA worship service with a group of students and mentors
1:00 pm Lunch in the dining hall
1:30 pmRest time in dorm rooms
2:30 pm Afternoon activities – arts village, service projects, prayer practices, or free time
5:30 pmFree time
6:00 pmDinner in the dining hall or hospitality meals with local churches
7:00 pm Community time on the quad or worship preparation time
7:30 pm Evening worship
8:45 pmMentor group reflection time (all students will be in small daily reflection groups with approximately 8 students and 2 mentors)
10:15 pmFree time in the dorm with optional discussion groups
11:15 pmIn dorm rooms
11:30 pmLights out!