New Devils 2027: Clare Meehan

With her knees clasping a West African drum, Clare Meehan sat in a circle with 50 of her fellow first-year students. She listened intently as drum circle coordinator David Ntim asked the students to take the rings off their fingers before beginning a 30-minute session with a series of call and response rhythms that he called “drum talk.”

The simple rhythms boomed throughout the Duke Student Wellness Center as the new students played in unison.

Meehan’s approach to playing her drum for the