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Duke Provost Supports Faculty Involved in Hurricane Relief
posted Friday, September 16, 2005
To: All Duke Faculty
From Peter Lange, Provost
Subject: Faculty Contributions to Katrina Relief and Rebuilding efforts
In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, our community has rallied to provide many forms of assistance, from medical teams traveling to the area to the warm welcome that has been provided here on campus to students and faculty from affected universities who have found a temporary home at Duke.
Longer term, there will be many sustained needs and our community will continue seeking ways to contribute to relief and rebuilding efforts. Many opportunities exist, including personal donations of time, effort and funds to support relief organizations. In addition, Duke employees who accrue vacation or PTO – hence non-faculty - have an institutional program in place to permit them to donate hours to the relief effort.
Duke wishes to encourage the many faculty members who may wish to contribute their expertise or energies to the relief and rebuilding efforts. I want to share with you some steps we are taking to facilitate these efforts while ensuring that faculty members continue to meet their teaching, clinical and related responsibilities.
Duke’s central website about Hurricane Katrina has just added a section that highlights faculty members with expertise in subject matters that relate to relief efforts. The address is www.duke.edu/hurricanerelief/faculty.html. I think you’ll be impressed by the range of faculty who are already included on the site. If you’d like to add your own information, you only need to send it in the appropriate format to dennis.meredith@duke.edu. Simultaneously, we encourage faculty members to continue providing expert assistance through their professional organizations and personal contacts, as well as through their departments and schools.
We also encourage faculty members to offer their time to assist in relief and rebuilding. While we cannot provide excused time from teaching, clinical and related activities, it is certainly the case that faculty can use their one-day per week consulting time and any days when classes are not in session, or when they have no institutional responsibilities. They also can participate in any institutionally organized relief and rebuilding efforts over the coming weeks and months.
Faculty members should work with their chairs, deans and colleagues to coordinate such efforts or as they seek ways of assisting faculty colleagues from affected Gulf Coast colleges and universities.
Our faculty, like the rest of the Duke community, has already responded in impressive ways to this challenge, and we look forward to continuing this effort in the months to come.
Office of the Provost
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