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The highlight of the 2000-2001 academic year was an unprecedented
on-campus collaboration to complete a comprehensive academic plan
entitled Building on Excellence.
Key strategic priorities proposed in this ambitious document include
strengthening science and engineering, intensifying the use of technology,
and expanding Duke’s relationships globally and locally. An
18-month effort led by Provost Peter Lange culminated in February
when the Duke University Board of Trustees gave its unanimous approval.
Building on Excellence will guide our actions and resource mix during
the next five years as we anchor and strengthen Duke’s position
among the handful of leading research universities.
In keeping with that panoptic approach, much of this year’s
report will focus on university-wide goals and examples of what
we’re doing to achieve them. But first, let me point to a handful
of notable accomplishments of the past year at Duke.
Interdisciplinary initiatives
Building on Duke’s unique strengths, in October 2000, we formally
established the Institute
for Genome Sciences and Policy, a $200 million initiative that
will bring together Duke researchers in medicine, physics, chemistry,
computer science, and engineering, with scholars from business,
economics, ethics, public policy, and religion. Together they will
advance society’s understanding of the complex issues and enormous
potential associated with the genomic revolution. Appropriately,
this is the largest single academic undertaking since the founding
of the university.
Also this year, we established a new interdisciplinary center
in the humanities and social sciences involving some 15 Duke programs.
Named after our James B. Duke professor emeritus and the foremost
chronicler of the African-American experience in our nation, the
John Hope Franklin
Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies is housed
in the former Hanes Annex dormitory, now marvelously transformed
into an elegant and functional facility with access to the most
current technology. Its computer equipment and multi-media electronic
capabilities already are helping faculty and students investigate
complex social problems – consistent with Professor Franklin’s
vision of learning from the past so we can build a more humane and
just society for the future Class of 2004
The Class of 2004 turned out to be the academically- strongest
in the university’s history, as well as the most diverse. Some
200 of our entering students ranked first in their high school classes,
with 450 being among the top five. Recognizing the proven value
of diversity as an educational imperative, we are gratified by this
cohort’s record percentages of African-American and Latino
students. Our efforts to identify and attract outstanding students
from our home state were also successful – 16 percent came
from North Carolina, the most since 1986. At the same time, we sharpened
our international focus, welcoming students from 33 countries as
far afield as Korea and Kuwait, Jamaica and Japan, and Brazil and
Bangladesh.
Remarkable undergrads
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Matthew Baugh (T '01)
also won a Truman Scholarship, which recognizes academic accomplishments,
leadership potential, and commitment to a career in public
service.
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Matthew Baugh, an Angier B. Duke scholar from Raleigh, North Carolina,
became Duke’s 30th Rhodes Scholar, marking the eighth consecutive
year that a Duke student was selected for this singular honor. You
may have heard Matthew interviewed
on National Public Radio about his work in Haiti with doctors
and policymakers. To help educate that nation’s neediest citizens,
he wrote and sang songs in Creole with messages about breast-feeding
and treating intestinal worms. {Duke also boasted four
more Rhodes scholars in 2001.]
Baugh also was selected to join USA Today’s All-USA
College Academic Team. In an unprecedented showing, Duke’s
Pooja Kumar of Pennsylvania and Brian Skotko of Ohio joined Baugh
on the 20-person team of top graduating seniors whose intellectual
achievement and commitment to service caused them to be singled
out.
Another team of Duke undergraduates – senior John Clyde of
Idaho and juniors Nathan Curtis of Virginia and Kevin Lacker of
Ohio – took first place among 434 teams in the prestigious
William
Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. This is the third time
since 1993 that a Duke team has won this math award, the academic
discipline’s equivalent of the Final Four in basketball.
These were not the only students who captured a national championship.
The rafters in Cameron Indoor Stadium now host jersey number 31
in recognition of the extraordinary accomplishments of Shane
Battier, college basketball’s Player of the Year and the
leader of Duke’s 2001 NCAA championship men’s basketball
team. The year also marked the 500th victory of coach Mike Krzyzewski.
In recognition of his many contributions, we honored him with the
naming
of Coach K Court in Cameron. And, once again, Duke athletes
led the nation’s Division 1-A teams in graduation rates.
Super-achieving faculty and deans
Our faculty continue to make their mark on history as well. Duke
faculty and researchers garnered a record $356 million in 2000-2001
to support important scholarship in areas as diverse as lung and
heart disease, underwater mountain towers, hummingbirds, and gun
control. Three faculty members – John Aldrich, former chair
and professor in the Department of Political Science; William Chafe,
history professor and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences;
and Ariel Dorfman, professor of literature and Latin American studies
– were elected
to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Romance Studies
Professor Alice Kaplan won the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize in history for her work The
Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach.
Professor Alex Keyssar’s The
Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United
States, a finalist in the same category, was also a finalist
for the Pulitzer Prize.
The quality of our graduates correlates directly not only with
the quality of our faculty but with the leadership of our deans.
In January, we announced the selection
of finance professor and entrepreneur Doug Breeden to succeed
Rex Adams, who stepped down after five years of strong leadership
at the Fuqua School
of Business. Accounting Professor Robert
Ashton was named the new dean of the Fuqua School of Business Europe,
succeeding Tom Keller at Duke’s first inter-national campus
in Frankfurt. In March, the trustees approved the appointment of
James B.
Duke Professor William Schlesinger, whose work on CO2
gases is pivotal to understanding global warming issues, as dean
of the Nicholas School of the
Environment and Earth Sciences, succeeding founding Dean Norm
Christensen.
In July, we welcomed back Dr.
R. Sanders Williams as the new dean of the School of Medicine
and vice- chancellor for academic affairs in the medical center.
Sandy is a distinguished scientist, academic administrator, and
teacher whose research has garnered international attention. In
other medical news, Robert
Clapp, Jr. was named chief operating officer of Duke Hospital,
Michael Burke from KPMG Peat Marwick was named the hospital’s
chief financial officer, and Dr.
Matthew Ellis was named director of Duke’s Comprehensive Cancer
Center Breast Cancer Program.
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