Welcome to the Women’s Initiative Web site, your primary source for information about Duke University’s Women’s Initiative. On this site, you will find the Steering Committee’s final report, an executive summary of the project, data on women’s lives at Duke, discussions with faculty, administrators and students, an action list of recommendations, and more.

It’s not uncommon these days for a university or college to look inward at issues of gender and how gender affects the experience of working or learning at the school. Less often does an institution explore the topic as systematically as Duke has done in the last two years, deliberately covering all constituencies. We’ve asked how on-campus lives map to those of alumnae. We've explored the ways undergraduates experience gender differently from graduate and professional students, and how the lives of those community members in turn foreshadow or echo those of the faculty. We've learned a lot about what life is like for employees and staff members across the institution. We’ve been especially interested in noting where, if at all, the experiences of all the groups converge.

Rarer still is for a university to make public such a data-driven, comprehensive analysis. We have decided to share what we have learned, and our game plan for addressing it, by releasing data, sharing reports, acknowledging the fronts on which work needs to be done and inviting continued conversation. We’ve done so precisely because we see our campus as a microcosm for larger cultural issues across American society. The broad patterns we discover surely play out on virtually every campus, and are reflected as well in other sites and occupations.

And we know that only the widest possible dialogue will serve our society well, helping us locate – and share – remedies and successful strategies. Higher education can offer no silver bullet; but we can hope to advance understanding of the complexity of gender issues in real life on and off campus, by proposing solutions and serving as a proving ground. One thing is certain: if we all proceed in a vacuum, looking only inward, we will fail.

The dilemmas documented in our Women’s Initiative Report are not, of course, unique to Duke, any more than issues around child care, mentoring or professional development are important only to women. Yet the mix of challenges and small triumphs is distinctive for each place and time. We have been careful not to generalize beyond our data; we have heard stirring stories and arresting anecdotes, but have chosen to present our report in terms of themes and concerns that we can document again and again from what the women of Duke have told us.

If you are approaching this site as a member of the wider Duke community, you will find recognizable voices, recognizable problems, and much to be proud of. You will see at once that you can put your shoulder to the wheel with us, add your voice to this most crucial of conversations, act in your own sphere to listen better, mentor better, think more clearly and more often about the issues raised here. Our goal in doing this work, and publishing this report, is to make life better for everyone at Duke, women and men. Whether you are on the medical or campus side, a prospective first-year student or a seasoned scholar, a gardener or librarian or housekeeper or manager, there is work to be done, and we must do it together.

If you come to this site as an interested outsider, we hope you will find useful information and ideas here, perhaps even a model for your organization. If our goals strike you as daring, we hope they will also seem, on reflection, achievable. If your experience resonates with ours, let us know.

Very sincerely,

Nannerl O. Keohane

© 2003 Duke University • Durham, NC 27708 USA
Phone:  (919) 684-8111
Email questions or comments about this web site to webmaster @ duke.edu.