Duke University is a private university in Durham, North Carolina.

Although founded only in 1924, Duke traces its roots back to 1838. Beginning in the 1970s, Duke administrators began a long-range effort to improve Duke's status as a leading regional university. The university shed some programs and focused attention and money on selected departments which the university believed could quickly become world-class. Interdisciplinary work was emphasized, as was the recruitment of greater numbers of underrepresented minority faculty and students[1][2]

Academic links were solidified with the two other universities that complete the so-called Research Triangle, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University. Vast construction projects have transformed both east and west campuses as well as the adjacent medical center. While Duke's basketball team has long been one of the best-known sports teams in the country, the University has succeeded in its efforts to build national championship contenders in a dozen other sports. These efforts over the past thirty years have led to a significant improvement in Duke's level of visibility and national prestige. Over the past dozen years, for example, US News and World Report has ranked Duke between third and eighth among national universities; as of 2005, it was tied with Stanford for fifth.

History

Beginnings

What is known today as Duke University started as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in 1838 in Randolph County, North Carolina. This school was organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers under the leadership of Reverend York, and in 1841, North Carolina issued a charter for Union Institute Academy. The state legislature granted a rechartering of the academy as Normal College in 1851, and the privilege of granting degrees in 1853. To keep the school operating, the trustees agreed to provide free education for Methodist preachers in return for financial support by the church, and in 1859 the transformation was formalized with a name change to Trinity College.

This era was a time of important firsts. In 1871, Chi Phi was organized as the school's first student social organization. In 1878, Mary, Persis, and Theresa Giles became the first women to be awarded degrees. In 1881, Yao-ju (Charlie) Soong from Weichau, China enrolled, becoming the school's first international student.

The move to Durham

In 1887, the Yale-educated economist John F. Crowell became president of Trinity College, and in fact, Yale blue was adopted as the school color in honor of Crowell's alma mater. Committed to the German university model which emphasized research over recitation, Crowell directed a major revision in the curriculum and convinced the trustees to move to a more urban location. In 1892, Trinity opened in Durham, largely because of the generosity and pursuasion of Washington Duke, his son Benjamin Newton Duke, and Julian S. Carr, influential and respected Methodists who had grown prosperous through the tobacco industry (see American Tobacco Company and Duke Power). Carr donated the site, which today is Duke's East Campus.

John C. Kilgo became president in 1894 and he greatly increased the interest of the Duke family in Trinity. Washington Duke offered three gifts of $100,000 each for endowment. By World War I, Trinity College had developed into one of the leading liberal arts colleges in the South. In 1900, Trinity became the first white institution of higher education in the South to invite Booker T. Washington to speak, and in the same year Trinity graduated its first Native American student.

In 1903, in what is known as the "Bassett Affair," popular professor, John Spencer Bassett, inserted a sentence praising the life of Booker T. Washington and ranking him second in comparison to Robert E. Lee of Southerners born in a hundred years. Democratic party leaders in the area demanded that Bassett be fired. When Bassett offered his resignation, the Trinity College Board of Trustees voted 18-7 to not accept the resignation. In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt commended Trinity and Bassett's courageous stand for academic freedom while speaking in Durham. [3]

In 1922 Chronicle editors began to use "Blue Devils" as a nickname for the athletic teams. "Les Diables Bleus" was the name of a well-known regiment of French alpine troops widely known for their exploits in World War I. The name was initially unpopular, but eventually caught on as no opposition rose. [4]

The birth of Duke University

On December 11 1924, James B. Duke established The Duke Endowment, a forty million dollar trust fund, the annual income of which was to be distributed in the Carolinas among hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, three colleges, and a university built around Trinity College. The president at the time, William P. Few, insisted that the university be named Duke University, and James B. Duke agreed on the condition that it be a memorial to his father and family.

The university grew up quickly. The School of Religion and Graduate School opened in 1926, the Medical School and hospital in 1930, the School of Nursing in 1931, and the School of Forestry in 1938. The Law School, founded in 1904, was reorganized in 1930, and engineering, which had been taught since 1903, became a separate school in 1939. In 1930, the original Durham site became a separate Woman's College which was merged back into Trinity as the liberal arts college for both men and women in 1972. In 1938, Duke University became the thirty-fourth member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The Fuqua School of Business was founded in 1969. [5]

Academics

The university has two schools for undergraduates: Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering.

Duke University also has several graduate and professional schools: the Pratt School of Engineering, the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the Fuqua School of Business, the School of Law, the Divinity School, and the Graduate School.

Some applicants to Duke are selected for the Robertson Scholarship program, which offers a tuition-free education at Duke as well as one semester at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The highest merit award that the University offers to exceptionally talented students is the Angier B. Duke Scholarship, which is given in honor of James B. Duke's son Angier, who was killed in a boating accident, and also includes free tuition and a summer session at Oxford in England. The B. N. Duke Scholars program is a scholarship program geared towards top high school students in North and South Carolina. The University Scholars program, endowed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, provides full scholarships to "exceptionally talented" undergraduates, graduate, and professional students. The program is characterized by its interdisplinary nature. A new program, Baldwin Scholars, aims to promote the development of female leaders.

Duke University's Talent Identification Program, or TIP, is for seventh- through tenth-graders who have scored well on the SAT or ACT. Participants can take a variety of summer classes while living on Duke's East or West campuses, or on the campuses at other participating schools. The TIP program also enables rising seniors to attend classes at Duke's "Pre-college" summer session.

Duke's special academic facilities: art museum, language labs, Duke Forest, primate center, phytotron, free electron laser, nuclear magnetic resonance machine, nuclear lab, marine lab, and center for engineering, medicine, and applied sciences. Duke is also a leading participant in the National Lambda Rail Network.

Undergraduate

Duke offers 36 arts and sciences majors in addition to 5 engineering majors, and 46 additional majors have been approved under Program II. Program II allows students to design their own interdisciplinary major. Sixteen certificate programs are also available. Students may pursue a combination of a total of three majors/minors/certificates, with at least one but not more than two majors (e.g. one major, two certificates; two majors, one minor; just a major; one major, one minor, and one certificate).

The following is a list of majors:

The following is a list of minors. The sponsoring department is listed in parentheses where necessary for the sake of clarity:

The following is a list of certificates. By completing a certificate program, students are able to supplement their undergraduate education with a course of study that affords a distinctive, usually interdisciplinary, approach to a subject not available in any single academic unit:

Trinity College of Arts and Sciences operates under the recently revised Curriculum 2000. It ensures that students are exposed to a variety of "areas of knowledge" and "modes of inquiry." The curriculum aims to have students develop critical faculties and judgment; learn how to access, synthesize, and communicate knowledge effectively; acquire perspective on current and historical events; conduct research and solve problems; and develop tenacity and capacity for hard and sustained work.

Freshmen can elect to participate in the FOCUS Program, which involves the interdisciplinary exploration of a specific topic, such as Arts in Contemporary Society, Athens in the Golden Age, and Changing Faces of Russia: Redefining Boundaries.

Social life

Duke's undergraduate students are a very active social group. The nearby bars on Durham's Ninth Street are a popular outlet for students. However, the primary social scene at Duke occurs within the "Duke Bubble" in the form of a strong Greek life. About 1 in 3 males, and 1 out of 2 females, are members of a Greek organization. Although the on campus "keg parties" have been ended by the administration, Greeks have found other, usually off-campus alternatives to provide students their necessary dose of "partying".

There are 400 student clubs and organizations. These include numerous student government, special interest, and service organizations. The Chronicle is Duke's independent undergraduate daily newspaper. It has been continuously published since 1905 and its editors are responsible for coining the term "Blue Devil" as the school's mascot. Duke Diya is the South Asian student association. It is known for enacting the school's largest annual student-run production, the cultural show entitled Awaaz, and also runs a variety of community service, cultural, political, and social events throughout the school year.

Athletics, particularly men's basketball, is a significant component of Duke's social life. Duke's students have been recognized as some of the most creative, original, and abrasive fans in all of collegiate athletics. Students show their support of the men's basketball team by "tenting" for home games against key division rivals, especially UNC. Because tickets to all varsity sports are free to students, setting up a line of tents weeks in advance of big games has evolved as the only sure way of being admitted. The total number of participating tents is often capped at 100, though interest is such that it could exceed that number if space permitted. Tenting involves setting up and inhabiting a tent in front of Cameron Indoor Stadium with several other people just before the beginning of the spring term. There are different categories of tenting based on the length of time and number of people that must be in the tent at any one time. At night, Krzyzewskiville, or K-Ville for short, which is the grass by Cameron that serves as the tenting area, often turns into the scene of a party or occasional concert. The men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, known as Coach K to avoid mispronunciation, has also been known to occasionally buy pizza for the inhabitants of K-Ville.

The campus

Duke owns 212 buildings on 9,432 acres (38 km²) of land. That includes the Duke Forest and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.

Main campuses

West Campus

West campus is the heart of Duke University. All of the sophomores, along with some number of juniors and seniors, live on West, and most of the academic and administrational centers also reside there. West campus includes Science Drive, which is composed of the science and engineering labs and classrooms. Most of the campus eateries are on West, as are the major sports facilities.

Main West campus has Duke Chapel at its center. To the left are the main residential quads, while the main academic quad, main library, and medical center are to the right. West campus residential life operates under the "quad model".

East Campus

East Campus functions as the freshman campus since all the freshmen - and only freshmen (excepting upperclassmen serving as Resident Assistants) - are housed on East in order to build class unity and promote a substance free environment. The campus is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from West Campus, with a bus system linking the two. Several academic departments are housed on East Campus, including the Art History, History and Women's Studies departments. The Mary Duke Biddle Music Building can also be found on East.

East Campus is a fully self-sufficient campus, with the freshman dining hall, a library, auditorium, theater, gym, tennis courts, and academic buildings. It is also only a 5 minute walk from downtown Durham.

East Campus used to serve as the Women's College at Duke, but in 1972, the Woman's College merged with the all men's Trinity College, then on West Campus, to form the undergraduate Trinity College of Arts and Sciences which exists today..

Central Campus

Central campus houses juniors and seniors as well as some professional students. Central campus residences are apartment style. Central campus also houses the Nasher Museum of Art and some other departments, such as the Residence Life and Housing Services.

Central campus is now undergoing a massive restructuring that will begin with the replacement of the outdated apartments. A key goal of the Central renovations is to reintegrate the area with the rest of the Duke campus, as it is now connected to the other campuses by a circuitous, inefficient bus route.

Key places

Duke Forest Established in 1931, today Duke Forest conisists of 7,600 acres (31 km²) in six divisions. The forest is used extensively for research and includes the Aquatic Research Facility, Forest Carbon Transfer and Storage (FACTS-I) research facility, two permanent towers suitable for micrometerological studies, and other areas designated for animal behavior and ecosystem study, including the Duke University Primate Center.

Primate Center The Duke University Primate Center was founded in 1966 and is the world's largest sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian primates. The 85 acres (344,000 m²) of Duke Forest that the Primate Center inhabits contain about 250 animals of 15 different species of lemurs and some lorises as well.

Sarah P. Duke Gardens The Sarah P. Duke Gardens lie between West Campus and the apartments of Central Campus and were established in the early 1930s. The Gardens occupy 55 acres (223,000 m²) and consists of four major parts: the original Terraces and their immediate surroundings, the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants (a representation of the flora of the southeastern United States), and the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum (devoted to plants of eastern Asia). There are five miles (8 km) of allГ©es, walks, and pathways throughout the Doris Duke Center and surrounding gardens.

Marine Lab The Duke University Marine Lab is on Pivers Island within the Outer Banks of North Carolina, only 150 yards across the channel from the town of Beaufort, NC. Duke's interest in the area began in the early 1930s and the first buildings were erected in 1938. The resident faculty represent the disciplines of oceanography, marine biology, marine biomedicine, marine biotechnology, and coastal marine policy and management. The Marine Laboratory is a member of the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML).

Medical Center The Duke University Medical Center (DUMC) combines one of the top-rated hospitals and one of the top-ranked medical schools in the United States. Founded in 1930, the Medical Center now occupies 7.5 million square feet (700,000 m²) in 90 buildings on 210 acres (850,000 m²).

Architecture

Duke is sometimes called "the Gothic Wonderland," a nickname referring to the Gothic revival architecture of its main campus (West Campus). Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele, one of the first African-American architects. The residential quadrangles are of an early and somewhat unadorned design, while the buildings in the academic quadrangles show influences of the more elaborate late French and Italian styles. Its freshman campus (East Campus) is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style.

The stone used for the West Campus has seven primary colors and seventeen different shades of color. One construction official wrote the architect that the stone has "an older, more attractive antique effect" and a "warmer and softer coloring than the Princeton stone" and that it was especially good since it could be "laid to give a shadowline underneath the pointing which added tremendously to an artistic look."[6] James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from a quarry in Princeton, New Jesey but later amended the plans to use stone from a local quarry to save on costs.

The Duke Chapel stands at the heart of West Campus, and is at the center of religion at Duke. Constructed in 1930 through 1935, the Chapel seats about 1,600 people. The tower is a very large and menacing looking structure. With its 210-foot (64 m) tower, it is one of the tallest buildings in Durham County, North Carolina.

• Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS), $97 million, opened August 2004.[8]
• New East Campus dorm, $20 million, opened August 2005.[9]
• French Science Center, $115 million, in progress.[10]
• Westbrook addition to Divinity School, $22 million. opened Spring 2005.[11]
• Addition to Law School. $20 million. [12]
• Major renovation and expansion of Perkins Library, $55 million. [13]
• Rubenstein Hall at Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, $12 million.[14]
• Nasher Museum of Art, $23 million, opened October 2005.[15]
• West Campus plaza, estimated at about $10 million, opens by Fall 2006.[16]

• The overall cost of all planned construction projects is about $375 million.

Libraries and museums

With over 5 million volumes, the Duke library system is one of the ten largest private university library systems in the United States. The library also contains 17.7 million manuscripts, 1.2 million public documents, and tens of thousands of films and videos. Besides the main library, Perkins Library, the university also contains the separately administered Business (Ford), Divinity, Law, and Medicine Libraries.[17]

Perkins Library Perkins Library is the main Duke library system and has seven branches on campus. They are: Biological & Environmental Science Library, Chemistry Library, Lilly Library (which houses materials on Fine Arts, Philosophy, Film & Video, and Performing Arts), Music Library, Pearse Memorial Library (which is located at the Duke University Marine Lab and contains related materials), and Vesic Library (which contains materials related to Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics). The University Archives and Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections are also considered part of the Perkins Library system.

Nasher Museum of Art The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is a new art museum opened in the fall of 2005 which replaced the undersized Duke University Museum of Art (DUMA). The museum was designed by Rafael ViГ±oly and will house the University's art collections as well as some classrooms and an auditorium.

Athletics

The school's 26 varsity sports teams are called the Blue Devils. They compete in the NCAA's Division I-A Atlantic Coast Conference. Duke's major historic rival has been the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Duke men's basketball is one of the best-known teams in college sport, and its rivalry with North Carolina is similarly praised [18]. One of the winningest programs in all of college basketball, the team's success has been outstanding over the past 25 years under coach Mike Krzyzewski. Their successes include making the Final Four five years in a row from 1988 to 1992; winning the ACC Tournament five years in a row from 1999 to 2003; having six players named Naismith College Player of the Year in 20 years; and becoming the only team to win three national championships since the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Former Duke stars such as Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Elton Brand, and Shane Battier have gone on to play in the NBA. Many of Coach K's assistants, such as Tommy Amaker, Quin Snyder, and Jeff Capel, have become head basketball coaches at other major universities .

While men's basketball is the most famous, women's golf has won as many national championships (three) and has been a dominant team in recent years. The men's soccer was the first team to win an NCAA title, in 1986. Teams that have been ranked in the top ten nationally in the 2000's include men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's lacrosse, and men's and women's golf. Seven of these teams were ranked either first or second in the country during 2004-5. These successes led Duke to being the fifth-highest ranked university in the 2005 Director's Cup, an overall measure of athletic success[19]. Less successful is the men's football team, which has been one of the losingest football programs in Division I-A; over the past twenty years, however, the team has graduated almost every player, every year, a record that is unmatched among Division I football programs[20]. Overall, 90% of Duke's varsity athletes graduate, the highest percentage of any Division IA school.

Duke University people

See main article: list of Duke University people

Among the more notable of Duke's alumni are Richard Nixon, J.D '37, 37th President of the United States; Elizabeth Dole, '58, wife of former presidential candidate and current senior United States Senator of North Carolina; and Melinda Gates, '86, M.B.A '87, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

References

• "About Duke Libraries." Accessed July 14, 2005.
• "A Chronology of Significant Events in Duke University's History." Accessed July 19, 2005.
• King, William E. DukeStone. Duke University Historical Notes. Accessed on July 14, 2005.
• King, William E. John Spencer Bassett and the Bassett Affair. Duke University Historical Notes. Accessed on July 19, 2005.
• King, William E. Why a Blue Devil. Duke University Historical Notes. Accessed on July 19, 2005.

External links

• Duke University
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Duke iPod First Year Experience Website
• The Chronicle (Student Newspaper)
• Duke Magazine (Alumni Magazine)
• Duke Athletics
• Duke Basketball Report (Private Website)
• Official Krzyzewskiville Website
• Duke University Medical Center
• Duke University School of Medicine
• Duke University School of Law
• The Fuqua School of Business
• Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
• Duke Divinity School
• Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
• Pratt School of Engineering
• Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
• Duke University Primate Center
• Duke University Marine Lab
• Julian Abele (Duke University Architect)
• Maps and aerial photos
  • Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
  • Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth