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"We're delighted to have this new distinction conferred on Duke Gardens," says Larry Daniel, Duke Gardens' associate director. "But more than that, we're pleased to be a member of Gardens for Peace. It's a great organization with a noble purpose." Gardens for Peace was created to promote the concept of the garden as a place of meditation and peace. Throughout history, the organization notes, the garden has symbolized the ideals of spiritual harmony and quiet contemplation, as reflected in religion, mythology, literature, and philosophy. To be designated, a garden must meet general criteria and be approved by the organization's board of directors. For instance, it must have a feeling of peace and tranquility, a sense of safety and refuge, and certain visual elements. The other peace gardens in the network can be found in Atlanta; Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; Madrid, Spain; Tacoma, Washington; Nairobi, Kenya; Decatur, Georgia; and Seoul, Korea.
The Center for Human Disease Models aims to make the mouse a much more effective surrogate for human disease. "This building will help bring about a new way to address human diseases by modeling them in mice and rats, using genetic approaches," says interim center director Marc Caron, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and James B. Duke Professor of cell biology. According to Caron, the center will allow scientists to use gene-engineered mice in a way much like human populations are studied to better understand more complex diseases such as hypertension, heart failure, and behavioral disorders. The four-story, 122,000-square-foot building will include two basic components:
The building's site is adjacent to the Vivarium on Research Drive on West Campus. The building will also house research laboratories of the department of psychology: experimental. Caron says that such new research facilities are critical for advancement of the university's research. "Even though we were able to attract funding to support our research, we didn't have the facilities in which to properly do the work. Such state-of-the-art facilities will significantly enhance our ability to attract funding for this important research." Trustees also approved preliminary plans and the site for the building to house the Center for Human Genetics, a medical "detective bureau" that uses family histories, sophisticated molecular analyses, and statistical genetics to reveal the genetic origin of a wide array of disorders. The university will return to the board later for final approval and authorization to start construction. According to center director Margaret Pericak-Vance, the 120,000-square-foot building will greatly aid the center's progress from exploring apparent single-gene disorders, such as the muscular dystrophies, to those that are far more subtle, such as Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease. The center has also launched studies of osteoarthritis, asthma, prostate disease, Parkinson's disease, and autistic disorders. The Center for Human Genetics building will be sited on three acres bounded by LaSalle Road, Erwin Road, and Research Drive. It will house administrative offices, laboratory space, and clinical space for the center. "The Center for Human Genetics has been successful because of our ability to integrate a multidisciplinary team into a true partnership in solving some of the most complex problems in human disease," says Pericak-Vance. "However, we have been so successful and have expanded so much that we are now under five roofs. The new building will greatly aid our ability to work as a team to unravel these complex and common human disorders." The new $200-million Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy will involve not only scientists, engineers, and physicians who can advance the fundamental base of knowledge of genome science and technology, but also Duke scholars in law, business, economics, public policy, ethics, religion, and the environment. Besides generating new discoveries, the Genomics Institute seeks to ensure that the ethical and policy issues arising from those discoveries are fully explored and the lessons are applied to benefit society; to help ensure that those discoveries are integrated into the health-care system; and that the intellectual property from those discoveries is transferred effectively to the private sector.
Duke attorney John Simpson wrote that the award violated the university's Fifth Amendment due-process rights and that precedent indicates that the damages are too high. "Here, the $2-million punitive damage award deprives Duke of fair notice of the punishment that it may be subjected to for violating the law and provides no uniform general treatment under anti-discrimination laws," the motion read. "What the case boiled down to was that Mercer did not receive pads or get to dress out for games-actions that caused her no harm to speak of." Mercer filed suit against the university in September 1997, alleging that Duke's treatment of her violated Title IX, which prohibits gender-based discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funds. She cited incidents of exclusion from the bench and summer training camp, as well as denial of a uniform unless she rose to second kicker on the team. Other walk-on kickers, she said, were allowed to dress for games. Duke attorneys cited the U.S. Supreme Court case BMW of N. Am. v. Gore, in which the justices rejected an excessive punitive award. They also argued that the court improperly informed the jury about punitive damage instruction and that Title IX does not allow for punitive damages. Regarding the jury's contention that Duke acted with reckless indifference, university attorneys claim that it did launch an investigation after being asked for a meeting between Mercer and Duke officials.
Two million dollars will support the Mellon Lecturing Fellows Program, in which twenty-four postdoctoral students in the humanities and social sciences will take part in a comprehensive program designed to develop their intellectual life and academic careers through seminars, mentorships, and other activities. "We wanted to develop a richer program for outstanding post-docs that would enable them to position themselves well to enter the academic job market at the completion of their fellowships," says Provost Peter Lange. Lange says the lecturing fellows program is mutually beneficial. Through this program, Duke will be able to attract superior post-doctoral candidates to campus whose responsibilities will include teaching undergraduate writing courses. In return, the fellows receive preparation to enable them to assume top-flight academic positions in their fields. Fellows will have faculty mentors who will help prepare them to be better teachers, especially in the use of technology. "We're going to provide them seminar opportunities and mentorship in several areas, including how to turn their work into scholarly publications," says Lange. He notes that job prospects nationally for Ph.D. recipients in the humanities and social sciences have diminished in recent years. "This job market is very tight," he says. "So we benefit by getting better people to teach and to enrich our departmental programs, and in return we give them an increased opportunity to be better placed when they leave." The Mellon grant will cover part of the costs of the fellows' stipends, support the mentorship program, and support the fellows' participation in seminar and training programs over a three-and-a-half-year period. The program begins in the fall of 2001. The foundation also gave $350,000 to continue funding for mentoring, stipend, and project support during the fall and spring semesters, and summer research stipends, including living and travel allowances, for selected Duke African-American, Hispanic-American, and American-Indian undergraduates in the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF). For MMUF fellows who pursue doctoral study in Mellon-designated disciplines, undergraduate loan repayment also will be awarded.
President Nannerl O. Keohane presented the Distinguished Alumni Award to John A. Koskinen '61, who chaired President Clinton's Council on 2000 Conversion and is past chair of Duke's board of trustees. The Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award went to Kathy Rudy, associate professor of Women's Studies. The two awards are sponsored by the Duke Alumni Association. The University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award, given by the Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, was presented to Gerardine DeSanctis, professor of management in the Fuqua School of Business. Keohane called Durden, whose books include The Dukes of Durham, 1865-1929 and The Launching of Duke University, 1924-1949, the foremost expert on the university and its founders. "Bob's devotion to Duke and its history are unsurpassed," she said. "His scholarly work about the Duke family and their vision for this university has provided invaluable insight to countless members of the Duke community, and will continue to do so for future generations." Durden joined Duke's history department in 1952, and was chair of the department from 1974 to 1980. He became a professor emeritus in 1996, but has continued to teach a first-year seminar. He is the author of ten books and numerous articles on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American and Southern history. Many of those works -including his latest book, Lasting Legacy to the Carolinas: The Duke Endowment, 1924-1994 (Duke University Press, 1998)-focus on the philanthropic activities of Washington Duke and his two sons, Benjamin N. and James B.Duke. Pratt has served the Duke and Durham communities since 1956, when she began at Duke's student union. In 1969, she became director of the Office of Cultural affairs, where, as Keohane said, she directed, coordinated, and produced "innumerable performances and exhibitions of the fine arts and the folk arts." While she produced performances on campus, "her other services, while less conspicuous, were more enduring: perpetual committee meetings, constant organizing of the nitty and the gritty, including the Duke Artists Series and many other groups and functions," said Keohane. "She never withheld the gift of her time and support for causes that would encourage the arts or would develop a student's interest in them." Pratt, who retired in 1984, received the 1980 Fannie Taylor Award for Distinguished Service to the Performing Arts from the Association of College, University, and Community Arts Administrators. In 1990, the Durham Arts Council named a new Lifetime Service Award in honor of Pratt, who had helped form the council's Emerging Artists Program to award small grants to working artists. Much of the weekend centered on the legacy of Putman, who was the university's senior vice president for research administration and policy. He died of a heart attack in May 1999 at the age of fifty-seven. University officials dedicated a plaque in memory of Putman in the courtyard of the Levine Science Research Center. Putman-cited as an exemplary "physician, scholar, teacher, and leader"-was instrumental in the planning of the LSRC. Putman joined Duke Medical Center in 1977 to become chairman of radiology and later James B. Duke Professor. After helping project Duke's radiology department into national prominence, he began applying his administrative acumen more broadly. He became vice chancellor for health affairs, dean of the Medical School and vice provost for research and development, then vice president for research administration and policy. In her Founders' Day remarks, Keohane noted the observations of colleagues that Putman "represented the best of the university-smart, caring, and active outside the ivory tower."
The center will be home to fifteen different Duke programs spanning the humanities and social sciences. Its mission is to address the critical issues of our times, investigating complex human problems through diverse historical and philosophical perspectives. "We imagine this space as a site of vigorous work and conversation among faculty and students who are committed to a common site for diverse ideas," says Karla Holloway, dean of humanities and social sciences and William R. Kenan Professor of English. "This is a tribute to a great historian, an impeccable scholar, and a social activist who has had tremendous influence on all of our lives," says Cathy Davidson, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies and Ruth F. Devarney Professor in the English department. Davidson and Holloway have been named co-directors of the new John Hope Franklin Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies within the center. The one-year-old John Hope Franklin Institute investigates a range of topics from a humanistic perspective, including issues of race and race relations and social equity in the United States and around the world. Last year, the institute investigated the theme of race and nation-building in the Americas. This year, it will probe the theme of race, religion, and globalization. "Looking at themes and issues such as racism and ethnicity in a comparative global context adds a very important dimension to the Franklin Center," says Bruce Kuniholm, Duke vice provost for international affairs. He is the top administrator for the Franklin Center's international programs, director of the Center for International Studies (one of three area-studies centers that will be located in the Franklin Center), and a professor of public policy studies and history. "In today's global world," he says, "it is not sufficient to look at such issues in their local contexts. If we really want to understand them, we have to look at how they are connected with, what they have in common with, and how they are different from similar issues in other countries and cultures." Franklin, who has been at Duke since 1982, is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of history and will have an office in the new center. Throughout his life as a scholar, he has been an advocate for interdisciplinary studies with an international perspective. His background includes serving on the 1950s research team that assisted Thurgood Marshall in developing the NAACP's landmark brief for the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Franklin also served as chair of President Clinton's national advisory board on race. In addition, he has been president of both the American Historical Association and the American Studies Association. Sixty faculty members and support staff have moved into the 33,400-square-foot building, a site reconfigured expressly for fostering conversation. From a sizable gallery space on the first floor to the building's numerous nooks and crannies, the center is designed to bring faculty members, visiting scholars, students, housekeeping staff, local artists, and community residents into daily contact with each other. The multi-media environment will offer in-house publishing, a daily electronic bulletin board, video conferencing, digital and video-editing facilities, language-translation capabilities, and state-of-the-art rooms for seminars and classes. Officials have said the idea is to develop numerous global forums for discussion of the work going on at the center. The Franklin Center is at the corner of Erwin Road and Trent Drive, between Duke's North Campus and Duke Medical Center. The building was the Hanes Annex Residence Hall, which has stood vacant since 1992. Originally designed by one of Durham's principal architects, George Hackney, it was built in 1942. A public dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on February 9, followed by a week-long public open house.
Meeting in October, the trustees also authorized the start of planning for a $16-million addition to the Divinity School that would be built in a high-profile site just north of Duke Chapel, and approved the design of a $25-million addition to the Fuqua School of Business' Keller Center to house a student center and offices. Preliminary design studies for the new engineering complex by the architectural firm Zimmer, Gunsul, Frasca call for two wings, one that would house the Pratt School's biomedical engineering department and the other for developing new engineering programs like photonics, materials systems, and nanosciences. There would also be an auditorium and additional community space where students and professors can meet and interact. Adding about 240,000 additional square feet to the Pratt School's current 101,000 square feet of available space, the plan calls for the new center complex to be constructed in front of the Pratt School's two existing buildings, Hudson Hall and the Nello L. Teer Engineering Library Building. The board's action approved the site and scope of the project and authorized the university to hire an architect. The university will return to the board later to seek final plan approval and authorization to proceed with construction. Under a current estimated timetable, groundbreaking would be in August 2001, with occupancy in September 2003. More space is needed to accommodate planned growth at the Pratt School, which in 1999 received a $35-million endowment gift from Edmund T. Pratt Jr. B.S.E. '47, retired chair and chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc. The new additions, to be paid for with internal funds, philanthropic gifts, and an internal loan, will put the school more on a par with available space at competing universities like Rice, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon, officials say. Divinity School Dean L. Gregory Jones M.Div. '85, Ph.D. '88 said the planned addition to the divinity building would alleviate a "severe shortage" of classroom and office space for the school and provide a large state-of-the-art lecture hall and a new school chapel that would seat 250 to 300 people. Trustees approved the site and scope of the plan and authorized selection of an architect. The university will seek final approval of the project later. The planning for the addition to the Keller Center at Duke's Fuqua School of Business is further along. The board approved the design of the 100,000-square-foot addition. The school returns to the board in December to seek authorization to begin construction. There will be a two-story atrium and a five-story "mini-tower."
The Hills' gift, the largest to the university from a former basketball player, will create the Grant and Tamia Hill Scholarship Endowment Fund to provide full financial support for one Duke basketball player each year. The university's ongoing fund-raising effort, the Campaign for Duke, is seeking $249 million in endowment funds for financial aid and scholarships. In 1998, Hill and his mother, Janet, helped fund a Duke Divinity School scholarship honoring Hill's father, Calvin Hill, a former Yale and Dallas Cowboys football star and a member of the Divinity School's board of visitors. The football program has also been the recipient of a million-dollar gift. Michael J. Fitzpatrick '70, a former Duke football player and chairman of E-TEK Dynamics of San Jose, California, and his wife, Patricia Wyngaarden Fitzpatrick '69, have given $1 million toward the construction costs of a new $18-million football training facility adjacent to Wallace Wade Stadium. The Fitzpatricks are residents of Hillsborough, California, and have three children. E-TEK is a leading manufacturer of component-level fiber optic products for the photonics industry.
The university's endowment funds are managed by Duke Management Company (DUMAC) as part of a $3.6 billion pool of university money, including reserve funds, called the Long Term Pool (LTP). The LTP's 58.8 percent return is believed to be one of the highest-if not the highest-for university investments in the nation. In dollar terms, it equates to net investment income of $1.3 billion for the year. The endowment portion of the LTP grew by $980 million. "Duke's diversified portfolio performed extraordinarily well in fiscal 2000. Our alternative investments, which include private capital, were the driving force behind the success," says Thruston B. Morton III, who joined DUMAC in September as president, succeeding Eugene J. McDonald. "The DUMAC team achieved outstanding results under Gene's leadership. We look forward to building on this success and seeking new opportunities to add value to Duke's assets." The Long Term Pool grew by 23.1 percent in 1999, 20.3 percent in 1998, 17.7 percent in 1997, and 29.7 percent in 1996. In the past fiscal year, Duke saw solid performance across nearly all asset classes in the investment portfolio. Private capital, which includes venture capital and leveraged buyouts, was by far the largest single contributor to the strong performance with the largest weighting in the portfolio and a 214.5 percent return. Other components of the LTP are absolute return, which had a return of 17.5 percent versus 12.0 percent for the recognized benchmark; domestic equity, with a return of 12.6 percent compared to a benchmark of 12.2 percent; international equity/emerging markets, with a 20.8 percent return versus 15.2 percent for its benchmark; fixed income, with a 4.9 percent return versus a benchmark of 5.0 percent; real estate, with a 4.9 percent return versus 10.0 percent for the benchmark; and inflation hedges, with a 16.6 percent return versus 8.9 percent for the benchmark. Although figures for fiscal 2000 are not yet available, a number of universities have larger endowments. In 1999, the $1.68 billion market value of Duke's endowment was ranked twenty-first among the nation's universities, many of which Duke competes with for the faculty and students. Endowment income represents a small fraction of the university's overall revenue, but the earnings generated by the endowment's principal allow Duke to charge less in tuition than it would otherwise have to, or to provide enhancements to programs that it would not otherwise be able to afford, say university officials. Duke's 3.5 percent tuition increase this fall matched last year's, which was the lowest in more than three decades.
The von der Heydens' latest gift will help fund enlarging Perkins Library to alleviate current overcrowding. Detailed planning for the renovation process is now under way, but prominent in the renovated facility will be new commons space, which will be named for the donors. The partnership among the library, Durham Public Schools, and the PepsiCo Foundation is called the PepsiCo Foundation K-12 Mentorship Program. While many departments at Duke are working with the Durham schools, the library has led Duke's involvement in technology programs with the schools. The Duke library staff has been providing information- technology training to Durham teachers, staff, parents, and students for three years as part of programs funded by the AT&T; Foundation and IBM's Reinventing Education program. The new program will provide permanent funding for Duke's continuing participation in collaborative programs to address the need for computer systems mentoring, training, and education in Durham. It can also serve as a model for other communities and universities searching for ways to close the "digital divide," according to David S. Ferriero, Duke's vice provost for library affairs and university librarian. The Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership Initiative is a collaboration between Duke and twelve neighborhoods near its campuses, and the seven public schools that serve them. The initiative represents the university's long-term commitment to help stabilize these urban neighborhoods through a variety of programs, ranging from affordable housing, crime reduction, youth mentoring, and, especially, partnerships with the public schools. "We are extraordinarily grateful to the von der Heydens and to the PepsiCo Foundation for this commitment to the children of Durham. Our community, and particularly our public schools, have been blessed by Duke University's willingness to invest its resources to improve the quality of instruction and student achievement in our public schools," said Durham Public Schools Superintendent Ann Denlinger. "From the hundreds of Duke students who tutor our community's children every week, to support of the arts and science in our schools, Duke has been a wonderful partner. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the leadership which Duke Libraries has given to efforts to help our teachers bring technology into their classrooms." Duke University Libraries include facilities and collections on the university's campuses and the network that links them. Perkins Library, the most prominent facility, is used by approximately a half-million students, faculty members, other scholars, and additional visitors each year, including local school children. A native of Germany, von der Heyden attended the Free University of Berlin before coming to Duke, where he earned a bachelor's degree, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he earned an M.B.A. He has been an officer of a number of companies, including RJR Nabisco, H.J. Heinz, Pitney-Bowes, and Coopers & Lybrand, as well as a member of the boards of many others. In addition to being a member of the trustees' executive committee, von der Heyden is a member of the steering committee of the Campaign for Duke and the university's advisory committee on the future of technology. He also leads the major gifts committee for Duke Libraries. Over the years, the von der Heydens have provided financial support to a wide range of programs at the university, including funding to encourage internationalism. The couple, for example, contributed $1 million to establish in 1995 the von der Heyden Fellows Program Endowment Fund, which brings international corporate, academic, and government officials to campus for major lectures and meetings with students and faculty. Fellows have included President Belisario Betancur of Colombia, President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina, and President Miguel de la Madrid of Mexico.
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he ninth garden in the international network of Gardens for Peace has been
dedicated in the Asiatic Arboretum in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Laura
Dorsey, founder of the network, took part in an October ceremony that
designated the site as a special place for reflection, meditation, and spiritual renewal.
It is open to visitors during regular hours.
ost-trial motions in the Heather Sue Mercer case have been filed by the
university, asking the court to either reverse its judgment, mandate a new
trial, or reduce the amount of the $2 million in punitive damages awarded.
Mercer '98, a walk-on place kicker on Duke's football team, sued Duke under
Title IX for alleged discrimination. The court awarded her $1 in actual
damages.
t Founders' Day ceremonies in October, history professor emeritus Robert
E. Durden, who has chronicled the history of Duke University and its
founding family; Ella Fountain Pratt, the longtime director of Duke's
Office of Cultural Affairs; and the late Charles E. Putman, a physician and
research administrator, received the University Medal for Distinguished
Meritorious Service. The convocation address was delivered by Wilhelmina
Reuben-Cooke '67, a member of the Duke board of trustees and chair of its
Academic Affairs Committee.
amed for the historian and civil rights activist, and modeled after his
vision, the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and
International Studies has opened in the recently remodeled
fifty-eight-year-old Hanes Annex as a haven for scholarly collaboration.
uke's board of trustees has begun the approval process for a $77-million
Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering and Applied Sciences that would
more than triple research, teaching, office, and conference space at the
Pratt School of Engineering.
rant Hill '94, former Duke basketball All-America and five-time NBA
All-Star, and his wife, Tamia, a four-time Grammy-nominated recording
artist with Elektra Records, will give Duke $1 million to establish an
endowed fund for athletic scholarship support. Hill, who helped guide the
Blue Devils to national championships in 1991 and 1992, was named chair of
the Duke Basketball Legacy Fund, an athletic fund-raising organization to
support the basketball program at the university. The Legacy Fund, founded
last November, currently has thirteen partners making gifts of $1 million
or more to the program.
Alice Kaplan, professor of Romance studies and literature, was
nominated for a National Book Award for The Collaborator, an examination of
the World War II treason trial and execution of French fascist Robert
Brasillach. Other nonfiction nominees included ninety-three-year-old
Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural
Life, 1500 to the Present; David Levering Lewis' biography W.E.B. Du Bois:
The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963; Nathaniel
Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,
which won the award; and Patrick Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado: How
Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon.
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