Duke University

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Duke University is a private coeducational research university located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892.^[1] In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B. Duke established The Duke Endowment, prompting the institution to change its name in honor of his deceased father, Washington Duke.

The University is organized into two undergraduate and eight graduate schools. The undergraduate student body, which includes 40 percent ethnic minorities, comes from all 50 U.S. states and 117 countries.^[1] In its 2008 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate division eighth in the nation,^[1] while ranking the medical, law, and business schools among the top 11 in the country.^[1] Duke's research expenditures are among the largest 20 in the U.S. and its athletic program is one of the nation's elite.^[1][1] Competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the athletic teams have captured nine national championships, including three by the men's basketball team.

Besides academics, research, and athletics, Duke is also well known for its sizable campus and Gothic architecture, especially Duke Chapel. The forests surrounding parts of the campus belie the University's proximity to downtown Durham. Duke's 8,610 acres (35 km²) contain three main campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. Construction projects have updated both the freshmen-populated Georgian-style East Campus and the main Gothic-style West Campus, as well as the adjacent Medical Center over the past five years. Other projects are underway on all three campuses, including a 20- to 50-year overhaul of Central Campus, the first phase of which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2008 at an estimated cost of $240 million.

History

Main article: History of Duke University

Beginnings

Duke University started as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in 1838 in Randolph County in the present-day town of Trinity.^[1] The school was organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers, and in 1841 North Carolina issued a charter for Union Institute Academy. The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church. In 1892, Trinity moved to Durham, largely due to generosity from Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco industry.^[1] Washington Duke gave what was then known as Trinity College a $100,000 endowment in 1896, with the stipulation that the college "open its doors to women, placing them on an equal footing with men."^[1]

In 1924, Washington Duke's son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment with a $40 million ($434 million in 2005 dollars) trust fund. The annual income of the fund was to be distributed to hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, three colleges, and Trinity College. William Preston Few, the president of Trinity College, insisted that the university be named Duke University, and James B. Duke agreed that it would be a memorial to his father. Money from the endowment allowed the University to grow quickly. Duke's original campus (East Campus) was rebuilt from 1925 to 1927 with Georgian-style buildings. By 1930, the majority of the Gothic style buildings on the campus one mile west were completed, and construction on West Campus culminated with the completion of Duke Chapel in 1935.^[1]

Expansion and growth

Engineering, which had been taught since 1903, became a separate school in 1939. In athletics, Duke hosted and competed in the only Rose Bowl ever played outside California in Wallace Wade Stadium in 1942. Increased activism on campus during the 1960s prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the University on the civil rights movement's progress on November 14 1964.^[1] The former governor of North Carolina, Terry Sanford, was elected president in 1969, propelling the Fuqua School of Business's opening, the William R. Perkins library completion, and the founding of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs. The separate Woman's College merged back with Trinity as the liberal arts college for both men and women in 1972. Beginning in the 1970s, Duke administrators began a long-term effort to strengthen Duke's reputation both nationally and internationally. Interdisciplinary work was emphasized, as was recruiting minority faculty and students.^[1][1][1] Duke University Hospital was finished in 1980 and the student union was fully constructed two years later. In 1986, the men's soccer team captured Duke's first NCAA championship, and the men's basketball team followed with championships in 1991, 1992 and 2001.^[1]

Recent history

Duke University's growth and academic focus have contributed to the university's reputation as an academic and research institution. The school has regularly sent three-member teams to the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, earning the title of the best collegiate undergraduate math team in the United States and Canada in 1993, 1996 and 2000. In nine out of the past ten years, Duke's team has finished in the top three, the only school besides Harvard to do so.^[1]

Construction continued on campus, with the 314,000 square foot Levine Science Research Center (LSRC) opening in 1994 to house interdisciplinary research, and construction has continued. These projects have updated both the freshmen-housed Georgian-style East Campus and the main Gothic-style West Campus, as well as the adjacent Medical Center in the past five years. Other projects are underway on all three campuses, including a 20- to 50-year overhaul of Central Campus, the first phase of which is expected to be completed in Fall 2008 at an estimated cost of $240 million.^[1][1]

In 1998, Duke President Nan Keohane initiated a five-year $1.5 billion Campaign for Duke fundraising effort. Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. ('47) endowed the Pratt School of Engineering with a $35 million gift in 1999. The Campaign for Duke ended in 2003 with $2.36 billion raised, making it the fifth largest campaign in the history of American higher education.^[1]

In the 2004 fiscal year, research expenditures surpassed $490 million, leading to a myriad of important breakthroughs.^[1] The first working demonstration of an invisibility cloak was unveiled by Duke researchers in October 2006.^[1] In 2005, three students were named Rhodes Scholars, a number only surpassed by one university. Overall, Duke is fifth among private universities in the number of Rhodes Scholars it has produced.^[1] Since 1990, 19 students have been honored with this scholarship.^[1] In 2006, three lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape; charges against the players were later dropped, the initial prosecutor was disbarred for ethical improprieties, and the incident garnered significant media attention.^[1]

Academics

Profile

Duke's student body consists of 6,197 undergraduates and 6,627 graduate and professional students.^[1] The undergraduate student body, containing 40 percent ethnic minorities,^[1][1][1] come from all 50 U.S. states and 85 countries.^[1] For the undergraduate class of 2011, Duke received 19,206 applications, and accepted 21 percent of them.^[1] Fifty-seven percent of high school valedictorians were rejected, while 42 percent of those with combined SAT scores of 1550 or greater in the math and verbal sections (99.65 percentile)^[1] were declined offers of admission.^[1] For the class of 2010, 96 percent of admitted students ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school class. The average SAT score was 1480 (old scale) or 2210 (new scale), and the ACT average was 32.^[1][1][1]

Duke University has two schools for undergraduates: Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Pratt School of Engineering.^[1] The University's graduate and professional schools include the Graduate School, 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, and the Divinity School.^[1]

Duke students have been honored in recent years as Rhodes, Gates, Fulbright (22 students in 2005), Marshall, Goldwater, and Truman Scholars.^[1][1][1][1] In the past decade, Duke has had the 6th highest number of Fulbright, Rhodes, Truman, and Goldwater scholarships in the nation out of any private university. The University also meets 100 percent of admitted students' demonstrated need and gave financial aid to 42 percent of students in 2005–06. The average award was $28,353 with $22,736 as grants. Roughly 60 merit-based scholarships are also offered, many of which are geared toward students in North Carolina, African-American students, and high achieving students requiring financial aid.^[1] Duke's endowment was valued at US $5.9 billion in 2007.^[1] The University's special academic facilities include an art museum, several language labs, the Duke Forest, a lemur center, a phytotron, a free electron laser, a nuclear magnetic resonance machine, a nuclear lab, and a marine lab. Duke also is a leading participant in the National Lambda Rail Network and runs a program for gifted children known as the Talent Identification Program, or TIP.^[1][1]

Undergraduate

See also: Degree programs at Duke University

Duke offers 36 arts and sciences majors, five engineering majors, and 46 additional majors that have been approved under Program II, which allows students to design their own interdisciplinary major. Sixteen certificate programs also are available. Students may pursue a combination of a total of up to three majors/minors/certificates. Eighty percent of undergraduates enroll in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, while the rest are in the Pratt School of Engineering.^[1]

Trinity's curriculum operates under the revised version of "Curriculum 2000".^[1] It ensures that students are exposed to a variety of "areas of knowledge" and "modes of inquiry." The curriculum aims to help students develop critical faculties and judgment by learning how to access, synthesize, and communicate knowledge effectively, acquiring perspective on current and historical events, conducting research and solving problems, and developing tenacity and a capacity for hard and sustained work.^[1] In addition, freshmen can elect to participate in the FOCUS Program, which allows students to engage in an interdisciplinary exploration of a specific topic in a small group setting.^[1]

Pratt's curriculum, on the other hand, is narrower in scope, but still accommodates double majors in a variety of disciplines. The school emphasizes undergraduate research—opportunities for hands-on experiences arise through internships, fellowship programs, and the structured curriculum. Furthermore, for the class of 2007, more than 27 percent of Pratt undergraduates studied abroad,^[1] small compared to the percentage for Trinity undergraduates (46 percent), but much larger than the national average for engineering students (1.5 percent).^[1][1][1][1]

Research

Duke University’s research expenditures topped $490 million in 2004.^[1] In the 2005 fiscal year, Duke University Medical Center received the fifth-largest amount of funding from the National Institute of Health, netting $349.8 million. Duke's funding increased 14.8 percent from 2004, representing the largest growth of any top-20 recipient.^[1] Throughout history, Duke researchers have made several important breakthroughs, including the biomedical engineering department's development of the world's first real-time, three-dimensional ultrasound diagnostic system and the first engineered blood vessels.^[1] In the mechanical engineering department, Adrian Bejan developed the constructal theory, which explains the shapes that arise in nature. Duke has pioneered studies involving nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and complex systems in physics. In May 2006, Duke researchers mapped the final human chromosome, which made world news as the Human Genome Project was finally complete.^[1] Reports of Duke researchers' involvement in new AIDS vaccine research surfaced in June 2006.^[1] The biology department combines two historically strong programs in botany and zoology, while the divinity school's leading theologian is Time's 2001 "America's Best Theologian", Stanley Hauerwas.^[1] The graduate program in literature boasts several internationally renowned figures, including Fredric Jameson,^[1] Michael Hardt,^[1] and Alice Kaplan,^[1] while philosophers Robert Brandon and Lakatos Award-winner Alexander Rosenberg make Duke a leading center for research in philosophy of biology.^[1]

Rankings

In the 2008 U.S. News & World Report ranking of undergraduate programs at doctoral granting institutions, Duke ranked eighth.^[1] In the past decade, U.S. News has placed Duke as high as third and as low as eighth.^[1] Duke was ranked the 13th-best university in the world in 2007 by the THES - QS World University Rankings.^[1][1] Duke was ranked 32nd globally and 24th nationally by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2005 in terms of quality of scientific research and number of Nobel Prizes.^[1]The Wall Street Journal ranked Duke sixth (fifth among universities) in its "feeder" rankings in 2006, analyzing the percentage of undergraduates that enroll in what it considers the top five medical, law, and business schools.^[1] Carnegie Communications ranked Duke fifth among U.S. universities in regard to students' perceptions of quality and third for popularity in 2004.^[1] A survey by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education in 2002 ranked Duke as the best university in the country in regard to the integration of African American students and faculty.^[1]

In U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools 2008," Duke's medical school ranked 8th for research and tied for 34th for primary care, while the law school ranked 10th.^[1][1][1] Among business schools in the United States, the Fuqua School of Business was ranked 12th by U.S. News in 2007 and 9th by BusinessWeek in 2006.^[1][1] The graduate program for the Pratt School of Engineering was ranked 30th by U.S. News and 2nd by The Princeton Review in 2006 among national engineering schools.^[1][1] In the rankings of doctoral programs by U.S. News & World Report in its 2008 edition, Duke ranked 1st in literary criticism and theory,^[1] 5th in ecology and evolutionary biology,^[1] 5th in biomedical engineering,^[1] tied for 12th for doctoral programs in the sciences, tied for 21st in mathematics,^[1] tied for 25th in computer science,^[1] tied for 29th in physics,^[1] and ranked 38th in chemistry.^[1]

Political science,^[1] sociology, history, economics, and cultural anthropology departments also frequently rank in the top 20 of their respective discipines among U.S. universities.^[1] The Philosophical Gourmet Report placed Duke's philosophy program as the 27th best in the nation in 2006,^[1] while ranking Duke as the best program in the U.S. in philosophy of biology.^[1]

Campus

Duke University owns 220 buildings on 8,610 acres (35 km²) of land, which includes the 7,200 acre (29 km²) Duke Forest.^[1] The campus is divided into four main areas: West, East, and Central campuses, and the Medical Center. All the campuses are connected via a free bus service that runs frequently throughout the week. On the Atlantic coast in Beaufort, Duke owns 15 acres as part of its Marine Lab. One of the major public attractions on the Duke Campus is the 55 acre Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in the 1930s.^[1]

Duke students often refer to the campus as "the Gothic Wonderland," a nickname referring to the Gothic revival architecture of West Campus.^[1] Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele, one of the first prominent African American architects.^[1] 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.^[1]

The stone used for the West Campus has seven primary colors and 17 shades of color. The university supervisor of planning and construction wrote that the stone has "an older, more attractive antique effect" and a "warmer and softer coloring than the Princeton stone" that gave the university an "artistic look".^[1] James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from a quarry in Princeton, New Jersey, but later amended the plans to use stone from a local quarry in Hillsborough to reduce costs.^[1] Duke Chapel stands at the heart of West Campus. Constructed from 1930 to 1935, the chapel seats 1,600 people; and, at 210 feet (64 m), is one of the tallest buildings in Durham County.^[1]

As of November 1 2005, Duke had spent $835 million dollars on 34 major construction projects initiated since February 2001.^[1] At that time, Duke initiated a five-year strategic plan, "Building on Excellence." Completed projects since 2002 include major additions to the business, law, nursing, and divinity schools, a new library, an art museum, a football training facility, two residential buildings, an engineering complex, a public policy building, an eye institute, two genetic research buildings, a student plaza, the French Family Science Center, and two new medical-research buildings.^[1]

Libraries and museums

With more than 5.5 million volumes, the Duke University Library System is one of the ten largest private university library systems in the U.S.^[1] It contains 17.7 million manuscripts, 1.2 million public documents, and tens of thousands of films and videos. Besides the main William R. Perkins Library, the university also contains the separately administered Ford (business), Divinity School, Duke Law, and Medical Center Libraries.^[1]

The William R. Perkins Library system has 11 branches on campus. In addition to Perkins Library, the system contains the Biological & Environmental Science Library, Bostock Library, the Chemistry Library, the Library Service Center, Lilly Library (which houses materials on fine arts, philosophy, film & video, and performing arts), the Music Library, Pearse Memorial Library (located at the Marine Lab), and Vesic Library (collection focuses on engineering, mathematics, and physics). The University Archives and Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections are also considered part of the Perkins Library system.^[1]

Bostock Library, named for Board of Trustee member Roy J. Bostock, opened in the fall of 2005 as part of the University's strategic plan to supplement Duke's libraries. It contains 87 study carrels, 517 seats, and 96 computer stations, as well as 72,996 linear feet of shelving for overflow books from Perkins Library as well as for new collections.^[1]

Nasher Museum of Art opened in the fall of 2005, replacing the undersized Duke University Museum of Art (DUMA). The museum, designed by Rafael Viñoly and named for Duke alumnus and art collector Raymond Nasher, contains over 13,000 pieces of art, including works by Andy Warhol, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso.^[1]

West, East, and Central Campuses

West Campus, the heart of Duke University, houses all the sophomores, along with some juniors and seniors.^[1] In addition, most of the academic and administrative centers reside there. "Main" West Campus, with Duke Chapel at its center, contains the majority of residential quads to the south, while the main academic quad, library, and Medical Center are to the north. The campus, spanning 720 acres, includes Science Drive, which consists of science and engineering buildings. Most of the campus eateries and sports facilities including the historic basketball stadium, Cameron Indoor Stadium, are on West.^[1][1]

East Campus, the original location of Duke University,^[1] functions as a freshman campus as well as the home of several academic departments. Since the 1995-96 academic year, all freshmen—and only freshmen except for upperclassmen serving as Resident Assistants—have lived on East Campus, to build class unity. The campus encompasses 97 acres and is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from West Campus.^[1] The Art History, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, and Women's Studies Departments are housed on East. Programs such as dance, drama, education, film, and the University Writing Program also reside on East. East Campus, a fully self-sufficient campus, contains the freshman dormitories, a dining hall, Lilly Library, Baldwin Auditorium, a theater, Brodie Gym, tennis courts, and several academic buildings. Separated from downtown by a short walk, the area was the site of the Women's College from 1930 to 1972.^[1]

Central Campus, consisting of 122 acres between East and West campuses, houses around 850 juniors and seniors and 200 professional students in apartments.^[1] It is home to the Nasher Museum of Art, the Freeman Center for Jewish Life, the Duke Police Department, the Duke Office of Disability Management, a Ronald McDonald House, and administrative departments such as Duke Residence Life and Housing Services. Central has several recreation and social facilities such as basketball courts, tennis courts, a sand volleyball court, a swimming pool, barbecue and picnic shelter as well as barbecue grills, a general gathering building called Devil's Den, and a convenience store.^[1]

At present, there is a 20- to 50-year plan to restructure Central Campus. The idea is to develop an "academic village" as a key center for the Duke community. The first phase, costing $240 million, involves replacing the outdated apartments. Other additions in the first phase include dining, academic, recreational, and service facilities. A key goal of the Central renovations is to reintegrate the area with the rest of the Duke campus, as it is connected to the other campuses by a circuitous, inefficient bus route.^[1]

Key places

Established in 1931, the Duke Forest today consists of 7,200 acres (29 km²) in six divisions just west of Duke University's West Campus.^[1] Duke Forest is one of the largest continually-managed forests in the U.S. and demonstrates a variety of forest stand types and silvicultural treatments. 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.^[1] More than 30 miles (48 km) of trails are open to the public for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding.^[1]

Located inside the Duke Forest, the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) is the world's largest sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian primates. Founded in 1966, the Duke Lemur Center spans 85 acres (3.44 km²) and contains nearly 300 animals of 25 different species of lemurs, galagos and lorises.^[1]

Situated between West Campus and the apartments of Central Campus, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in the early 1930s, occupy 55 acres (2.2 km²) divided into four major sections: the original Terraces and their surroundings, the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants (devoted to flora of the Southeastern United States), the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum (housing plants of Eastern Asia), and the Doris Duke Center Gardens. There are five miles (8 km) of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the Doris Duke Visitor’s Center and the surrounding gardens.^[1]

Directly north of West Campus, Duke University Medical Center (DUMC) combines one of the top-rated hospitals and one of the top-ranked medical schools in the U.S. Founded in 1930, the Medical Center occupies 7.5 million square feet (700,000 m²) in 91 buildings on 210 acres (8.5 km²).^[1]

Although located in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, Duke University Marine Lab on Pivers Island is part of Duke's campus. The marine lab is situated on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, only 150 yards across the channel from Beaufort. 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).^[1]

Athletics

Main article: Duke Blue Devils

See also: UNC-Duke rivalry

Duke's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the NCAA's Division I Atlantic Coast Conference. Duke's teams have won nine NCAA team national championships—the women's golf team has won five (1999, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007), the men's basketball team has won three (1991, 1992, and 2001), and the men's soccer team has won one (1986). Historically, Duke's major rival has been the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, especially in basketball. The rivalry has led people to identify the two differing shades of blue in relation to their respective university—calling the lighter powder blue "Carolina blue" and the darker blue "Duke blue."^[1]

In the past ten years, Duke has finished in the top 30 every year in the NACDA Director's Cup, an overall measure of an institution's athletic success. In the past three years, Duke has finished 11th (2007),^[1] eighth (2006),^[1] and fifth (2005).^[1] Duke teams that have been ranked in the top ten nationally in the 2000s include men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's fencing, men's and women's cross country running, men's and women's lacrosse, women's field hockey, and men's and women's golf. Eight of these teams were ranked either first or second in the country during 2004–5.^[1] Women's golf has been particularly dominating, compiling a record of 796-45-3 (.945) in the 2000–2005 seasons.^[1] The men's lacrosse program has been a recent powerhouse reaching the national championship game in 2005 and 2007, losing to Johns Hopkins by a single goal and accumulating season records of 17-3 both times.^[1][1]

According to a 2006 evaluation conducted by the NCAA, Duke's student-athletes have the highest graduation rate of any institution in the nation.^[1] In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Duke ranked first among Division I schools in the National Collegiate Scouting Association Power Rankings—a combination of the institution's Director's Cup standing, its athletic graduation rate, and its academic rank in U.S. News & World Report.^[1][1][1]

Men's basketball

Main article: Duke Blue Devils men's basketball

Duke's men's basketball team, a traditional powerhouse, is the fourth most victorious program of all time. The team has captured three National Championships, while attending 14 Final Fours and nine Championship games. In addition, the Blue Devils are tied with the University of North Carolina for the most ACC Championships with 16 and have had the most National Players of the Year in the nation with 11. Seventy-one players have been selected in the NBA Draft, while 55 players have been honored as All-Americans. Duke's program is one of only two to have been to at least one Final Four and one National Championship game in each of the past five decades. The program's home facility is historic Cameron Indoor Stadium, considered one of the top venues in the nation.^[1]

The team's success has been particularly outstanding over the past 25 years under coach Mike Krzyzewski (often simply called "Coach K"). Their successes include becoming the only team to win three national championships since the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, ten Final Fours in the past 21 years, and eight of nine ACC tournament championships from 1999 to 2006.^[1]

Football

The Blue Devils have won seven ACC Football Championships, have had ten players honored as ACC Player of the Year (the most in the ACC), and have had three Pro Football Hall of Famers come through the program (second in the ACC to only Miami's four). In addition, the Blue Devils have producded 11 College Football Hall of Famers which is tied for the 2nd most in the ACC. Duke has also won 17 total conference championships (7 ACC, 9 Southern Conference, and 1 Big Five Conference). That total is the highest in the ACC.^[1]

The most famous Duke football season came in 1938, when Wallace Wade coached the "Iron Dukes" that shut out all regular season opponents; only three teams in history can claim such a feat.^[1] Duke reached the national championship game, their first Rose Bowl appearance, where they lost 7-3 when USC scored a touchdown in the final minute of the game.^[1] Wade's Blue Devils lost another Rose Bowl to Oregon State in 1942, this one held at Duke's home stadium due to the attack on Pearl Harbor.^[1] The football program also proved successful in the 1950s and 1960s, winning six of the first ten ACC football championships from 1953 to 1962 under coach Bill Murray; the Blue Devils would not win the ACC championship again until 1989 under now legendary coach Steve Spurrier.^[1]

However, the program has been one of the least successful in Division I-A over the past ten years. Duke has not had a winning season since 1994, and has only three such seasons in the past 20 years.^[1] In the 2006 campaign, the Blue Devils failed to win any games. The recent struggles have led the program to have an overall record of 433-402-31 despite its early successes.^[1]

The graduation rate of Duke's football players is consistently among the highest among Division I-A schools. Duke's high graduation rates have earned it more American Football Coaches Association's Academic Achievement Awards than any other institution.^[1]

Student life

Residential life

Duke requires its students to live on campus for the first three years of undergraduate life, except for a small percentage of second semester juniors who are exempted by a lottery system. This requirement is justified by the administration as an effort to help students connect more closely with one another and sustain a sense of belonging within the Duke community.^[1][1] Thus, 85 percent of undergraduates live on campus.^[1] All freshmen are housed in one of 14 dormitories on East Campus. These buildings range in occupancy size from 50 (Epworth—the oldest dorm, built in 1892 as "the Inn") to 190 residents (Gilbert-Addoms).^[1][1] Most of these are in the Georgian style typical of the East Campus architecture, although a few newer ones differ in style. Two learning communities, incorporating the residential component of the Duke experience with students of similar academic and social interests, reside on East.^[1]

Sophomores are required to reside on West Campus, again to build class unity. Juniors and seniors can elect to live on West Campus, space permitting. West Campus contains six quadrangles—the four along "Main" West were built in 1930, while two newer ones have since been added. West Campus is home to four learning communities including Campus Wellness and the Leadership and Civic Engagement communities. These groups are allocated "sections" of the quadrangles, thereby living close to one another, but still within the context of a larger community. Also, 25 "selective living groups" are housed within sections on West, including 15 fraternities.^[1] Nine of the ten non-fraternity selective living groups are coeducational. Central Campus provides housing for approximately 1,050 students (of which about 850 are undergraduate juniors or seniors) in 45 apartment buildings.^[1] The majority of seniors, however, choose to live off campus. Students living on campus are represented by the elected officials of Campus Council whose mission is to enhance campus life by implementing policies, provide quality programming, and ensure a safe, educational, and enjoyable experience for residents.^[1]

Greek and social life

Fraternities and sororities enjoy a presence as 29% of men and 42% of women pledge a Greek group.^[1] While 15 of the 16 Interfraternity Council (IFC) recognized fraternity chapters live in sections within West Campus quads, the ten Panhellenic Association Sorority Chapters have no such living arrangement.^[1] Seven National Pan-Hellenic Council (historically African American) fraternities and sororities hold chapters at Duke.^[1] Fraternities not recognized by IFC typically have houses off-campus.^[1]

The nearby bars and clubs on Durham's Ninth Street and the surrounding areas are a popular outlet for Greek and "independent" students alike. Students sometimes refer to their social life as occurring within the "Duke Bubble"—emphasizing the isolation of the Duke campus from the surrounding community and the relatively low levels of interaction between Durham residents and Duke students.^[1] Fraternity chapters frequently host parties in their sections, which typically are more open to non-members than similar functions at other institutions due to the fact that independents live in the same building as the fraternity members.^[1]

In the mid-1990s, the administration significantly reduced the number of on-campus kegs by requiring students not only to purchase kegs directly from the university, but also to hire expensive university bartenders. According to administrators, the rule change was intended as a way to increase on-campus safety,^[1] but many students see the administration's increasingly strict policies as an attempt to undermine social life at Duke.^[1] As a result, off-campus parties have become more frequent in the past few years as they are not under the umbrella of Duke's policies. However, these off-campus parties have come under fire as they have escalated in debauchery. In 2005, one of the off-campus fraternities hosted a heavily attended baby oil wrestling party, which garnered national media attention.^[1] The widely reported lacrosse scandal broke in 2006. Many of these houses are situated in the midst of family homes, prompting neighbors to complain about excessive noise and other violations. Police have responded by breaking up parties at several houses, handing out citations, and arresting party-goers.^[1] The administration, in an attempt to increase the number of on-campus social events, reduced the price of kegs by 59 percent in August 2006.^[1] They also purchased 15 houses that Duke students typically rent off East Campus in March 2006; they plan to sell these homes to single families.^[1]

The athletics program, 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.^[1] Students, often referred to as Cameron Crazies, show their support of the men's basketball team by "tenting" for home games against key ACC rivals, especially UNC. Because tickets to all varsity sports are free to students, they would line up for hours before the game, often spending the night on the sidewalk. The total number of participating tents is capped at 100 (each tent can have up to 12 occupants), though interest is such that it could exceed that number if space permitted. Tenting involves setting up and inhabiting a tent on the grass near Cameron Indoor Stadium, an area known as Krzyzewskiville, or K-ville for short. There are different categories of tenting based on the length of time and number of people who must be in the tent. At night, K-ville often turns into the scene of a party or occasional concert. The men's basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, is known to buy pizza on occasion for the inhabitants of the tent village.^[1] Tenting is becoming more and more institutionalized, for example, with organizations that sell survival packs to tenters. ^[1]

Activities

Approximately 400 student clubs and organizations run on Duke's campus. These include numerous student government, special interest, and service organizations.^[1] Duke Student Government (DSG) charters and provides most of the funding for these organizations, and represents students' interests when dealing with the administration.^[1] One of the most popular activities on campus is competing in sports. Duke has 35 sports clubs and 29 intramural teams that are officially recognized.^[1]

According to The Princeton Review, Duke is one of 81 institutions in the country with outstanding community service programs.^[1] In February 2007, Duke announced plans for DukeEngage, a $30 million civic engagement program that will allow every undergraduate to partake in an in-depth service opportunity over the course of a summer or semester.^[1] The program's scope is "unprecedented in U.S. higher education," allotting about $6,200 to every individual who chooses to participate.^[1][1]

Duke's Community Service Center (CSC) oversees 31 student-run service organizations in Durham and the surrounding area. Examples include a weeklong camp for children of cancer patients (Camp Kesem) and a group that promotes awareness about sexual health, rape prevention, alcohol and drug use, and eating disorders (Healthy Devils). The Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, started by the Office of Community Affairs, attempts to address major concerns of local residents and schools by utilizing university resources. Another community project, "Scholarship with a Civic Mission," is a joint program between the Hart Leadership Program and the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Other programs include: Project CHILD, a tutoring program involving 80 first-year volunteers; Project HOPE, an after-school program for at-risk students in Durham that was awarded a $2.25 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation in 2002; and Project BUILD, a freshman volunteering group that dedicates 3300 hours of service to a variety of projects such as schools, Habitat for Humanity, food banks, substance rehabilitation centers, and homeless shelters.^[1] Some courses at Duke incorporate service as part of the curriculum to augment material learned in class such as in psychology or education courses (known as service learning classes).^[1]

The Chronicle, Duke's independent undergraduate daily newspaper, has been continually published since 1905 and has a readership of about 30,000.^[1] Its editors are responsible for coining the term "Blue Devil". The newspaper won Best in Show in the tabloid division at the 2005 Associated Collegiate Press National College Media Convention.^[1] Cable 13, established in 1976, is Duke's student-run television station. It stands as a popular activity for students interested in film production and media.^[1] WXDU-FM, licensed in 1983, is the University's nationally-recognized, noncommercial FM radio station, operated by student and community volunteers.^[1][1]

Cultural groups on campus include: the Asian Students Association, AQUADuke (Alliance of Queer Undergraduates), Black Student Alliance, Chinese Traditional Dance, Dance Black, Diya (South Asian Association), Jewish Life at Duke, Mi Gente (Latino Student Association), International Association/International Council, Muslim Student Association, Native American Student Coalition, Newman Catholic Student Center, and Students of the Caribbean.^[1]

Alumni

Main article: List of Duke University people

Duke alumni are active through organizations and events such as the annual Reunion Weekend and Homecoming. There are 75 Duke clubs in the U.S. and 38 international clubs.^[1] For the 2005–2006 fiscal year, Duke tied for third in alumni giving rate among U.S. colleges and universities.^[1] A number of Duke alumni have made significant contributions in the fields of government, law, science, academia, business, arts, journalism, and athletics, among others.

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, Elizabeth Dole, senior United States Senator from North Carolina and former President of the American Red Cross, and Ricardo Lagos, 33rd President of Chile from 2000 to 2006, are among the most notable alumni with involvement in politics. In the research realm, Duke graduates who have won the Nobel Prize in Physics include Hans Dehmelt for his development of the ion trap technique, Robert Richardson for his discovery of superfluidity in helium-3, and Charles Townes for his work on quantum electronics.

Several alumni hold top positions at large companies. The current or former Chairman, President, Vice president, or