Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac
Signup       Login
Duke University

Duke University

Overview
Duke University is a private
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...

 research university located in Durham
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...

, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity
Trinity, North Carolina
Trinity is a city in Randolph County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 6,690 at the 2000 census.-History:The community was named after Trinity College, which later became Duke University. The "World's Longest Hot Wheels Track" was built at the Kyle Petty Farm in Trinity, North...

 in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B. Duke
James Buchanan Duke
James Buchanan Duke was a U.S. tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for his involvement with Duke University.-Personal life:...

 established The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment is a private foundation established in 1924 by industrialist and philanthropist James B. Duke. The mission of the foundation is to serve the people of North Carolina and South Carolina by supporting selected programs of higher education, health care, children's welfare, and...

, at which time the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke
Washington Duke
George Washington Duke was an American tobacco industrialist and philanthropist.-Biography:Duke was born in Orange County, North Carolina , to Taylor Duke and Dicey Jones...

.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Duke University'
Start a new discussion about 'Duke University'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum
 
Unanswered Questions
Encyclopedia
Duke University is a private
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...

 research university located in Durham
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...

, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity
Trinity, North Carolina
Trinity is a city in Randolph County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 6,690 at the 2000 census.-History:The community was named after Trinity College, which later became Duke University. The "World's Longest Hot Wheels Track" was built at the Kyle Petty Farm in Trinity, North...

 in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B. Duke
James Buchanan Duke
James Buchanan Duke was a U.S. tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for his involvement with Duke University.-Personal life:...

 established The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment is a private foundation established in 1924 by industrialist and philanthropist James B. Duke. The mission of the foundation is to serve the people of North Carolina and South Carolina by supporting selected programs of higher education, health care, children's welfare, and...

, at which time the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke
Washington Duke
George Washington Duke was an American tobacco industrialist and philanthropist.-Biography:Duke was born in Orange County, North Carolina , to Taylor Duke and Dicey Jones...

.

Duke is organized into two undergraduate and ten graduate and professional schools. The university's research expenditures topped $657 million in 2009, placing it amongst the largest ten in the nation.
In its 2012 edition, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

 ranked the university's undergraduate program 10th among national universities, while ranking the medical
Duke University School of Medicine
The Duke University School of Medicine is Duke University's medical school operating under the auspices of the Duke University Medical Center. Established in 1925 by James B...

, law
Duke University School of Law
The Duke University School of Law is the law school and a constituent academic unit of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law began as the Trinity College School of Law in 1868. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity...

, public affairs
Sanford School of Public Policy
The Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University is named after former Duke president and Governor of North Carolina Terry Sanford, who established the university's Institute for Policy Sciences and Public Affairs in 1971 as an interdisciplinary program geared toward training future leaders...

, nursing
Duke University School of Nursing
The Duke University School of Nursing is located in Durham, NC and is affiliated with Duke University and Duke University Health System. The school offers an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing, Doctorate in Nursing Practice , and a Ph.D. Program...

, and business
Fuqua School of Business
The Fuqua School of Business is the business school of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. It currently enrolls 1,340 students in degree-seeking programs...

 graduate programs among the top 12 in the United States. In the 2011 QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....

, Duke ranked 19th worldwide. The university has "historical, formal, on-going, and symbolic ties" with the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...

, but is a nonsectarian
Nonsectarian
Nonsectarian, in its most literal sense, refers to a lack of sectarianism. The term is also more narrowly used to describe secular private educational institutions or other organizations either not affiliated with or not restricted to a particular religious denomination though the organization...

 and independent institution. Competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...

, Duke's athletic teams—known as the Blue Devils
Duke Blue Devils
Duke University's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The name comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry...

—have captured twelve national championships, including four by its high profile men's basketball team
Duke Blue Devils men's basketball
The Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team is the college basketball program representing Duke University in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I...

.

The university's campus spans over 8600 acre (34.8 km²) on three contiguous campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort
Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. Established in 1709, it is the third-oldest town in North Carolina.The population was 4,189 at the 2008 census and it is the county seat of Carteret County...

. Duke's main campus—designed largely by the prominent African American architect Julian Abele
Julian Abele
Julian Abele was a prominent African-American architect, and the chief designer in the offices of architect Horace Trumbauer...

—incorporates Gothic architecture
Collegiate Gothic in North America
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural genre, a subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture.-History:The beginnings of Collegiate Gothic in North America date back to 1894 when Cope & Stewardson completed Pembroke Hall on the campus of Bryn Mawr College...

 with the 210 feet (64 m) Duke Chapel
Duke Chapel
Duke University Chapel is a chapel located at the center of the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is an ecumenical Christian chapel and the center of religion at Duke, and has connections to the United Methodist Church...

 at the campus' epicenter and highest point of elevation. The forest environs surrounding parts of the campus belie the University's proximity to downtown Durham. Construction projects have updated both the freshmen-populated Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

-style East Campus and the main Gothic-style West Campus, as well as the adjacent Medical Center
Duke University Health System
The Duke University Health System, combines the Duke University School of Medicine, the Duke University School of Nursing, the Duke Clinic, and the member hospitals into a system of research, clinical care, and education.-Duke University Hospital:...

 over the past five years.

Beginnings



Duke started in 1838 as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in Randolph County
Randolph County, North Carolina
-Notable people:*Naomi Wise, murder victim*Richard Petty - Nascar driver.*Lee Petty - Nascar pioneer. Richard Petty's father.*Kyle Petty - Nascar driver. Son of Richard Petty*Adam Petty - Nascar driver. Kyle Petty's son...

 in the present-day town of Trinity
Trinity, North Carolina
Trinity is a city in Randolph County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 6,690 at the 2000 census.-History:The community was named after Trinity College, which later became Duke University. The "World's Longest Hot Wheels Track" was built at the Kyle Petty Farm in Trinity, North...

. Organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers, Brown's Schoolhouse became the Union Institute Academy in 1841 when North Carolina issued a charter. The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church
Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...

. In 1892 Trinity moved to Durham, largely due to generosity from Julian S. Carr
Julian Carr (industrialist)
Julian Shakespeare Carr was a North Carolina industrialist and philanthropist. He was married to Nannie Carr, with whom he had two daughters and three sons....

 and Washington Duke
Washington Duke
George Washington Duke was an American tobacco industrialist and philanthropist.-Biography:Duke was born in Orange County, North Carolina , to Taylor Duke and Dicey Jones...

, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco and electrical industries. Carr donated land in 1892 for the original Durham campus, which is now known as East Campus. At the same time, Washington Duke gave the school $85,000 for an initial endowment and construction costs—later augmenting his generosity with three separate $100,000 contributions in 1896, 1899, and 1900—with the stipulation that the college "open its doors to women, placing them on an equal footing with men."

In 1924 Washington Duke's son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment is a private foundation established in 1924 by industrialist and philanthropist James B. Duke. The mission of the foundation is to serve the people of North Carolina and South Carolina by supporting selected programs of higher education, health care, children's welfare, and...

 with a $40 million trust fund. Income from the fund was to be distributed to hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, and four colleges (including Trinity College). William Preston Few
William Preston Few
William Preston Few was the first president of Duke University and the fifth president of its predecessor, Trinity College....

, the president of Trinity at the time, insisted that the institution be renamed Duke University to honor the family's generosity and to distinguish it from the myriad of other colleges and universities carrying the "Trinity" name. At first, James B. Duke thought the name change would come off as self-serving, but eventually he accepted Few's proposal as 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
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

-style buildings. By 1930, the majority of the Collegiate Gothic
Collegiate Gothic in North America
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural genre, a subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture.-History:The beginnings of Collegiate Gothic in North America date back to 1894 when Cope & Stewardson completed Pembroke Hall on the campus of Bryn Mawr College...

-style buildings on the campus one mile (1.6 km) west were completed, and construction on West Campus culminated with the completion of Duke Chapel in 1935.

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
Rose Bowl Game
The Rose Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2...

 ever played outside California in Wallace Wade Stadium
Wallace Wade Stadium
Wallace Wade Stadium is a stadium on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Primarily used for American football, it is the home field of the Duke Blue Devils. It opened in 1929 with a game against Pitt, as the first facility in Duke's new west campus. The...

 in 1942. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Duke was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...

 which offered students a path to a Navy commission. In 1963 the Board of Trustees officially desegregated
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...

 the undergraduate college. Increased activism on campus during the 1960s prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the University in November 1964 on the progress of the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

. Terry Sanford
Terry Sanford
James Terry Sanford was a United States politician and educator from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford was the 65th Governor of North Carolina , a two-time U.S. Presidential candidate in the 1970s and a U.S. Senator...

, the former governor of North Carolina, was elected president of the university in 1969, propelling the Fuqua School of Business
Fuqua School of Business
The Fuqua School of Business is the business school of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. It currently enrolls 1,340 students in degree-seeking programs...

's opening, the William R. Perkins library completion, and the founding of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs (now the Sanford School of Public Policy). 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. Duke University Hospital was finished in 1980 and the student union building was fully constructed two years later. In 1986 the men's soccer team captured Duke's first National Collegiate Athletic Association
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 (NCAA) championship, and the men's basketball team followed shortly thereafter with championships in 1991
1991 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 1991 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 14, 1991, and ended with the championship game on April 1 in Indianapolis, Indiana...

 and 1992
1992 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 19, 1992, and ended with the championship game on April 6 in Minneapolis, Minnesota...

.

Recent history


Duke's growth and academic focus have contributed to continuing the university's reputation as an academic and research powerhouse. The school has regularly sent three-member teams to the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to the Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students of the United States and Canada, awarding scholarships and cash prizes ranging from $250 to $2,500 for the top students and $5,000...

, earning the title of the best collegiate undergraduate math team in the United States and Canada in 1993, 1996, and 2000. From 1996 to 2007, Duke's team finished in the top five 10 times, trailing only Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

's 11 in that time period.

Construction continued on campus in the 1990s, with the 314000 square feet (29,171.6 m²) Levine Science Research Center
Levine Science Research Center
The Levine Science Research Center is a facility on Duke University's west campus located at 450 Research Drive Durham, NC 27708. The LSRC is currently the largest single-site interdisciplinary research facility in the U.S...

 (LSRC) opening in 1994 to house interdisciplinary research. Similar projects have updated both the freshmen-housed East Campus and the main West Campus, as well as the adjacent Medical Center, in the past two decades.

In 1998 President Nan Keohane initiated a five-year $1.5 billion "Campaign for Duke" fundraising effort. Edmund T. Pratt, Jr.
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr.
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. was the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc.. He served as President from 1971 to 1972, CEO from 1972 to 1991, and Chairman from 1972 to 1992. He is the namesake of Duke University's Engineering School.-Early life:...

 ('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. Three students were named Rhodes Scholars
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

 in both 2002 and 2006, a number surpassed only by Harvard in 2002 and the United States Military Academy
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...

 in 2006. Overall, Duke has produced 42 Rhodes Scholars through 2011, including 21 in the 21-year period between 1990 to 2011.

In August 2005, Duke established a partnership with the National University of Singapore
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

 to develop a joint medical program, which had its first entering class in 2007. The first working demonstration of an invisibility cloak was unveiled by Duke researchers in October 2006. Figures from the 2008 fiscal year show research expenditures surpassed the $766 million mark. Another notable event in 2006 occurred when three lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape. Charges against the players were later dropped and the accused were declared innocent by the state's attorney general. The incident garnered significant media attention
Responses to the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case
The 2006 Duke University lacrosse case resulted in a great deal of coverage in the local and national media as well as a widespread community response at Duke and in the Durham, North Carolina area.-Initial coverage :...

.

Campus


Duke University owns 220 buildings on 8610 acres (34.8 km²) of land, which includes the 7200 acres (29.1 km²) Duke Forest. The campus is divided into four main areas: West, East, and Central campuses and the Medical Center, which are all connected via a free bus service. On the Atlantic coast in Beaufort
Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. Established in 1709, it is the third-oldest town in North Carolina.The population was 4,189 at the 2008 census and it is the county seat of Carteret County...

, Duke owns 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) as part of its marine lab. One of the major public attractions on the main campus is the 55 acres (222,577.3 m²) Sarah P. Duke Gardens
Sarah P. Duke Gardens
The Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately 55 acres of landscaped and wooded areas at Duke University. There are five miles of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens...

, established in the 1930s.

Duke students often refer to the campus as "the Gothic Wonderland," a nickname referring to the Collegiate Gothic architecture of West Campus. Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele
Julian Abele
Julian Abele was a prominent African-American architect, and the chief designer in the offices of architect Horace Trumbauer...

, one of the first prominent African-American architects and the chief designer in the offices of architect Horace Trumbauer
Horace Trumbauer
Horace Trumbauer was a prominent American architect of the Gilded Age, known for designing residential manors for the wealthy. Later in his career he also designed hotels, office buildings, and much of the campus of Duke University...

. 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. The freshmen campus (East Campus) is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style.

The stone used for West Campus has seven primary colors and seventeen 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
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

" that gave the university an "artistic look." James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from a quarry in Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, but later amended the plans to purchase a local quarry in Hillsborough
Hillsborough, North Carolina
Hillsborough is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 5,653 at the 2008 census. It is the county seat of Orange County....

 to reduce costs. Duke Chapel
Duke Chapel
Duke University Chapel is a chapel located at the center of the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is an ecumenical Christian chapel and the center of religion at Duke, and has connections to the United Methodist Church...

 stands at the center of West Campus on the highest ridge. 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
Durham County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 223,314 people, 89,015 households, and 54,032 families residing in the county. The population density was 769 people per square mile . There were 95,452 housing units at an average density of 329 per square mile...

.

From February 2001 to November 2005, Duke spent $835 million on 34 major construction projects as part of 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.

Libraries and museums



With more than six million volumes, the Duke University Library System
Duke University Library System
Duke University Libraries is the library system of Duke University, serving the university's students and faculty. The Libraries collectively hold some 6 million volumes....

 is one of the ten largest private research university library systems in the U.S. and is 22nd largest among members of the Association of Research Libraries
Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries is an organization of the leading research libraries in North America. As of October 2006, it comprises 123 libraries at comprehensive, research-intensive institutions in the US and Canada that share similar missions, aspirations, and achievements...

. In addition to millions of books, there are 17.7 million manuscripts, 1.2 million public documents, and tens of thousands of films and videos.

The William R. Perkins Library system comprises the Perkins Library complex (Perkins Library, Bostock Library, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library and University Archives), Lilly Library (which houses materials on fine arts, philosophy, film and video, and performing arts), the Music Library, and the Pearse Memorial Library (located at the Marine Lab). Besides the main William R. Perkins Library complex, the university library system also includes the separately-administered Ford (business), Divinity School
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...

, Goodson Law, and Medical Center libraries.

Duke's art collections are housed at the Nasher Museum of Art
Nasher Museum of Art
The Nasher Museum of Art is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The $24 million museum was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and opened on October 2, 2005...

 on Central Campus. The museum was designed by Rafael Viñoly
Rafael Viñoly
Rafael Viñoly is an Uruguayan architect living in the United States.-Biography:He was born in Montevideo, Uruguay to Román Viñoly Barreto, and Maria Beceiro ....

 and is named for Duke alumnus and art collector Raymond Nasher
Raymond Nasher
Raymond Nasher was a Duke University alumnus who was an avid art collector. Together with his wife Patsy, he amassed a substantial number of the world's greatest sculptures and various other important pieces...

. The museum opened in 2005 at a cost of over $23 million and contains over 13,000 works of art, including works by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Barkley L. Hendricks
Barkley L. Hendricks
Barkley L. Hendricks is a contemporary American painter who has made pioneering contributions to black portraiture and conceptualism. While he has worked in a variety of media and genres throughout his career , Hendricks' best known work takes the form of life-sized painted oil portraits...

, Christian Marclay
Christian Marclay
Christian Marclay is a Swiss-American visual artist and composer.Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film...

, Dario Robleto
Dario Robleto
Dario Robleto is an American conceptual artist who lives and works in Houston, Texas. Robleto received his BFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1997 and has subsequently served as an artist in residence at several institutions including the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, the California...

, and Kara Walker
Kara Walker
Kara Walker is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes, such as The Means to an End--A Shadow Drama in Five Acts.-Biography:Walker was born in...

.

West, East, and Central Campuses


West Campus, considered the main campus of the University, houses all the sophomores, along with some juniors and seniors. Most of the academic and administrative centers are located there. Main West Campus, with Duke Chapel
Duke Chapel
Duke University Chapel is a chapel located at the center of the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is an ecumenical Christian chapel and the center of religion at Duke, and has connections to the United Methodist Church...

 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 (2.9 km²), includes Science Drive, which is the location of science and engineering buildings. Most of the campus eateries and sports facilities—including the historic basketball stadium, Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is home to the Duke Blue Devils men's and women's basketball teams, the women's volleyball team, and the men's wrestling team....

—are on West Campus.

East Campus, the original location of Duke after it moved to Durham, 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 (392,545.4 m²) and is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from West Campus. 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 reside on East. The self-sufficient East Campus contains the freshman residence halls, a dining hall, coffee shop, post office, 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.
{|style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
|

Central Campus, consisting of 122 acre (0.49371692 km²) between East and West campuses, houses around 850 juniors and seniors and 200 professional students in apartments. 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 Campus has several recreation and social facilities such as basketball courts, tennis courts, a sand volleyball court, barbecue grills and picnic shelters, a general gathering building called Devil's Den, the Mill Village, and a convenience store.
{|style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"|-
|
|}Since 2005, there has been a long-term plan in place to restructure Central Campus over the subsequent 20 to 50 years. The idea is to develop an "academic village" as a key center for the Duke community. This academic village will provide living arrangements for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and some faculty, plus dining, recreation, and academic support spaces while serving as a living laboratory for sustainability.

Key places




Duke Forest, established in 1931, consists of 7200 acres (29.1 km²) in six divisions, just west of West Campus. The largest private research forest in North Carolina and one of the largest in the nation, the Duke Forest demonstrates a variety of forest stand types and silvicultural treatments. Duke 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. More than 30 miles (48.3 km) of trails are open to the public for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding.

The Duke Lemur Center
Duke Lemur Center
The Duke Lemur Center is an sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian primates, located at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is the largest sanctuary for prosimian primates in the world....

, located inside the Duke Forest, is the world's largest sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian
Prosimian
Prosimians are a grouping of mammals defined as being primates, but not monkeys or apes. They include, among others, lemurs, bushbabies, and tarsiers. They are considered to have characteristics that are more primitive than those of monkeys and apes. Prosimians are the only primates native to...

 primates. Founded in 1966, the Duke Lemur Center spans 85 acres (34.4 ha) and contains nearly 300 animals of 25 different species of lemur
Lemur
Lemurs are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. They are named after the lemures of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species...

s, galago
Galago
Galagos , also known as bushbabies, bush babies or nagapies , are small, nocturnal primates native to continental Africa, and make up the family Galagidae...

s and loris
Loris
Loris is the common name for the strepsirrhine primates of the subfamily Lorisinae in family Lorisidae. Loris is one genus in this subfamily and includes the slender lorises, while Nycticebus is the genus for the slow lorises....

es.


The Sarah P. Duke Gardens
Sarah P. Duke Gardens
The Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately 55 acres of landscaped and wooded areas at Duke University. There are five miles of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens...

, established in the early 1930s, is situated between West Campus and the apartments of Central Campus. The gardens occupy 55 acres (22.3 ha), 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 W.L. Culberson Asiatic Arboretum, housing plants of Eastern Asia, as well as disjunct species found in Eastern Asia and Eastern North America; and the Doris Duke Center Gardens. There are five miles (8 km) of allées and paths throughout the gardens.

Duke University Medical Center, bordering Duke's West Campus northern boundary, combines one of the top-rated hospitals and one of the top-ranked medical schools
Duke University School of Medicine
The Duke University School of Medicine is Duke University's medical school operating under the auspices of the Duke University Medical Center. Established in 1925 by James B...

 in the U.S. Founded in 1930, the Medical Center occupies 8 million square feet (700,000 m²) in 99 buildings on 210 acres (85 ha).

Duke University Marine Lab, located in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. Established in 1709, it is the third-oldest town in North Carolina.The population was 4,189 at the 2008 census and it is the county seat of Carteret County...

, is also technically part of Duke's campus. The marine lab is situated on Pivers Island on the Outer Banks
Outer Banks
The Outer Banks is a 200-mile long string of narrow barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, beginning in the southeastern corner of Virginia Beach on the east coast of the United States....

 of North Carolina, 150 yards (137.2 m) 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.

Academics


Duke's student body consists of 6,504 undergraduates and 7,744 graduate and professional students (as of fall 2010). The university has "historic and symbolic ties to the Methodist Church but it always has been independent in its governance." For the undergraduate class of 2015, Duke received 29,689 applications, and accepted approximately 11% of them. According to The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...

, Duke ranks among the ten toughest universities to get into based on admissions data. The yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend the university) is approximately 45%. For the class of 2014, 96% of admitted students ranked in the top 10% of their high school classes. The middle 50% range of SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...

 scores for first-year students is 1380–1560 (old scale) or 2070–2340 (new scale), while the ACT
ACT (examination)
The ACT is a standardized test for high school achievement and college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. It was first administered in November 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test...

 range is 31–34.

{| style="text-align:center; float:left; font-size:85%; margin-left:2em; margin:auto;" class="wikitable"
|+ Demographics of student body Fall 2010
! !! Undergraduate !! Graduate !! U.S. Census
|-
! African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...


| 10% || 5% || 12.1%
|-
! Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...


| 22% || 9% || 4.3%
|-
! Non-Hispanic
White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...


| 47% || 54% || 68%
|-
! Hispanic American
| 7% || 4% || 14.5%
|-
! Other/Unknown/
International
| 14% || 28% || N/A
|}

Duke University has two schools for undergraduates: Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences is the undergraduate liberal arts college at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The college is currently one of two undergraduate divisions at Duke, the other being the Edmund T...

 and Pratt School of Engineering.

From 2001 to 2011, Duke has had the sixth highest number of Fulbright
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...

, Rhodes
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

, Truman, and Goldwater scholarships in the nation among private universities. The University practices need-blind admission
Need-blind admission
Need-blind admission is a term in the United States denoting a college admission policy in which the admitting institution does not consider an applicant's financial situation when deciding admission...

s and meets 100% of admitted students' demonstrated need. About 50 percent of all Duke students receive some form of financial aid, which includes need-based aid, athletic aid, and merit aid. The average need-based grant for the 2010–2011 academic year was nearly $36,000. Roughly 60 merit-based scholarships are also offered, including the Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship, awarded for academic excellence. Other scholarships are geared toward students in North Carolina, African-American students, and high-achieving students requiring financial aid.

Duke's endowment
Financial endowment
A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....

 had a market value of $5.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011. The University's special academic facilities include an art museum
Nasher Museum of Art
The Nasher Museum of Art is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The $24 million museum was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and opened on October 2, 2005...

, several language labs, the Duke Forest, the Duke Herbarium, a lemur center
Duke Lemur Center
The Duke Lemur Center is an sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian primates, located at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is the largest sanctuary for prosimian primates in the world....

, a phytotron
Phytotron
A phytotron is an enclosed research greenhouse used for studying interactions between plants and the atmosphere.-External links:*...

, a free electron laser, a nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance is a physical phenomenon in which magnetic nuclei in a magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation...

 machine, a nuclear lab, and a marine lab. Duke is a leading participant in the National Lambda Rail Network and runs a program for gifted children known as the Talent Identification Program
Talent Identification Program
The Duke Talent Identification Program is a gifted education program based at Duke University. Its purpose is to identify gifted children and provide them and their parents the resources for them to reach their full educational potential....

.

Graduate profile


In 2009, the School of Medicine
Duke University School of Medicine
The Duke University School of Medicine is Duke University's medical school operating under the auspices of the Duke University Medical Center. Established in 1925 by James B...

 received 5,166 applications and accepted approximately 4% of them, while the average GPA and MCAT scores for accepted students from 2002 through 2009 were 3.74 and 34, respectively. The School of Law
Duke University School of Law
The Duke University School of Law is the law school and a constituent academic unit of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law began as the Trinity College School of Law in 1868. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity...

 accepted approximately 13% of its applicants for the Class of 2014, while enrolling students had a median GPA of 3.75 and median LSAT
Law School Admission Test
The Law School Admission Test is a half-day standardized test administered four times each year at designated testing centers throughout the world. Administered by the Law School Admission Council for prospective law school candidates, the LSAT is designed to assess Reading Comprehension,...

 of 170.

The University's graduate and professional schools include the Graduate School
Graduate School of Duke University
The Graduate School of Duke University is currently one of ten graduate and professional schools that make up the university. Established in 1926, the Graduate School offers the degrees of Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Public Policy, and the Doctor of...

, the Pratt School of Engineering, the Nicholas School of the Environment, the School of Medicine
Duke University School of Medicine
The Duke University School of Medicine is Duke University's medical school operating under the auspices of the Duke University Medical Center. Established in 1925 by James B...

, the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
The Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore is a collaboration between the Duke University in North Carolina, United States and the National University of Singapore....

, the School of Nursing
Duke University School of Nursing
The Duke University School of Nursing is located in Durham, NC and is affiliated with Duke University and Duke University Health System. The school offers an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing, Doctorate in Nursing Practice , and a Ph.D. Program...

, the Fuqua School of Business
Fuqua School of Business
The Fuqua School of Business is the business school of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. It currently enrolls 1,340 students in degree-seeking programs...

, the School of Law
Duke University School of Law
The Duke University School of Law is the law school and a constituent academic unit of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law began as the Trinity College School of Law in 1868. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity...

, the Divinity School
Duke Divinity School
The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina is one of thirteen seminaries founded and supported by the United Methodist Church. It has 39 full time and 18 part time faculty and over 500 full time students. The current dean of The Divinity School is Richard B. Hays, who replaced...

, and the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
The Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University is named after former Duke president and Governor of North Carolina Terry Sanford, who established the university's Institute for Policy Sciences and Public Affairs in 1971 as an interdisciplinary program geared toward training future leaders...

.

Undergraduate curriculum



Duke offers 36 arts and sciences majors, four 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, and certificates. Eighty percent of undergraduates enroll in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences is the undergraduate liberal arts college at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The college is currently one of two undergraduate divisions at Duke, the other being the Edmund T...

, while the rest are in the Pratt School of Engineering.

Trinity's curriculum operates under the revised version of "Curriculum 2000." 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. The intent is to assist students in acquiring perspective on current and historical events, conducting research and solving problems, and developing tenacity and a capacity for hard and sustained work.Freshmen can elect to participate in the FOCUS Program
FOCUS Program
The FOCUS Program is a voluntary, interdisciplinary academic curriculum for freshmen that was first established at Duke University. FOCUS is an acronym that stands for "First-year Opportunity for Comprehensive, Unified Study."-Program at Duke University:...

, which allows students to engage in an interdisciplinary exploration of a specific topic in a small group setting.

Pratt's curriculum 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. For the class of 2010, about 31% of Pratt undergraduates studied abroad, small compared to the percentage for Trinity undergraduates (47%), but much larger than the national average for engineering students (3.2%).

Research



In the 2009 fiscal year, research expenditures surpassed $657 million, mostly in health care and life sciences. In the 2005 fiscal year, Duke University Medical Center received the sixth-largest amount of funding from the National Institute of Health, netting $391.2 million. Duke's funding increased 14.8% from 2004, representing the largest growth of any top-20 recipient. In the 2008 fiscal year, Duke University School of Nursing
Duke University School of Nursing
The Duke University School of Nursing is located in Durham, NC and is affiliated with Duke University and Duke University Health System. The school offers an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing, Doctorate in Nursing Practice , and a Ph.D. Program...

  was 18th nationally in the rankings of the National Institute of Health funding for nursing schools, netting more than $2.34 million, up 54 percent from 2007, when it ranked 30th nationally.

Throughout the school's history, Duke researchers have made 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. In the mechanical engineering department, Adrian Bejan
Adrian Bejan
Adrian Bejan is an American professor and proponent of the constructal theory of design and evolution in nature. He is J. A...

 developed the constructal theory
Constructal theory
The constructal law puts forth the idea that the generation of design in nature is a physics phenomenon that unites all animate and inanimate systems, and that this phenomenon is covered by the Constructal Law...

, 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
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...

 was finally complete. Reports of Duke researchers' involvement in new AIDS vaccine research surfaced in June 2006. The biology department combines two historically strong programs in botany and zoology, while one of the divinity school's leading theologians is Stanley Hauerwas
Stanley Hauerwas
Stanley Hauerwas is a Christian theologian and ethicist. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and is currently the Gilbert T...

, whom Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 named "America's Best Theologian" in 2001. The graduate program in literature boasts several internationally renowned figures, including Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends—he once described postmodernism as the spatialization of culture under the pressure of organized capitalism...

, and Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000...

, while philosophers Robert Brandon and Lakatos Award
Lakatos Award
The Lakatos Award is given annually for a contribution to the philosophy of science which is widely interpreted as outstanding. The contribution must be in the form of a book published in English during the previous six years....

-winner Alexander Rosenberg
Alexander Rosenberg
Alexander Rosenberg is an American philosopher, and the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University.Rosenberg was educated at Stuyvesant High School, the City College of New York and Johns Hopkins University...

 contribute to Duke's ranking as the nation's best program in philosophy of biology, according to the Philosophical Gourmet Report
Philosophical Gourmet Report
The Philosophical Gourmet Report edited by Philosophy and Law professor Brian Leiter — in response to the Gourman Report — is a ranking of philosophy departments in the English-speaking world, based on a survey of philosophers who are nominated as evaluators by the Report's Advisory...

.

Rankings



In the 2012 U.S. News & World Report ranking of undergraduate programs at doctoral granting institutions, Duke ranked 10th. In the past twenty years, U.S. News & World Report has placed Duke as high as 3rd and as low as 10th. In 2011, Duke was ranked 19th in the world in the QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....

 and 22nd in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an international ranking of universities published by the British magazine Times Higher Education in partnership with Thomson Reuters, which provided citation database information...

. Duke was ranked the 14th-best university in the world by Newsweek and 35th best globally by Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...

 in 2010, focusing on quality of scientific research and the number of Nobel Prizes. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the 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. The 2010 report by the Center for Measuring University Performance
Center for Measuring University Performance
The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research center at Arizona State University. The Center is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities, that ranks American universities on nine different measures: Total Research, Federal Research,...

 puts Duke at 6th in the nation. The 2011 Emerging/Trendence Global Employability Ranking, which surveys hundreds of chief executives and chairmans from around the world to select the top universities from which they recruited, placed Duke at 13th in the world and 9th in the country. In 2005, Duke enrolled 117 National Merit Scholars, the 6th university in rank by number. Duke ranks 5th among national universities to have produced Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater, and Udall Scholars. According to the 2010–2011 PayScale's statistical study on "How Much a College Degree is Worth" through graduation rate, total cost to graduate, and university's return on investment (ROI), Duke is ranked 9th nationally. According to the 2011 Princeton Review survey on "Top Dream Colleges" among parents, Duke ranked as the 6th dream university. Kiplingers 50 Best Values in Private Universities 2010–11 ranks Duke at 5th best overall after taking financial aid into consideration. According to a study by Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

, Duke ranks 11th among universities that have produced billionaires and 1st among universities in the South. A survey by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education in 2002 ranked Duke as the #1 university in the country in regard to the integration of African American students and faculty.

In U.S. News & World Reports "America's Best Graduate Schools 2012," Duke's medical school ranked 5th for research. The hospital was ranked 10th in the nation by the 2010–2011 U.S. News & World Report Health Rankings of Best Hospitals in America. The School of Law was ranked 11th in 2011 by the same publication, while law recruiters ranked the program 8th in the country. Duke's nursing school ranked 7th in U.S. News & World Reports 2012 rankings, while the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
The Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University is named after former Duke president and Governor of North Carolina Terry Sanford, who established the university's Institute for Policy Sciences and Public Affairs in 1971 as an interdisciplinary program geared toward training future leaders...

 tied for 10th in 2010 for national public affairs programs, Among business schools in the United States, the Fuqua School of Business
Fuqua School of Business
The Fuqua School of Business is the business school of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. It currently enrolls 1,340 students in degree-seeking programs...

 was ranked 4th for its Executive M.B.A. program, 3rd for marketing, 9th for management, and 12th overall by U.S. News & World Report in 2011, while BusinessWeek ranked its full-time MBA program 6th in the nation in 2010. The graduate program for the Pratt School of Engineering was ranked 31st while the biomedical engineering
Biomedical engineering
Biomedical Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve...

 program was ranked 4th by U.S. News & World Report. Taking the U.S. News & World Report Professional School Rankings in 2008 based on Mean Reputation Score, Duke ranks 7th among national universities. Times Higher Education ranked the mathematics department tenth in the world in 2011. Duke's graduate level specialties that are ranked among the top ten in the nation include areas in the following departments: biological sciences, medicine, nursing, engineering, law, business, English, history, physics, statistics, public affairs, physician assistant, clinical psychology, political science, and sociology.

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. Thus, 85% of undergraduates live on campus. All freshmen are housed in one of 14 residences on East Campus. These buildings range in occupancy size from 50 (Epworth—the oldest residence hall, built in 1892 as "the Inn") to 190 residents (Gilbert-Addoms). Most of these are in the Georgian style typical of the East Campus architecture. Although the newer residence halls differ in style, they still relate to East’s Georgian heritage. Learning communities connect the residential component of East Campus with students of similar academic and social interests. Similarly, students in FOCUS, a first-year program that features courses clustered around a specific theme, live together in the same residence hall as other students in their cluster.

The majority of sophomores reside on West Campus, but they may also elect to live on Central Campus. Juniors and seniors can choose to reside on either of the two campuses, although the majority of undergraduate seniors choose to live off campus. West Campus contains six quadrangles—the four along "Main" West were built in 1930s, while two newer ones have since been added. Central Campus provides housing for over 1,000 students in several apartment buildings. Various learning communities are allocated sections of the quadrangles, thereby living close to one another, but still within the context of a larger community. Twenty-seven "selective living groups" are housed within sections on West, including 15 fraternities. Most of the non-fraternity selective living groups are coeducational.

Greek and social life



About 30% of undergraduate men and about 40% of undergraduate women at Duke are members of fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

. Most of the 15 Interfraternity Council recognized fraternity chapters live in sections within the residence halls, while the nine Panhellenic Association
National Panhellenic Conference
The National Panhellenic Conference , founded in 1902, is an umbrella organization for 26 national women's sororities.Each member group is autonomous as a social, Greek-letter society of college women and alumnae...

 sorority chapters feature no such living arrangements, although students can elect to "block" in groups to live near one another. Eight National Pan-Hellenic Council
National Pan-Hellenic Council
The National Pan-Hellenic Council is a collaborative organization of nine historically African American, international Greek lettered fraternities and sororities. The nine NPHC organizations are sometimes collectively referred to as the "Divine Nine"...

 (historically African American) fraternities and sororities also hold chapters at Duke. In addition, there are seven other fraternities and sororities that are a part of the Inter-Greek Council, the multicultural Greek umbrella organization. Duke also has 11 Selective Living Groups, or SLGs, on campus for students wanting self-selected living arrangements. SLGs are residential groups similar to fraternities or sororities, except they are generally co-ed and unaffiliated with any national organizations. Fraternity chapters frequently host social events in their residential sections, which are often open to non-members.

In the late-1990s, a new keg policy was put into effect that requires all student groups to purchase kegs through Duke Dining Services. According to administrators, the rule change was intended as a way to ensure compliance with alcohol consumption laws as well as to increase on-campus safety. Some students saw the administration's increasingly strict policies as an attempt to alter social life at Duke. As a result, off-campus parties at rented houses became more frequent in subsequent years as a way to avoid Duke policies. Many of these houses were situated in the midst of family neighborhoods, prompting residents to complain about excessive noise and other violations. Police have responded by breaking up parties at several houses, handing out citations, and occasionally arresting party-goers. In the mid to late 2000s, the administration made a concerted effort to help students re-establish a robust, on-campus social life and has worked with numerous student groups, especially the Duke University Union, to feature a wide array of events and activities. In March 2006, the university purchased 15 houses in the Trinity Park area that Duke students had typically rented and subsequently sold them to individual families in an effort to encourage renovations to the properties and to reduce off-campus partying in the midst of residential neighborhoods.

Duke athletics, particularly men's basketball, traditionally serves as a significant component of student life. Duke's students have been recognized as some of the most creative and original fans in all of collegiate athletics. Students, often referred to as Cameron Crazies
Cameron Crazies
The Cameron Crazies are the student supporters of Duke University's basketball teams, named for Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium. Crazies stand courtside in a 1,200 seat student section and begin cheering during warmups...

, show their support of the men's basketball team by "tenting" for home games against key Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...

 rivals, especially University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

 (UNC). Because tickets to all varsity sports are free to students, they line up for hours before each game, often spending the night on the sidewalk. For a mid-February game against UNC, some of the most eager students might even begin tenting before spring classes begin. 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
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is home to the Duke Blue Devils men's and women's basketball teams, the women's volleyball team, and the men's wrestling team....

, an area known as Krzyzewskiville
Krzyzewskiville
Krzyzewskiville, or K-ville for short, is a phenomenon that occurs before major men's basketball games at Duke University. In simplest terms, it is the line for students wishing to gain access to the designated tenting games. It is often mistakenly referred to as a ticket line...

, 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, occasionally buys pizza for the inhabitants of the tent village.

Student organizations



More than 400 student clubs and organizations operate on Duke's campus. These include numerous student government, special interest, and service organizations. Duke Student Government (DSG) charters and provides most of the funding for other student groups and represents students' interests when dealing with the administration. The Duke University Union (DUU) is the school's primary programming organization, serving a center of social, cultural, intellectual and recreational life. Cultural groups are provided funding directly from the university via the Multicultural Center as well as other institutional funding sources. One of the most popular activities on campus is competing in sports. Duke has 38 sports clubs, and 8 intramural teams that are officially recognized. Performance groups such as Hoof 'n' Horn, the country's second oldest student-run musical theater organization, a cappella groups, student bands, and theater organizations are also prominent on campus. The Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee provides guidance to the administration on issues regarding student dining, life, and restaurant choices.

Cultural groups on campus include the Asian Students Association, Blue Devils United (the student lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group), Black Student Alliance, 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, Languages Dorm, and Students of the Caribbean.

Civic engagement



According to The Princeton Review, Duke is one of 81 institutions in the country with outstanding community service programs. In 2008 Duke received the Community Engagement Classification from Carnegie Foundation
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center, whose primary activities of research and writing have resulted in published reports on every level...

 for the Advancement of Teaching. In February 2007, Duke launched DukeEngage, a $30 million civic engagement program that allows undergraduates to participate in an in-depth service opportunity over the course of a summer or semester. The program's scope has been called "unprecedented in U.S. higher education." Duke students have created more than 30 service organizations in Durham and the surrounding area. Examples include a weeklong camp for children of cancer patients (Camp Kesem
Camp Kesem
Camp Kesem is a community of college campuses, on which student leaders develop and operate free week-long summer camps for children in families coping with cancer. Camp Kesem is currently on 38 campuses around the United States....

) 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 in 1996, attempts to address major concerns of local residents and schools by leveraging 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
Kenan Institute for Ethics
The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University is an interdisciplinary "think and do" tank committed to understanding and addressing real-world ethical challenges facing individuals, organizations and societies worldwide...

. Other programs include Project CHILD, a tutoring program involving 80 first-year volunteers; an after-school program for at-risk students in Durham that was started with $2.25 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation in 2002; and Project BUILD, a freshman volunteering group that dedicates 3,300 hours of service to a variety of projects such as schools, Habitat for Humanity, food banks, substance rehabilitation centers, and homeless shelters. 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 courses).

Student media



The Chronicle
The Chronicle (Duke University)
The Chronicle is a daily student newspaper at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The Chronicle was first published as The Trinity Chronicle on December 19, 1905. The paper's name was changed to The Chronicle when Trinity College was renamed Duke University following a donation by James...

, Duke's independent undergraduate daily newspaper, has been continually published since 1905 and now, along with its website, has a readership of about 70,000. Its editors are responsible for selecting the term "Blue Devil
Duke Blue Devils
Duke University's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The name comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry...

". The newspaper won Best in Show in the tabloid division at the 2005 Associated Collegiate Press National College Media Convention. Cable 13, established in 1976, is Duke's student-run television station. It is a popular activity for students interested in film production and media. WXDU-FM
WXDU-FM
WXDU is a non-commercial campus radio station broadcasting a college radio format. Licensed to Durham, North Carolina, USA, the station serves the North Carolina college area...

, licensed in 1983, is the University's nationally recognized, noncommercial FM radio station, operated by student and community volunteers.

Athletics


Duke's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils
Duke Blue Devils
Duke University's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The name comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry...

, are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 (NCAA)'s Division I Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...

 (ACC). Duke's teams have won twelve NCAA team national championships—the women's golf team has won five
NCAA Women's Golf Championship
NCAA Champions for women's golf:-Division I:-Division II-III combined:-Division II:-Division III:-Team:The following schools have won more than one team championship:*15: Methodist*7: Arizona State*5: Duke, Rollins*4: Florida Southern...

 (1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2007), the men's basketball team
Duke Blue Devils men's basketball
The Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team is the college basketball program representing Duke University in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I...

 has won four (1991
1991 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 1991 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 14, 1991, and ended with the championship game on April 1 in Indianapolis, Indiana...

, 1992
1992 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 19, 1992, and ended with the championship game on April 6 in Minneapolis, Minnesota...

, 2001
2001 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 2001 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 13, 2001 with the play-in game, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in...

, and 2010
2010 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The first and second round games were played at the following sites:*March 18 / 20*March 25 / 27*March 26 / 28Each regional winner advanced to the Final Four, held on April 3 and 5 in Indianapolis, Indiana at Lucas Oil Stadium, hosted by the Horizon League and Butler University, as per the NCAA's...

), and the men's soccer (1986), women's tennis (2009
NCAA Women's Tennis Championship
The NCAA Women's Tennis Championship is the National Collegiate Athletic Association's tennis tournament to determine the Team Championships, Singles Championships, and Doubles Championships in Women's Tennis. It was started in 1982.-2009 Division tournament:...

), and men's lacrosse
Duke Blue Devils men's lacrosse
The Duke Blue Devils men's lacrosse team represents Duke University in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I men's lacrosse...

 (2010
2010 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship
-First round:The biggest surprise of the first round was Army's double-overtime upset of No. 2 seed Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Some analysts ranked it among the greatest upsets in the history of the tournament...

) teams have won one each.

In the past ten years, Duke has finished in the top 30 in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics is a professional organization for college and university athletic directors in the United States. NACDA boasts a membership of more than 6,100 individuals and more than 1,600 institutions throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico...

 (NACDA) Directors' Cup, an overall measure of an institution's athletic success. In 2011 Duke finished fifth in all of Division I and placed the best in the ACC, while the athletic program finished tenth in 2010. Duke has won 118 ACC Championships, 47 of which have come since 1999–2000 (through 2010–11), which is the second most in the ACC. Duke teams that have been ranked in the top ten nationally in the first decade of the 21st century 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. Ten of these teams were ranked in the top ten in the country during the 2010–11 school year, while 17 were in the top 25. The men's lacrosse program has proven successful, reaching the NCAA tournament
NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship
The annual NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament determines the top men's field lacrosse team in the NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III....

 semifinals in six consecutive participating seasons from 2005 to 2011, including winning the national championship in 2010.

The Blue Devil mascot's origins are rooted in an elite French alpine fighting unit that garnered accolades and much global attention during World War I and its aftermath for its flowing blue capes and blue berets. Duke's mascot origin is considered to be military and patriotic rather than anti-religious. Historically, Duke's major rival has been the Tar Heels
North Carolina Tar Heels
The North Carolina Tar Heels are the athletic teams for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the Tar Heel State...

 of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, especially in basketball. The rivalry has led the fanbases to identify the two differing shades of blue in relation to their respective university—calling the lighter powder blue "Carolina blue
Carolina blue
Carolina blue is the shade of blue used as one of the official school colors of the University of North Carolina. The name is derived from the popular usage of "Carolina" to refer to the university...

" and the darker blue "Duke blue
Duke blue
Duke blue is a dark blue tertiary color, associated with Duke University. The Duke logo blue Pantone color for print is PMS 287. This same Duke blue for the web is #001A57....

".

On the academic front, according to a 2006 evaluation conducted by the NCAA, Duke's student-athletes have the highest graduation rate of any institution in the nation. From 2005 to 2010, Duke has placed in the top three every year (and finished first in 2005 through 2007) 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. Duke led the ACC in Honor Roll inductees 23 out of the last 24 years through the 2010–2011 academic year.

Men's basketball




Duke's men's basketball team is one of the nation's most successful basketball programs. The team has captured four National Championships
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...

 (fifth place all time), while attending 15 Final Fours (third place overall) and 10 Championship games (tied for second). Duke has the most Atlantic Coast Conference championships, with 18, and has the most National Players of the Year in the nation, with 11. Seventy-two players have been selected in the NBA Draft
NBA Draft
The NBA Draft is an annual event in which the thirty teams from the National Basketball Association can draft players who are eligible and wish to join the league. These players are usually amateur U.S. college basketball players, but international players are also eligible to be drafted...

, while 32 players have been honored as All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...

ns. 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
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is home to the Duke Blue Devils men's and women's basketball teams, the women's volleyball team, and the men's wrestling team....

, considered one of the top venues in the nation.

The team's success has been particularly outstanding over the past 30 years under coach Mike Krzyzewski (often simply called "Coach K"), who also has coached the USA men's national basketball team since 2006 and led the team to Olympic gold in 2008 and to World Championship gold in 2010. Their successes include becoming the only team to win four national championships since the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, 11 Final Fours in the past 25 years, and eight of nine ACC tournament championships from 1999 to 2006.


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 Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...

rs come through the program (second in the ACC to only Miami's
Miami Hurricanes football
The Miami Hurricanes football program competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference of the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision for the University of Miami. The program began in 1926 and has won five AP national championships...

 four). The Blue Devils have produced 11 College Football Hall of Famers, which is tied for the 2nd most in the ACC. Duke has also won 18 total conference championships (7 ACC, 9 Southern Conference, and 1 Big Five Conference). That total is the highest in the ACC.

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. That same year, Duke made their first Rose Bowl
Rose Bowl Game
The Rose Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2...

 appearance, where they lost 7–3 when USC
University of Southern California Trojans football
The USC Trojans football program, established in 1888, represents the University of Southern California in college football. USC is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I FBS and the Pacific-12 Conference . The Trojans have been a football powerhouse throughout NCAA...

 scored a touchdown in the final minute of the game. Wade's Blue Devils lost another Rose Bowl to Oregon State
Oregon State Beavers
The Oregon State Beavers is a name shared by all sports teams at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. The Beavers are part of the Pacific-12 Conference . Oregon State's mascot is Benny the Beaver...

 in 1942, this one held at Duke's home stadium
Wallace Wade Stadium
Wallace Wade Stadium is a stadium on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Primarily used for American football, it is the home field of the Duke Blue Devils. It opened in 1929 with a game against Pitt, as the first facility in Duke's new west campus. The...

 due to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which resulted in the fear that a large gathering on the West Coast might be in range of Japanese aircraft carriers. The football program proved successful in the 1950s and 1960s, winning six of the first ten ACC football championships from 1953 to 1962 under coach Bill Murray
William D. Murray
William D. "Bill" Murray was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at University of Delaware from 1940 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1950 and at Duke University from 1951 to 1965, compiling a career college football record of 142–67–11...

; the Blue Devils would not win the ACC championship again until 1989 under coach Steve Spurrier
Steve Spurrier
Stephen Orr Spurrier is an American college football coach and player. Spurrier is the current head coach of the University of South Carolina's Gamecocks football team. He is also a former professional player and coach...

.

Duke has not had a winning football season since 1994. David Cutcliffe
David Cutcliffe
David Cutcliffe is the head football coach of the Duke University Blue Devils. He is best known for coaching Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning at the University of Tennessee, and Manning's younger brother and fellow Super Bowl Champion Eli at the University of Mississippi...

 was brought in prior to the 2008 season, and amassed more wins in his first season than the previous three years combined. The 2009 team won 5 of 12 games, and was eliminated from bowl contention in the next-to-last game of the season. Mike MacIntyre, the defensive coordinator, was named 2009 Assistant Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association
American Football Coaches Association
The American Football Coaches Association is an association of over 11,000 football coaches and staff on all levels. According to its constitution, some of the main goals of the American Football Coaches Association are to "maintain the highest possible standards in football and the profession of...

 (AFCA).

While the football team has struggled at times on the field, the graduation rate of its players is consistently among the highest among Division I-A schools. Duke's high graduation rates have earned it more AFCA Academic Achievement Awards than any other institution.

Alumni



Duke's active alumni base of more than 130,000 devote themselves to the university through organizations and events such as the annual Reunion Weekend and Homecoming. There are 75 Duke clubs in the U.S. and 38 such international clubs. For the 2008–09 fiscal year, Duke tied for third in alumni giving rate among U.S. colleges and universities according to U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

. Based on statistics compiled by PayScale
PayScale
PayScale, Inc. or payscale.com is an online salary, benefits and compensation information company, which launched its service on January 1, 2002. It was founded by Joe Giordano, a former Microsoft and drugstore.com manager, and John Gaffney....

 in 2011, Duke alumni rank seventh in mid-career median salary among all U.S. colleges and universities. A number of alumni have made significant contributions in the fields of government, law, science, academia, business, arts, journalism, and athletics, among others.

Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

, 37th President of the United States graduated with a law degree in 1937. Former U.S. Senator and Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole
Elizabeth Dole
Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush presidential administrations, as well as a United States Senator....

, 33rd President of Chile Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...

, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Juanita M. Kreps
Juanita M. Kreps
Juanita Morris Kreps was U.S. Secretary of Commerce from January 23, 1977 until October 31, 1979 under President Jimmy Carter and was the first woman to hold that position, and the fourth woman to hold any cabinet position.-Life and career:Kreps was born Clara Juanita Morris in Lynch, Kentucky,...

, congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...

, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs and former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Eric Shinseki
Eric Shinseki
Eric Ken Shinseki is a retired United States Army four-star general who is currently serving as the 7th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. His final U.S. Army post was as the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army...

, and the first United States Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients
Jeffrey Zients
Jeffrey "Jeff" D. Zients is an American CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur. On July 30, 2010, he was named acting director of the Office of Management & Budget. President Obama appointed him to the new position of United States Chief Performance Officer...

 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
Robert Coleman Richardson
Robert Coleman Richardson is an American experimental physicist whose area of research includes sub-millikelvin temperature studies of helium-3...

 for his discovery of superfluidity in helium-3, and Charles Townes for his work on quantum electronics. Other alumni in research and academia include Turing Award winners Fred Brooks
Fred Brooks
Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month...

 and John Cocke
John Cocke
John Cocke was an American computer scientist recognized for his large contribution to computer architecture and optimizing compiler design. He is considered by many to be "the father of RISC architecture."...

, Templeton Prize winning physicist and religion scholar Ian Barbour
Ian Barbour
Ian Graeme Barbour, born 5 October 1923, is an American scholar on the relationship between science and religion. According to the Public Broadcasting Service his mid-1960s Issues in Science and Religion "has been credited with literally creating the contemporary field of science and religion."In...

, MacArthur Award recipient Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief...

, and former Dean of the Graduate School at Princeton Theodore Ziolkowski
Theodore Ziolkowski
Theodore Ziolkowski, born 1932 in Birmingham, Alabama, is a scholar in the fields of German studies and comparative literature. He received an A.B. from Duke University in 1951, an A.M. from Duke in 1952 and, following studies at the University of Innsbruck, his Ph.D from Yale University in 1957...

.

Prominent journalists include talk show host Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...

, The Washington Post sports writer John Feinstein
John Feinstein
John Feinstein is an American sportswriter, author and sports commentator who wrote the top two best-selling non-fiction sports books in history, A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink.-Early life:...

, Chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and The Wall Street Journal writer John Harwood
John Harwood
John Harwood is an American journalist who is the Chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a writer for The New York Times. He writes a weekly column entitled "The Caucus" that appears on Monday about Washington politics and policy...

, CBS News President Sean McManus, chief legal correspondent for Good Morning America Dan Abrams
Dan Abrams
Dan Abrams is an American television host, legal commentator, web entrepreneur and best-selling author. He is currently Legal Analyst at ABC News Good Morning America , and a substitute anchor for the network. He formerly served as Chief Legal Analyst for NBC News, as General Manager of MSNBC and...

, and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 anchor and senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Judy Woodruff
Judy Woodruff
Judy Woodruff is an American television news anchor and journalist.Woodruff is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Broadcast journalism career:...

. Basketball analysts and commentators include Jay Bilas
Jay Bilas
Jay Scot Bilas is an American lawyer and basketball analyst for ESPN and CBS Sports. He is also a former college basketball player.-Playing career:...

, Mike Gminski
Mike Gminski
Michael Thomas Gminski is a retired American college and professional basketball player. Gminski played his high school ball for Masuk High School in Monroe, CT. From there he played four seasons with the Duke Blue Devils, from 1977 to 1980. He led the team in scoring during his junior and senior...

, Jim Spanarkel
Jim Spanarkel
James Gerard Spanarkel is an American television analyst for the National Basketball Association. Spanarkel, who himself was a professional basketball player, was selected 16th overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers and traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 1980...

, and Jay Williams
Jay Williams (basketball)
Jason David Williams , professionally known as Jay Williams, is a former American professional basketball player with the NBA Chicago Bulls. He last signed with the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League, but was waived by the Toros on December 30, 2006 to rehabilitate a nagging injury...

. Magazine editors include Rik Kirkland of Fortune and Clay Felker
Clay Felker
Clay Schuette Felker was an American magazine editor and journalist who founded New York Magazine in 1968. He was known for bringing large numbers of journalists into the profession...

 of New York.

In the area of literature, William C. Styron won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1968 for his novel The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by U.S. writer William Styron. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns the slave revolt in Virginia in 1831...

 and is well known for his 1979 novel Sophie's Choice
Sophie's Choice (novel)
Sophie's Choice is a novel by William Styron published in 1979. It concerns a young American Southerner, an aspiring writer, who befriends the Jewish Nathan Landau and his beautiful lover Sophie, a Polish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps...

. Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler is an American novelist.Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker. Her early childhood was spent in a succession of Quaker communities in the mountains of North Carolina and in Raleigh...

 also received the Pulitzer Prize for her 1988 novel Breathing Lessons. In the arts realm, Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish is an American actress known for starring roles in Shag, Mystic Pizza and Double Jeopardy. She is best known for her roles as Special Agent Monica Reyes on The X-Files, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on The West Wing and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama Brotherhood.-Personal...

 (actress in the X-Files and The West Wing), Ken Jeong
Ken Jeong
Kendrick Kang-Joh "Ken" Jeong , also known as "Dr. Ken," is an American comedian, actor, and physician. Currently, he appears as Ben Chang on the NBC comedy series Community.-Early life and medical career:...

 (actor in The Hangover and Community), Randall Wallace
Randall Wallace
Randall Wallace is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and songwriter who came to prominence by writing the screenplay for the 1995 film Braveheart. His work on the film earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and a Writers Guild of America award for Best...

 (screenwriter, producer, and director, Braveheart, Pearl Harbor, We Were Soldiers), Mike Posner
Mike Posner (musician)
Michael Robert "Mike" Posner is an American singer, songwriter, and producer. Posner released his debut album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff, on August 10, 2010...

 (singer, songwriter, and producer, Cooler Than Me, Please Don't Go) and David Hudgins
David Hudgins
David Hudgins, , is a television writer and producer. He has worked on the series Everwood, Friday Night Lights and Parenthood.-Career:...

 (television writer and producer, Everwood, Friday Night Lights) headline the list.

On the business front, the current or recent President, CEO, or Chairman of each of the following Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 companies is a Duke alumnus: Apple (Tim Cook
Tim Cook
Timothy D. "Tim" Cook is the chief executive officer of Apple Inc., having joined the company in March 1998. He was named the CEO of Apple after Steve Jobs announced his resignation on August 24, 2011.- Early life :...

), BB&T (John A. Allison IV
John A. Allison IV
John Allison was born on August 14, 1948, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He began his career with BB&T in 1971 following his graduation from the University of North Carolina with a degree in business administration...

), Boston Scientific Corporation (Peter Nicholas
Peter Nicholas (businessman)
Peter M. Nicholas co-founded medical device firm Boston Scientific with partner John Abele.Nicholas earned a B.A. from Duke University in 1964 and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Nicholas is Chairman Emeritus of the Duke Board of Trustees...

), Chesapeake Energy (Aubrey McClendon
Aubrey McClendon
Aubrey Kerr McClendon is the chief executive officer, chairman, and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corporation . He is an outspoken advocate for natural gas as a cleaner and safer alternative to oil and coal fuels...

), Cisco System (John Chambers
John Chambers (CEO)
John T. Chambers is Chairman of the Board and CEO of Cisco Systems, Inc. Chambers joined Cisco in 1991 as senior vice president, Worldwide Sales and Operations. Since January 1995, when he assumed the role of CEO, the company has grown from $1.2 billion in annual revenues to its current run-rate...

), General Motors (Rick Wagoner
Rick Wagoner
George Richard "Rick" Wagoner, Jr. is an American businessman and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. Wagoner resigned as Chairman and CEO at General Motors on March 29, 2009, at the request of the White House...

), JPMorgan Chase (Steven Black
Steven Black
Steven "Steve" D. Black is the former Vice-Chairman of JP Morgan Chase & Co.. He previously served as the Co-Chief Executive Officer of JP Morgan, the investment banking subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase. He is a 1974 graduate of Duke University, and has served on the New York Development Council...

), Medtronic (William A. Hawkins
William A. Hawkins
William "Bill" A. Hawkins was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic from 2008 until 2011.-Early life:Hawkins received a bachelors of science degree in electrical and biomedical engineering from Duke University in 1976...

), Morgan Stanley (John J. Mack
John J. Mack
John J. Mack is the current Chairman of the Board at Morgan Stanley, the New York-based investment bank and brokerage firm. Mack announced his retirement as Chief Executive Officer on September 10, 2009, which was effective January 1, 2010. Former Co-President James P...

), Norfolk Southern (David R. Goode
David R. Goode
David R. Goode is the retired Chairman, President, and CEO of Norfolk Southern Corporation . Other directorships: Caterpillar Inc.; Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Georgia-Pacific Corporation; Norfolk Southern Railway, and Texas Instruments Incorporated. Goode has been a director of Caterpillar since 1993...

), Northwest Airlines (Gary L. Wilson
Gary L. Wilson
Gary L. Wilson was the Chairman of the Board of Northwest Airlines and Chief Financial Officer of Walt Disney Company and Chief Financial Officer of Marriott Corporation.-Education:...

), PepsiCo (Karl von der Heyden
Karl von der Heyden
Karl von der Heyden was Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of PepsiCo, Inc. from 1996 to 2001. He had rejoined the Company in September 1996 as Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer...

), Pfizer (Edmund T. Pratt, Jr.
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr.
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. was the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc.. He served as President from 1971 to 1972, CEO from 1972 to 1991, and Chairman from 1972 to 1992. He is the namesake of Duke University's Engineering School.-Early life:...

), The Bank of New York Mellon (Gerald Hassell
Gerald Hassell
Gerald L. Hassell is the Chairman, CEO and President of The Bank of New York Mellon.-Background:Gerald Hassell joined the Bank of New York in 1973 when he was only 21 years old as a management trainee, and has held various positions in the credit and corporate banking divisions...

), and Wachovia (Robert K. Steel
Robert K. Steel
Robert King "Bob" Steel is an American business leader and an expert on financial institutions and markets. In June 2010, he was named Deputy Mayor for Economic Development by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg...

). Kevin Martin
Kevin Martin (FCC)
Kevin Jeffrey Martin was the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was nominated to be a commissioner by President George W. Bush on April 30, 2001, and was confirmed on May 25, 2001. On March 16, 2005, President Bush designated him as FCC chairman, to replace Michael K. Powell...

 was Chairman of the FCC, and Rex Adams
Rex Adams
Rex D. Adams is currently serving as Chairman and Non-Executive Director on the Invesco Board of Directors.Adams previously served as a professor and dean at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business from 1996 to 2001; before that appointment, he had worked for the Mobil Corporation for 31...

 serves as the Chairman of PBS. Another alumna, Melinda Gates
Melinda Gates
Melinda Ann French , later known as Melinda French Gates, is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the wife of Bill Gates...

, is the co-founder of the $31.9 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nation's wealthiest charitable foundation.

Management and ownership of professional athletic franchises include John Angelos
John Angelos
John Angelos is the Executive Vice President of the Baltimore Orioles, a position he has held since April 1999, leading the club's front office and overseeing the day to day business operations including marketing, communications and sales. He also serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the...

 (Executive Vice President of the Baltimore Orioles), Aubrey McClendon
Aubrey McClendon
Aubrey Kerr McClendon is the chief executive officer, chairman, and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corporation . He is an outspoken advocate for natural gas as a cleaner and safer alternative to oil and coal fuels...

 (partial owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder), John Canning, Jr.
John Canning, Jr.
John A. Canning, Jr. is a private equity investor and sports executive. He is the founder and chairman of Madison Dearborn Partners, the large Chicago-based private equity firm. He has recently been linked to discussions about the potential sale of the Chicago Cubs.-Career:Canning was an early...

 (co-owner of Milwaukee Brewers), Danny Ferry
Danny Ferry
Daniel John Willard "Danny" Ferry is a retired American professional basketball player and the Vice President of Basketball Operations for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association...

 (former general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers), Stephen Pagliuca
Stephen Pagliuca
Stephen Pagliuca is a private equity investor, managing partner of Bain Capital, and co-owner of the Boston Celtics.In 2003, Pagliuca, along with Irving and Wyc Grousbeck, Robert Epstein, William P...

 (co-owner of Boston Celtics), and Jeffrey Vinik
Jeffrey Vinik
Jeffrey N. Vinik is the current owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Tampa Bay Storm , as well as a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox...

 (owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning). Finally, several athletes have become stars at the professional level, especially in basketball's NBA. Shane Battier
Shane Battier
Shane Courtney Battier is an American professional basketball player . He most recently played with the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. He has also been a member of the U.S...

, Corey Maggette
Corey Maggette
Corey Antoine Maggette is an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association, for the Charlotte Bobcats. He excelled at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois, where he was an All-American in basketball and also an Illinois high school state track finalist in long...

, Elton Brand
Elton Brand
Elton Tyron Brand is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association...

, Carlos Boozer
Carlos Boozer
Carlos Austin Boozer, Jr. is an American professional basketball player with the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association...

, Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner
Christian Donald Laettner is a retired American professional basketball player and entrepreneur. He had a distinguished college and national career, and played in the National Basketball Association for thirteen seasons, from 1992–2005. He is presently a minority holder for the Major League...

, Bobby Hurley
Bobby Hurley
Robert Matthew 'Bobby' Hurley is an American former basketball player and currently an assistant coach at Wagner College.-Biography:...

, Grant Hill
Grant Hill (basketball)
Grant Henry Hill is an American professional basketball player who most recently played for the Phoenix Suns. As a collegian with Duke University and early in his professional career with the Detroit Pistons, Hill was widely considered to be one of the best all-around players in the game, often...

, and J.J. Redick
J.J. Redick
Jonathan Clay "J. J." Redick is an American professional basketball player at the shooting guard position who plays for the Orlando Magic. He was selected 11th overall by the Orlando Magic in the 2006 NBA Draft. During his collegiate years, Redick played for Duke University...

are among the most famous.

External links