Hello, Blue Devils. I’d like to welcome our Duke students, and my faculty and staff colleagues, to the new academic year.
I hope that over the summer, you had an opportunity to step away from your work and studies and enjoy some rest and relaxation.
While some of you have been on campus all summer, others have just arrived here for the first time, and may still be learning your way around Duke and Durham.
I’m very pleased that you are all part of our Duke community, especially as we celebrate our Centennial year.
As we mark the one hundred years since Trinity College became Duke University, we’re celebrating the many achievements of the people who have called this place home over the past century.
At the same time, our Centennial is also an opportunity to look ahead, together, to the tremendous promise of our second century.
This university was founded to make a positive difference in our region, and I’d say that our mission to advance discovery, and educate the leaders and changemakers of tomorrow, is even more critical now than ever before.
Especially in this moment, when differences in our life experiences, perspectives and beliefs are all too easily used to sow division, I hope you will join me instead in committing to make our campus a place that welcomes and appreciates diverse viewpoints, and fosters scholarly discourse and engagement.
A place where we can discuss and debate ideas from a position of respect and intellectual curiosity.
A place where we listen with the goal of truly understanding each other’s perspectives, especially when we don’t share those perspectives.
And a place where it’s OK to allow your position on an issue to evolve over time.
Above all, Duke should be a place where we advance knowledge not to prove that our ideas are correct, but for the benefit of humankind.
As I told our newest undergraduates during Convocation yesterday, Duke is a community of learners and scholars who support and uplift one another, and propel each other to greater success than any of us would be capable of alone.
I’m proud to be part of this community, and I look forward to all that we will achieve together in the coming year.