I hope you are enjoying an invigorating and rewarding semester.
This will be a very special week on campus as we welcome back thousands of alumni and host a special series of events for the entire community as part of our Centennial Founders’ Day and Homecoming celebration.
On Thursday, former Duke Presidents Nan Keohane and Dick Brodhead will join alumna and Trustee Emerita Judy Woodruff and me for a wide-ranging discussion of Duke University’s past and our future.
Friday afternoon we will gather with descendants of George Wall and representatives of the Walltown community for the formal dedication of the George and George-Frank Wall Center for Student Life. This special program will celebrate the legacy of these two early employees and their family’s ongoing impact at Duke and in Durham, as well as the generations of staff members who have advanced the university’s mission throughout our first 100 years.
Our celebration will continue on Friday evening in Wallace Wade Stadium and at a student watch party in Penn Pavilion for a Centennial program featuring 9th Wonder, Retta, and a magnificent student and alumni chorus, followed by a concert by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.
And on Saturday we’ll return to Wallace Wade Stadium for our Homecoming football game vs. UNC, including on-field recognition of dozens of faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university who represent excellence across our mission.
These are just a few of the many ways we will continue our yearlong celebration of the people and the moments that have shaped Duke’s first 100 years and the tremendous promise of our second century.
Many of this week’s events will be held both in-person and virtually; I hope you will plan to participate as your schedule allows.
Thank you for being part of this extraordinary community.
Good afternoon to the great Class of 2028! On behalf of the administration, faculty, and staff, I’m delighted to welcome you to Duke University.
It may be hard to believe that it’s been just one week since we were all together right here, saying farewell to your families.
Whether you’re a new first-year student, or you began your studies elsewhere and have joined Duke as a transfer student, I hope you had a great week of orientation, and that you’ve begun to feel at home, both here on campus, and among your classmates.
Feeling at home is important—and as a community we have developed an array of traditions to help you bond with this place and its people. As Provost Gallimore mentioned, this convocation ceremony is one example of tradition, as we mark the opening of the academic year, and formally welcome a new class of students to Duke.
Here on stage, we’re wearing traditional academic regalia that dates back to the Middle Ages and connects us to generations of scholars around the globe who have shared our commitment to learning.
Once you survive this gauntlet of speeches—another tradition of academic gatherings—you will join in singing the Duke University alma mater, Dear Old Duke, which was introduced 100 years ago by the graduating members of the class of 1924.
The lyrics emphasize your lifetime connection to Duke that begins today, and which will continue far beyond your graduation, regardless of where life may take you.
You’ll hear the alma mater ring from the Chapel Carillon at five o’clock every Friday evening, and we’ll have many other opportunities to sing it together, including here in Cameron Indoor Stadium, right over there with the Crazies in the student section, at the end of every basketball game.
And in four short years, we will all be in academic regalia again for your commencement, and your class will sing the Alma Mater one last time together.
By then, you will have experienced a vast number of Duke traditions, and likely started some of your own. These traditions are the ways, large and small, that we bond as a Duke community—a community of learners and scholars who support and uplift one another, and propel each other to greater successes than any of us would be capable of alone.
You are now members of a global network of more than 200,000 students and alumni who are connected by these Duke traditions.
The traditional excellence of this university has been systematically built over the past century, as you will learn from being part of our ongoing Centennial. Our excellence into the future—over our second century—is now in your hands, and in those of your classmates.
I know that Dean Guttentag and his colleagues in admissions were right in admitting you to Duke; and I share his confidence that you will do right by this extraordinary university.
To help you on your way, let me discharge another tradition, which is to offer you a bit of advice as you begin your studies tomorrow. My advice is simple: The surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong.
I realize I may be going against the grain here. The world today seems to urge us all to stand by our convictions. We celebrate finding and following our passion—particularly in an election year.
To be clear, strongly held beliefs or opinions certainly have their place, especially when they are arrived at slowly, through careful study and with an open mind, and grounded in a fair reading of evidence.
But in truth, how many of our beliefs and opinions actually stand upon that sort of bedrock of reasoned inquiry? How many, if we are being completely honest, are instead adopted through socialization? Or taking cues from other people who seem more qualified to say? Or other logical short-cuts we rely upon, out of necessity really, given all the layers of complexity surrounding all the choices we need to make?
Of course we must be guided by enduring values. And holding onto our strong beliefs and opinions, even those with less than worthy provenance, would be perfectly fine were it not for the unwarranted certainty, even ferocity and defensiveness, with which we often keep them.
Even if we happen to be right, we have no cause for self-righteousness; but as I’ve noted elsewhere, we seem to be living today in a world more likely to respond to challenges with indignance, where opposing views are met with unreflective condemnation rather than conversation.
Understandably, with wars engulfing much of the globe, with political tensions rising in so many nations, and with so much social change and instability, our natural human tendency is to recoil and rebuff. We are right; they are wrong. In such an uncertain world, we crave certainty.
Even, perhaps especially in such times, I hope you will see Duke as a place for getting things wrong.
The word “wrong” comes to us from the Old English. It meant crooked or twisted, rather than straight. The difficult road to the right answer is often just that: a winding path with changing directions along the way. Please allow yourself—for your sake and ours—to take those necessary twists and turns.
That’s what universities are for. We will question you; we will challenge you; but we will not judge you for getting things wrong while we all work together to find the path to the right answers. Experience shows that what seems a wrong turn at the time often proves to be the way home.
Now for this to work, you also have to be patient with other people. When they at first seem so very wrong to you, keep in mind that they might actually be right—even when their ideas might seem impossibly strange to you, and yes, even if they should upset you.
And I assure you, we do all get it wrong from time to time, far more often than we’d like to admit. I’ve been wrong more times than I could count.
For instance, I was dead wrong about dogs.
A seemingly trivial example, perhaps. But let me explain.
As you’re getting to know the university, two community members you’ll likely see around campus are my dogs, Cricket and Marlowe. They, like other dogs, are amazing, loving creatures.
But you see, I didn’t grow up with dogs. One of eight children in my family, I shared a bedroom with four other brothers until I was around six years old. As you might imagine, there was really not much space for dogs, or cats for that matter. So my pet experience was limited to tropical fish and a turtle. Neither experience turned out well, but that’s another story.
The bottom line was that I was never around dogs much; but I still had feelings about them—mainly apprehension, if not fear. They growl. They have sharp teeth. They are not particularly kind to rabbits or squirrels, so why wouldn’t they take a nip at my leg or my forearm?
After I was married with children of my own, my wife Annette—who had grown up in a home with dogs—began to lobby for one. I fiercely resisted, with my misgivings compounded by a belief that dogs were destructive and, given my serious investments of time and energy as a do-it-yourself homeowner, my fear that they would trash the house.
Well, my wife and kids eventually wore me down. And I’ll be the first to admit that I could not have been more wrong.
Count me a dog-person today. Our 14-year-old labradoodle Cricket is the joy of my life. Our goldendoodle puppy Marlowe is a bashful but loveable member of the family. Dogs have contributed immeasurably to my life. And while we’ve cycled through hundreds of chew toys over the years, our home is absolutely none the worse for wear.
Here’s the point: If I could be so wrong about dogs, so absolutely determined not to bring one home, how wrong might I be about other matters?
How many other times might my quite real if unfounded anxieties and fears—of different people, of strange places, of unsettling ideas—have limited my experience and understanding of the world?
The chance to encounter people whose life experiences, perspectives, and beliefs are different from ours is a gift, if only we will accept it.
Bringing you together—and creating conditions under which you can learn together; challenge each other; trust each other to talk honestly and listen carefully; and entertain the possibility that you might, just might be wrong—that is Duke’s gift to each of you.
Being open to sincere challenges to our thinking, and appreciating other perspectives, doesn’t weaken our values, but rather clarifies them. In a world that shouts, a world addicted to bullhorns and demands, ultimatums and pressure tactics, this kind of close human engagement, grounded in dispassionate education, evidence-seeking and persuasion, is not easy. But the world sorely needs it, and you are fully capable of it.
Try this: When you find yourself tempted to say “that’s outrageous,” or “I disagree,” or “how could you think that?” instead say: “Tell me more about why you think that.”
Eight words we would all do well to remember.
Saying “Tell me more about why you think that” invites conversation and discourse.
It shows someone that you are interested in their perspective. It opens the door for them to explain their position—and maybe even the life experiences that led them to that position—in a conversational way.
This can be challenging, both for the person pausing to ask for more information, and for the person who is asked to share more about their perspective. Especially if they feel that their perspective is not well understood or represented here at Duke.
But if you listen carefully, you might just be persuaded. Or persuade someone yourself. But you will learn, in any event. You will understand another person, a fellow traveler in our confusing, expansive, human world, a bit better.
Again, the surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong.
In closing, I have just one additional piece of advice to you today, which is something I share with all new Duke students.
This place is exciting, as it should be. And I’ve no doubt you will be engaged in many new activities and pursuits, as you should.
But please be sure to get some sleep.
Just as the surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong, the surest way to be our best is to get some rest. So, turn off those phones. We all need enough sleep to keep our minds alert and our hearts open.
Duke University Class of 2028, we are thrilled that you are here. You are poised to play an important role in this great university’s second century, and I can’t wait to see everything you will achieve!
I am very pleased to announce that this weekend the Duke University Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name the East Union Building—home of the Marketplace and Trinity Café—in honor of George and George-Frank Wall, a father and son who were longtime employees of Trinity College and Duke University.
A formerly enslaved person, George Wall was hired in 1870 to work at Trinity College in Randolph County. He was one of the few staff members who relocated with the college when it moved to Durham in 1892. Wall purchased land near the new campus, built a house on Onslow Street, and became a leader in his neighborhood, which is known to this day as Walltown. He was close to generations of students and many campus leaders and served the institution for 60 years before his death in 1930.
George-Frank Wall, the oldest of George Wall’s nine children, worked at Duke as a custodian for more than half a century until his death in 1953. His conscientious approach to his work earned him the nickname “Sheriff of the Dining Halls.”
As we mark Duke’s Centennial, this naming is a timely and meaningful way to recognize the significant contributions these dedicated and long-serving staff members made to Duke University.
The building—to be named the George and George-Frank Wall Center for Student Life—is a dining hub for first-year students and a dynamic center of student life on the former Trinity College campus. As such, this naming also recognizes and celebrates the important role that generations of housekeeping and dining staff members have played in nurturing our campus community and creating a supportive environment for students throughout Duke’s history.
The Duke community will be invited to attend a special dedication event for the George and George-Frank Wall Center for Student Life during our Centennial Founders’ Day and Homecoming Weekend, September 27-29 of this year.
A version of this op-ed was published in the Raleigh News & Observer on November 24, 2023. That version is available on the News & Observer’s website.
As a young professor at N.C. State, Jim Goodnight in the mid-1970s teamed with colleagues to build software to analyze agricultural data. That N.C. State team turned a good idea into a great one, spinning that innovation into a product line that birthed SAS, the Cary-based software giant that recorded $3 billion in sales last year and employs more than 12,000 people.
That’s the sort of success story we need more of here in North Carolina, which is why the CHIPS and Science Act is so important. The Tar Heel State and rest of America are on the precipice of a transformational era for our nation’s research and innovation enterprise, spurred largely by the work of our research universities. The CHIPS and Science Act signed into law last year included a $52 billion boost to the semiconductor industry – a sector where North Carolina companies are well positioned to create new jobs and boost the economy. It would also provide $200 billion to further strengthen the nation’s competitive advantage in other fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, energy sciences and bioengineering. This money has been approved but not yet distributed, and time is wasting.
North Carolina is well positioned to capitalize on this investment, but Congress must prioritize this funding in the current and future budget cycles to ensure the nation stays ahead in the increasingly competitive race for global leadership in science and innovation.
The universities in North Carolina are extraordinarily successful in winning research funding; Duke ranks 9th nationally in federal research funding and brings in about $776 million of the more than $2 billion of federal funds that support university research in our state each year. These dollars fuel discoveries that become solutions we all need. The funding attracts and retains talent to our state, provides jobs and prosperity for North Carolinians, and generates long-term and sustainable benefits when companies that are born here decide to stay here. In the last 5 years, Duke researchers have launched 75 companies around Duke intellectual property; 55 of them, including Sparta Biosciences, which has developed a new chemically engineering cartilage to help people with cartilage degeneration, have stayed right here in North Carolina.
Building this economic engine doesn’t occur overnight or even over a few years. It requires long-term and sustained investment and a highly trained workforce.
We face increasingly tough competition for talent as other countries, both allies and adversaries, are substantially increasing investments in science and technology and other STEM fields. Full funding of the science portion of the CHIPS and Science Act will expand opportunities for North Carolina and the country to cultivate and retain homegrown talent and continue to attract the very best from across the globe.
One example of this is the National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Engines program, which seeks to build innovation capacity across the country. Duke is a partner on a proposal led by UNC Wilmington to unite universities, community colleges, non-profits and businesses to build and sustain coastal and climate resiliency in Eastern North Carolina. This program has great promise to transform regions in North Carolina, and across the country. But NSF currently only has enough funding to support its current round of applicants.
Similarly, our Duke Quantum Center, in downtown Durham, is a major player in large-scale information processing, building ever-larger quantum computer systems. North Carolina could be well positioned to be a leader in quantum computing if the promise of CHIPS and Science is realized.
We’re ready for the next step.
Academic research and development is a federal partnership that has galvanized the state’s economy for more than 60 years and one that must remain robust if we want to continue that momentum. The CHIPS and Science Act will further catalyze North Carolina’s leadership in discovery-based research, but current projections show a $7 billion funding shortfall from the original spending targets. If not fully funded, we will see further stagnation of the nation’s economic growth, defense capabilities and global competitiveness.
If we want the great innovations to grow from our soil and benefit our citizens, we need Congress to start distributing the money it approved for use a year ago. Let’s create the next generation of innovators.
Good afternoon, Class of 2027! On behalf of the administration, faculty, and staff, I’m delighted to welcome you formally to Duke University.
Today is the beginning of a new journey, and you’re joining us at an exciting time. Yes, this is the start of a new era for each of you; but it’s also the start of a new era for Duke.
We’re proud to welcome our new Provost and chief academic officer, Alec Gallimore, along with several other new members of our leadership team. And beginning in January, we will celebrate Duke University’s centennial, reflecting on what we’ve accomplished in the past 100 years and setting our sights on what’s ahead.
You see, 100 years ago, a new class of students was entering the last full academic year of Trinity College, housed on East Campus. And the magnificent and stately Chapel where we are now gathered was still farmland.
The Class of 1927 was, like you, facing a rapidly changing world. Although they had nothing like ChatGPT in their midst, they were poised to enter the Roaring ‘20s, after their years in high school had been scarred, stolen in a way, by the recent world war and the terrible Spanish flu pandemic.
The first issue of The Chronicle that year noted the ways Trinity College was transforming, even with no hint then that, by the time the class of 1927 would graduate, they would do so as alumni of Duke University.
Contributors to The Chronicle, noting with pride the expansive growth of the College, observed that so many women were on campus that the capacity of Southgate was strained, with 3 coeds in each of the smaller rooms and 4 in larger rooms.
Ten new faculty were joining the College. As today, key leadership transitions were celebrated. That year Alice Baldwin would be named Dean of Women, and become the first female granted full faculty status at Trinity.
And let me tell you, the Class of 1927 was ready for a full schedule of lively welcoming events. They thrilled to the annual opening of the academic year with the raising of the flag by the senior class. And there was excitement building for a reception featuring music and ice cream—and appearances by a campus celebrity named Scab, the dog adopted by the sophomore class, who would soon be joined by a first-year Poodle named Cicero.
Those new students had little sense of what their century, the 20th, would bring, including the Atomic Age. But Chronicle editors tried to be helpful: warning first-year students against slick sales pitches from boarding house operators and laundry services.
So here we sit, similarly with no clear sense of what our century, the 21st will bring. And I’m mindful that any advice I lend you today might seem, by future lights, to be about as helpful as a warning against unscrupulous boarding house recruiters or collectors for laundry services.
But advice is a part of the convocation tradition, so with your indulgence, I’ll briefly give you mine.
It’s my answer to the question many are asking these days: What can a university offer you in 2023? With more ways than ever before to learn and to disseminate knowledge, what is a university even for?
We are a learning community, dedicated to the pursuit of greater human understanding.
You’re here to learn, you know that. But we are all here to learn.
Duke is a research university, which means your faculty are asking their own questions too. They design experiments, conduct interviews, run simulations, dig through archives, dig through the mud. Whatever form their work takes, they contribute new insights to their fields.
As you work alongside the faculty, not only will you grow in your own studies, but you’ll also help us grow in our understanding of the world.
We get to follow the evidence wherever it leads — and we are at our best when we do that together, as a diverse community with very different perspectives, disciplines, backgrounds, experiences, ideological orientations, identities, and religions.
That’s the exciting work of a university—but that’s also the hard part.
You’ve just been through orientation, which is wonderful; I’m here to say that the work ahead, if you do it right, will be disorienting as well.
Like physical training—which entails pushing us to the often-painful limits of our endurance in service of gaining strength—intellectual and moral training similarly come, inevitably, with discomfort.
And more noxious even than physical discomfort is confusion. It can be quite destabilizing, and exhausting.
Take care to remember that nobody ever walked the path from not knowing to knowing without wandering over that difficult territory called confusion.
But my advice to you today is that you embrace disorientation and confusion, because on the other side comes greater moral strength and mental agility.
OK, this is a celebratory gathering, and I don’t want to bring you down. I also have some good news.
You are not traveling this path alone, but as part of a larger, and beautifully supportive, community. A community you will live with, eat with, think with, argue with, learn with, win with—graduate with and grow with for the rest of your lives.
This is the defining character of a university, and why it’s more relevant in 2023 than perhaps ever before in history. In an era of machine learning and social media, the unrivaled power of a living, breathing, human learning community is real.
It is true blue. It is Duke.
It’s an idea we would do well to remember: the sharpest thinking, the fullest understanding, emerges from communities — not individuals in isolation.
We can and we must have faith in our ability to learn together, from each other. I know that’s hard to do sometimes, especially on topics where we might worry that we will say the wrong thing, or where we know others disagree with us.
But even in that discomfort, we need you to engage. We need you to speak up because you might see something that the rest of us have missed.
And equally important, we need—every one of us—to listen, without judgment, because your classmates may very well see something that you, and we, have missed. As I’ve said elsewhere, while we hold some truths to be self-evident, most are not. And an excess of moral judgment may be one of the greatest threats to our still-new century.
Yes, this can be clumsy, and not without some pain as we grow more agile and stronger—particularly living in a world more likely to respond to challenge with indignance, where contradictions are met with quick and unreflective condemnation rather than conversation.
Our Duke community can respond differently, though: listening to each other, assuming always the best in each other, and being open to changing our minds when the evidence leads us to do so. The wise community, as suggested by experience across millennia, is humble in admitting what it does not know.
It’s daunting. But you are more than capable of having these tough conversations. With the support of good teachers and the accountability of a diverse community, you can do this.
Before I conclude my remarks, I will also offer you the same practical advice I share with every incoming class: please, make sure you get enough sleep. Life is too short and too beautiful to waste on doom-scrolling. Caffeine can only get you so far, and we all need adequate sleep to do our best work and treat each other with bright eyes rather than weary eyes. In this aspect at least, I think our Trinity colleagues of a hundred years ago were perhaps our betters.
Class of 2027, I thank you for choosing Duke. Your presence makes our community stronger, and in your hands our future will be as well.
I write with an update following today’s Supreme Court decision regarding the race-conscious admissions plans at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Duke’s position continues to be that diversity is absolutely vital to our educational mission–everyone in our community, and the work they do, benefits from differing perspectives, opinions, and life experiences.
We remain steadfastly committed to cultivating a racially and socially equitable Duke to the fullest extent permitted by the law.
Over the coming weeks we will review the decision closely and determine what, if any, changes need to be made to our admission processes. We have already been planning for the many potential procedural implications. As this process unfolds, we remain committed to doing everything we can to foster a vibrant and diverse academic community.
As always, I am grateful for your support as we continue this important work.
And let me say to any current and future members of the Duke community who may now wonder whether Duke is the place for you, let me be clear—we see you, we welcome you, and we will support you.
As we enjoy the longer days of summer that mark the transition from one academic year to the next, I would like to offer my sincere thanks for the outstanding year we’ve just concluded, and for the unique expertise, ideas, and talents each of you brings to our campus and Health System.
Yet, as we celebrate the accomplishments of the past year, many of us are anticipating with apprehension potential changes in federal law, and noting shifts in the local landscape that could adversely affect our community.
The U.S. Supreme Court will issue a decision this summer that addresses the legality of race-conscious admission policies at colleges and universities. Other public officials have questioned the value of programs that enhance and support diversity, and recent legislative actions have generated concerns among some members of our community regarding safety and belonging.
Duke is an extraordinary community of faculty, staff, and students because of the wide range of backgrounds, lived experiences, and perspectives that you bring to your work and studies every day. That inclusive excellence is also what continues to propel us to greater strengths and positions of global leadership.
We will always work to foster an equitable and inclusive environment. I cannot promise we will immediately have answers to all of your questions or concerns in the coming days and weeks. However, I assure you that our work to advance racial and social equity—at Duke, in our local community, and beyond—will not be deterred.
I am writing today with an update on the Duke Climate Commitment, the university-wide initiative launched last September to harness Duke’s extraordinary strengths and resources toward the goal of addressing climate change.
Duke is in a unique position to deliver solutions that will place society on a path to a more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and healthy future, and the Climate Commitment offers us a new model for collaborative action. As highlighted today in stories from across the university, we seek to unify our efforts and amplify interdisciplinary climate and sustainability work, offering every member of the Duke community an opportunity to engage in these efforts. I am very grateful to Stanback Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment Toddi Steelman, Interim Director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability Brian Murray, and Executive Director of Climate and Sustainability Tavey Capps for their leadership.
Today, I am pleased to announce specific, measurable commitments on climate, embedded into the five areas of Duke’s strategic framework: empowering the boldest thinkers, transforming teaching and learning, renewing our campus community, forging purposeful partnerships in Durham and the region, and engaging our extraordinary global network.
As we empower the boldest thinkers, we commit to
expand and further refine our climate research in four core areas—energy transformation, climate and community resilience, data-driven climate solutions, and environmental and climate justice;
engage faculty, students, and staff from across the university to foster new collaborative and interdisciplinary research connections.
As we transform teaching and learning, we commit to
build on the success of UNIV102 and partner with schools across the university to infuse climate and sustainability into educational programs, preparing Duke students to lead in the 21st century;
launch a teaching fellows program to support instructors in incorporating climate and sustainability in their courses;
offer workshops to students, faculty, and staff to deepen their knowledge and agency on issues related to climate and sustainability;
explore resource needs for career services to better prepare students for entering the workforce with the goal of contributing to climate change solutions;
expand the Campus as Lab program to use Duke’s campus as a living laboratory.
build on the 43% greenhouse gas emissions reductions to date as we navigate challenges from the pandemic, with a focus on campus energy efficiency, off-campus solar, renewable natural gas, and opportunities to retain the significant emission reductions realized in employee commuting and air travel over the past two years;
continue to work with a staff, faculty and student advisory committee to evaluate potential carbon offsets projects that meet our high standards;
seek new opportunities to directly engage staff in Duke’s sustainability efforts, including through workshops, workplace certifications, and educational resources;
develop a Duke Sustainable Fleet and Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Plan to reduce the impact of campus vehicles and expand EV infrastructure;
expand efforts to infuse sustainability further into Duke’s supply chain through campus policies and contract language;
explore opportunities to support and increase sustainability efforts in the Duke Health system.
As we partner with purpose in Durham and the region, we commit to
strengthen our relationship with the City of Durham and promote regional sustainability through the Strategic Community Impact Plandeveloped by the Office of Durham and Community Affairs;
engage local, state, and federal policymakers regarding equitable climate and sustainability solutions;
deepen our involvement with green entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders in the Research Triangle and beyond.
As we engage our global network of alumni, we commit to
convene climate leaders on campus to share their work and engage with the Duke community, including these events in Spring 2023, among others:
develop opportunities for alumni who are invested in climate and sustainability work to connect with our education, research and engagement efforts on campus and beyond;
provide climate and sustainability literacy and fluency opportunities for alumni through lifelong learning and digital education partnerships.
Over the coming months and years, we will track our progress on these commitments on the Climate Commitment website. We recognize that this initiative may evolve and will take time to implement, and we will only succeed through the collective action of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends.
These commitments are both aspirational and inclusive. They allow us to think about the kind of university we want Duke to be. I invite you personally to be a part of this important effort.
The Duke Climate Commitment marks a hopeful moment—when we seize the opportunity to lead toward a brighter future. I hope you will join me in this transformational undertaking.
We are writing today to encourage you to cast your vote in the upcoming elections, either during early voting or on election day, November 8. Voting is perhaps the most important—and easiest—way to participate in our democracy and shape the future of our local communities and our nation, and this year Duke is offering a number of opportunities to make your voice heard.
Through November 5, anyone eligible to vote in Durham County can use the early voting site at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center, 2080 Duke University Road. The polls will be open from 8 a.m. through 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Early voting will close at 3 p.m. on Saturday, November 5. The Karsh Center is a short walk from West Campus, and ample free parking is available. Note that during North Carolina’s early voting period, you can visit any polling place in the county where you are registered.
Duke Votes is an excellent resource for all things related to voting. Here you can check your current voting status, how to vote by mail or in person on election day and also find resources for voting in your home state, if you aren’t voting in North Carolina.
In order to allow Duke employees flexibility in casting their vote, Duke University and Duke Health encourage supervisors to cancel nonessential meetings on November 8 and be flexible with scheduling to enable staff members who are unable to vote outside normal work hours to do so before, during, or after their assigned shifts.
We are proud of the many ways that members of the Duke community provide real leadership in our community and nation. Thank you for making your voices heard and participating in our democracy.
On September 29, the campus community came together in Page Auditorium to celebrate the launch of the Duke Climate Commitment, our university-wide effort to address climate change.
This is a transformational initiative for Duke, one that is unprecedented in our history and in higher education.
Never before have we committed to marshaling every part of our enterprise—our collective resources, talents, and passions—toward solving a global problem in such a focused way. The scale and importance of our climate-related challenges call for nothing less: creating sustainable and equitable solutions that will place society on the path to a resilient, flourishing, net-zero-carbon world by mid-century.
Our history has prepared us well to rise to this moment—indeed, at a time when some of our peers are launching new climate schools, we have been leading in this work for as long as we have been Duke.
The School of Forestry and the Marine Laboratory were both founded more than eighty years ago, in the early days of our university. More than thirty years ago these entities came together into one school—and thanks to a foundational gift from the Nicholas family, we now have the Nicholas School of the Environment.
Seventeen years ago, we launched what is now the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, which elevates our environmental work through education, sustained engagement, and convening of stakeholders and policy experts. A dozen years ago, we launched our plan to achieve carbon neutrality, and we have operated with a broad strategic plan to achieve sustainability in areas such as energy, water, food, and land use.
The Duke Climate Commitment builds on and concentrates these many complementary resources. Our research will advance core areas of expertise in transforming energy, creating climate-resilient communities and ecosystems, and developing data-driven climate solutions—all with a focus on more equitable solutions. Our teaching will infuse climate and sustainability into programs across the university, improving the lives of our students and preparing them to lead as alumni.
But the reason that this can only happen at Duke is our distinctive excellence in interdisciplinary collaboration. While the Duke Climate Commitment will have the Nicholas School and Institute at its heart, it will encompass research and teaching across all of our schools and institutes, guide our campus operations, and help us foster stronger, collaborative relationships with partners in our community, state, nation and around the globe.
To that end, we’re launching data expeditions with an initial focus on climate and health and collaboration grants to drive creative research across disciplines. We’re committing to making climate and sustainability fluency foundational to the curriculum for every student at Duke and extending our reach to our alumni. As we continue to work toward our goal of carbon neutrality in 2024 and to lead the way in sustainable operations, we’re developing Duke as a living laboratory to study and solve climate and sustainability issues. And perhaps most importantly, we’re supporting environmental sustainability in the community and advancing our understanding of the critical impacts of climate change on social and racial equity.
The Duke Climate Commitment marks a hopeful moment for us—when we seize the opportunity and step up to our responsibility to lead toward a brighter, healthier future. I hope you will join us in this transformational undertaking. Duke is in it, together, for life.
