Warm Words of Cooperation from Moeser

Friday, January 26, 2001

In a rare visit that officials said was a sign of the growing cooperation between area universities, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser spoke to the Duke University Academic Council Thursday about how the two institutions could work together. The two universities have cooperated on ventures throughout the century, but the list of joint projects is growing, Moeser said, singling out efforts such as the Robertson Scholars, the joint international centers, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, cooperative library efforts and programs in ethics and religion. He added that he suspected there were many ongoing joint projects that he wasn't aware of and called for an inventory of cooperative efforts. North Carolina ranks seventh in the nation in NIH funding, and Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill accounts for the overwhelming majority of the money, he said. "I think we will see an explosion of conversation together in the future," he said. "We have done more but we can do a lot more, too. Whether we are working together or competing, North Carolina is better for having a neighbor like Duke and Duke is better for having a neighbor like North Carolina. After all, we both bleed blue; there's just a shade of difference." Moeser's visit to the faculty council was a return gesture by Duke officials. Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane was invited to speak to the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty council shortly after she was installed in office in 1993.