• History
• Administration
• Schools and Colleges
• Students
• Faculty and Staff
• Financial Data
• Buildings
• Fundraising
  
• Highlights

HISTORY
Duke University was created in 1924 by James Buchanan Duke as a memorial to his father, Washington Duke. The Dukes, a Durham family that built a worldwide financial empire in the manufacture of tobacco products and developed electricity production in the Carolinas, long had been interested in Trinity College. Trinity traced its roots to 1838 in nearby Randolph County when local Methodist and Quaker communities opened Union Institute. The school, then named Trinity College, moved to Durham in 1892. In December 1924, the provisions of James B. Duke's indenture created the family philanthropic foundation, The Duke Endowment, which provided for the expansion of Trinity College into Duke University.

As a result of the Duke gift, Trinity underwent both physical and academic expansion. The original Durham campus became known as East Campus when it was rebuilt in stately Georgian architecture. West Campus, Gothic in style and dominated by the soaring 210-foot tower of Duke Chapel, opened in 1930. East Campus served as home of the Woman's College of Duke University until 1972, when the men's and women's undergraduate colleges merged. Both men and women undergraduates now enroll in either the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences or the Pratt School of Engineering. In 1995, East Campus became the home for all first-year students.

For more information about Duke's history, see the Duke University Archives.

"A New Model of Education: Collaboration and Connection." Read Duke's Strategic Plan.  

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A more comprehensive listing is available here.

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Hispanic/Latino
Caucasian
Foreign
N.C. Residents
Other/Unknown

African-American
Asian-American
Hispanic/Latino
Caucasian
International
American Indian
Other/Unknown

6.5%
8.5%
3.5%
55%
18%
1%
8%

TOTAL

13,662

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TOTAL

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Financial Aid
Duke University is committed to a need-blind admission policy, which means it admits undergraduates without consideration of their families' ability to pay tuition and other college costs and meets 100 percent of students' demonstrated financial need for four years. Four of 10 undergraduates receive need-based financial aid. The average need-based grant for 2009-2010 is estimated to exceed $30,000. For more information, see Duke Financial Aid.

Endowment
The provisions of James B. Duke's $40 million indenture in 1924 created Duke University's initial endowment. Those funds had a market value of $4.4 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009.

Operating Revenues, Operating Expenditures
Duke University Health System generated 45 percent of the university's overall $3.9 billion in operating revenues in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008. Other major contributors included: governmental agencies, 14 percent; investment income, 11 percent; tuition and fees (less aid), 8 percent; private grants, 7 percent; other, 6 percent; auxiliary enterprises, 4 percent; contributions, 3 percent; Private Diagnostic Clinic, 2 percent.

Health care services accounted for the largest portion, 35 percent, of the university's overall $3.7 billion operating expenditures in fiscal 2008. Instruction and departmental research accounted for 18 percent and sponsored and budgeted research for another 17 percent. Other significant operating expenditures included: general administration, 17 percent; auxiliary enterprises, 5 percent; other, 5 percent; libraries, 1 percent; student services, 1 percent; and scholarships, fellowships and grants, 1 percent.

Duke Fundraising
The university is counted among the most successful fundraisers in American higher education. In 2008 Duke reached the $300 million goal of its Financial Aid Initiative. For more information about giving, see Giving to Duke.

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ACCREDITATION
Duke University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, masters, doctorate, and professional degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Duke University.

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HIGHLIGHTS
Duke Chapel, a symbol of the university, is at the center of the Gothic West Campus. Built in 1932, the chapel is dominated by a 210-foot tower housing a 50-bell carillon. Washington Duke and his sons Benjamin and James are entombed in the Memorial Chapel. Duke Chapel is open to visitors 8 a.m.-10 p.m. during the academic year and 8 a.m.-8 p.m. during the summer. Ecumenical worship services are held every Sunday at 11 a.m. During the academic year, a Tuesday night communion service and Thursday evening Vespers service are held at 5:15 pm.

Duke University Medical Center, established in 1930, comprises clinical, training and research programs. The medical center has one of 40 federally funded comprehensive cancer centers, an eye center, a general clinical research unit and other highly advanced treatment and research facilities. Duke University Hospital is licensed for 943 beds. Life Flight, Duke's air ambulance service, flies more than 1,100 times a year to transport critically ill patients.

Duke Hospital is also the flagship of the broader Duke University Health System, which includes two community hospitals -- Durham Regional Hospital and Duke Raleigh Hospital -- and affiliations with other hospitals in the region, community-based primary care physician practices, home care, infusion services and hospice care.

The Duke University Libraries are the shared center of the university's intellectual life, connecting people and ideas. The William R. Perkins Library and its four branches, together with the University Archives and the separately administered libraries serving the schools of Business, Divinity, Law, and Medicine, comprise one of the nation's top 10 private research library systems. More than 2 million visits to Perkins Library are projected for 2009. The website at http://library.duke.edu is the online gateway to all of the Libraries’ services and resources, which include almost 6 million volumes, 17.7 million manuscripts, 168,000 electronic resources, more than 100,000 items in digital collections, and tens of thousands of films and videos.

The University Archives, part of the Perkins Library system, is the official repository for printed and written materials and photographs that chronicle Duke's past.

The John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, named after the acclaimed historian and civil rights advocate, is home to 19 Duke programs in the humanities and social sciences. At the center, scholars, artists and members of the community have the opportunity to engage in public discourse on such issues as race, social equity and globalization. The center is located at Erwin Road and Trent Drive and includes gallery space, state-of-the-art rooms for classes and lectures, and digital and video-editing facilities.

The Blue Devils compete in the 12-member Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and field teams in 26 NCAA Division I varsity sports. Duke's men's basketball team consistently is ranked among the nation's elite and won the national championship in 1991, 1992 and 2001. The football program has participated in all four major bowl games and has won or shared the American Football Coaches Association's academic achievement award a nation-leading 12 times for the highest graduation rate in the country, most recently in 2005. The men's soccer team won the national championship in 1986 and reached the NCAA final in 1996; the men's lacrosse team reached the NCAA championship game in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

The Duke women's programs are just as exceptional. The women's basketball team has advanced to the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 every year since 1998 and reached the Final Four in 1999, 2002 and 2006. The women's golf team won the NCAA national championship in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The women's tennis team won its first NCAA championship in 2009, has won 16 ACC championships and reached the NCAA Final Four seven times. The women's field hockey team reached the NCAA final in 2003, 2004 and 2006; the women's lacrosse team won the ACC championship in 2005 and reached the NCAA Final Four in 1999, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. For more information, visit Duke Athletics.

The 322,000-square-foot, $97 million Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) opened in June 2004. The four-building complex on Science Drive houses the research and teaching activity of bioengineering, the Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communications Systems and materials science and materials engineering, as well as an emerging initiative in remote sensing and instrumentation.

The Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy is dedicated to scholarly and scientific inquiry involving interdisciplinary research in genome sciences and policy. The IGSP supports campus-wide research and scholarship that explores the impact of genome sciences on all aspects of life, human health, social policy, law and technology.Programmatically, the IGSP brings faculty together from across the campus, with members drawn from or appointed in Arts & Sciences, Medicine, Law, Business, Engineering, and Environment. The IGSP main offices are located in CIEMAS, with lab and office space also in the LSRC, the French Building and the North Building.

The $35 million, 344-bed Bell Tower residence hall opened on East Campus in 2005. The residence halls are part of a broader campus initiative to improve students' undergraduate experiences. In addition to moving all sophomores onto West Campus, Duke is strengthening its residential life and academic support services for students and renovating existing West Campus dormitories. The changes build upon the success of the university's 1995-96 initiative to house all first-year students on East Campus and are aimed at building a community across social, civic and academic realms.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University opened its new building designed by architect Rafael Viñoly in 2005, creating a major center for the arts on campus. The museum serves the university, Research Triangle and surrounding region with an ambitious schedule of traveling exhibitions and educational programs that foster multidisciplinary learning. The Nasher Museum creates leading-edge exhibitions that travel to major venues around the country. Vogue magazine selected a Nasher Museum exhibition as a cultural highlight of 2008, and the museum’s blockbuster show, “El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III,” was one of Time magazine’s top 10 exhibitions that year. Located at Duke University Road and Anderson Street, adjacent to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, the museum features a cafe and a shop and is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (extending to 9 p.m. Thursday), and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free to members and Duke students, faculty and staff. Admission is free to all on Thursdays after 5 p.m.

Duke University Press publishes about 120 new books each year, as well as more than 30 scholarly journals. These publications are mainly in the humanities and social sciences, but some also cover aspects of law, medicine, the sciences and mathematics. While many of the Press’s books are intended primarily for scholarly audiences or use in academic courses, others are published for general interest readers. Duke Press is especially noted for its publications in cultural studies (including popular culture, such as rock, jazz and country music, film, television, art and visual culture), Latin American and Asian studies, history, anthropology, gay and lesbian studies, and studies of globalization.

Sarah P. Duke Gardens, 55 acres of landscaped and woodland gardens in the heart of Duke's West Campus, is open to the public daily from 8 a.m. to dusk. Each year more than 300,000 visitors enjoy the gardens' five miles of walkways and more than 8,000 species and varieties of plants. The terraces in the Historic Gardens feature seasonal floral displays, perennials, trees and The Terrace Cafe, which offers light meals, snacks and drinks (closed generally from Halloween through early March). The terrace fish pond also features a summer international water lily contest. The H.L. Blomquist Garden has plants native to the southeastern U.S.; the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum demonstrates the relationship between plants in Eastern Asia and eastern North America. The Doris Duke Center, a 15,066-square-foot educational and visitors center, also houses a gift shop and areas for meetings, receptions and catered events. Gardens admission is free.

The Duke Forest, established in 1931, covers just over 7,000 acres in the north central Piedmont. It serves as a natural outdoor laboratory for Duke and neighboring universities. The forest is managed for multiple uses, including education, research, protection of wildlife and rare plant species, and demonstration of timber management practices. Selected roads and fire trails are open to visitors for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Two picnic shelters off of N.C. 751 are available for rent. Forest maps showing roads and trails are also available.

The $10 million, 40,000-square-foot West Campus Plaza, which opened in Fall 2006, is an outdoor "living room" and gathering spot for campus. The broad space connects a complex of buildings at the center of West Campus and provides spaces for informal meetings, relaxing, dining and enjoying arts performances. Amenities include a grassy area, full-size trees, benches, a performance stage and a mist fountain.

The $115 million, 280,000-square-foot French Family Science Center, which opened in 2007, provides Arts & Sciences with state-of-the-art research and teaching laboratories for genomics, biological chemistry, nanoscience, physical biology and bioinformatics. The facility also provides several laboratories for related physics research and several research greenhouses with one of the most diverse collections of plants under glass in the Southeast, comprising more than 2,000 different species from many environments.

The Duke University Marine Laboratory at coastal Beaufort, N.C., is a campus of Duke University and a unit within the Nicholas School of the Environment. Its mission is education and research in basic ocean processes, coastal environment management, marine biotechnology and marine biomedicine. The faculty offer courses for undergraduate and graduate students during the regular year and two summer sessions. Modern laboratory, field and shipboard facilities are available for use by visiting researchers.

The arts at Duke encompass a wide spectrum of programs and events. Duke Performances hosts between 60 and 70 professional performing arts events on campus each year, many in Page Auditorium. These include music, theater, dance and talks, as well as artistic residencies integrated with academic programs, and community outreach and education initiatives. Reynolds Industries Theater hosts Theater Previews at Duke, Chamber Arts Society events and major performances and student productions, such as those by Duke Players, Duke Dance and Hoof ‘n’ Horn. Baldwin Auditorium and the Nelson Music Room are sites for most of the musical productions by faculty artists, Duke’s resident Ciompi Quartet, and guest jazz, folk and world music artists. Duke supports the visual arts through the Visual Studies Initiative and Center for Documentary Studies as well as the annual Full Frame Documentary Festival. Duke also hosts the internationally renowned American Dance Festival each summer. In all, the university offers more than 500 events each year. For tickets and information, go to the University Box Office or call (919) 684-4444.

The Duke Lemur Center, the only university-based facility in the world devoted to the study of prosimian primates, is home to the world's largest colony of endangered primates, including more than 200 lemurs, bush babies and lorises. More than 85 percent of the center's inhabitants were born on site. The center has led a program to reintroduce black and white ruffed lemurs to Madagascar, the first return of any prosimian primates to the island nation. The Lemur Center is on the edge of Duke Forest along Lemur Lane off Erwin Road. Visits to the center are by appointment; call (919) 489-3364.

The Joseph M. and Kathleen Price Bryan Center is the hub of student activity. The center serves as an expanded student union and home to student organizations and the University Union, which oversees student-run cultural and social activities. It contains theaters, restaurants, a coffeehouse, book and merchandise stores, an information desk, a post office, bank machines and offices.

The Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, established in 1983 and located on the second floor of the West Union Building on West Campus, further strengthened Duke's commitment to foster an appreciation of the heritage of black Americans. The center features an art gallery, performing space, a library and lounge and sponsors speakers and events on race, ethnicity and social difference. The center also plays a central role in planning the university's annual week-long commemoration and celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.