Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established the Duke Endowment and the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke.
The campus spans over 8,600 acres (3,500 hectares) on three contiguous sub-campuses in Durham, and a marine lab in Beaufort. The West Campus—designed largely by architect Julian Abele—incorporates Gothic architecture with the 210-foot (64-meter) Duke Chapel at the campus' center and highest point of elevation, is adjacent to the Medical Center. East Campus, 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) away, home to all first-years, contains Georgian-style architecture. The university also administers two concurrent schools in Asia, Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore (established in 2005) and Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China (established in 2013).
Duke forms one of the corners of the Research Triangle region together with North Carolina State University in Raleigh and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2024, Duke spent more than $1.5 billion on research. Its endowment is $11.9 billion, making it the twelfth-wealthiest private academic institution in the United States. Duke's athletic teams are known as the Blue Devils and compete in 27 NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports. Duke is a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and has won 17 NCAA team championships and 24 individual national championships.
History
Beginnings
Duke first opened in 1838 as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in Randolph County, North Carolina, in the present-day town of Trinity. 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.
In 1892, Trinity College moved to Durham, largely due to the generosity of Julian S. Carr and Washington Duke, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco and electrical industries. Carr, already a "long-time trustee and the largest benefactor of the college" having donated $10,000 ($358,300 adjusted for inflation) in 1887, donated a 62-acre tract of land known as Blackwell Park valued at $50,000 ($1,792,000 adjusted for inflation) for the original Durham campus, which is now known as East Campus. At the same time, Washington Duke gave the school $85,000 ($3,046,000 adjusted for inflation), $50,000 of which "for the erection of the main central Building" and " the remainder to be applied to the Endowment Fund"—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." As noted by Duke's Department of History in 2018: "Duke and Carr chose to... support an educational institution in a state where education had not been a priority. Both men also supported women’s rights."
Duke would accelerate its mission to become a global university in 1910 with the promotion of William Preston Few as the new president of Trinity College, who sought to establish the university as a southern counterpart to Yale and Harvard.
In 1924, Washington Duke's son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment 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). Few, who remained president of Trinity, insisted that the institution be renamed Duke University to honor the family's generosity and to distinguish it from the myriad 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-style buildings. By 1930, the majority of the Collegiate Gothic-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.
In 1878, Trinity (in Randolph County) awarded A.B. degrees to three sisters—Mary, Persis, and Theresa Giles—who had studied both with private tutors and in classes with men. With the relocation of the college in 1892, the board of trustees voted to again allow women to be formally admitted to classes as day students. At the time of Washington Duke's donation in 1896, which carried the requirement that women be placed "on an equal footing with men" at the college, four women were enrolled; three of the four were faculty members' children. In 1903 Washington Duke wrote to the board of trustees withdrawing the provision, noting that it had been the only limitation he had ever put on a donation to the college. A woman's residential dormitory was built in 1897 and named the Mary Duke Building, after Washington Duke's daughter. By 1904, 54 women were enrolled in the college. In 1930, the Woman's College was established as a coordinate to the men's undergraduate college, which had been established and named Trinity College in 1924.
According to Duke University Human Rights Center, the school's "policy in the 1920s excluded Blacks from admissions and also restricted Blacks from using certain campus facilities such as the dining halls and dorm housing ... In 1948, a group of divinity school students petitioned the divinity school to desegregate – the first concerted effort to push for the desegregation of Duke's admission policy."
Expansion and growth
Engineering, which had been taught at Duke since 1903, became a separate school in 1939. The university president's official residence, the J. Deryl Hart House, was completed in 1934. In athletics, Duke hosted and competed in the first Rose Bowl ever played outside California in Wallace Wade Stadium in 1942; the second such game was played in Arlington, Texas, in 2021, moved as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During World War II, Duke was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a navy commission. In 1963 the Board of Trustees officially desegregated the undergraduate college.
Duke enrolled its first Black graduate students in 1961. The school did not admit Black undergraduates until September 1963. The teaching staff remained all-white until 1966.
Increased activism on campus during the 1960s prompted Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at the university in November 1964 on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. Following Douglas Knight's resignation from the office of university president, Terry Sanford, the former governor of North Carolina, was elected president of the university in 1969, propelling The Fuqua School of Business' 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. During this time it also became the birthplace of the first Physician Assistant degree program in the United States. 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 (NCAA) championship, and the men's basketball team followed shortly thereafter with championships in 1991 and 1992, then again in 2001, 2010, and 2015.
Duke Forward, a seven-year fundraising campaign, raised $3.85 billion by August 2017.
Recent history
In 2014, Duke removed the name of Charles B. Aycock, a white supremacist governor of North Carolina, from an undergraduate dormitory. It is now known as the East Residence Hall.
On August 19, 2017, following the violent clashes at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from the entrance to Duke University Chapel, after having been vandalized by protesters.
In August 2020, the first undergraduates from Duke Kunshan University arrived for their study abroad on Duke's campus. Due to COVID-19, Chinese Duke undergraduate and graduate students unable to travel to the United States were reciprocally hosted at Duke Kunshan campus.
Controversies
Rape hoax against lacrosse players
In 2006, three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape by convicted felon Crystal Mangum, which garnered significant media attention. On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. Cooper stated that the charged players were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse." The District Attorney, Mike Nifong, was subsequently disbarred., while Duke administration and faculty were condemned for their actions against the falsely accused.
In December 2024, Mangum admitted, during a December 11, 2024 podcast interview, that she "made up a story that wasn't true" about the white lacrosse players who attended a party where she was hired to be a stripper.
Research misconduct
On November 9, 2015, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found that former Duke University associate professor and cancer researcher, Anil Potti along with Joseph Nevins, had engaged in research misconduct including falsifying data and fraud., which 60 Minutes described the case as "one of the biggest medical research frauds ever". Potti engaged in scientific misconduct while a cancer researcher at both Duke University's Medical Center and School of Medicine. He resigned in November 2010 after Duke put him on administrative leave, terminated the clinical trials based on his research and retracted his published data.
Duke University became aware of the suspicions of research misconduct by 2008, when a medical student working with Potti and Nevins withdrew his name from the research and submitted a memorandum entitled "Research Concerns" to the administration. The administration denied any misconduct and convinced the student not to report his experiences to the funding agency, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Duke later falsely claimed that there had not been a whistleblower involved in the issue. Duke settled lawsuits by eight patients harmed by Potti, which was speculated "to be substantial, given the depth of the research misconduct and damaging evidence discovered in the lawsuit, including a whistleblower who alerted Duke to the misconduct in 2008 but went ignored."
In 2019, Duke paid $112.5 million to settle False Claims Act allegations related to scientific research misconduct. A researcher at the school was falsifying or fabricating research data in order to win grants for financial gain. The researcher was arrested in 2013 on charges of embezzling funds from the university. The scheme was exposed by the allegations made through a lawsuit, filed by a whistleblower, who had worked as a Duke employee, and discovered the false data.
In response to the misconduct settlement, Duke established an advisory panel of academics from Caltech, Stanford and Rockefeller University. Based on the recommendations of this panel, Duke Office of Scientific Integrity (DOSI) was established under the leadership of Lawrence Carin, an engineering professor with experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The establishment of this office brings Duke's research practices in line with those at peer institutions like Johns Hopkins University.
Campus
Duke University currently owns 256 buildings on 8,693 acres (35.18 km2) of land, which includes the 7,044 acres (28.51 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, Duke owns 15 acres (61,000 m2) as part of its marine lab. One of the major public attractions on the main campus is the 54-acre (220,000 m2) Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in the 1930s.
Duke students often refer to the West Campus as "the Gothic Wonderland", a nickname referring to the Collegiate Gothic architecture of West Campus, a style chosen by the Campus's founders after campus visits to the University of Chicago, Yale, and Princeton. Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele, one of the first prominent African-American architects and the chief designer in the offices of architect Horace Trumbauer. 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 first-year campus, known as East Campus, is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style. In 2011, Travel+Leisure listed Duke among the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.
Duke Chapel stands at the center of West Campus on the highest ridge. Constructed from 1930 to 1935 from Duke stone, the chapel seats 1,600 people and, at 210 feet (64 m) is one of the tallest buildings in Durham County.
West, East, and Central Campuses
West Campus, considered the main campus of the university, houses the sophomores and juniors, along with most seniors. Most of the academic and administrative centers are located there. Main West Campus, with Duke Chapel 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. The residential quads on West Campus are Craven Quad, Crowell Quad, Edens Quad, Few Quad, Keohane Quad, Kilgo Quad, and Wannamaker Quad. Most of the campus eateries and sports facilities – including the historic basketball stadium, Cameron Indoor Stadium – are on West Campus.
East Campus, the original location of Duke after it moved to Durham, functions as a first-year campus, housing the university's first-year dormitories as well as several academic departments. Since the 1995–96 academic year, all first-years—and only first-years, except for upperlcass students serving as Resident Assistants—have lived on East Campus, an effort to build class unity. The campus encompasses 172 acres (700,000 m2) and is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from West Campus. Art History, History, Cultural Anthropology, Literature, Music, Philosophy, and Women's Studies 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 first-year residence halls, a dining hall, coffee shop, post office, Lilly Library, Baldwin Auditorium, a theater, Brodie Gym, tennis courts, several disc golf baskets, and a walking track as well as several academic buildings. The East Campus dorms are Alspaugh, Basset, Bell Tower, Blackwell, Brown, East House (formerly known as Aycock), Epworth, Gilbert-Addoms, Giles, West House (formerly known as Jarvis), Pegram, Randolph, Southgate, Trinity, and Wilson. Separated from downtown by a short walk, the area was the site of the Women's College from 1930 to 1972.
Central Campus, consisting of 122 acres (0.49 km2) between East and West campuses, housed around 1,000 sophomores, juniors, and seniors, as well as around 200 professional students in double or quadruple apartments. However, the housing of undergraduates on Central Campus ended after the 2018–2019 school year and the respective buildings were demolished. Central Campus is home to the Nasher Museum of Art, the Freeman Center for Jewish Life, the Center for Muslim Life, the Campus Police Department, 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, a sand volleyball court, barbecue grills and picnic shelters, a general gathering building called "Devil's Den", a restaurant known as "Devil's Bistro", a convenience store called Uncle Harry's, and the Mill Village. The Mill Village consists of a gym and group study rooms.
In December 2016, Duke University purchased an apartment complex, now known as 300 Swift. Swift houses upperclassmen, in addition to the West Campus area, and is located between East and West Campus.
Duke University Hospital and Health System
Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hospitals serving Durham County and Wake County, North Carolina, and surrounding areas, as well as one of three Level I referral centers for the Research Triangle of North Carolina (the other two are UNC Hospitals in nearby Chapel Hill and WakeMed Raleigh in Raleigh). Duke University Health System combines Duke University School of Medicine, Duke University School of Nursing, Duke Clinic, and the member hospitals into a system of research, clinical care, and education.
In early 2012, Duke Cancer Center opened next to Duke Hospital in Durham. The patient care facility consolidates nearly all of Duke's outpatient clinical care services.
Other key places
Duke Forest, established in 1931, consists of 7,044 acres (28.51 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, 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 micrometeorological studies, and other areas designated for animal behavior and ecosystem study. More than 30 miles (48 km) of trails are open to the public for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding. Duke Lemur Center, located inside Duke Forest, is the world's largest sanctuary for rare and endangered strepsirrhine primates. Founded in 1966, Duke Lemur Center spans 85 acres (34 ha) and contains nearly 300 animals of 25 different species of lemurs, galagos and lorises.
The Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in the early 1930s, is situated between West Campus and Central Campus. The gardens occupy 55 acres (22 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 (8.0 km) of allées and paths throughout the gardens.
Duke University Allen Building was the site of student protest in the late 1960s. In 1969, six years after the university began to allow African-American students to enroll, dozens of Black students overtook the Allen Building and barricaded themselves inside of it. Their justification included a "white top and a Black bottom" power structure, according to the former director of employee relations; the university's gradualist and arguably complacent approach to civil rights; high attrition rates for Black students; lack of unionization rights for nonacademic employees; lack of institutional power and self-determination for a Black studies department; "police harassment for Black students"; "racist living conditions"; and "tokenism of Black representation in university power structures" among others. Their underlying demand was "to be taken seriously as human beings and to be treated as any respected human being would be treated." Provost Marcus E. Hobbes complained that the African-American students "wanted to run the University." At around 8 a.m., these students entered the Allen Building, asked everyone inside to leave and promptly barricaded themselves inside. The university called the police and, almost before law enforcement entered the building (it was widely understood by students and administration that the police would have likely brutally beat and possibly killed the unarmed Black students), the students exited with their trenchcoats over their faces. Meanwhile, white students and faculty had formed a human shield around the building and a brawl between the police and students ensued, sending a handful of students to the hospital. University president Vincent Price labelled the Takeover as "one of the most pivotal moments in our university's history," claiming that the protestors "changed this place for the better and improved the lives of many who followed."
Duke University Marine Laboratory, located in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, is also technically part of Duke's campus. The marine lab is situated on Pivers Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, 150 yards (140 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. In May 2014, the newly built Orrin H. Pilkey Marine Research Laboratory was dedicated.
Duke stone
The distinctive stone used for West Campus and other Duke buildings is said to have seven primary colors and seventeen shades of color. The use of Duke stone has been given partial credit for the university's success: "Duke in fact became a great university in part because it looked like one from the start".
During the planning of the Collegiate Gothic buildings, James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from the Princeton quarry, but the plans were later amended to purchase a local quarry in Hillsborough to reduce costs. After a search for a locally sourced stone suitable for construction in a style "that made it look like the university was growing out of the ground, like it had been here forever," Duke stone and its source quarry in Hillsborough were identified by Duke University Comptroller Frank Clyde Brown and purchased by the university in 1925. Comptroller Brown, who oversaw the planning and construction of the Gothic buildings, wrote that Duke stone "is much warmer and softer in coloring than the Princeton, and it will look very much older and have a much more attractive antique effect."
Duke stone is a type of Carolina 'slate' or 'bluestone', a metamorphic phyllite rock, with both andesite and dacite mineral composition. Dacitic phyllite is a predominant type of rock found through the Carolina Slate Belt. Duke stone and the Carolina Slate Belt, like the greater Carolina Terrane, are thought to have formed in the Iapetus Ocean off the coast of Gondwana by a chain of volcanic islands known as 'Carolinia', starting around 650 million years ago.
The Carolina Slate Belt contains stone of both meta-volcanic and meta-sedimentary origin. The geological literature finds the pre-metamorphosis origin of Duke stone to be variously volcanic and sedimentary: it was likely originally formed by sedimentation of volcanic material. A USGS geologist concludes: "The Duke quarry phyllite was derived from argillite, tuff or tuffaceous sandstone, and volcanic breccia. Occurrence of laminated argillites suggests marine deposition. … There is insufficient evidence to determine if the volcanic material was deposited directly by igneous action or if it was re-worked by sedimentary processes. Presence of lava flows and very coarse breccias in Orange County suggest that the volcanic centers were relatively near." A UNC geologist concurred that "original features of the phyllite have been obscured by deformation and recrystallization, but the rock apparently was derived from argillites and tuffs," and that "sedimentary reworking of volcanic materials is to be expected."
After its initial formation, Duke stone underwent several metamorphic events, including the collision of Carolinia with Laurentia. The Carolinia-Laurentia collision started around 375 Mya, which coincides with timing of the Acadian orogeny that formed the Appalachian Mountains. Though Duke stone contains no fossils, other areas of the Carolina Terrane contain fossilized corals and trilobites that were used to establish that this formation is exotic to the main North American (Laurentia) landmass.
The Duke stone quarry now occupies a five-acre (2.0 ha) section of the Hillsboro Division of the Duke Forest. In new construction and repairs on Duke campus, the use of Duke stone is strictly regulated: "All stones shall be laid on their natural beds, with 20 percent of stone being split face and 80 percent seam face, mixed proportionately to show variations of stone coloring". In recent years, high cost of quarrying the stone, and the irregular knapped ashlar shapes with its associated high stonemasonry costs has led to the university establishing a mix of bricks to imitate the Duke stone colors.
Recent construction
A number of construction projects in recent years include renovations to Duke Chapel, Wallace Wade Stadium (football) and Cameron Indoor Stadium (basketball).
In early 2014, the Nicholas School of the Environment opened a new home, Environmental Hall, a five-story, glass-and-concrete building that incorporates the highest sustainable features and technologies, and meets or exceeds the criteria for LEED platinum certification. The School of Nursing in April 2014 opened a new 45,000 sq ft (4,200 m2) addition to the Christine Siegler Pearson Building. In summer 2014, a number of construction projects were completed. The project is part of the final phase of renovations to Duke's West Campus libraries that have transformed one of the university's oldest and most recognizable buildings into a state-of-the-art research facility. The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library reopened in August 2015 after about $60 million in renovations to the sections of the building built in 1928 and 1948. The renovations include more space, technology upgrades and new exhibits. In 2013, construction projects included transforming buildings like Gross Hall and Baldwin Auditorium, plus new construction such as the Events Pavilion. About 125,000 sq ft (11,600 m2) was updated at Gross Hall, including new lighting and windows and a skylight. Baldwin's upgrades include a larger stage, more efficient air conditioning for performers and audience and enhanced acoustics that will allow for the space to be "tuned" to each individual performance. The 25,000 sq ft (2,300 m2) Events Pavilion opened to students in 2013 and serves as temporary dining space while the West Campus Union undergoes major renovations, expected to be completed in the spring of 2016.
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, the Nasher Museum of Art, 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.
Singapore and China
In April 2005, Duke and the National University of Singapore signed a formal agreement under which the two institutions would partner to establish Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. Duke-NUS is intended to complement the National University of Singapore's existing undergraduate medical school, and had its first entering class in 2007. The curriculum is based on that of Duke University School of Medicine. Sixty percent of matriculates are from Singapore and 40% are from over 20 countries. The school is part of the National University of Singapore system, but distinct in that it is overseen by a governing board, including a Duke representative who has veto power over any academic decision made by the board.