Duke University

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Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment, prompting the institution to change its name in honor of his deceased father, Washington Duke.

The University is organized into two undergraduate, ten graduate and professional schools, and seven institutes. In its 2010 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked the university's undergraduate program 10th among national universities, while ranking the medical, law, and business schools among the top 14 in the United States. Duke University ranked 14th in the 2009 THES - QS World University Rankings.

Duke's research expenditures are among the largest ten in the U.S. Competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Duke's athletic teams have twelve national championships, including four by its men's basketball team.

Besides academics, research, and athletics, Duke is also well known for its sizable campus and Collegiate Gothic architecture, especially the Duke Chapel. The forests surrounding parts of the campus belie the University's proximity to downtown Durham. Duke's 8,610 acres (35 km2) contain three contiguous campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. Construction projects have updated both the freshmen-populated Georgian-style East Campus and the main Gothic-style West Campus, as well as the adjacent Medical Center over the past five years.

History

Duke started as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in 1838, in Randolph County in the present-day town of Trinity. Brown's Schoolhouse was organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers, and in 1841 North Carolina issued a charter for Union Institute Academy. The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church. In 1892, Trinity moved to Durham, largely due to generosity from Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco industry. Washington Duke gave what was then known as Trinity College a $100,000 endowment in 1896, with the stipulation that the college "open its doors to women, placing them on an equal footing with men."

In 1924, Washington Duke's son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment with a $40 million ($434 million in 2005 dollars) trust fund. The annual income of the fund was to be distributed to hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, three colleges, and Trinity College. William Preston Few, the president of Trinity College, insisted that the university be named Duke University, and James B. Duke agreed that it would be 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 1948.

Engineering, which had been taught since 1903, became a separate school in 1939. In athletics, Duke hosted and competed in the only Rose Bowl ever played outside California in Wallace Wade Stadium in 1942. On June 2, 1963, the Board of Trustees officially desegregated the undergraduate college. Increased activism on campus during the 1960s prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the University on the civil rights movement's progress on November 13, 1964. The former governor of North Carolina, Terry Sanford, was elected president in 1969, propelling The Fuqua School of Business's 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. Duke University Hospital was finished in 1980 and the student union was fully constructed two years later. In 1986, the men's soccer team captured Duke's first NCAA championship, and the men's basketball team shortly followed with championships in 1991, 1992, 2001 and 2010.

Campus

Duke University owns 220 buildings on 8,610 acres (35 km2) of land, which includes the 7,200 acre (29 km²) Duke Forest. The campus is divided into four main areas: West, East, and Central campuses, and the Medical Center. All the campuses are connected via a free bus service or the Duke University Medical Center Patient Rapid Transit people mover. 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 Duke Campus is the 55-acre (220,000 m2) Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in the 1930s.

Duke students often refer to the campus as "the Gothic Wonderland," a nickname referring to the Collegiate Gothic architecture of West Campus. Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele, one of the first prominent African American architects. 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. Its freshman campus (East Campus) is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style.

The stone used for the West Campus has seven primary colors and seventeen shades of color. The university supervisor of planning and construction wrote that the stone has "an older, more attractive antique effect" and a "warmer and softer coloring than the Princeton stone" that gave the university an "artistic look". James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from a quarry in Princeton, New Jersey, but later amended the plans to use stone from a local quarry which was purchased in Hillsborough to reduce costs. Duke Chapel stands at the heart of West Campus. Constructed from 1930 to 1935, the chapel seats 1,600 people; and, at 210 feet (64 m), is one of the tallest buildings in Durham County.

As of November 1, 2005, Duke had spent $835 million on 34 major construction projects initiated since February 2001. At that time, Duke initiated 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, an art museum, 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.