Duke University
Duke University
Duke started in 1838 as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in Randolph County in the present-day town of Trinity.[13] 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.[13] In 1892, Trinity College moved to Durham, largely due to generosity from Julian S. Carr and Washington Duke, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco and electrical industries.[8] Carr donated land in 1892 for the original Durham campus, which is now known as East Campus. At the same time, Washington Duke gave the school $85,000 for an initial endowment and construction costs—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."[14]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).William Preston Few, the president of Trinity at the time, 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.[8] 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.[15]In 1878, Trinity (in Randolph County) awarded A.B. degrees to three sisters—Mary, 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, fifty-four 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.[16]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.[17] 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.[18] In 1963 the Board of Trustees the undergraduate college.[19] Increased activism on campus during the 1 prompted Dr. 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 th 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 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.[20][21][22] 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.The university's campus spans 8,547 acres (34.59 on three contiguous campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. Duke's main campus—designed largely by African American architect Julian —incorporates Gothic architecture with the 210-foot (64 m) Duke Chapel at the campus' center and highest point of elevation. The forest environs surrounding parts of the campus belie the University's proximity to downtown Durham. 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.Duke University owns 254 buildings on 8,547 acres (34.59 of land, which includes the 7,044 acres (28.51 Duke Forest.[5]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 as part of its marine lab. One of the major public attractions on the main campus is the 54-acre (220,000 Sarah P. Duke Gardens, established in t.[5]Duke students often refer to the campus as "the Gothic Wonderland," a nickname referring to the Collegiate Gothic architecture of West Campus.[35][36] Much of the campus was designed by Julian one of the first prominent African-American architects and the chief designer in the offices of architect Horace .[37] 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 freshmen campus (East Campus) is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style.[5] In 2011, Travel+Leisure listed Duke among the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.[38]The stone used for West Campus has seven primary colors and seventeen shades of color.[39] 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 stone" that gave the university an "artistic look."[39] James B. Duke initially suggested the use of stone from a quarry , New Jersey, but later amended the plans to purchase a local quarry in Hillsborough to reduce costs.[39] Duke Chapel stands at the center of West Campus on the highest ridge. 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.[40]A number of construction projects were in progress, including renovations to Duke Chapel, Wallace Wade Stadium (football) and Cameron Indoor Stadium (basketball).