Over the course of its first century, our ambitious university community undertook bold initiatives to transform a small liberal arts college into a world-renowned educational and research institution, medical center, and cultural center.
But today, we know that the models that brought American higher education and Duke so much success over the past hundred years are unlikely to carry us through the next. If we are to meet the challenges and opportunities of a changing world, we need a new vision for the future.
Our ambitions are focused on investing in humanity—bringing the world’s most extraordinary people to Duke and empowering them to do great things in service to the pressing needs of our neighbors around the world.
This strategic framework is an invitation for all of us—faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends of the university—to think together about our turn to the future, about how we can remain true to the Duke we have always been while charting our course toward the Duke we are destined to become. Let’s consider the ways Duke can not only ensure its future, but help define the new twenty-first-century model of the research university. We will do so in five areas of focus:
- First, Empowering People, investing more decisively in our extraordinary faculty, students, and staff, recognizing that their accomplishments comprise the true measure of our institutional excellence;
- Second, Innovating in Teaching and Learning, better fusing our research and educational missions and leveraging new technological and pedagogical approaches that meet the evolving needs of a new generation of students;
- Third, Renewing our Campus Community, ensuring that all who call Duke home share a lived experience that is increasingly inclusive, equitable, engaging, healthy and vibrant;
- Fourth, Partnering with Purpose, strengthening relationships in Durham and serving as a collaborative catalyst in our region to advance innovative economic development while improving community health, housing, and education; and
- Fifth, Engaging our Global Network, better supporting and harnessing the talents of our alumni and friends, throughout the full arc of their lives, in a Duke without walls that invests continuously in developing ourselves and each other to reach our full potential.
These investments do not represent a redirection of our history or our mission. Quite the opposite: Duke’s great strength is that we have always remained resolute in our purpose while remaining open to change.
As we build toward tomorrow, we will remain steadfastly committed to a liberal arts education while also incubating radical new ideas, a balance that will help us be ready to address the fundamental changes that may arise five, ten, or twenty-five years from now. For the roots of our future lie not only in the decisions we make today, but in the hundred years’ worth of history and stewardship that brought us here. We are the fortunate inheritors of the tremendous ambitions of the past, and together, we will realize the great opportunities of the future.