Students, faculty, administrators and alumni convened in the Chapel Friday for the annual Founders' Day Convocation—featuring, for the first time, a keynote speaker from the Pratt School of Engineering.
Martha Monserrate—Engineering '81 and a member of the Board of Trustees—gave the keynote address, emphasizing Pratt's success as the school celebrates its 75th anniversary and describing how it fits into the greater picture of the University. The Convocation also featured President Richard Brodhead's presentation of faculty and alumni awards.
Monserrate started her speech by asking all the engineers in the room to stand up for recognition before launching into an address lauding Pratt’s success over the years and more notably, the “importance of the engineer and the non-engineer to each other."
The president of both consulting firm Environmental Excellent Engineering and the war amputee service organization the Given Limb Foundation, Monserrate described how her time at Duke provided her with a unique sense of direction. Although she entered the University intending to study biology, she changed her major after taking an eye-opening course on air pollution and has been engaged in environmental engineering since. She joined the Board of Trustees in 2009.
She earned a chuckle from Brodhead when she brought up a Kipling poem bearing her name—assuring the crowd it was not “an egotistical choice”—saying it would capture the relationship between engineers and everyone else in the University community.
The 1907 poem “Sons of Martha” alludes to a biblical story in which Mary’s sister, Martha, is chastised by the Lord for complaining about Mary’s undivided attention to Jesus and lack of attentiveness to her other duties. The Lord replies that Mary has chosen the better part and that shall not be taken away from her.
“All engineers are ‘sons of Martha’, destined in life to make amends for Martha’s prideful complaining," she said. "To do this they work hard, without fanfare, without notoriety, with complaint, in order to let the society full of Mary’s sons enjoy the better part.”
Monserrate closed her speech with a call to all Duke's sons of Martha and Mary.
“Working together is the perfect way to make change happen on a large scale so that society can enjoy the better parts,” she said.
Following Monserrate’s address, Brodhead acknowledged the students of undergraduate and graduate scholarship programs, as well as the winners of faculty and employee awards. He then presented the annual Founders’ Day medals.
The prestigious University Medals were awarded to Cookie Anspach Kohn—Women's College '60 and long-serving member of the Board of Trustees—and “legendary” Fritz London Professor Emeritus of Physics Horst Meyer.
Brodhead thanked Kohn for her unfaltering service to the University, highlighting that she did not miss a single meeting in the 12 years she served as Trustee.
He thanked Meyer in particular for his long-term mentorship of Duke graduates, including twelve fellows of the American Physical Society and one Nobel Prize winner, and, in good humor, for his faithful maintenance of a bluebird box in the President’s yard.
The Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award was presented to Lewis Blake, associate professor of the practice of mathematics. Brodhead thanked Blake for his leadership in developing innovative and effective methods in teaching calculus and for his three-decade impact on generations of first-year students.
The Distinguished Alumni Award was given to Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, Law '57, the nation's longest serving federal appeals court judge. Brodhead thanked Tjoflat for his “extraordinary leadership in moral integrity in the legal profession” and his lifelong service to the Duke Law School.
Freshman Victoriia Nestrugina said she found the convocation humbling and inspiring, saying it showed that “we possess not only membership in a particular group of scholars for...high school achievements but also in a family of diverse and accomplished individuals working to make society a better place.”
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