The Board of Trustees appointed the chair of the search committee for President Richard Brodhead’s successor and approved the annual budget in its meeting Saturday.
David Rubenstein, Trinity ’70 and chair of the Board, announced that Jack Bovender, Trinity ’67 and Graduate School ’69, will lead the search committee. The committee will consist of Trustees, faculty, students, administrators and alumni. Bovender is the vice chair of the Board and the retired chief executive officer of the Hospital Corporation of America.
“Selecting a president is one of the Board’s most important responsibilities, and selecting Dick Brodhead’s successor will be an especially challenging task,” Rubenstein said in a Duke Today release. “With his lifelong passion for Duke, his distinguished experience in business and his commitment to candor and hearing all points of view, Jack is the ideal person to direct this search.”
Brodhead announced in April that he would step down at the end of the 2016-17 academic year.
In an executive session closed to the press Thursday, Bovender discussed the presidential search committee with the Academic Council.
Bovender has served on the Board of Visitors at the Fuqua School of Business and the Divinity School and also won the the University's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012. He currently serves as the lead independent director of Bank of America.
“I am honored and humbled to lead the process that will recruit Duke’s next president,” Bovender said in the release. “This will be very much a team effort. I look forward to working with a diverse and accomplished committee that will help the board identify someone who can build on our strong foundation and take us yet further, while still embodying Duke’s core values of excellence, vision and integrity.”
The University is expected to put up a website by next week providing more information about the search. said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. The website will also function as a way for Duke community members to share input with the committee.
The Trustees approved a $2.4 billion operating budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year, which will provide funds for investing in select programs and construction projects. This year’s budget reflects a 7 percent growth from last year's operating budget of $2.3 billion.
In addition, the Board also approved the capital budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year that includes $403 million in investments for construction projects—such as a new arts building, a new undergraduate residence hall on East Campus, a new student health and wellness center. The capital budget will also contribute to the final stages of renovations for both West Union, which is expected to reopen July 1, and Wallace Wade Stadium, which reopened last September.
The budget includes an anticipated 7 percent increase in institutional financial aid for undergraduates, bringing university support to $146 million. The University also expects $11 million in funding for scholarships and need-based aid to come from outside sources.
In other business:
The Board approved a Master of Quantitative Management at the Fuqua School of Business, which will begin in July 2017. Students in this program will select one of four tracks—finance, marketing, business analytics or forensics—in addition to taking courses in data science and analytics, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.
The Trustees also approved a new Ph.D. program in Computational Media, Arts and Cultures. This program—which comes out of a 2013 Mellon Foundation grant to develop a doctoral program in visual and media studies—will focus on how the computer revolution has affected traditional fields such as the arts and humanities.
The Program in Women’s Studies underwent a name change—to the Program in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies.
Lastly, the Board received updates about recent initiatives at the Fuqua School of Business as well as the work of the task force on bias and hate issues from the committee's co-chairs—Dean of Social Sciences Linda Burton and Kelly Brownell, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy.
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