In her report to the Board of Trustees Friday afternoon, President Nan Keohane said the University would begin this year to look at new ways to address concerns familiar to many institutions of higher education, including improving community relations and reviewing the tenure process.
Keohane announced to the board that the University, under the direction of John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs, would refocus and build upon its relationship with surrounding Durham neighborhoods. Through this new initiative, the University will emphasize involvement in communities closest to the campus.
"Duke's efforts in the community in the past have been very dispersed," Keohane said in an interview following the meeting. "A lot of people are doing tutoring, working on medical projects, dealing with issues like affordable housing and economic support, but it has been all over the city... in some ways it makes it hard for people to get a grasp on what it is that Duke is actually doing and who is doing it."
In an effort to consolidate resources, Keohane said, members of the University community should focus more on the immediate area in any new volunteer initiatives. She added, however, that the University would continue to support efforts elsewhere in the community.
Keohane said that such a focus would allow the Community Service Center, for example, to direct student volunteers to areas where they could have the greatest impact. With a more narrow focus on community programs, she said, "we can really hope to have a more sustained program, a program where people would be able to follow through across the years and where we and [the community] will be able to see the result."
John Koskinen, chair of the board, said the University has improved relations considerably with the surrounding community and that this new emphasis does not come as a result of any recent increase in tension between the University and Durham.
"I don't think that we're making these initiatives because we think we have a problem, I think it's part of an ongoing effort to improve our relations," Koskinen said. "We're in a partnership here and we need to build on that."
Keohane also said that closer support efforts would most likely benefit students and employees of the University, many of whom live in those areas.
The president also announced in her report to the board that a new University committee would be formed to review the role of teaching in the tenure process. The committee, which Keohane said she hopes will begin meeting before the end of next month, will comprise student representatives as well as faculty members and administrators.
The committee's primary purpose, Keohane said in her report, would be to consider how the University can evaluate teaching and incorporate that evaluation more effectively into the tenure process. Keohane said that administrators have been considering this issue for some time. She added, however, that student concerns raised in last spring's protest of the University's decision not to grant tenure to civil engineering assistant professor Timothy Jacobs helped to move things along.
Although the charge for the committee has been drafted, she said its formation has been delayed because of the absence of Provost John Strohbehn due to illness.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: At the recommendation of the Academic Affairs Committee, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the merger of the Department of Geology into the Earth Sciences Division of the Nicholas School of the Environment.
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