In what many University leaders are calling Duke's most significant moment since James B. Duke endowed the school, the Board of Trustees approved the long-range academic plan at its February meeting. "Building on Excellence," which maps each school's and the entire institution's academic future gained even more importance after it became clear that the five-year-old Campaign for Duke would exceed its goal, bringing in extra money for the plan to allocate.
The bullish economy persisted through the start of the academic year, continuing to fuel the pace of Duke's remarkable fundraising project, and as the campaign inched closer to its $1.5 billion goal, administrators and trustees began thinking about whether to boost the target. At the trustees' December meeting, President Nan Keohane and the campaign steering committee presented a plan to increase the goal to $2 billion by 2003. The fund raiser has now gathered more than $1.4 billion.
The play of the men's basketball team, as always, captured the University's attention almost all year. Anticipation began to build as the football team began to falter early in its season, and come November, fans were not disappointed. As early as the first weekend of the season, when the court of Cameron Indoor Stadium was dedicated in Mike Krzyzewski's honor after the coach won his 500th career game at Duke, the Crazies were treated to a season of milestones.
In the next-to-last home game of the season, Shane Battier became the tenth Blue Devil to have his jersey retired, but it was the next game at Cameron that made the difference
Despite the football team's 0-11 season, the program made some news when, in October, ex-football player Heather Sue Mercer, Trinity '98, won $2 million in her lawsuit against Duke, in which she argued that the University showed deliberate indifference toward her complaints of discrimination. The University was planning to appeal the jury's decision.
Political debate shaped much of the year, between discussions over same-sex unions in the Chapel, the embattled presidential election and a controversial anti-slavery reparations advertisement published in The Chronicle.
The issue of allowing same-sex union ceremonies in the Chapel had come up for each of the past several years, whether through editorials or small statements.
But when Duke Student Government President and senior Jordan Bazinsky capped months of DSG work on the matter with an impassioned speech at the October Board of Trustees meeting, it forced the issue to the top of the University's agenda. By the end of their weekend meeting, the trustees had discussed the Chapel policy prohibiting
After that nine-person group recommended that Duke abolish the policy, Keohane agreed.
Toward the end of the year, a full-page ad entitled "Ten Reasons Why Slavery Reparations Are A Bad Idea--And Racist Too," appeared in The Chronicle, and was met with intense protests from more than 200 students two days later. For the following week, the Duke Student Movement met with one another, administrators and Chronicle editors and eventually placed demands on both groups. As a result, the administration promised to compile a report addressing progress on demands made by black students in 1969, 1975 and 1997. Chronicle editors declined to return Horowitz's money or give the protesters free advertising space.
Although most of the year was filled with news outside the Allen Building, it started with an extraordinary event inside it. Less than a week into the school year, David Patrick Malone, a former Duke employee, entered Keohane's office, pulled a .32-caliber revolver from his bag and demanded to speak with Keohane. After learning that she was still at lunch, Malone held three members of the president's staff in the office, telling them he was going to shoot himself.
A few minutes later, Duke University Police Department officers tackled Malone and charged him with three counts of assault by pointing a gun, three counts of second-degree kidnapping, one count of having a weapon on campus and trespassing. No one was hurt in the incident. Malone's trial was still pending at the year's end.
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