How can a university feature as its centerpiece a magnificent chapel steeped in ties to the Methodist church, while attracting a greater diversity of students and faculty with other religious and cultural backgrounds?
That question was one senior administrators discussed at their annual retreat in August, said President Nan Keohane, adding that the group did not develop any plans for how to approach the two trends and did not even decide that the two needed to be reconciled.
"This one is 'on the table' for continuing discussion," she wrote in an e-mail. "The main point at the moment is to be sensitive both to our long-standing and deeply valued affiliation with a Christian denomination and to our developing status as a major internationally recognized research university where scholars of all ages pursue truth wherever it may lead them."
Many students, administrators and religious leaders at Duke agreed that there is currently little tension between the two issues.
Julian Sanchez, director of the Office of Intercultural Affairs, said he was surprised to even be approached about the issue. "[The school's Christian roots are] the history of the institution, and [they are] honored," he said. "At the same time, we're moving forward with the campus becoming more diverse.... Traditions are respected and honored, but there's not a conflict that I can see."
Gregory Jones, dean of the Divinity School, said the issue was important to him as the school constantly sways between scholarship and acutely-felt ties to the United Methodist Church.
Jones said Christianity and multiculturalism are not inherently at conflict. In fact, he said Christianity is multicultural by nature and that the Divinity School's efforts have included racial reconciliation and uniting people of Christian faith around the world, including those in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Historically, Methodists have been more liberal and accepting of the notion of an academically-liberated campus, said Will Willimon, dean of the Chapel. He noted that a Christian-multiculturalism clash is more likely to play out at a school with more fundamentalist roots, such as Baptist-affiliated Wake Forest University.
"The Methodists founded 250 colleges or universities in America," Willimon said. "They were the most successful--Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Emory--some fine private schools. Methodists had a broad view of church-related education, and Methodists were welcoming to a wide array of backgrounds and gave their schools a great deal of freedom.... Methodism is kind of liberal Protestant Christianity personified, so it tends to be pretty broad in its views, which means there's less tension."
Last year, a external review noted tensions in the religion graduate program-administered jointly by the religion department and the Divinity School's faculty-in part over whether the Divinity School was too closely tied to the United Methodist Church.
In writing his Indenture of Trust that established Duke University as a Methodist institution in December 1924, James B. Duke may have realized that conflict.
"I recognize that education, when conducted along sane and practical, as opposed to dogmatic and theoretical, lines, is, next to religion, the greatest civilizing influence," he wrote.
Noting that Catholicism, not Methodism, is now the largest faith among undergraduates at Duke, Willimon said that over the 17 years he has been at the University, he has seen an explosion of new student groups among different faiths.
Pointing to the 1999 founding of the Freeman Center for Jewish Life, the growing Newman Catholic Center and the increasing religious diversity of the student body, Willimon said he is comfortable with the balance.
In addition, the University provided space in the Bryan Center last year for a multicultural center, and spaces that house Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture have allowed the growth of networking and programming for alternative ideas and perspectives.
Only one incident--the opening of the Chapel to same-sex unions--has recently seen Christian and multicultural ideas clash over policy. Buoyed by Duke Student Government leadership, Keohane's controversial 2000 decision was met with opposition from a segment of the Duke community, but was eventually settled.
Senior Sadaf Raja, co-president of the Muslim Student Association, said she was hesitant about the presence of Duke's Christian roots, but found that upon arriving on campus, her worries were unfounded. She pointed to accommodations like Muslim prayer space in the Bryan Center. "I had that impression because of Trinity College and the Chapel," she said. "Once I came here, I really didn't feel any of it.... I haven't personally felt any contradiction or any tension much at all. I think the University has done a pretty good job of balancing its roots along with its new initiatives."
Willimon warned, however, that too often, discussion of multiculturalism on campus does not include religion.
"We think gender differences, racial differences, ethnic differences. One of our jobs is to say we need to get savvier about our religious differences," he said. "That's my only concern about multiculturalism. We have too narrow an idea of what 'multicultural' means."
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