Administrators in Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine announced in meetings late last week that the probable reorganization of the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy will include a drastic reduction of the department's faculty size.
Richard Kay, the department's chair, told faculty members at a meeting Friday afternoon that through attrition and retirement, the department's full-time faculty would be reduced to just four from its current 10 and its temporary positions cut from seven to two. The reductions come as the department moves entirely within Arts and Sciences.
The natural sciences department-which split with what is now the more humanist Department of Cultural Anthropology in 1988-has been jointly administered by the School of Medicine and Arts and Sciences. Most of the faculty teach and conduct research in Arts and Sciences, but have historically taken on the teaching duties of human gross anatomy for first-year medical students as well. Consequently, the department's faculty were dispersed between the Biological Sciences Building, the Sands Building and other locations in the Medical Center.
Carel Van Schaik, professor of BAA and director of graduate studies, expressed similar concerns about the proposed cuts.
"We believe that it would really jeopardize the mission of the department," he said. "It would really threaten to bring us below critical mass-which may mean losing the undergraduate department, the graduate department and quite likely the Primate Center."
Although the Primate Center is not directly linked to the department, many anthropology faculty members rely heavily on the center's prosimian primates for their research, and a substantial amount of the department's grant money from the National Science Foundation is invested in joint projects between the two units.
Kay, who was away on a trip to Japan, was not available for comment.
Last spring, Kay said the department's options were to maintain the status quo, to move entirely within Arts and Sciences, or to divide the department into two.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William Chafe would only confirm that a meeting took place last week to discuss BAA's future, and that the meeting included Kay, Dean of Natural Sciences Berndt Mueller and officials from the School of Medicine. Kay then met with faculty Friday afternoon.
"We're going to meet with faculty ourselves about it in two weeks," Chafe added. "I will do that with them directly, not through The Chronicle. I can only confirm that the issue of future lines was part of the discussion."
Mueller said the administration is discussing several options.
"I think we've taken the steps in the order they need to be taken, to talk with the department chairs first," he said. "We have started conversations with the department about what would be our options."
Dr. Sandy Williams, dean of the medical school, confirmed in an e-mail that BAA will be consolidated within Arts and Sciences.
"I have approved a transition plan that provides ongoing support from the [medical school] budget for all of the BAA faculty currently based in the School of Medicine. Most are tenured and are outstanding teachers in our Medical Anatomy course, which they will continue to lead," Williams wrote. "As current senior faculty from BAA who teach Medical Anatomy retire, we may recruit individuals based in other [School of Medicine] departments to take up their teaching duties in Medical Anatomy."
An external team of reviewers examined the department in November 2000, a process that is routine for every Duke department about every five years. Its report, which was confidential until obtained by The Chronicle, noted on its first page that disinvestment was an option for the department, but quickly discounted it.
"Disinvestment in these endeavors will represent frank abandonment of a part of [the University's] inheritance as a center for science and scholarship. Duke would be forfeiting its international standing as a center for the study of human and non-human primate evolution, and in this light, disinvestment surely cannot be an option," the report reads.
The report further notes that in its first 12 years the department had developed "world-class programs" in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral education and had produced "some of the brightest and most productive young scholars in the business."
Reviewers ultimately concluded that "reinvestment in the [department] is currently all the more inviting in view of research opportunities in human biology and evolution, and the central place that these sciences may assume in the development of Curriculum 2000."
At the heart of the issue is how the department will be funded-and by whom. Much of the department's funding is shared between Arts and Sciences and the medical school.
As BAA shifts fully into one school, Arts and Sciences will assume the responsibility for all of the department's operational funding, even as the school confronts a multi-million dollar budget deficit.
Additional funds come from NSF grants, but will not be enough to fund the department without medical school support.
Steve Churchill, associate professor of BAA and director of undergraduate studies, said the department has nevertheless garnered more NSF funds than any other biological anthropology department in the nation, with the exception of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Churchill expressed frustration that the deans' cutbacks would predetermine the department's decline and that scholars would shun the chance to come to Duke, given the signals the administration has sent.
"I really love Duke. This is the fourth institution I've been at, and there's something really special at Duke," Churchill said. "I'm so motivated to do great things here, but every time I turn around, I have to deal with these things from Chafe."
He also noted that paleontologists and organismal biologists situated in BAA are well-placed to contribute to the University's genomics initiative and its strategic goal to build the sciences at Duke.
"If one of the goals is to increase the sciences and the life sciences are already strong, why cut a demonstrably excellent department in the life sciences?" Churchill asked.
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