After almost 10 years of leading a still-young University through one of its most formative stages, President Nan Keohane announced this weekend her plans to step down from the University's top post in June 2004.
Keohane said she had been considering the move since last summer, and after speaking with friends and colleagues, informed the leadership of the Board of Trustees in December. She waited to tell the full Board personally Saturday before publicly announcing the decision yesterday.
"We have an excellent strategic plan in place. Our Campaign for Duke will successfully conclude in December. Our administrative team couldn't be better. And so," Keohane said, "I think the time is right for Duke to move into the next stage of its history with new leadership, and for me to move on to the next stage of my life."
Joined Sunday afternoon by Board Chair Harold "Spike" Yoh for a 45-minute press conference that had been hastily yet clandestinely organized in the Old Trinity Room, Keohane expressed a desire to return to teaching and research. She said she and her husband--Robert Keohane, James B. Duke professor of political science--will take a one-year sabbatical after she steps down. The University's eighth president said she has not yet established plans for her sabbatical, only that she would be away from the University. She expressed intentions to return to Duke afterward.
"Bob and I both enjoy it here," Keohane said. "We have tenure in one of the best political science departments in the world, and our current thinking is that [Duke] is where we will be. Because this is something that we are just announcing, nobody has any other ideas and somebody may come along with some options that we'd have to consider. So I am not making a firm promise that I'll be here, but it is certainly our expectation."
Wherever she and her husband--both well-respected scholars in their own rights--end up, Keohane, at age 62, said she hopes to live the life of an academic for as long as possible before full retirement. Speaking fondly, reminiscently, of the days she spent on the faculties at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, Keohane acknowledged that her return to research is made possible because her field, political philosophy, is relatively unchanging.
While disciplines such as genetics and other natural sciences evolve rapidly, she said, "Rousseau and Mill and Plato are still there" and she hopes to make further contributions to the field.
"I chose this profession because I loved thinking about issues like justice and equality and freedom, and I've spent 22 years helping people get their interests on the table and helping them resolve conflicts and figuring out how exercising authority makes a difference in people's lives," Keohane said, "and I feel that I'll be a better political philosopher."
Keohane assumed the presidency July 1, 1993, and her tenure has been characterized by marked changes in nearly every aspect of Duke.
In numbers alone, the University she inherited will hardly be recognizable to the one whose mantle she will pass on. Its overall ranking has hurdled over its competitors, admissions have become more competitive, the University community is more diverse and schools and departments have increased their funding.
And of course, it is more wealthy. The $2 billion fundraising effort known as The Campaign for Duke has met most of its goals, in large part due to Keohane's own efforts. Following the term of Keith Brodie, a president not known for his own fondness of raising money, Keohane spearheaded an effort that has surpassed all expectations and that will fund University priorities for years to come.
Tangibly, her actions are nearly countless. She oversaw the creation of Duke University Health System, major overhauls of residential life, the founding of many new academic programs, greater internationalization, the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership Initiative, the creation of the Office of Institutional Equity, regulation of companies that produce clothing bearing the Duke label and the filling of numerous administrative positions.
As she looked toward her final 16 months as University president, Keohane described several projects that she plans to prioritize, including the end of the capital campaign, the status of women at Duke, changes to undergraduate life and the governance of the Health System.
As the University's first female president, Keohane was often cited as a role model for women on campus, but it was not until last year that she began a major push, now known as the Women's Initiative, to examine the gender dynamics of University hiring and other activities.
She also expressed a desire to continue the planning and implementation of changes to the undergraduate experience. Dogged early in her tenure by student protests that often mentioned her name alongside four-letter words, Keohane has drawn regular criticism for University residential and alcohol policies. She said Sunday that, while such criticisms are sometimes valid, they often reoccur each year and that the capital campaign prevented her from spending more time on undergraduate life.
"Once the campaign started and I was on the road so much, I had to make more choices about how to spend my time and there were so many other things on my desk as an administrator that I didn't have as much time as I would have liked," Keohane said.
Keohane and Yoh praised the evolution of the Health System, which since its
"In general the structure has worked well and we don't intend to change the basic structure, but I think we need to do some fine-tuning," Keohane said. "And I'd like to work that out with the Board and with the Health System before my successor is chosen so that I can hand that person a clarified operation."
But perhaps the most significant changes since Keohane's arrival have been those that are most visible--the hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects and renovations that, over the last few years and for the next several decades, will transform Duke's campus on a scale unprecedented since the University's founding.
With a vice president for student affairs and three academic deans with fewer than two years on the job, the departure of Keohane--and that of Yoh later this year--could have a profound effect in changing the face of Duke's administration. William Chafe, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, has indicated he will not likely seek another five-year-term when his current term ends. Likewise, Chancellor of Health Affairs and CEO of Duke University Health System Ralph Snyderman will conclude his third five-year term in 2004.
"I told the board that if there was one failure that I have done in my term, it was not being able to convince her to stay longer," Yoh said. "But as she explained from both a personal and professional viewpoint, the timing is ideal for her and she has the complete support of the entire community."
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