News Briefs

NAACP honors Keohane

Adding to a growing list of awards in her final year as Duke president, Nan Keohane has received the Freedom Fund Award from the Durham chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for her community service work.

The Durham NAACP honored both Keohane and civil rights activist Ann Atwater with the group's highest honor at a Nov. 22 banquet at the Civic Center's Durham Marriott.

Among her efforts, Keohane started the Neighborhood Partnership Initiative between the University and the city to revitalize 12 communities surrounding the University. The racial diversity of both the faculty and the student body have also increased during her 10 years of leadership.

Div. School alum donates $3M for Institute on Care at the End of Life

Hugh Westbrook, co-founder and CEO of Miami-based Vitas Healthcare Corp., and his wife, Carole Shields Westbrook, donated $3 million to the Divinity School to enhance the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life.

Of the recent gift, $2 million will be coupled with $1 million from Duke's Nicholas Faculty Leadership Initiative to endow a distinguished professorship, to be filled by a new institute director. The remaining $1 million will pay for a portion of the $22 million Divinity School addition, which is currently under construction and will include a suite of offices for the institute.

Westbrook graduated from the Divinity School in 1970. He helped to arrange $13.5 million in gifts to launch the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life in 2000.

Van Alstyne to deliver John Spencer Bassett Lecture

Duke law professor William Van Alstyne, one of the nation's leading constitutional lawyers and an expert on the First Amendment, will deliver the John Spencer Bassett Lecture Dec. 4 as part of the University's celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bassett Affair.

"It is appropriate that professor Van Alstyne, one of the nation's preeminent First Amendment scholars, is presenting the Bassett Lecture as part of Duke's celebration of the University's commitment to academic freedom," Provost Peter Lange said in a statement. "His writings on academic freedom and its evolution and acceptance into domestic constitutional law have illuminated the work of the Supreme Court and leading law schools both here and overseas."

The event is sponsored by Lange and President Nan Keohane and is part of a series of events marking the anniversary of the Bassett Affair.

DUMC to provide support and training for statewide anti-childhood obesity campaign

The North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission announced 17 grants totaling $7.43 million to go toward combating childhood obesity. Duke University Medical Center's Department of Community and Family Medicine will provide technical support and training services for the statewide campaign.

"Obesity is poised to replace tobacco use as the number one cause of preventable disease in North Carolina," said Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, who chairs the commission, in a statement. "Research shows that obesity overwhelmingly tends to begin in childhood and is carried into adulthood, often with devastating consequences for long-term health." Grant funds will be used to provide intervention programs for overweight children, including after-school exercise programs and nutritional counseling. Grantees will also focus efforts on public education and adoption of local policies that address the underlying causes of obesity.