New year aside, administrators had much to celebrate Dec. 31 as the University's most ambitious capital campaign came to a much anticipated close.
As of Dec. 29, the Campaign for Duke had brought in $2,262,256,475. University officials said final figures will not be available until later this week at the earliest, but those involved with the campaign already say the results are spectacular by any standard.
"We were delighted with the success of the campaign and deeply grateful to all the people who worked hard to make it happen--donors, volunteers and staff members across the University," President Nan Keohane wrote in an e-mail. "Since we started with what seemed like a very ambitious goal--to raise $1.5 billion--it is tremendously rewarding to look forward to celebrating more than $2.2 billion."
The University continued to pull in significant donations during the last weeks of the campaign. As of Dec. 1, the University had raised $2.22 billion, reaching the fundraising goals for all but one of the ten divisions.
The original goal of $1.5 billion, set when the campaign officially took off in Oct. 1998, was raised to $2 billion in Nov. 2000 and to $2.2 billion after the University passed the $2 billion mark in Jan. 2003.
By Dec. 6, the final bucket was filled after a $2 million gift from former trustee Roy Bostock and Merilee Bostock, both Duke graduates, put the University Libraries over its campaign goal of $40 million. Keohane announced Dec. 6 that a new library building will be named the Bostock Library in honor of the Bostock family.
Another significant gift late in the campaign, from Duke alumnus Randy Repass and his wife, Sally-Christine Rodgers, will enable the construction of the University's first building specifically designed to the U.S. Green Building Council's highest standards of energy and environmental efficiency, which will be built at the Duke Marine Laboratory in Beaufort. The couple's $2.3 million gift, officially announced Dec. 15, will also help fund a joint professorship in marine conservation technology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering.
Administrators said the campaign's success bodes well for the University's future, especially as it undergoes a number of major staff changes. Most notably, Keohane and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William Chafe will relinquish their posts to Richard Brodhead of Yale University and George McLendon of Princeton University, respectively, July 1.
"The campaign has already made a significant difference for Duke--in the new scholarships and fellowships, professorships, facilities, and in a sense of optimism about what it is possible for us to accomplish," Keohane wrote. "I am proud to have been part of the leadership team for this historic accomplishment for Duke, and glad that the support we achieved will provide a strong foundation for my successor to build on."
Chafe, who headed Arts and Sciences' $400 million portion of the Campaign for Duke, also said he hopes the success of the campaign will ensure that McLendon hits the ground running when he comes to the University to lead a division that has struggled financially recently.
Chafe and other administrators attributed the campaign's success largely to the collaborative efforts and relentless dedication of all the campaign's major agents.
"[The campaign's] success speaks legions about the leadership of the University in all segments, the degree to which we were able to work together for common goals and the extent to which the substance of what we are accomplishing on the educational level continued to reinforce the message we were communicating about Duke's upward trajectory," Chafe wrote in an e-mail.
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