Chafe bids deanship farewell

As William Chafe packs up his belongings and prepares to vacate his comfortable 104 Allen Building office, he will doubtless look back on his tenure as the top man in Arts and Sciences. Perhaps sitting alone amongst boxes, perhaps with a picture frame or a vase in hand, Chafe will gaze out his window onto a dusky Chapel Quadrangle and think about all he has done, and all he did not do. And, if he reminisces with clarity and balance, and goes through all the years of his deanship, a smile will probably creep across his face.

 

 'Bill, you've done a great job.'

 

 If he comes to such a conclusion, he will join the company of a large, diverse group of faculty and administrators, all of whom speak admiringly about the departing dean of the faculty of arts and sciences for surprisingly varied reasons. It is a testament to Chafe's mastery of academic politics that many of these individuals identify Chafe as a strong proponent of their particular interests--even as a steadily deteriorating budget situation forced difficult decisions that inevitably restricted the flow of resources to departments.

 

 Chair of the history department John Thompson, a once and future colleague of Chafe's in the history department, said the dean "has to be the world's greatest schmoozer."

 

 There is something distinctly king-like about the 62-year-old Bostonian. He has a title fit for royalty: dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, vice provost for undergraduate education and Alice Mary Baldwin distinguished professor of history. His meticulously trimmed white beard gives him a somewhat regal visage, and while he is hardly on a tyrant's power trip, humility is not among the most oft-cited of his attributes.

 

 Like a king, Chafe has been somewhat liberated from daily minutae and has had the opportunity and the motivation to think big for his division and for the University. This is partly due to his 1999 reorganization of Arts and Sciences that split the position of dean of faculty development into two new positions, dean of natural sciences and dean of humanities and social sciences, and bestowed Chafe with the title of vice provost for undergraduate education. As a result of this reorganization, Chafe was able to focus on being an intellectual leader for Arts and Sciences and ushering in bold, if controversial, new undergraduate initiatives, from Curriculum 2000 to residential life.

Of all his accomplishments, Chafe said he is most proud of his advancement of student and faculty diversity, ongoing changes in undergraduate residential life, his push to focus on intellectual vitality in undergraduate admissions and specific improvements in the departments of public policy studies and English. He has also worked to slowly but steadily improve the arts at the University, and has been a proponent of interdisciplinary academic ventures.

 

 Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, Chafe's partner for the last three years in reshaping the undergraduate experience, praised Chafe's advocacy of reform.

 

 "I'll always think of Dean Chafe as champion of many of the reforms now in place. These include the sophomores on West Campus and the realignment of the selectives on West," he said. "Further, he's one of the most thoughtful advocates for pluralism at Duke and at the many meetings I've had with him has always been attentive to the multiple and distinct communities represented by our students."

 

 Indeed, he may be best remembered for his commitment to racial and gender diversity. A historian who studies race and gender in the 20th century, Chafe retained his commitment to these issues throughout his deanship. He has made key hires of black and female faculty and has developed, along with Provost Peter Lange, a more department- and minority-specific conception of diversity to replace the recently expired and successful Black Faculty Strategic Initiative. The mandate that all sophomores live on West Campus, which Chafe had a major role in instituting, was partially designed to reduce undergraduate segregation by campuses.

 

 "He has managed, urged and encouraged institutional change around the issues of diversity," said Dean of Humanities and Natural Sciences Karla Holloway. "He has understood--both politically and ethically--the complexity of this objective, and has worked consistently to make it a substantive fact of our lives at Duke, rather than simply an 'issue.'"

Chafe's tenure as dean has not been without disappointments and unenviable situations. Most notably, after years of faculty growth in the 1990s, grave budget forecasts forced Chafe to plan a once-unthinkable 20-position reduction in the size of the faculty over the course of several years. This year, Arts and Sciences has conducted only 20 searches, down from the standard 30 to 40.

 

 Nevertheless, his frank handling of the situation, via a letter to the faculty Aug. 4, 2003, earned professors' appreciation and understanding.

 

 Chafe is an Easterner with an Easterner's classic pedigree. He grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and attended Harvard University as an undergraduate. After a brief sojourn at Union Theological Seminary, Chafe obtained his doctorate in American history in a speedy six years from Columbia University in 1971. In quick succession, he released his groundbreaking monograph, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic and Political Role 1920-1970, and came to Duke, where has remained since 1972.

 

 Some feared that despite his long stay at the University, Chafe would ultimately depart for snowier pastures. And indeed, he was highly sought-after as both an administrator and a faculty member. He was a finalist for the top position at Williams College in 2000, but pulled his name out of the race at the last minute, and was also a finalist for the Brown University presidency. His distinguished scholarship led Yale University administrators to try to recruit him to their exceedingly prestigious history faculty.

 

 But in the end, Chafe decided to keep his leadership and his scholarship at Duke. After a sabbatical, he will return to the history faculty and resume teaching and research. Already this semester, he is back in the classroom, teaching an upper-level course on American social movements.

 

 Schmoozer, intellectual titan, passionate defender of diversity--all these titles define the man of many titles, William Chafe. As of July 1, however, the title of scholar will come to the forefront once again.