A&S dominates Founder's Day talk

In Thursday’s Founder’s Day Convocation, University leaders honored members of the Duke community and likened the boldness required to found a university to the audacity needed to direct that same school into an uncertain future.

President Richard Brodhead conferred awards upon alumni, faculty, students and staff for academic excellence and service to the University. Trustee emeritus Roy Bostock, Trinity ’62, cited the need to emphasize and perhaps revamp the undergraduate experience, both inside and outside the classroom.

“No other university is like Duke,” Bostock said in his convocation address. “We do not aspire to [emulate other universities]. We aspire to be better than we were yesterday, better than we were a week ago. Our standards are set and met by ourselves.”

Bostock said the Trinity College experience is the central component of the Duke experience and called for greater focus on liberal arts at the University. In an age of increased specialization, he said, generalists will become the most effective leaders, and a liberal arts education best prepares Duke students to be those generalists.

Bostock acknowledged that some changes to undergraduate education would be unpopular but said that did not detract from their necessity.

“We might have to grind some sacred cows into meat loaf in the process—we might have to take some risks,” he said, adding that any improvement to “the heart and soul of this University” would be worth the risk.

Although he did not suggest any specific changes, Bostock singled out the undergraduate curriculum and selective living as areas of the University that were ripe for re-evaluation.

“Do [selective living groups] provide the kinds of experiences we want for undergraduates at our University?” he asked. “Some would say yes; some argue no. I say put it on the table.”

In his first Founder’s Day, Brodhead presented numerous awards to students, faculty, staff and alumni, including the University Medal for service to Duke to Ernestine Friedl and Samuel Katz.

Friedl, a pioneer for women at Duke, was the University’s first female dean of Arts and Sciences and Trinity College and oversaw the inception of the Department of Women’s Studies.

“Before it became fashionable to break intellectual boundaries, she was an interdisciplinary thinker,” Brodhead said.

Katz, former chair of the pediatrics department at the School of Medicine, is a vaccine expert who has worked against such diseases as influenza, rubella and HIV. Most notably, he has worked to make measles vaccines available around the world.

“There’s no finer example of what we human beings should aspire to be” than Katz, one colleague said in a recommendation read by Brodhead.

Trustee Emeritus Raymond Nasher, Trinity ’43, the Dallas housing developer whose gift helped fund the University’s new Nasher Museum of Art, claimed the Distinguished Alumni Award. Brodhead described Nasher as an “avid builder and an arts visionary.” The museum is expected to open in Fall 2005.

Randall Kramer, professor of environmental economics, won the University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award, and Parviz Ghadimi, a professor in the math department, received the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award.

Brodhead presented the Humanitarian Service Award to Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences student Luke Dollar and professor of surgery Joseph Moylan.