Douglas Knight was a man caught in the tumult of an explosive era. As the University’s fifth president, Knight weathered the turbulent years of the 1960s on a politically charged campus in transition, leaving behind a legacy marred by controversy and criticism.
Following his death Sunday, however, critics and friends alike painted a picture of Knight as a devoted educator, academic and poet who, though unequipped to single-handedly steer Duke through a period of upheaval, translated his love for the institution into steps on the University’s path to greatness.
Praising his work as a scholar and administrator at Lawrence College prior to coming to Duke, William Griffith ’50, an assistant to the provost during Knight’s tenure, recalled thinking Knight was an ideal choice for president when he was hired in 1963.
“He represented, at least in my mind, in the ’60s and ’70s the type of person that was great for a university,” Griffith said.
But Griffith added that Knight became president of Duke at a time when, amid burgeoning social and political movements, “it was a graveyard for presidents.”
Bridget Booher, administrative coordinator for the Sanford Institute of Public Policy and a friend of Knight’s, said the currents of the decade that permeated Duke’s campus ultimately shaped Knight’s career at the University.
“His presidency really marked a turning point in Duke’s history and the history of this country,” Booher said. “The questioning of leadership at that time was part of what the younger generation, or at least certain factions of the younger generation, were doing, and he was the president of Duke University, so of course he was questioned.”
Mark Pinsky, Trinity ’70 and a former student of Knight’s, was one of those students who questioned the president’s decisions. Pinsky, whose column in The Chronicle, “The Readable Radical,” regularly criticized Knight’s administration for its handling of the fomenting campus, said student activists took issue with Knight’s responses to their demands.
“He didn’t move as quickly or as forcefully or as decisively on a number of issues as we would have wanted him to, particularly civil rights and racial justice,” Pinsky said. “He never felt sure enough of his place in the South as a Northeasterner to maybe act on his better instincts.”
Criticisms aside, however, Pinsky said Knight was a “charming person” who was “more at home teaching English and the classics than he was as president.” He said Knight was “entirely in character” when he read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to students on East Campus every Christmas.
David Guy, Trinity ’70, a public policy instructor, took an English course on epic literature that Knight taught in his residence. Knight “wore nice suits” and “smoked cigars,” Guy recalled, as he lectured on Homer, Dante and Milton.
“Never before or since have I had anyone quite like him,” Guy said. “That year I decided to become a teacher because he and a few other professors made me feel that teaching was a noble profession.”
William Anlyan, chancellor emeritus of Duke University Medical Center, lauded Knight’s willingness to embrace even the most critical students in his home. He said “one of the unforgettable episodes” of Knight’s presidency was the Silent Vigil in 1968, when more than 250 student protesters marched to the president’s house just after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. But Knight did not turn them away, Anlyan said; instead, “he invited them in” for a discussion that lasted well into the night.
Tami Hultman, Woman’s College ’68 and president of the politically active YWCA during the last leg of Knight’s presidency, also praised Knight’s open attitude toward students and his efforts to stand as a communicator between student activists and University powers that were entrenched in tradition.
“His willingness to be an interlocutor between students and the Board of Trustees, even though it cost him his job, enabled Duke to take some steps to... racial justice without being paralyzed by protest,” she said.
Hultman added that Knight expressed an understanding of his place in Duke’s history when they met again years after his resignation.
“[He] remained saddened that in the immediate aftermath he wasn’t able to stay at Duke to do more and, in a sense, usher in the changes that were happening,” Hultman said. “But he understood, I think, at least in later years, that he had played a significant role that was appreciated by many people.”
Though memories from his time at Duke kept him away from campus for more than 30 years, Knight returned as a historical figurehead in University life during former President Nan Keohane and current President Richard Brodhead’s administrations. Booher said Knight’s re-entry to Duke in his twilight years provided him with a sense of belonging in a community he had once embraced but lost.
“He really felt welcomed back to the fold,” she said, “and I hope that brought him some measure of peace.”
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