$40M gift to add 30 new faculty

A $40-million gift from the Duke Endowment will fund more than 30 new faculty positions, University officials announced Wednesday.

More than half of the donation from the Charlotte-based non-profit organization will be used to endow 10 new assistant professorships and 10 associate professorships; $15 million of the gift will go toward creating 12 endowed full professorships.

"As it has for more than eight decades, the Duke Endowment is helping mightily to secure Duke University's future," President Richard Brodhead said in a statement. "Our strategic plan calls for innovative approaches to what and how we teach students, particularly undergraduates, including learning in classrooms, laboratories and other settings, both on and off campus."

Most of the faculty additions will be found in the undergraduate schools, with the majority of the positions in the Trinity School of Arts and Sciences, Provost Peter Lange said. He added that the positions will be implemented over a period of five years.

"[The gift] is going to make undergraduate education richer," he said. "It's incredibly exciting and we're very grateful to the Duke Endowment for supporting this next phase of our undergraduate learning experience."

He added that the new faculty members will help increase faculty-intensive activities, such as small-group learning experiences and drafting senior theses, among other things.

"We've been basically increasing the load on a subset of faculty," Lange said. "The idea was, it is a good reason to expand the faculty somewhat and spread that load better. If we're going to do that, we want faculty members who are going to make direct contributions."

To add an endowed position, a dean must bring proposals with departments and programs forward to the provost. Lange said he foresees the application process being competitive.