Ben Reese took over as vice president for institutional equity at Duke in 2015.
The University announced Wednesday morning that he will step down from the role at the end of the 2018-2019 school year.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with incredible colleagues here at Duke,” Reese stated in the news release. “I’ve also had the opportunity to work at one of the top educational and health care organizations in the United States and abroad. And I’ve had the privilege to serve with three outstanding presidents.”
Reese joined Duke's Office of Institutional Equity in 1996, and he took over the role of vice president in 2003 on an interim basis. But in 2005, then-President Richard Brodhead made his status permanent.
His work at Duke has spanned from considering diversity in hiring to handling of sexual harassment cases. In 2016, OIE held a forum in response to racially charged shootings in multiple states, according to the release.
“Throughout Ben’s 22 years at Duke, he has been a counselor, a mediator, an educator and a source of wisdom and direction to countless students, faculty and staff,” President Vincent Price said in the news release. “In ways large and small, Ben has helped Duke become a better, stronger and fairer community.
Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, said that a national search will be conducted for Reese's successor.
Reese, adjunct faculty in community and family medicine and psychology and neuroscience, is an expert on implicit bias. He has received a fellowship to lecture in New Zealand once he steps down from the vice presidency at the end of this academic year.
“In past two decades, there was real activism around the necessity of increasing diversity for ‘moral reasons,’ and as a way of pushing back against structural racism, gender inequities and homophobia,” Reese said in the release.
Correction: This article was corrected to say Reese was appointed interim vice president in 2003 and promoted to permanent vice president in 2005. The Chronicle regrets the error.
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