Founded in 1838, Duke
University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina,
named after the university’s great benefactor James Buchanan Duke’s deceased
father, Washington Duke.
Its campus spans over
8,600 acres on three campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort.
The main campus – designed largely by architect Julian Abele – incorporates
Gothic architecture with the looming presence of Duke Chapel, the campus'
centerpiece that seats nearly 1,600 people and contains a 5,200-pipe
organ.
Duke is the
seventh-wealthiest private university in America and in 2014, Thomson Reuters
named 32 of Duke's professors to its list of Highly Cited Researchers. Ten
Nobel laureates and three Turing Award winners are also affiliated with the
university, which is the second-largest private employer in the state of North
Carolina.
From its early days as
Brown’s Schoolhouse, Duke has evolved into a global academic and research
powerhouse. Its Levine Science Research Center is the largest single-site
interdisciplinary research facility of any American university, and in 2014
Duke spread its tentacles eastwards, opening a Chinese outpost, Duke Kunshan
University, which blends an American-style liberal arts education with Chinese
traditions.
Its recent academic
achievements include three of its students being named Rhodes Scholars in 2002
and 2006. Also in 2006, Duke researchers unveiled the first working
demonstration of an invisibility cloak, to the delight of Harry Potter fans
around the world.
A total of around
15,000 students attend Duke, with the majority of them being postgraduates.
There is an 8:1 student-to-faculty ratio, which personalizes the learning
experience.
Undergraduates have
access to four academic schools including Trinity College of Arts and Sciences,
and the Sanford School of Public Policy. Graduate students can enroll in nine
graduate and professional schools, including Duke Law School, Fuqua School of
Business, and the School of Medicine.
The university has an
ethnically diverse and politically engaged student body: activism in the 1960s
prompted Martin Luther King Jr to speak on campus about the civil rights
movement, and, following violence in Charlottesville in 2017, the statue of
Confederate General Robert E Lee was removed from the entrance to Duke
University Chapel.
The majority of Duke
students live on campus, where they can take advantage of the university’s
enviable sports facilities and get fully involved in student life. Duke is home
to over 400 student organizations – cultural, faith-based, political, and
service-based – that foster student interaction and exchange, and help students
develop their interests and passions.
Tags:
Education