CENTENNIAL ISSUE
NE W S YOU CA N USE • F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2024
FROM THE EDITOR LEANORA MINAI
In this issue
A Tribute to Duke’s Workforce As the editor of this Centennial edition, marking my 20th year at Duke, I am thrilled to present a publication that is a tapestry of Duke’s workforce history and promise of an extraordinary future. The creation of this issue was a journey. We delved into the University Archives, unearthing photographs and documents that revealed the university’s evolution. And through a questionnaire for retirees and current staff and faculty, we gained insights on themes and people pivotal in shaping Duke. Organized by eras starting in 1924, each period highlights a trailblazer, milestone, and key workforce issue of the time. Stories showcase proud moments, as well as challenging aspects of Duke’s history, like inequality, offering lessons for today. We pored over archival documents, including personnel memos, employee programs, and payroll logs from the late 1920s and early 1930s with names of hundreds of painters, carpenters, and laborers who built Duke. “Putting this issue together was a reminder of the vast number of lives that have contributed to Duke’s story through the years, and how Duke remains a place people want to bring their talents,” Senior Writer Stephen Schramm said. Among our discoveries was Blueprint, an employee newspaper that launched in 1980. The newspaper included benefit and event news, employee profiles and an “Employee Coffee Corner.” A list of resolutions appeared in a January 1982 issue. Ilean Johnson, who worked in Office Products, offered her intention: “Just to make life easier for the ones I love.” The duration of Blueprint’s production is unclear, but copies in the University Archives conclude in 1986. Blueprint offers insight into the past and emphasizes the importance of preserving a tangible record of our university’s history. In this context, the Working@Duke publication serves as a modern counterpart, preserving this Centennial milestone, while reinforcing a sense of belonging and continuity among staff and faculty. Working@Duke helps ensure that the history of this place and its people is aptly recorded and passed on to future generations. As we step into the Centennial year, this issue is a tribute to Duke’s workforce. It offers reflection, celebration, aspiration, and a commitment to fostering a community that continuously shapes a better world. Throughout the year, explore each Working@Duke publication, working.duke.edu and 100.duke.edu to discover the history of our workforce and people shaping the next 100 years.
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1924-1969 The Building of Duke University Begins A Workforce Evolves A Medical Hub for North Carolina Trailblazer: J. Oliver Harvey
1970-2003 Creating a Positive Workforce Experience Duke Life Flight Takes Off Women’s Initiative Improves Experiences for All
2004-2023 Caregivers Shine Amidst Historic Pandemic A Lasting Legacy of Remote Work Faculty Find a Home for Bright Minds Q&A: Continuing the March for Racial Equity
The Future e asked Duke staff, faculty, and retirees their W predictions for Duke during the next 100 years. Read the back page to learn what some community members had to say.
This issue was reported and written by Brandon Bieltz, Leanora Minai and Stephen Schramm. Editorial direction by Leanora Minai. Design by Paul Figuerado.
Cover photo: Construction of Lilly Library on East Campus, Sept. 1, 1926. Photo: Duke University Archives.
Building Duke | 1924-1969
The Building of Duke University Begins
University leaders and workers watch Sybil Flowers, at right in white dress, mark the groundbreaking of Duke’s new campus on Aug. 7, 1925. Photo: Duke University Archives.
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n August 7, 1925, nine months after James B. Duke’s $6 million gift turned Trinity College into Duke University, Sybil Flowers, the daughter of the university’s Vice President, plunged a shovel into the earth of what is now East Campus. University leaders watched alongside laborers and mules waiting to grade clumpy soil. The groundbreaking was “simple” with “few people in attendance,” according to the News and Observer, but the moment initiated a seven-year, $22.2 million construction project that employed hundreds. The work converted the former Trinity College campus into present-day East Campus, meant to house the new Woman’s College, and began turning approximately 5,000 acres of forest and farmland into gothic West Campus. Plans made headlines in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. The Greensboro Daily News in 1926 reported: “The proposed plans have recently been on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and have attracted wide attention as being the most complete and beautiful university buildings ever seen in America.” Alice Mary Baldwin, the only female faculty member and Dean of the Woman’s College, served on the building committee. While Frank Brown, the English professor and university comptroller overseeing the building of Duke’s campus, would not discuss plans with Baldwin directly, she pushed for features female students would appreciate: round dining hall tables for better conversation and chairs that fit women’s backs. “My chief aims were to have full opportunities for the women to share in all academic life,” Baldwin wrote in her 1959 memoir, The Woman’s College as I Remember It.
In 1927, while East Campus was under construction, workers began clearing farmland for the initial 44 buildings on West Campus. The vision for West Campus was inspired by visits that Frank Brown and then-Trinity College President William Preston Few made to Yale, Princeton and the University of Chicago. Constructing West Campus involved a temporary railroad spur to transport stone quarried from Hillsborough. Masons, including local Black and white laborers, stone cutters from western North Carolina, and Italian immigrants, worked on shaping and placing the stone. The newly created Duke Construction Company and the George A. Fuller Company, a renowned skyscraper builder, collaborated on the job. A Baltimore Sun story in 1927 said preparing Duke’s site would require “hundreds of men, scores of three-mule teams, trucks, several dozen tractors and a battery of steam shovels.” Payroll ledgers show carpenters, laborers and painters working six days per week for 25 cents to one dollar per hour. By June 1931, the inaugural commencement occurred on West Campus, where robed graduates walked across lawns once busy with railroads and steam shovels. Duke Chapel’s half-finished tower, shrouded in scaffolding, loomed above. In his commencement remarks, Duke University President William Preston Few, predicted that the campus, which took seven years to build, would become an enduring source of pride. He said, “These appropriate and beautiful surroundings will have a transforming influence upon students generation after generation and even upon the character of the institution itself.”
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Building Duke | 1924-1969
A Workforce Evolves
Tremendous growth and fight for change mark early decades
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Atop the page, a payroll log from September 1927 shows names, hours and wages of employees who built and maintained Duke’s campus. In 1924, Effie Kendrick, above, sent a letter and photo to Duke, inquiring about jobs. Images: Duke University Archives.
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oon after Duke University’s 1924 creation, administrators began receiving a steady flow of letters from people seeking work at the expanding institution. Effie Kendrick of Nashville, Tennessee, inquired about housekeeping jobs. She even included a photo of herself. Edwin Warner of Charlottesville, Virginia, asked if Duke needed a landscape architect. Raleigh’s Loetitia Steele sought a clerk position. “In view of the great expansion of your university, it occurs to me that you may have some opening left unfilled in your administrative staff; for which you might possibly entertain my application,” wrote New York’s Reginald Robbins in 1925. Duke University, then housed in 16 buildings on what is now East Campus, mostly existed in future tense. Over the next few decades, Duke’s workforce would grow from 155 faculty and academic staff in 1925 to a non-academic workforce of 6,000 people by the 1960s, when employees used their collective voice to push for positive change. In a 1925 release to newspapers, Duke Vice President Robert Lee Flowers wrote that “men of outstanding ability are being added to the faculty and staff of Duke University as rapidly as they can be obtained.”
From 1925 to 1935, as total student enrollment grew from 1,396 to 4,318, the number of full-time faculty went from 152 to 353. During that period, full-time staff remained relatively small as students handled many campus dining and clerical jobs, and faculty held most administrative positions. Payroll logs from the late 1920s – when Duke’s West Campus was being built – showed jobs such as blacksmiths and stone masons. Logs referred to “laborers” who handled tasks such as “hauling cinders,” “burning rubbish” and “unstopping drains.” After World War II, as undergraduate enrollment jumped and campus needs grew more sophisticated, the workforce adjusted. In 1946, Ted Minah was hired as the director of Duke’s dining halls and the West Campus coffee shop. These establishments had faced criticism due to the challenges of wartime rationing and a lack of properly trained staff. In response, Minah championed increased wages and advancement prospects for non-student employees. He implemented an on-the-job training initiative, enabling cooks and supervisors to pursue culinary arts and hospitality management education at institutions in Connecticut, Michigan, and New York. By the end of Minah’s 28-year tenure in 1974, Duke’s dining facilities served roughly 15,000 meals per day at 12 locations, and dining staff had a turnover rate below 5%. He had also served as a food consultant for many universities and colleges. “We were the first college in the country to offer selective menus to boarding students and among the first to have a free flow system in the cafeterias,” Minah told the Durham Morning Herald in 1975. “We made a huge self-service snack bar. We were the first
Building Duke | 1924-1969
to have a credit system throughout the dining halls where students could pick up meal tickets and have the bills sent home monthly.” Meanwhile, during the 1950s and 1960s, Duke’s faculty nearly doubled in size, contributing to growth in clerical staff. In 1958, the university employed 166 typists and stenographers. And as technology advanced, there were five separate job categories for employees working with computers and three levels of electron microscope technicians by the late 1960s. Ted Minah, left, with banquet manager Bill Jones, right, However, wage disparities between serving as a close collaborator. Photo: Duke University Archives. academic and non-academic employees at Duke continued into the 1960s. J. Oliver Harvey, a janitor and later a supervisor, played a pivotal role in initiating change on campus in the 1960s. He was instrumental in the launch of today’s Local 77 union for service employees, which led to improvements in workers’ pay and benefits. In April 1968, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as a catalyst for the "Silent Vigil," a peaceful campus demonstration organized by students. The event paid tribute to Dr. King and showed support for the university's food service, housekeeping, and other non-academic employees who engaged in a 13-day work stoppage. By the fall of 1968, an “Employees' Council” had formed with Harvey serving as a co-chair with delegates from technical, service, clerical, and maintenance units. They collaborated with administrators on concerns and policies. Their work led to changes in 1969 that included raising the minimum wage; increasing maternity leave, holidays and vacation time; expanding hospitalization insurance; and committing to preventing and eliminating discrimination regarding “race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.” “If we can accomplish as much in 1970 as we have in 1969, we believe that 1970 will be the year that nonacademic employees of Duke can truly say from their hearts, ‘We the people,’” said Harvey, according to a Duke brochure titled, 1969 Duke Employees’ Year of Change. In a 1998 interview with Duke Magazine, Duke family member Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, a Duke University alum and trustee, recalled the Silent Vigil, calling it “a crossroads in Duke’s life.” She said that early on, Duke could attract employees with its status as a new and promising institution. But to continue moving forward, she added, it must take better care of its entire workforce. This realization, she said, gave Duke “a new maturity” and “a new respect for non-academic employees.”
Samuel DuBois Cook joined Duke in 1966. He was the first African American to hold a regular and/or tenured faculty appointment at a predominantly white southern college or university. Photo: Duke University Archives.
Employees of the Duke University Typing Bureau copy documents in 1937. Photo: Duke University Archives.
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Building Duke | 1924-1969
A Medical Hub for North Carolina
Founding of Duke Hospital and Schools of Medicine and Nursing turn Duke into medical powerhouse
T Construction of Duke Hospital reaches its final stage in 1929. Construction was supported by trains that brought supplies to campus. Photo: Duke Medical Center Archives.
Patients and staff interact in Duke Hospital’s outpatient clinic waiting room in 1930. Photo: Duke Medical Center Archives.
Sallie Wells Lee, at right, began working as a hospital nurse at Duke in 1932. Her granddaughter, Anna Collins, now works in the same hospital halls as a clinical nurse. Photo: Anna Collins.
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he Duke University Health System is a staple of North Carolina health care today, but when crews began construction on Duke Hospital in 1927, many asked, “Why here?” Durham — a city with a population of 47,000 — already had two hospitals. Why did it need another? How could a small population support a teaching hospital? Faculty leaders were thinking much bigger than Durham, though. They envisioned a future where the university was a medical hub that treated patients and trained doctors for a state that lacked enough hospitals, physicians, and medical schools to prepare them. James B. Duke pushed the first domino toward a solution in 1925 by willing $4 million to establish a medical school, nursing school and hospital at Duke. The new facilities, staff and students would turn the tide of medical care in North Carolina. Wilburt C. Davison, founding dean of the Duke School of Medicine and Duke Hospital, anticipated the hospital caring for half a million people living within 50 miles of Durham, even if they couldn’t pay the full bill. “In the opinion of many medical authorities, the new Duke Hospital will be the best and most completely equipped hospitals in the United States,” the Duke Chronicle reported on May 21, 1930. “This vast 1,100 room structure, the largest hospital in the South, will serve not only Durham but all the citizens of North and South Carolina, and it is believed, will establish itself in the future as one of the great medical centers of the United States.” Duke Hospital started in the current Duke Clinic on July 21, 1930, boasting 31 full-time medical staff, 88 affiliated physicians, and 50 other employees. As the largest general hospital in the area, it featured space for roughly 400 beds and an outpatient clinic offering a wide range of services, from dentistry and orthopedics, to pediatrics and general medicine. In its inaugural year, the hospital served 91 patients each day and performed 623 surgeries. The care surged to 5,170 procedures in 1936 and an average of 330 daily patients in 1937. People from across North Carolina, traveling an average of 71 miles, sought treatment. Duke Hospital's early challenges included caring for patients with various diseases, including syphilis, tuberculosis, typhoid, and nutritional deficiencies. A growing staff of 100 doctors, residents and interns; 250 nurses, technicians and administrators; and 200 orderlies, maids and cooks supported the efforts by the mid-1930s. Among them was Sallie Wells Lee, who began working as a hospital nurse in 1932. Her granddaughter, Anna Collins, now works in the same hospital halls, carrying on the legacy of her family and the nearly century-old hospital. “To think about her being in this building, taking care of patients, and now me being in the same building, taking care of patients,” said Collins, a clinical nurse at Duke University Hospital since 2022, “it definitely makes this job much more special, to know it has a deep connection with my family.”
Building Duke | 1924-1969
J. Oliver Harvey A janitor’s visionary leadership creates change
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n late 1965, Duke's non-academic employee union, Local 77, was two months old when founder J. Oliver Harvey learned of dismissals of union-affiliated campus employees. After his night shift as a janitor on West Campus, Harvey visited several residence halls, urging housekeepers to join him in meeting with a manager. In the manager’s office, with dozens of housekeepers waiting outside, Harvey demanded the reversals of the dismissals. The next day, Harvey, along with professors and 200 students, demonstrated on a campus quad. Shortly after, the minimum wage increased, and employees received life insurance and a grievance procedure. “We tried to work in combination with the people in the community of Durham because what affected us at Duke affected the people in the community as well,” Harvey recalled in an oral history interview with a Duke graduate student in 1976. During his 23 years at Duke, Harvey fought for desegregation, better pay and improved benefits and working conditions for roughly 6,000 non-academic employees. He founded Local 77, Duke’s largest union until 2023, and by 1974, he served on Duke’s 50th anniversary advisory committee. “I will pray that this occasion be a success as we all want
Participants in the 1969 Silent Vigil hold signs in support of Local 77, Duke’s non-academic employee union. Photo: Duke University Archives.
it to be,” Harvey wrote about the anniversary to a Duke administrator in May 1974. “May it be a needed and guiding light recognizing that no longer are people given preference because of their position; no longer are people labeled because of the texture of their skin, but are accepted because of their character. This, indeed, has been my hope for years and years.” Born in 1906, Harvey, the oldest of 10 children, grew up in Franklin County. After high school, he moved to Durham to work at Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. and Watts Hospital before taking a defense job in Virginia during World War II. When he joined Duke in 1951, he became a leader for progress.
Duke employee J. Oliver Harvey hands out information on campus in 1967. Photo: North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library.
Local 77 played a crucial role in the 1968 silent vigil on campus, a response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that featured a 13-day work stoppage by Duke employees and a peaceful demonstration drawing around 1,500 people. On day 13, Harvey received a call at home informing him that Duke’s Board of Trustees wanted to negotiate an end to the work stoppage. The agreement to end the vigil included the creation of the “Employees Council,” co-chaired by Harvey. The council in 1969 negotiated higher wages, better benefits, and a clearer non-discrimination policy for Duke’s employees. As Local 77 continued its work, Harvey’s role in the evolution of Duke gained J. Oliver Harvey had a cul-de-sac near campus new appreciation. A few named after him. Photo: Duke University Archives. years after Harvey retired in 1974, Duke’s Board of Trustees approved naming in his honor a cul-de-sac near campus designated for faculty housing. Harvey Place can still be found in the neighborhood. “Oliver had visions of ways to make the university community a better place,” then-Duke University President Keith Brodie wrote in a 1987 letter to Harvey's wife after Harvey‘s death at age 80, “and the leadership to make those visions a reality.”
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Building Community | 1970-2003
Creating a Positive Workforce Experience Through benefits and community, ‘Duke University People’ prioritized
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n the early 1990s, Sara-Jane Raines came to work at Duke each day hiding her sexual orientation. Raines, a Duke alumna and officer with the Duke University Police Department, kept her true self hidden during the time. She heard jokes about gay people, saw defaced LGBTQ+ event posters, and felt disappointed that Duke University Chapel did not allow same-sex commitment ceremonies. Fear of repercussions kept Raines in the closet. But in 1995, when then-Duke University President Nannerl O. Keohane made Duke the first southern university to extend medical insurance and other benefits to partners of LGBTQ+ employees, Raines, and others in her situation, felt that they belonged at Duke. Soon after, she felt comfortable to come out to colleagues, who, she said, were unfazed. “Duke was the safe haven for me and my partner and for the other employees that I knew were gay,” said Raines, who has been married since 2015 to Deb Kinney, who also works at Duke. “It was really important that Duke stood up for us.” The extension of same-sex partner benefits made news headlines and came during an era when Duke’s relationship with its employees underwent a dramatic shift. From the 1970s into the early 2000s, Duke enhanced benefits and tried to build a climate where all staff and faculty felt valued and included. Terry Sanford, Duke University’s President from 1970 to 1985, said in a 1984 address to faculty that if Duke aspired to be “an institution of freedom and enlightenment,” it must reflect that in how it treats its employees. “Every person who works for Duke is important to Duke,” Sanford said. “They are all Duke University people.”
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In the 1980s, the Blueprint relayed information and fun features to Duke employees. Image: Duke University Archives. WORKING@DUKE
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Building Community | 1970-2003
Duke University Police Department’s Sara-Jane Raines, right, has been married to fellow Duke staff member Deb Kinney, left, since 2015. Courtesy of Sara-Jane Raines.
Duke University President Terry Sanford attends a meeting in the Allen Building. Photo: Duke University Archives.
The 1970s saw Duke celebrate its 50th anniversary, raise its minimum wage, pilot a financial guidance program for employees nearing retirement, and reclassify 9,000 employees into 24 “job families” for bi-weekly paid staff and 14 “job families” for monthly paid staff, creating clear lines for advancement. William R. Linke, Director of Personnel, issued Duke’s inaugural annual report in 1971 on equal opportunity employment, noting an increase of 1.1% minority group employment compared to the previous year. He shared that, at the time, minority employees comprised 28.5% of the workforce. “This report indicates that some progress has been made; however, we must continue to increase our employment and upgrade of minority groups and females if we are to correct the underutilization of these groups,” he said in a memo to department heads. The 1980s saw the launch of educational benefits, nocharge counseling through the Personal Assistance Service, the beginning of the LIVE FOR LIFE employee wellness program, and new health insurance plans. “You cannot have any weak spots in a great institution,” Director of Duke Human Resources Toby Kahr said in a 1986 Duke Chronicle story about expanding employee benefits. “Duke should be an excellent place to work so that we can get the very best people.” Duke prioritized building a shared culture among a large, diverse workforce, which, by the early 1990s, had grown to nearly 20,000 people. During the 1980s and 1990s, a variety of employee events gained popularity. These included tailgate parties preceding Duke Football games, festive holiday turkey trots with actual turkeys as prizes, commemorations for career service milestones, and celebrations of “Duke Employee Week.” Kim Harris, Duke’s Associate Vice Provost and Director of Academic Human Resources Services who joined Duke in 1978, remembers attending employee events, such as art exhibits, talent shows and football tailgates. She said that the experiences held significance for her because they forged meaningful connections between work and home, accomplished by involving families in campus activities. “Those kind of things started bringing employees together and giving everyone a sense that Duke is not just a place that they went to work, but it was also a community,” she said. In the 1980s, Duke produced monthly employeefocused newspapers such as Blueprint for Duke University staff to feature employees and enhance communication about benefits and policies. A 1986 Blueprint story featured Secretary Doris Ralston’s memories of four decades at Duke, including fun student encounters and big 5-cent hot dogs available on campus. “The longer you are here,” Ralston, who worked in the Department of Political Science, said in the story, “the more difficult it is to pick out what is most important to you.” After 35 years with Duke’s police department, Raines – now the Assistant Chief of Police – relates. Over the years, she’s had other opportunities, but with benefits that fit her life, and lasting connections with colleagues, Duke is where she’s meant to be. “Duke has felt like my home,” Raines said. “I think that’s why I have such an incredible sense of loyalty to this place. It’s the place that saw me and heard me and let me be here and contribute to the community.”
“Employee Day” at Duke in April 1984 featured food, music, and balloons. Photo: Duke University Archives.
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Building Community | 1970-2003
Life Flight Takes Off Launched in 1985, the critical care service saves lives across the Carolinas and Virginia
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hen a patient is in crisis, whether it's due to a car crash or in the moments following a lifethreatening diagnosis at a rural North Carolina hospital, there is no time to spare. Duke Life Flight’s helicopters and ambulances, along with the specialized medical staff from Duke University Hospital, has been providing rapid life-saving care to critical patients since 1985. “Life Flight is a service for the community and the hospital,” said Dr. Gregory Georgiade, who served as Duke Life Flight’s medical director for nearly 35 years before retiring in 2023. “It is an outreach service, an extension of what Duke can bring to bear for care across the state.” Georgiade, Dr. Joseph Moylan and Rita Weber, head nurse of the Duke’s emergency department, pitched the idea of aviation transport to drastically reduce the time between injury and care. After 18 months of planning, Duke Life Flight conducted its first transport on March 1, 1985. More than 300 nurses applied to join Duke Life Flight’s first team, and eight were selected. Candidates completed four sets of interviews and a test flight to prove they wouldn’t get sick in the air. “It was a rigorous process,” Weber said in an interview in 2005 for Duke Life Flight’s 20-year anniversary book. “These nurses hit the ground running.” The team served 1,019 patients in the first year. Less than a year after its first flight in 1985, a second helicopter was added to the fleet. Services expanded in 1989 to include ground ambulances, bringing rolling ICUs to patients. Duke Life Flight, with hubs across North Carolina, now operates three helicopters and 12 ambulances. A team of around 125 professionals conducts 4,700 flight and ground missions annually, among other duties and on-campus events. “It’s not a job you can come in and work your shift and go home and put it behind you,” Life Flight Administrative Director René Borghese said during an interview with Working@Duke. “They’re dedicated to their craft and very motivated.” In 2017, a pilot, two flight nurses and a patient were killed after a Duke Life Flight helicopter crashed in northeastern North Carolina. During a memorial service in Duke University Chapel to honor the Life Flight
Life Flight 1 flies in front of Duke North Hospital in an undated photograph. Photo: Duke Medical Center Archives.
team, Borghese, who joined Life Flight as a flight nurse in 1993, shared that all members of the team have one thing in common – a strong desire to save lives. “This desire in and of itself doesn’t make them different from the amazing teams of clinical professionals who work in the hospitals in clinics,” she said during the memorial. “What sets this group apart is their desire to do so while putting themselves in harm’s way. And, without the safety net of an entire health care team, they simply depend on each other.”
In 1985, Duke Life Flight became the first hospital-based helicopter service in North Carolina. Photo: Duke Medical Center Archives.
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Building Community | 1970-2003
Duke Women’s Initiative leaders (left to right) Donna Lisker, Nancy Allen, Mindy Kornberg and Ann Brown pose for a photo in 2006. Photo: Working@Duke.
Women’s Initiative Improved Experiences for All Effort included parental leave for primary caregiver, and more
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n the early 2000s, women comprised 70% of Duke’s workforce, yet many women felt that the institution’s policies and benefits were not tailored to support their success. Even Duke’s President at the time, Nannerl O. Keohane, acknowledged an “absence of conversation” about issues on campus. “We were at a moment when some people assumed the women’s movement had done its work and had been successful,” said Donna Lisker, who served as Director of Duke’s Women’s Center from 1999 to 2007 and is now Chief of Staff at Brown University’s Division of Advancement. “President Keohane was curious about that. She heard from women faculty, women staff, people who worked with students, that there’s still a whole lot left to do here.” For Keohane, Duke’s eighth president who served from July 1993 to June 2004, the work started with examining the experiences of Duke women and how gender affected work and learning — a mission she led in 2002 when she formed the Women’s Initiative to comprehensively address challenges and create a better Duke for everybody. From paid parental leave to equal opportunity for advancement, the initiative led to pivotal changes that have improved the working experiences for tens of thousands of Duke staff and faculty. These included parental leave for a primary caregiver, annual tuition reimbursement for employees, funding for hiring women and minorities in faculty ranks, and an improved benefits enrollment process for same-sex partners. Keohane wrote in the Women’s Initiative report in 2003, “Our recommendations are intended to help Duke become a place that more fully and intentionally includes women at all levels, more effectively and deliberately than we otherwise would, in the years to come.” The yearlong initiative included focus groups across constituencies: undergraduates, graduate and professional students, faculty, staff, post-docs, alumnae and trustees. The
sessions provided a vivid picture of social pressures, work-life balance challenges and lack of mentorship shaping women’s experiences. “They were eager to talk to us, and they told very personal things over the course of time,” said Susan Roth, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience, who served as chair of the initiative’s executive committee. “Whether it comes from negative experiences or just awareness of difference, these things were on people’s minds.” Two decades later, the legacy of the Women’s Initiative permeates across Duke. “This was an initiative that was really substantial, searching and well done,” Roth said. “It spoke to the values of Duke, the leadership at Duke and commitments that hopefully carry on to this day.”
Nannerl O. Keohane served as Duke University’s eighth president, from 1993 to 2004. She is Duke’s only female president to date. working.duke.edu
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Building on Excellence | 2004-2023
Duke Regional Hospital Chaplain Kiki Barnes. Courtesy of Kiki Barnes.
When Duke University Health System discharged its 1,000th COVID-19 patient in August 2000, the milestone encompassed the work of all Duke Health team members on the front lines. Their unprecedented effort aligns with our “Trailblazer” designation. The appreciation message on the Duke Medicine Circle lawn was painted in 2020.
Duke University Hospital Clinical Nurse Celeste Alexiou. Courtesy of Celeste Alexiou.
Photo: University Marketing & Communications.
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Caregivers Shine Amidst Historic Pandemic
erving as a chaplain in Duke Regional Hospital’s ICU during the hardest months of the COVID-19 pandemic left Kiki Barnes with wrenching memories. Barnes remembers a dying inmate, who, while in the ICU, prayed with her over a walkie-talkie. She pictures another patient, her bed surrounded by a thicket of machines and IV stands. It was risky for visitors, so the patient’s son requested Barnes be there as his mother slipped away. “You’re not alone,” Barnes told the woman from the hallway, her hand pressed on the room window. “Your family loves you.” Claiming 1.1 million American lives, the pandemic was staggering in scale. And for Duke caregivers who responded to the coronavirus, especially during the early stages of the national emergency when vaccines weren’t available, the tragedies were experienced up-close, every day. “We had to keep caring, we had to keep showing up,” Barnes said. “We felt that ‘This is what I have to do.’” Duke’s institutional response showed the power of creativity and collaboration. With masks in short supply, Duke found
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381,000 blue cloth masks to distribute to students, staff and faculty. Marshalling resources from across campus, Duke built a sophisticated surveillance testing program so some in-person classes could resume in fall 2020. And in December 2020, when the first COVID-19 vaccines became available, Duke quickly built a vaccination operation that eventually delivered 496,815 doses to patients, employees and the public. “I witnessed tremendous courage,” said Rhonda Brandon, Chief Human Resources Officer and Senior Vice President for Duke University Health System. “For a caregiver, this work is a calling. No matter what they’re going through, even in one of the biggest crises we’ve seen, our team members will persevere, sacrifice and do all they can to save the person in front of them.” To keep caregivers safe, Duke’s Employee Occupational Health & Wellness (EOHW) created a hotline and network of contact tracers and case managers to support all employees exposed to the virus. Dr. Carol Epling, Executive Director for EOHW, heard from front-line staff
members who feared the virus but were driven by devotion. “They continued saving lives despite their own personal risk,” Epling said. Clinical Nurse Celeste Alexiou, who joined Duke in 2010, treated patients in Duke University Hospital’s ICU. She spent hours in rooms, drenched in sweat under full-body protective suits alongside patients clinging to life as machines pumped oxygen directly into their blood. When her 12-hour lockdown-era shift ended each evening, she walked across campus amid an eerie quiet. Witnessing losses up close, coupled with hearing members of the public question the severity of the pandemic, led to a level of frustration that briefly prompted Alexiou to contemplate stepping away from patient care. But her passion for the work was more powerful than the pandemic. “At the end of the day,” said Alexiou, “it’s still very satisfying for me to care for those who are critically ill and be there for people in the most vulnerable time of their lives.”
Building on Excellence | 2004-2023
A Lasting Legacy of Remote Work I
n 2009, Jon Narvaez North Carolina. Fewer made Florida his home – spontaneous in-person it’s where he met his wife, interactions mean more is raising three children, Zoom meetings. However, and fell hard for the the flexibility of remote sunshine and nearby Gulf work enabled Torres to of Mexico waters. assemble a more extensive But in 2022, while and seasoned team. working for a hospital in Despite challenges, she Tampa, Florida, Narvaez said, the advantages of found himself drawn to remote work, including a job opportunity at the improved work-life balance, Duke University School outweigh drawbacks. of Medicine in Durham. “We just do things “I knew if I was going in a different way now,” to make a jump, it would Torres said. have to be to a prestigious Narvaez, who serves institution,” Narvaez said. on Torres’ team, made Last February, Narvaez his first visit to Duke last joined Duke as a Director November. On his brief In November 2023, Jon Narvaez, a Florida-based team member of Duke’s Research in Duke’s Research visit, he met with faculty Administration Support Resource, made his first visit to Duke. Photo: Brandon Bieltz. Administration Support investigators about Resource. Since then, he has been leading a fully remote team research grants he helps manage for the Department of Head and from his home near Tampa, assisting faculty in refining medical Neck Surgery. research proposals and maximizing grant funding. While 655 miles from his Florida home, Narvaez felt like The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped workplaces, including he belonged amid Duke’s world-class hospital and alongside Duke’s. On March 16, 2020, President Vincent Price announced accomplished faculty. that all faculty and staff who could work remotely or were not “To actually be on campus and meet the people doing this required for on-site support of critical operations should stay research, it makes it completely different,” Narvaez said. “It’s like, home. That started a lasting shift to flexible work arrangements ‘OK, this is who I work for.’ You see it. You feel it. That makes a for remote capable roles, and today, at least 547 employees – big difference.” a 250% increase since 2020 – reside outside of North Carolina but work for Duke. Antwan Lofton, Vice President for Duke Human Resources, said Duke has established a foundation for work location flexibility for non-patient and student facing roles to recruit and retain top-tier talent. Now, leaders of schools and departments assess roles that fit for hybrid or remote arrangements. “We have long been an employer of choice here in North Carolina. Now, we want to be an employer of choice across the nation,” Lofton said. Duke’s embrace of remote work reflects a broad trend as a survey of hiring managers by Upwork shows that an estimated 40.7 million American workers will work fully remote by 2026. The shift at Duke is particularly evident in the Office of Research Administration infrastructure, where most employees now work remotely. Laurianne Torres, Associate Dean for Research Administration at Duke University, manages the Office of Research Administration and the Research Administration Support Resource. Before the pandemic, her teams operated exclusively on-site in Erwin Square Plaza. Now, her two teams, comprising 142 members, One of Duke’s remote workers, Stephen Peterson of the Office of Research Administration, captured are dispersed nationwide, with 31 residing outside this scene from his remote workspace in the North Carolina mountains. Courtesy of Stephen Peterson.
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Building on Excellence | 2004-2023
Faculty Find a Home for Bright Minds I
n 1926, Duke University President William Preston Few recruited Dr. Arthur Pearse, who held a doctorate from Harvard University and was actively engaged in researching parasites in Nigeria. Upon returning to the United States in January 1927, Pearse traveled directly to Duke, where a Zoology faculty position awaited and his wife and two children had settled in a home on Club Boulevard. In correspondence with friends, Pearse described Duke University – less than three years old at the time – as “unorganized” and, from a scientific perspective, “undeveloped.” But “the prospects for the future have promise,” he added. Pearse became a major piece of that future. He founded the Duke University Marine Laboratory in 1938; conducted research in Asia, Africa and South America, and served on Duke’s zoology faculty until his retirement 1948. To keep pace with academic aspirations, Duke’s faculty grew rapidly in the early years, jumping from 152 members in 1925 to 354 in 1930. To attract top teaching talent from across the country, Duke built 14 faculty houses on Campus Drive in the early 1930s. Duke historian Robert Durden noted in his book, The Launching of Duke University 1924-49, that early faculty showed a high degree of loyalty to Duke because they “grew up” alongside the institution.
This early 1990s photo of the Department of Cultural Anthropology’s faculty features four members who are still here. In the front row, from far left, Charles Piot, Anne Allison and Orin Starn are still at Duke. So too is Ralph Litzinger, who is seen on the back row, second from right. Photo: Department of Cultural Anthropology.
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WORKING@DUKE
Duke Professor of Zoology Arthur Pearse, left, collects specimens with a graduate student at the Duke University Marine Lab in the 1930s. Photo: Duke University Archives.
Now with 4,109 faculty, Duke remains a destination for bright minds, a place to build lasting connections. Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement Abbas Benmamoun, who joined Duke in 2017, said he often hears how opportunities for interdisciplinary research and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries make scholars want to put down roots at Duke. “There are so many opportunities to build deep connections and relationships here,” Benmamoun said. “And I really think it’s hard for faculty to walk away from community, especially when it’s a community that is enriching and where you feel that you have grown and thrived.” Throughout the university’s first century, many influential thinkers found that fit at Duke. In the 1930s, Duke welcomed leading German scholars, such as physicists Fritz London and Hertha Sponer, who fled fascism in Europe. Students have learned from faculty such as jazz composer Mary Lou Williams and political scientist Samuel DuBois Cook, who joined Duke in 1966, becoming the first African American to hold a regular and/or tenured faculty appointment at a predominantly white southern college or university. Two Nobel laureates, Drs. Robert Lefkowitz and Paul Modrich, continue to make Duke their academic home. The Cultural Anthropology Department is home to six primary faculty with a quarter-century or more at Duke. A bulletin board in their offices features photographs of current Professors Anne Allison, Lee Baker, Charles Piot, Ralph Litzinger and Orin Starn smiling into cameras in the 1990s. They’ve all drawn inspiration from campus. Piot said his books on the political economy and history of West Africa were enriched by ideas shared among colleagues. Baker said a study abroad program that allowed students to conduct research in Ghana was the result of Duke’s support of ambitious ideas. “At Duke, we found a great intellectual life, wonderful resources, a good place to live,” said Starn, who has taught at Duke since 1992. “All of those things have ended up keeping us here.”
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Building on Excellence | 2004-2023
Q A: Continuing the March for Racial Equity
A
mid 2020’s nationwide reckoning on racism, the Duke community united for change. Healthcare workers gathered for solidarity walks. A virtual daylong university symposium, “Living While Black,” drew roughly 6,300 participants. The 2021 Duke Campus Climate Survey, the first survey of its kind that measured experiences of university community members, revealed that among 12,751 respondents, more than half of Duke’s Black, Hispanic, Asian, female and LGBTQ+ community members reported experiencing microaggressions in the past year. Whether through Duke University Health System’s “Moments to Movement” initiative or the university’s Racial Equity Advisory Council, Duke has been working to create lasting change around racial equity, diversity, and inclusion. As Duke’s second century dawns, Assistant Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leigh-Anne Royster and Duke University Health System Vice President and Chief Employee Experience Officer Ian Lee Brown shared thoughts on Duke’s progress.
How does the university draw upon its history of systemic racial injustice to inform efforts and combat inequality? Royster: Like many institutions of higher education, Duke has a history with systemic racial injustice. We also have a unique position as a private institution in the South, with the kind of resources and reach we have, to lead in reckoning with racial equity work. There are opportunities for us to allocate resources and develop relationships in ways that reconcile and account for our participation with racial injustice. It’s incumbent upon us to reflect at the Centennial and do everything we can to be accountable for our participation in the past, while understanding that we’re still participating in ways we may only see when we’re able to evaluate at some time in the future.
Duke’s Assistant Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leigh-Anne Royster.
What key initiatives has Duke University Health System implemented to address inequity? Brown: When I came here in 2022, I learned about significant opportunities from our Moments to Movement journey where leaders and team members spoke about racism, social justice, and health inequalities, and about work groups which assessed the state of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging across our system. Now, we’ve built a strategy for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging focused on optimizing the human experience here at Duke. We’re focusing on equitable hiring, retention, and promotion; inclusive leadership development; and maintaining strong partnerships with our nine employee affinity groups. The population around Duke is getting more diverse, so I want everyone who walks through the doors of Duke Health to feel like they belong.
What notable observation do you identify from the period after 2020? Royster: People describe decentralization at Duke as a challenge. There are certainly challenges related to decentralization. However, one core strength of our community is that, perhaps because of that decentralization, there is accountability across the enterprise. We don’t feel like racial equity work only happens in one office or department. I’ve found that across the university and health system, people believe the accountability for racial equity work is theirs. I see it from IT to clinical settings to facilities to the classroom. There’s no way this work happens successfully without everyone being invested and seeing their place in it. If you have a story for our Working Toward Racial Justice series, send an email to working@duke.edu.
Duke University Health System Vice President and Chief Employee Experience Officer Ian Lee Brown.
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The Future What are your predictions for Duke over the next 100 years? ANA ANDERSON Investment Manager, Duke Management Company
“We must not get comfortable with our success. We must always strive to be better than last year, better than yesterday. We should let the Duke core values guide us in everything that we do.”
JASMINE HUGHES Instructor, Special Programs
“I would love to see more interdisciplinary courses that involve the humanities, arts, science, and medicine. If you don’t have these collaborative interdisciplinary programs, you can halt the process of science, halt the process of advancement of medicine because you don’t get to think of things from a different perspective.”
ARTHUR HUANG Financial Management Analyst III, Central Finance, Division of Student Affairs
“Innovation and technology should be a focus for Duke’s next 100 years. That will involve proactively looking for new technologies that can make work more efficient and help us keep pace with other elite universities. And it will take training, adapting to change and an understanding that we’re all on the same team.”
JEN RICANO Research Technician II, Duke Anesthesiology
“I think the students will be playing more pivotal roles in shaping Duke's future, possibly more so than they have in the past.”
SUMMER GRANGER Clinical Research Coordinator, Urogynecology Clinical Research Team
MARIANNE CHANTI-KETTERL
“I hope Duke will continue to foster a relationship with the Durham community.”
Assistant Professor, Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
“I hope the next 100 years bring a more transparent, just and representative university where we all experience a strong sentiment of belonging. I also hope we become more environmentally friendly across all sectors of campus.”
STEVEN HENSEN Retired Librarian, Duke University Libraries
“The students are the future of Duke and, if current trends continue, I see nothing but continued success and growth for Duke.”
Contact us Leanora Minai Executive Director of Communications/Editor (919) 681-4533 leanora.minai@duke.edu Paul S. Grantham Assistant Vice President (919) 681-4534 paul.grantham@duke.edu
Paul Figuerado Design & Layout (919) 684-2107 paul.figuerado@duke.edu Stephen Schramm Senior Writer (919) 684-4639 stephen.schramm@duke.edu
Working@Duke is published quarterly by Duke’s Office of Communication Services. We invite your feedback and story ideas. Send email to working@duke.edu
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