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Speaking of Duke

Speaking of Duke

Leading the Twenty-First-Century University

by Richard H. Brodhead

Published by: Duke University Press

Imprint: Duke University Press Books

272 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 mm

Hardcover
9780822368847
Published: April 2017

£32.00

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Contents
Authors

Over the course of his thirteen years as president of Duke University, Richard H. Brodhead spoke at numerous university ceremonies, community forums, and faculty meetings, and even appeared on The Colbert Report. Speaking of Duke collects dozens of these speeches, in which Brodhead speaks both to the special character and history of Duke University and to the general state of higher education.

In these essays, Brodhead shows a university thinking its way forward through challenges all institutes of higher education have faced in the twenty-first century, including an expanding global horizon, an economic downturn that has left a diminished sense of opportunity and a shaken faith in the value of liberal arts education, and pressure to think more deeply about issues of equity and inclusion. His audiences range from newly arrived freshmen and new graduates-both facing uncertainty about how to build their future lives-to seasoned faculty members. On other occasions, he makes the case to the general public for the enduring importance of the humanities.

What results is a portrait of Duke University in its modern chapter and the social and political climate that it shapes and is shaped by. While these speeches were given on official occasions, they are not impersonal official pronouncements; they are often quite personal and written with grace, humor, and an unwavering belief in the power of education to shape a changing world for the better.

Brodhead notes that it is an underappreciated fact that a great deal of the exercise of power by a university leader is done through speaking: by articulating the aspirations of the school and the reasons for its choices, and by voicing the shared sense of mission that gives a learning community its reality. Speaking of Duke accomplishes each of those and demonstrates Brodhead's conviction that higher education is more valuable now than ever.

Preface ix
2003
Remarks on Being Named President of Duke University 1
2004
Freshman Convocation: Authoring a Community 5
Graduate and Professional Convocation: The Virtues and Limits of Specialization 12
Inaugural Address: More Day to Dawn 19
Remarks at the Induction Ceremony of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Literature as Life 29
2005
Baccalaureate: On Education and Empowerment 32
Founders' Day Address: On Founding as a Continuous Labor 37
Faculty Address: Financial Aid, the Problem-centric University 44
2006
Preface to the University Strategic Plan, Making A Difference: Duke and the Changing Landscape: A Planning Prologue 53
2007
Commencement Address at Fisk University 60
Fresman Convocation: The Ethic of Engagement 64
Lessons of Lacrosse 71
2008
Baccalaureate: Frolics and Detours 75
2009
Baccalaureate: Advancing in a Recession 80
In Memoriam: John Hope Franklin 85
2010
Faculty Address: The University and the Financial Downturn 88
Baccalaureate: Walk Ten Thousand Miles, Read Ten Thousand Books 98
2011
Faculty Address: Budgets, International Opportunities, the Humanities 103
In Memoriam: Reynolds Price 113
Freshman Convocation: On the Use of New Freedoms 115
John Tyler Caldwell Lecture on the Humanities: The Fire That Never Goes Out 119
2012
In Memoriam: Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans 127
Faculty Address: Duke and Race 130
Baccalaureate: Repairing the Broken World 139
2013
Baccalaureate: Connecting and Disconnecting 144
Interview with Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report 148
Freshman Convocation: Receive, Connect, Engage 153
Remarks at the Opening of the Center on Sexual and Gender Diversity 157
Presidential Address, The College Board Forum: The Value Debate in Higher Education 161
2014
Lecture at Tsinghua University, Beijing: Interconnected Knowledge and the Twenty-First-Century University 172
Faculty Address; Leadership Transitions, Rebuilding the Campus, the Role of Philanthropy 183
Commencement Address at Miami Dade College: Opportunity Changes Everything 194
Freshman Convocation: On Comfort True and False 201
2015
Faculty Address: Chocies That Made Duke-Medicine, Athletics, Durham 205
Remarks at a Community Forum on a Racial Incident 216
Freshman Convocation: Constructing Duke 220
Keynote Address, Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the National Endowment for the Humanties: On the Fate and Fortunes of Public Goods 225
2016
Baccalaureate: I Learn by Going Where I Have to Go 237
Freshman Convocation: Citizens of Duke 242
Index 247