Duke University is a private coeducational research university located in Durham, North Carolina, US. The school,
which officially became Duke
University in 1924, traces its institutional roots to 1838. Beginning in the 1970s, Duke administrators began a long-term effort to strengthen Duke's reputation both nationally and internationally. Interdisciplinary work was emphasized, as was recruiting minority faculty and students.Duke is ranked among the world's best universities. In its 2007 edition,
U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate division eighth in the nation, while ranking the medical, law, and business schools among the top eleven in the country. Duke’s research expenditures are among the largest in the U.S. and the athletic program is one of the nation’s elite.Besides academics, research, and athletics, Duke is also well known for its sizeable campus and Gothic architecture, especially Duke Chapel. The forested environs surrounding parts of campus belie the university's proximity to downtown Durham. Duke's 8,709acres (35km²) contain three main campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort, North Carolina. Construction projects have updated both the freshmen-housed Georgian style East Campus and the main Gothic style West Campus as well as the adjacent Medical Center over the past five years. Other projects are underway on on all three campuses, including a 20- to 50-year overhaul of Central Campus, the first phase of which is expected to be completed in Fall 2008 at an estimated cost of $240million.
Beginnings :--Duke University started as Brown's Schoolhouse, a private subscription school founded in 1838 in Randolph County in the present-day town of Trinity. The school was organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers, and in 1841, North Carolina issued a charter for Union Institute Academy. The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church. In 1892, Trinity moved to Durham, largely due to generosity from Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr, powerful and respected Methodists who had grown wealthy through the tobacco industry.
James B. Duke established the Duke
Endowment, which provides funds to numerous institutions including Duke University.In 1924, Washington Duke's son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment with a $40 million ($434 million in 2005 dollars) trust fund. The annual income of the fund was to be distributed to hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, three colleges, and Trinity College. President William Preston Few insisted that the university be named Duke University, and James B. Duke agreed that it would be a memorial to his father and family. Money from the endowment allowed the university to grow quickly. Duke's original campus (East Campus) was rebuilt from 1925 to 1927 with Georgian-style buildings. By 1930, the majority of the Gothic style buildings on the campus one mile west were completed, and construction on West Campus culminated with the completion of Duke Chapel in 1935.