Building Duke: A Century of Change Makers and Community Shapers

“How do you take a regional university and turn it into a world-renowned research institution?”

In celebration of Duke’s centennial, four Bass Connections project teams examined this question and many others to explore the nuances and untold stories of Duke’s 100-year history. This “pop-up” theme engaged students, faculty and staff across the arts and humanities, interpretive social sciences, and health and medicine to examine how Duke’s past has shaped the university we know today and its plans for the future.

Stories of Duke’s Change Makers

Two teams explored Duke’s history through the stories of individuals who shaped the university’s legacy in both higher education and healthcare. Through oral histories, these project teams highlighted those who transformed the academic and cultural landscape of the university and the activists who pushed for equity within Duke Health.

The Duke and the Evolution of Higher Education project team examined the institutional history of Duke in the past half century through the lens of the people that “actually make Duke run.” Akin to “a people’s history of Duke,” the team detailed the story of “transformational individuals” in Duke’s history, said Jenny Wood Crowley (Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education), who co-led the project team alongside Ed Balleisen (Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies) and Mary Pat McMahon (Vice Provost/Vice President of Student Affairs). Team members conducted nearly 40 interviews with a diverse group of Duke faculty, administrators and staff who spent at least a decade working at the university.

“We tried to capture a whole range [of interviewees], from the arts and Duke’s impact in Durham, to research, teaching and athletics,” said Sanjana Anand, and undergraduate biology student and project team member. “They could have been someone who has seen [their department] grow, or how it has changed,” shared Anand, who interviewed individuals such as former Dean of Trinity College and Director of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Richard White, for whom White Lecture Hall is named. Anand and her teammates worked to elevate the stories of these individuals who have shaped the university over the past five decades into the academic institution we know today. 

The oral history collection will be available through a digital repository.

The Agents of Change: Portraits of Activism in the History of Duke Health team also used oral histories to uncover stories of activism in the nearly 100-year history of the Duke Health system. According to Sara Spicer, a medical student who co-led the team, this project aimed to offer a “complementary” narrative to the story of “continuous progress” that often gets told about institutions like Duke Health that have complex histories of inequity.

Image

Spicer shared that there are many notable physicians highlighted at Duke Hospital for their contributions to research and medical care, but the team “wanted this project to be a different gallery of impactful names and faces… not because they had pioneered a new surgical technique, but because they had pushed Duke to be more inclusive.”

Undergraduate team member Danielle Okotcha worked with her teammates to develop the oral histories of these “change makers.” For example, Okotcha connected with the colleagues and family of Dr. Charles Johnson, one of the first Black faculty members at Duke Health, as well as Joyce Jiggetts, a maternal health equity advocate, particularly for incarcerated women. Their stories can now be found in a digital collection of historical documents and oral histories detailing 16 underrepresented activists in the history of Duke Health.

Image

“It’s not the case that only the future is worth looking towards. There are things we can learn from looking back to the past as well,” noted Spicer. This centennial project gave her and her teammates the opportunity to learn from the work of these activists and consider how they contributed to the creation of a more equitable healthcare system. “It was an honor to hear their stories,” she said.

Building “A Worthy Place”

The World Building at Duke in an Emerging Durham: 1924-1932 project team aimed to commemorate the centennial by “creating a sense of the city of Durham at the moment of Duke’s inception as a university,” said Victoria Szabo (Research Professor, Art History, & Visual Studies) who co-led the project. “Duke is a major actor in the life of the city. The university helped to co-produce Durham as a place, and vice-versa.”

Image

This team examined how the city of Durham and Duke's built and natural environments were shaped by and contributed to the development of social, economic and political conditions during Duke’s planning and construction. The team combined historical research and digital humanities to explore several topics, including Duke's role as a “place maker” in the city of Durham’s cultural and physical expansion; the impact of the city on the university; and the projection of the university and the city's images nationally and globally.

Bryan Rusch, a Ph.D. candidate in history, helped to re-construct “the ‘image’ of a community” that was being formed at Duke by examining archival building plans, policies and directories found in university and state archives. This community of industrial workers – including plumbers, women in textiles, and other construction and businesspeople – built the physical structures of Duke and Durham in the 1920s and 30s that still shape the character of the city and campus today.

Image

In addition to producing StoryMaps and modeling tools, the team’s work culminated in a digital media exhibition in the Duke University Libraries called “A Worthy Place”: Durham, Duke, and the World of the 1920s-1930s. Students can visit this exhibit in the Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery at the entrance of Perkins Library from now until June 9, 2025, to experience a glimpse of the lived experience of Durham residents and the Duke community in the 1920s and 30s, and consider for themselves Duke’s role in the emergence of Durham on the regional, national and world stages.

Shaping an Enduring Sports and Activist Legacy

A chronicle of Duke’s history would be incomplete without mention of its storied basketball program; however, the program has a complicated history and relationship with Black America. The Race and Sports: C.B. Claiborne and Duke Men’s Black Basketball History project team examined the story of Dr. C.B. Claiborne, Duke’s first Black student-athlete and a member of the men’s basketball team. Working closely with Claiborne himself, the project team produced a documentary film focusing on Claiborne’s story, including his active participation in the struggle for Black liberation on campus, as well as the institutional and national histories of Black activism in sports.

Image

Master’s student Henry Yeh reflected on a particularly impactful moment in the documentary, in which team leader Javier Wallace (Postdoctoral Associate, African and African American Studies), who also directed the film, asked Claiborne, “What would you want your legacy to be?” Yeh shared, “Dr. Claiborne paused for a couple of seconds … and said ‘Well, it’s not really about me, it’s about everybody.’”

Image

If there were a statue to commemorate Claiborne’s legacy, Claiborne would want it to depict him and his white teammate Fred Lind passing a ball to each other, to symbolize unity and the injustice Claiborne overcame desegregating the Duke Men’s Basketball program.

The team’s film is currently being screened to private audiences with a wider release to be announced in fall of 2025.

Consciously Shaping our Community

As Duke’s centennial celebration officially comes to a close this spring, we can also celebrate the contributions these four project teams have made to Duke’s historical record. This body of work highlights the importance of reflection and the interrogation of Duke’s past as we continue to be intentional about what values and voices inform our present and the future of the Duke community.

“Community does not happen by accident,” shared Mary Pat McMahon. Our university is a product of intentional design and the directed efforts of passionate individuals. However, these teams remind us that we must continue to grapple with the institution’s complex history if we want our “outrageous ambition” to positively shape our legacy over the next hundred years.

Learn More

• Explore more stories collected for Duke's Centennial.
• Join us for the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase on April 16 from 3:30-5:30 in Penn Pavilion.
• Read more about collaborative, project-based learning at Duke and beyond through these case studies.