Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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ADMINISTRATION EDITOR: Carol Corder I HE administration of Duke University is many things. It is a varied body composed of many units — yet it is a single unit; it is an impersonal body functioning for the good of the students — yet it is a personal contact for the students; it works for the student during undergraduate years — yet it remains a contact for those students who graduate; it is a body which is taken for granted — yet it is loudly criticised if something displeases the students or parents; it is not static, but has long-range plans to make Duke University bigger and better. To begin with, the Administration is a varied community — comparable to any town in the United States. President Edens is the mayor of that town, Dukiana, and it is his duty to over-see the entire organization; while the Board of Trustees is the City Council of Dukiana, an advisory body. Administrative Heads are the Heads of the numerous Governmental Departments necessary for the co-ordinated functioning of the town. The College of Engineering and Women ' s College are two suburban town-ships which have separate governments, yet are dependent on the larger town; and the Deans, Di- rectors, and Heads of these two Colleges, as town-ship leaders, work in co-operation with metropolitan Dukiana. Furthermore, the Department Heads of Duke University are the leading business and professional men of Dukiana, who are joined together in a type of Chamber of Com- merce where each represents his own company or profession, yet each is responsible for the smooth running of his own business. In every community there are several large institutions, hospitals, law courts, special schools, libraries, parks, and perhaps a small college or two— these are the Graduate and Professional Schools of Duke University. The James B. Duke Professors are the principals and superintendents of Dukiana ' s school system— vital to the education of the community; while faculty members are the instructors. Within this community, too, is a Guidance Bureau where men and women in the community may seek help with their problems— the House Counselors on East Cam- pus, who are the personal contacts of the students. The Alumni Department of Duke is the contact for students after graduation, and provides another unique feature of Duki- ana by keeping track of each person who leaves the community upon graduation. Thus Dukiana is a varied community with all parts working together making it a co-ordinated center in the state, Universities— which encompasses all the students. The above analogy is but a means of showing how each part of the Administration has rfl job to do; yet it is a co-ordinated center which works to keep the University united and running smoothly. Each part has a direct importance to student life and each does more than the students realize, for the Administration takes care of accepted things and repre- sents the student body of Duke University in Durham, in North Carolina, and around the world.

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DR. A. HOLLIS EDENS president of duke university Some thirty-five years ago, the principal of a Tennessee mountain school wrote a letter to an Emory University official on behalf of one of his students: This is our first commencement, the letter said. In our first class of five there is one boy, the pride of our school. He is a tall fellow, with a brilliant mind, and a very pleasing personality. He wishes to go to college. He will not be able to put out in the money line, for his father is a typical mountain man, serving three or four churches along with his farming. They are splendid people, however, and the boy is bound to make his mark soon. All I want is a chance for him. He is happy to work anywhere ... I feel sure that he could help in office work, mow lawns, fire furnaces — in fact, he is not afraid of hard work. The student was Arthur Hollis Edens. Today, with a long career of scholastic excellence and of distinguished service in the field of education behind him, he still is not afraid of hard work. Ten years have passed since Dr. Edens assumed the Presidency of Duke University. Those years have witnessed tremendous strides in every area of University life — buildings to the value of $18,000,000 have been completed or are now under construction; the total of employees in all capacities has risen 23.5 per cent within the past four years alone; the student body has be- come an increasingly able one; and annual grants for research projects have grown from $70,- 000 to $3,500,000. However, to dwell on the past accomplishments of an individual or of a university is to turn one ' s back on the future. Dr. Edens recognized this when he stated that, on the occasion of his first Founder ' s Day at Duke, he had tried to grasp fully the concept that ' a university is never a completed creation, ' that ' to consider any stage in its development as final is to deny it the contributions and the vigor which each generation brings. ' This philosophy has guided Residential and University policy for the past decade, and in 1 958- 1959, a year of re-examination and of search for new directions, it has become the center of a slowly unfolding concept for the future. All facets of a university — student, faculty, and admin- istrative — contribute to its development, but it is the man at the top whose strength of lead- ership determines along which ideological path the university will progress. With the appoint- ment this year of a Long Range Planning Committee and with the designation of certain long range goals — the raising of the quality rather than the quantity of the student body, provision for increased scholarly research, and the concept of the student as his own teacher — President Edens has proved himself a man of imagination and foresight. He has indeed made his mark.