Skip to main content

Academic Council Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Faculty members say the role of the Academic Council in faculty governance has served the university well for 40 years.

If there is one constant in the 40 years of Duke's Academic Council, it just might be parking and traffic.

"We seem to talk a lot about parking and traffic," said Dr. Nancy Allen, with a laugh. Allen is professor of rheumatology and immunology and the current council chair. "I've been going through the old council minutes, and there are references to the 'enduring question of parking and traffic.'"

Since its first meeting in October 1962, the council has also been the main faculty voice on critical intellectual and governance issues, from the decision about the Nixon Library in 1981 to the Black Faculty Initiative in 1988. It's the actions of the council that have put teeth into Duke's commitment to faculty governance, Allen said.

To pay tribute to that record, the council will hold a special ceremony next week during its regularly scheduled monthly session. Former past council chairs and officers have been invited to attend. In addition to recognizing these former officers, the tribute will include Allen reading a timeline that lists some of the major accomplishments of the council.

"I think faculty governance has served Duke University well," Allen said. "My sense is the current leadership appreciates faculty involvement and solicits its opinion on the key issues at the appropriate time. I would like to see that continue."

Prior to the council, faculty members sat on a body called the University Council, according to a history written by longtime Academic Council member Donald Fluke, a former chair and secretary of the council. But the University Council's authority was limited, and it was chaired by the university president and dominated by top administrators and their appointees, Fluke said.

This arrangement failed the university in several ways, Fluke said. In 1960, a power struggle between the president and the top academic officer split the university. Faculty believed they didn't have a proper forum in which to hear critical information about the university and to voice their opinions.

The Academic Council was formed in 1962, but it wasn't until a decade later that the Christie Rules codified the council as the university faculty's major decision-making body. The Christie Rules said all key administrative decisions affecting academics had to be presented in a timely fashion for council discussion.

"It has worked well since then," Fluke said in an interview this week. "It is a record of accomplishment. I was recently at a faculty meeting involving scholars from several UNC branches, as well as some of the state's private colleges, and I could see how faculty at Duke have much more voice here in the management of the university. This has only come about because of the operations of the Academic Council."

The council has a reputation for seriousness, but its comradeship comes through in more humorous ways. There was the time historian Joel Colton began his two-year tenure as council chair by announcing he was 3,000 miles away when he got elected chair, and if he had known his colleagues were going to do it, he probably wouldn't have supported it.

More recently, Ken Knoerr, known for wearing Hawaiian shirts to council meetings, ended a long tenure on the council by reading in Greek the traditional certification of degree candidates' statement for the Nicholas School.

But the moments that stand out for council members are those when the council served as the forum for faculty members to weigh in and make decisions about issues that changed the university. In 1981, it was a strong vote in the council that stopped negotiations on the Nixon Library. Seven years later, a divided council initiated dramatic plans to increase the number of black faculty members. In more recent years, the council took a key role in the development of the Levine Science Research Center and other key campus buildings, and in studies that influenced the development of student, intellectual and residential life on campus.

"I hope this tribute will put a perspective on the business and the importance of the council and current university operations," Allen said. "In advising the administration and the Board of Trustees on faculty views for 40 years, the council has been a valuable part of this university."

The anniversary tribute will take place as part of a series of events. The annual Meeting of the University Faculty, which includes "state of the university" speeches from Allen and Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane, will begin at 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in 139 Social Sciences Building. Immediately following the meeting, the Academic Council will go into session in the same room, with the tribute taking up most of the session.

Following the tribute, a reception is planned for the Rare Book Room in Perkins Library. All faculty members are invited to attend the events.