David Rubenstein's son, a Duke student, gave the Board of Trustees chair a reality check when he told him none of the students cared who was the trustee chair. "Nobody knows what trustees do."
An overflow audience of Duke faculty members proved Rubenstein's son wrong when they packed the Academic Council meeting Thursday to hear him take questions for more than an hour during a candid, humorous and wide-ranging talk on pressing issues facing Duke, the trustees' role and some personal thoughts on philanthropy.
He arrived at Duke having just come from a ceremony with Vice President Joe Biden at the JFK Center for Performing Arts, which like Duke is one of his special institutions of interest and philanthropy. He told the council it was the first time he'd addressed a room full of faculty and said he was glad to be there because "one feels a natural tie to the university you attend. It's the place that sets you on the way to what you are going to do the rest of your life."
"I'm 65 and I realize I've lived more than I'm going to live. It's a time where you ask what can I do to justify the life I've lived. And in my remaining years I want to give back to the organizations that helped me when I was young. That's why I joined the trustees and now stand before you as chair."
Rubenstein discussed the role of the trustee board, saying trustees were careful to leave the university’s day-to-day operations to the administration and faculty. However, the 36 board members take seriously their responsibility to advise others on a vision of making the university a better institution.
He recalled that as a Jewish student on scholarship at Duke in the 1960s, he was not a great fit in a school that was "WASPy." His experience convinced him that Duke then was a good school, but could be better.
"Since then, Duke has done wonders in the last 40 years," Rubenstein said. "We don't have the resources of Harvard, Yale, Stanford and other schools. We have to be realistic that we're not going to top them in some ways, but there are things we can do better. We have a unique situation, with a first-class academic institution in a beautiful setting and great athletic organization. And we have a collaborative environment with a great faculty.
"The faculty have been very important in that transformation. I'm honored to be able to work with them and take pride in their accomplishments. It's particularly impressive to understand that no other university in the Deep South is as highly ranked. Duke was segregated for most of its history, but from that we have built a university that is as impressive as any."
Some topics covered by Rubenstein included:
Duke's Global Ambitions
There are many ways to become an international university, but Rubenstein said increasingly the best American universities are finding ways to expand their campuses internationally, such as Duke is doing in Kunshan and Singapore.
"The greatest opportunities are overseas," he said. "Going into China, India, Brazil and elsewhere is a good chance to get the brand extended. Is that good for the Duke campus in Durham? There are pluses and minuses, but if you aspire to be a great university and not go abroad, it's likely in the future you won't be considered a great university."
He added the rewards for the DKU campus outweighed the risks, adding that trustees would continue to consider how to find the resources to expand globally without draining essential funds for the Durham campus.
Below: Duke President Richard H. Brodhead at a Duke Kunshan University event in November.
Athletics
If he were building Duke from scratch, Rubenstein said he wasn't sure he would include athletics in the equation. But given Duke's history, athletics are such a part of the university's identity that it is "unrealistic to say we should take that money and put it elsewhere."
"I think that students and alumni here feel that athletics is part of our 'DNA.' If athletes weren't going to class and not doing well, I'd be more concerned. … The balance we've achieved is almost unique. Only Stanford can match us."
Asked further about athletic finances, Rubenstein said out of the department's $80 million budget, the university provides only $14 million as an investment, the rest coming from department-generated revenues. That subsidy is significantly less than Williams, Harvard or other elite schools provide.
"They don't have the TV money we're getting. The fact is that at $14-$15 million, this crown jewel is a smaller investment than any of the Ivy League schools. The program helps attract students to the university, helps improve diversity, helps with alumni relations, helps with visibility."
Sexual Assault and Campus Culture
Rubenstein said the trustees were watching the growing national concern with sexual violence on campus and hopes the university community can use the moment to change campus culture. But he said he didn't have any easy answers.
"I'm happy weren't not featured in Rolling Stone, as the University of Virginia was, but I know that gets counted under 'by the grace of God.' I hope we can take advantage of the situation to get students and the university community to pay more attention to these issues."
Federal Funding for Research
The decades-long arrangement in which government strongly funded university research is changing, Rubenstein said. He doesn't like that, and he said the change has "sucker-punched" universities that, like Duke, have built up large research infrastructures.
But the money isn't coming back, he added, and faculty members have to expect their job now includes the role of fundraiser.
"I know you became a professor to do research and change the world. You didn't become one to be a fundraiser. I didn't go into law and finance to become a fundraiser, but when I started a company I had to do it. That reluctance has to change. We are going to have to find new sources of funds."
His Approach to Philanthropy
Rubenstein has signed Bill Gates' "Giving Pledge" in which people pledge to donate half of their wealth while living or upon their death. He joked he sees many signees are holding on to the money until death, but "if you die and don't donate the money, what are they going to do to you? Disinter you?"
He said he's going beyond the pledge and will give all his funds away, with just a small inheritance for his family. "Nobody who inherited their wealth ever won a Nobel Prize," he said. (For more on his philanthropy, listen to his interview Tuesday on the Diane Rehm show.)
Some of his philanthropy has gone in areas he called "patriotic giving." He's helped repair the Washington Monument, renovate Monticello and purchased and donated copies of the Declaration of Independence and Magna Carta for public display. "I want to give back to the country in a way that reminds us of our freedoms," he said.
His donations to the Sanford School, Duke Libraries and other institutions are often a matter of serendipity, but also some strategic thinking, he added.
"I try to find a place where my amount of money will jumpstart or complete an important project or fund something that in my mind is important but not getting enough attention nationally."