Duke to Honor Chapel Custodian, Former Trustee at Founders’ Day Ceremony

Oscar Dantzler, who for nearly two decades has served as custodian and unofficial tour guide  and historian at Duke’s iconic chapel, and Bruce Karsh, a former trustee whose support of financial aid has helped many students attend Duke, will receive the University Medal at the annual Founders’ Day ceremony Thursday, Sept. 29, in Duke Chapel.

Founders' Day celebrates the founding of the university and provides an opportunity each year for the school to reflect on its history and heritage, and recognize major contributions by students, faculty, administrators, employees and alumni.

The public ceremony will include recognition of faculty, staff and students who have won other university awards.

The University Medals to be presented to Dantzler and Karsh are Duke's highest honor for distinguished service.

Dantzler began working in Duke Chapel in 1997, where he is well known to regular visitors.  He is meticulous in everything he does, from dusting the elaborate carvings to sweeping the chapel steps to arranging the chairs in perfect rows. 

A student once called Dantzler “a campus celebrity who ironically happens to be one of Duke’s best-kept secrets. … [P]eople like Oscar embody [the chapel’s] spirit and further its mission of ‘engaging all to look to the future with faith, gratitude, and hope.’”

In 2009, Dantzler was featured in a documentary called The Philosopher Kings, which interviewed housekeeping staff at eight elite universities, celebrating their insight and perspective.

Bruce Karsh and Oscar Dantzler will receive University Medals Thursday.

Karsh, who will give the ceremony’s keynote address, co-founded Oaktree Capital Management, L.P., in 1995, and currently serves as its co-chairman and chief investment officer for the nearly $100 billion of assets under its management.   

The Duke alumnus was a member of the Duke University Board of Trustees from 2003 to 2015, including service on the Executive Committee and the Business and Finance Committee. He served on the Board of Directors of DUMAC -- which manages the university’s investments -- from 2002 to 2014 and was its chairn from 2005 to 2014, providing leadership through the financial downturn.

He has also served as a co-chair of Duke Forward, the seven-year fundraising campaign that recently surpassed its $3.25 billion goal. Committed to ensuring access to a Duke education, Bruce and Martha Karsh have given generously to Duke in support of undergraduate financial aid, including establishing the Karsh International Scholarships in 2011.  

Also to be honored during the Founders’ Day ceremony is Elizabeth Bucholz, a lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering, who will receive the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. Bucholz uses innovative, hands-on methods to explain complicated concepts.  For example, she gives each student a tiny flashlight and a wooden block to simulate how computerized tomography, or CT, scans work, and builds models out of erector sets to help students visualize the three-dimensional axes that are manipulated during the magnetic resonance imaging process. 

This coming year, Bucholz will co-teach a Duke-In Study Abroad course for engineering students that will use the outdoors of Costa Rica as a laboratory setting. In their fieldwork, students will measure volcanos’ seismic activity and analyze their recordings, and  will write software to identify some of the 857 bird species in the Costa Rican National Park through their calls alone by analyzing their songs with time-frequency plots.

Kimberly Jenkins and Elizabeth Bucholz will be honored at Thursday's Founders' Day.

Alumna and trustee emerita and technology pioneer Kimberly Jenkins will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2010, she helped launch Duke 's initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, developing a strategic plan to promote entrepreneurial initiatives for students and faculty both in the curriculum and outside the classroom. Jenkins stepped down from the program in 2012.

During her career as a senior corporate executive, Jenkins created Microsoft's Education Division and ran market development at NeXT, a technology start-up company founded by Steve Jobs. She also served as a consultant to companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Oracle and Cisco Systems, and has extensive experience working with early stage start-up companies.

Other faculty awards to be cited at Founders' Day include:

Graduate School

• Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring: Katherine J. Franz, Sönke Johnsen, James Moody and Michael C. Reed

Trinity College of Arts and Sciences

• Award for Excellence in Advising: Lewis Blake and Lee Willard
• Award for Excellence in Teaching Writing: Matthew Whitt
• David and Janet Vaughan Brooks Distinguished Teaching Award: Henry Greenside
• Dean’s Leadership Award: Caroline Bruzelius
• Dean’s Diversity Award: Calvin Howell
• Howard D. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Award: Mark Goodacre
• Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Award for Teaching Excellence: JoAnne Van Tuyl
• Robert B. Cox Distinguished Teaching Award: Harris Solomon
• Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award: Sherryl Broverman

Pratt School of Engineering

• Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising: Claudia Gunsch
• Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research: Jennifer West
• Dean’s Award for Leadership in Program and Operational Excellence: Deborah Fraze
• Klein Family Distinguished Teaching Award: Brenton Hoffman
• Lois and John L. Imhoff Distinguished Teaching Award: Roger Nightingale
• Stansell Family Distinguished Research Award: Jungsang Kim

Faculty, staff and community members also will be honored for university service awards, including:

• Presidential Award: Tracy Futhey, Jean Hartford-Todd, Oliver “Ollie” Miller, Richard Outten and Lakeshia “Kiwi” Whitted
• Meritorious Service Award: Mairead Alcorn, Kristen E. Alford, Susan Avent, Nikki Baskin, Jeanette Clayton, Dennis A. Clements, Seema Desai, April Elliott, Christiana C. Gooden, Paula Herber, Erin Kerrigan, Carol A. Reaves, Richard Robertson, Theresa Shouse, Rebecca S. Smith, Vanhphenh C. Somsichack, Ellen M. Steinour, Patricia Thibodeau, C. Ray Walker, Wendy L. Webster, Sarah Weissberg, Connie Wiggington and Yeu-Li Yeung
• Diversity Award: Julie Cusatis and Kulpreet Singh Koura
• Teamwork Award: Autism & Beyond: Richard Adrian, Richard Bloomfield, Samuel Brotkin, Rebecca Brouwer, Kathleen Campbell, Kimberly Carpenter, Chet Corey, Jamie Daniel, Geraldine Dawson, Helen Egger, Steven Espinosa, Matt Gardner, Jordan Hashemi, Darin London, Darrin Mann, Sal Munguia, Johanna O’Dell, Jeff Paynter, Qiang Qiu, Mike Revoir, Guillermo Sapiro, Jana Schaich Borg, Marissa Stroo, Mariano Tepper and Stephen Woody. Duke Raleigh Hospital’s TeamSTEPPS Steering Committee: Claudia Lelewer, Lee Craddock, Nancy Davis, Tammi Hicks, Elaine Long, Kristin Merritt, Priscilla Ramseur, Michael Spiritos, Margaret Sturdivant and Alex Sy
• Humanitarian Service Award: Brenda James and Marcia Owen (2015); Gerald Kevin Baker (2016)

Others to be honored during the Founders' Day service include Angier B. Duke Scholars, Benjamin N. Duke Scholars, and the first class of Washington Duke Scholars. Honorees also included Karsh International Scholars, James B. Duke Graduate Fellows, the Trinity Scholars, the Alumni Endowed Scholars, Reginaldo Howard Scholars, University Scholars, Robertson Scholars, Faculty Scholars, the MasterCard Foundation Scholars, The Duke Endowment Fellows and many other undergraduate and graduate scholars.

For the first time, the recipients of the new Washington Duke Scholarships will be recognized. A new program will make Duke significantly more accessible for first-generation students and those from under-resourced high schools and assist in their transition to college life.

In addition, the recipients of Duke Alumni Association Awards will be recognized. These include the Beyond Duke Service and Leadership Award, the Charles A. Dukes Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service and the Forever Duke Award.