Duke Leaders Share Stories of Things They Got Wrong

A group of people talking on a stage.
Vice Provost for the Arts Deborah Rutter shares her story. Photos by HuthPhoto.

One night, General (Ret.) CQ Brown Jr. just wanted to get home. An experienced fighter pilot, he was leading a flight of ten F-16s flying from Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas to Shaw AFB in Sumter, S.C. Although it was getting dark, and there were storms in the forecast, he pressed on. 

“When you go on a deployment and you’re away from home for a couple of weeks, you have what we call ‘get-home-itis,’” Brown, now executive-in-residence at Duke, explained. “You’re ready to get home, and you'll probably push a little harder than you normally would.” 

Brown admitted that he did not ask enough questions to get a clear picture of the dangerous weather developing. He was forced to divert to Charleston, where the heavy rain and poor braking conditions resulted in the closure of the runway after he landed. The rest of the flight, low on fuel, then had to find alternate landing locations.

Days later, when they finally all made it back to Shaw, Brown apologized to the entire squadron. “I let them down as a senior officer because of the decision I made,” he recalled.

“They were trusting me to make the right call, and I didn’t. And I felt if you just sweep it under the rug and don't say anything, you start to lose credibility as a leader. I thought it was important for me to get in front of everybody and admit that I made a mistake, and we're all going to learn from it.” 

Mistakes, Hard-Won Insights and Humility

That lesson stayed with Brown as he went on to serve as the 21st chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this role, he was the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the U.S. President, Secretary of Defense and National Security Council. 

“I thought it was important for me to get in front of everybody and admit that I made a mistake, and we‘re all going to learn from it.” 

General (Ret.) CQ Brown Jr., Executive-In-Residence At Duke

Brown shared this story alongside other Duke leaders at an event in April called “What I Was Wrong About.” Part of the Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging, the event was designed to encourage candid discussion about mistakes, hard-won insights, and intellectual humility. 

In his welcome remarks, Provost Alec D. Gallimore commented, “An event like this, where faculty, staff, and students gather to think deeply together and debate together and learn together warms the heart of this particular provost.” 

Gallimore also noted that after the first such event, at least one attendee had incorporated the idea into her teaching. Elizabeth Ross, who teaches communication skills as a medical associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, asks students and faculty to write assignments titled “What I Was Wrong About” and share them in small groups. As Ross put it, “The objective is to point out that we are all in a journey of being ‘wrong’ at times—and these are opportunities for learning.” 

“I hope you continue this journey and continue to seek out spaces for interesting intellectual conversations at Duke,” Gallimore said. 

The Power of an Apology

Like General Brown, Karen Frush affirmed the power of a humble apology. A retired professor of pediatrics, Frush was serving as Duke’s chief patient safety officer in 2003 when a 17-year-old patient, Jesica Santillan, died at Duke University Hospital after mistakenly receiving incompatible organs during transplant surgery. The case received national and international media coverage and prompted an outpouring of grief and questions.

Frush recalled that at the time, she believed Duke could prevent such errors. “I had fallen into a trap of thinking that our collective intelligence at Duke could shield us against the frailty of being human,” she said.

After painful interactions with Jesica’s grieving mother, Frush realized that she needed to return to simple compassion and empathy. “I realized I had actually gotten a lot of things wrong. It was wrong to think that we were too smart to fail. I was wrong to think that our technical excellence here at Duke or anywhere could replace the invisible, messy, vital work of human connection.” 

Participating in the panel were General (Ret.) CQ Brown Jr., executive-in-residence at Duke; Vice Provost for the Arts Deborah Rutter; Kavin Rowe, vice dean for faculty, Duke Divinity School; The Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., Senior Fellow for Divinity and Interdisciplinary Studies; and Karen Frush, former chief patient safety officer, Duke University Health System. 
Polly Ha, associate professor of the history of Christianity and director of the Transformative Ideas Program, listens to the conversation with faculty and staff colleagues. 

The importance of human connection was also a thread in a story told by the event’s moderator, Kavin Rowe, the George Washington Ivey Distinguished Professor of New Testament and vice dean for faculty in the Duke Divinity School. 

Rowe shared that after writing a highly critical review of a book, he was surprised when the author reached out to him and asked what had provoked the tone of the review, which he had found “harsh and biting and sarcastic and irritable, maybe even angry.” As Rowe read over his own words, he realized the author was correct. Rowe apologized. 

Rowe reflected that he had lost sight of the fact that even academic criticism must be conveyed with intention. “The way in which you communicate—and argumentative discourse is already a certain style of being in the world—is ethically charged,” he said. “I've taught that, I've written on that, and I forgot that—and I was wrong about that.” 

Panelists emphasized that intellectual growth requires humility. The Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., a Duke alumnus and a longtime civil rights leader who is serving as a Senior Fellow for Divinity and Interdisciplinary Studies, described the evolution of his thinking about race. 

“As a lifelong activist shaped by the legacy of the Black Freedom Movement, I held deeply rooted convictions about identity, especially about race, and I must say plainly, I was wrong,” he said. “For most of my life, I believed that race was a real fixed, meaningful category. … Later, as my consciousness deepened through study and global engagement, I came to a more unsettling realization. The very concept of race itself, as least as we have inherited, was fundamentally flawed, not merely incomplete. It was wrong. 

 “I came to understand that the categories themselves are not ultimate. … They cannot contain the fullness of who we are as a people. So today I say something that I once would not have said within the same clarity and conviction: Really, there's only one race, and that's the human race.” 

While his thinking about race changed, one constant remained: the importance of “leadership that serves, leadership that has empathy, and leadership that transforms situations and pathways so others can come and take advantage of them.”

The Human Side of Leadership

The human side of leadership was also a theme for Vice Provost for the Arts Deborah Rutter, who came to Duke in 2025 after a decade as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Rutter described making a consequential personnel decision, early in her career, without consulting her team or her board—and weathering the “firestorm” that followed. The experience taught her that leaders must consider “most importantly, the human impact” of their decisions. “I think I was desperate to prove that I could do the job,” she said. “And it was a moment where a bigger dose of humility would've helped.” 

 She counseled attendees to seek out support when they make an error in judgment: “When you make mistakes, they don't leave you. They stay with you. It is valuable to have somebody in your corner to talk to—therapy or a mentor or a coach. Through these conversations, you will learn how to manage the regret so that it becomes an asset and a strength—so that you can learn from it rather than have it weigh heavily and be a negative force for you.” 

Students attending the event found it surprising and meaningful. “I wasn't sure what to expect going into the ‘What I Was Wrong About’ event, and I was admittedly intimidated to be the only student seated at a table of faculty members from various departments,” Duke junior Sophie Endrud said. “But each person around me was open to both sharing and listening, and I found it surprisingly easy to be vulnerable about my own errors. The speakers set an excellent example of what it means to succeed at the highest level but maintain humility, no matter the discipline, and I left the evening feeling a deeper connection to and respect for the Duke community.” 

The panelists agreed that these conversations are necessary at a university where individuals might be hesitant to admit when they are wrong. In fact, a strong intellectual community that promotes candor can help its members to grow through their mistakes. 

“One of the striking things about wisdom, at least if Socrates is correct, is you don't know it when you have it, and you don't have to,” said Rowe. “You just need to have it. And the way that I've thought about that is to talk to as many wise people as I can to gather the wisdom that I'm capable of gathering.”