Elevating the Arts and Humanities at Duke

A group of dancers dancing in a large room.
Hope Boykin, choreographer, Durham native and former dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, leads Duke students in a contemporary dance class in the Cube at the Rubenstein Arts Center.

Provost Alec D. Gallimore announced Wednesday he will lead a year-long initiative focused on the arts and humanities that will affirm and celebrate the essential role of these fields of study at Duke and establish a strengthened institutional vision for the future.

“Duke has a distinguished tradition of leadership in the humanities and the arts, and they remain at the heart of our liberal arts education,” Gallimore said. “Humanistic inquiry and artistic practice enrich our students in countless ways. They offer timeless wisdom and aesthetic experiences, and the knowledge and skills they impart are more important than ever as our graduates face a world being changed by AI.”

The initiative will assess the current state of the arts and humanities at Duke and engage faculty, staff, and students across the university in deep and broad discussions about the intrinsic value of these disciplines and their application to the current challenges facing society. The goal is to identify and recommend strategic investments in faculty, research, and opportunities in undergraduate education and graduate and professional training that will build on Duke’s history in these disciplines to position them for new prominence in the 21st-century university. 

Leading the initiative this academic year will be Leo Ching, professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies and Schiff Family Dean of Humanities and the Arts in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and Vice Provost for the Arts Deborah Rutter. 

“Beginning in the mid-1980s, Duke made sustained, strategic investments in outstanding humanities faculty and programs,” Ching said. “Those investments, together with the growing influence of Duke University Press, brought Duke national and international prominence through the 1990s and beyond. Today, we have an equally exciting opportunity to invest even more broadly in the humanities and the arts—and to elevate further Duke’s prominence in these fields.” 

The initiative will engage key institutional stakeholders, including the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, the Center for Documentary Studies, the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University Libraries, Duke University Press, and other units across campus. Alumni, community partners, volunteer leaders, and others will also be involved in the conversation about the future of the arts and humanities at Duke. 

Johann Montozzi-Wood, assistant professor of the practice of theater studies, teaches an acting class.  

Karin Shapiro, professor of the practice of history and African and African American Studies, leads her seminar on Contemporary South Africa. 

“Artistic practice is a powerful way of developing and expressing our understanding of the human experience,” Rutter said. “At a time of profound social, technological and environmental change, this initiative gives us an opportunity to listen closely to Duke’s arts and humanities community, build on existing strengths and identify the investments and collaborations needed for the future. Future leaders need imagination, discernment, empathy and the ability to see beyond their own experience. The arts and humanities cultivate these capacities, which students will need to navigate the challenges and possibilities of a changing world.”

“Humanistic inquiry and artistic practice enrich our students in countless ways.”

Provost Alec Gallimore

A faculty committee chaired by Victoria Szabo, Research Professor and Interim Chair of Art, Art History, & Visual Studies, will map where arts and humanities curricula and experiences connect across the university and recommend strategic goals and investments to strengthen the arts and humanities and their integration across campus. The faculty committee will also review and discuss a comparative benchmarking analysis of strategic arts and humanities initiatives and approaches at peer universities.

"This initiative will empower Duke’s faculty, staff, and students across disciplines to champion our distinct strengths, address systemic barriers to engagement, and spearhead a forward-looking vision for creative and humanistic inquiry,” Szabo said. “By uniting scholars and practitioners in the arts and humanities with colleagues and students from across campus, we amplify the fundamental worth of the arts and humanities while deepening our university-wide commitment to interdisciplinarity.”

In addition to Szabo, the faculty committee includes the following members: 

Taylor Black, Associate Professor of English; Director of the mosaic Fellows Program and Initiative

Natalie Carnes, Professor of Theology

Doriane Coleman, Thomas L. Perkins Distinguished Professor of Law

Ryan Emanuel, Professor of Hydrology in the Division of Environmental Social Systems

Luciana Fellin, Professor of the Practice of Romance Studies

Zach Fredman, Associate Professor of History, Duke Kunshan University; Division Chair of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University; Dean of Faculty Affairs, Duke Kunshan University

Mark Hansen, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Literature

Iyun Ashani Harrison, Associate Professor of the Practice of Dance and African and African American Studies

Tsitsi Jaji, Helen L. Bevington Associate Professor of Modern Poetry

William Johnson, Professor in Classical Studies

Ranjana Khanna, Professor of English, Women's Studies, and the Literature Program; Director, Franklin Humanities Institute

Jennifer Wright Knust, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies; Director of the Center for Late Ancient Studies

Richard Larrick, Hanes Corporation Foundation Distinguished Professor of Business Administration

Sneha Mantri, Associate Professor of Neurology; Director, Program in Medical Humanities, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine; 

Ellen McLarney, Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant, Professor of the Practice of Music

Andrew Nurkin, Hart Associate Professor of the Practice of Public Policy

Christine Payne, Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Darina Petrovsky, Elizabeth C. Clipp Term Chair of Nursing; Associate Professor in the School of Nursing

Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art & Art History

Philip Stern, Professor of History

Erika Weiberg, Assistant Professor of Classical Studies

Mike Wiley, Stephen and Janet Bear Assistant Research Professor of Arts, Ethics, and Education in the Program in Education

Together with Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor and chair of the Academic Council, Ching and Rutter will serve as ex officio members of the faculty committee. 

A student committee that includes undergraduates and graduate and professional students with diverse commitments and backgrounds in the arts and humanities will also be convened to capture student experiences — academic, co-curricular, and extracurricular, as well as career planning — and bring student perspectives directly into the year’s deliberations. 

John David Ike, faculty associate in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine, asks medical students what they notice in a painting at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Photo credit: Victoria Yunez Behm

Wanda Wilkins of Durham and Celeste Holtzmann, humanities coordinator at Durham County Library, look at one of three historic copies of the Declaration of Independence on exhibit at the Durham County Main Library.

During the academic year, two complementary initiatives — “We the People” and mosaic — will serve as visible examples of the convening power of the humanities and the arts and their ability to build bridges between communities and disciplines. 

“We the People” is a Duke and Durham collaboration marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Convened by Duke Arts, conceived with the Sanford School of Public Policy, and developed in partnership with Durham organizations and Duke units, the project brings together arts and scholarship to interpret the nation’s shared history and imagine a collective future. Public events include the exhibitions of historic copies of the Declaration of Independence at the Durham County Main Library (September 8-20, 2026) and the Nasher Museum of Art (September 24, 2026-January 3, 2027), alongside lectures, coursework, and public arts activations across Duke and Durham. 

As a part of “We the People,” the new Belonging? initiative from the arts and humanities departments of Trinity College brings critical inquiry and creative expression to questions about civic life, identity and community. Over the next year, Belonging? will offer lectures, conversations, performances, exhibitions, courses and student-centered projects that will draw on a wide range of disciplinary, cultural and artistic perspectives to ask questions about belonging, both in the United States and at Duke. 

The second initiative, mosaic, is a new effort in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences to reimagine how undergraduate students engage with the humanities and arts. It aims to connect undergraduates with rich opportunities in the humanities and arts through student-centered entry points to mentorship, experiential learning, and collaboration across campus. 

By the end of the academic year, the Provost’s Initiative on the Arts and Humanities will make recommendations to the provost for a bold institutional vision for the arts and humanities, including a structure for convening cross-school engagement, and establish the foundation for a second-year goal of elevating the visibility and vitality of the arts and humanities at Duke.