Gift Impact.

Campus Transformation

Three cutting-edge facilities opened this year

The Edge: The Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology, and Collaboration at Bostock Library

A naming gift from Todd and Karen Ruppert supports interdisciplinary and team-based teaching and learning in this cutting-edge space. Project team rooms, tools, and workspaces enhance digital scholarship and provide advanced technology training facilities.

Williams Track and Field Stadium and Kennedy Tower

Morris Williams ’62, A.M.’63 provided the naming gift to support the operation of a facility that gives the track program the ability to hold all track meet events in one place. The stadium will be open 24/7 for Duke students, faculty, and staff, and the Durham community. Kennedy Tower is a two-sided press box for Williams and Koskinen stadiums, named after longtime Duke Athletics administrator Chris Kennedy and his late wife, Ana.

Hudson Building, Duke Eye Center

A leadership gift from LC Industries helps streamline patient care in this 116,000-square-foot addition to the Eye Center. The building environment was specifically designed to meet the needs of patients with impaired vision. In addition to state-of-the-art clinical and research facilities, the Hudson Building includes more seating, shorter check-in and check-out times, and centralized testing and photography areas.

Passionate athletics donors help build champions

Channeling the memories of legendary Duke football and basketball coaches Wallace Wade and Eddie Cameron, two families gave tremendous gifts to support Athletics. Steve ’70 and Eileen Brooks P ’04 gave $13 million to name the new football playing surface at Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium. Steve HS’78 and Rebecca Scott A.H.C.’79, P’12, P’14 gave an additional $9.6 million to support activities in the Scott Family Pavilion. The pavilion will house athletic strength and conditioning facilities for Olympic sports, a team store, the ticket office, and space for the Iron Dukes and others.

A campus crucible for arts creativity

Duke’s a-ha moment in the arts dates back to the opening of the Nasher Museum in 2005. The art museum’s instant popularity made clear there was an appetite for a more expansive arts culture at the university. “It was the real moment of reckoning,” said Scott Lindroth, a music professor and vice provost for the arts. “It pushed Duke to take the arts very seriously and make a strategic investment so the arts could play a more central role in the campus culture.”

Soon after the Nasher opened, a new strategic plan named the arts as a priority. Facilities needs were identified and arts departments began hiring more professors. In 2012, the arts were announced as a priority initiative of the Duke Forward campaign.

A decade into this arts incipience, one of the leading arts philanthropists and advocates in the country—who also happens to be the chair of Duke’s trustees and a co-chair of the campaign—gave a remarkable $25 million to support the activities in a new 71,000-square-foot arts center. David Rubenstein ’70 committed his largest gift to the university, sparking others to join in the arts evolution at Duke.

“Duke has made great progress in recent years in bringing the arts to the same level of excellence we expect in anything that the university does,” said Rubenstein. “I look forward to this new building, and the programs and performances that will take place in it, becoming an essential part of every Duke student’s experience.”

The new center will feature a dance studio along with a dozen multi-use studios, a 200-seat performance theater, a 100-seat film theater, a garden, lounge, library, reception space, a painting and drawing studio, offices and classrooms. It will provide an administrative home for the dance and film programs. Flexible and dedicated spaces will also accommodate ceramics, video production, drama rehearsal, printmaking, screen printing, and radio broadcast.