美国东南海岸的私立名校，由烟草大亨詹姆斯·杜克建立于1924年，其进取精神和迅速发展引人侧目，俨有“南方哈佛”之称。
杜克大学地处北卡州杜兰市 (Durham, North Carolina) ，与人杰地灵的教堂山 (Chapel Hill) 及北卡州首府洛丽市 (Raleigh) ，正好鼎足而立，构成人文与地理上著名的 " 北卡三角区 "(North Carolina Triangle) 高科技、尖端医学研究、与文教地带。
以杜克的校园建筑来说，整个东校园保持着乔治亚式古典建筑，而较新的西校园，一眼望去，简直就是英国牛津大学的翻版。建筑虽然外型非常古典精致，所有建材却是美东南地区的坚固花岗岩。一百七十栋古典建筑，仿佛一一隐藏在秀丽的山林中一般。
杜克大学不但是一流学术殿堂，更是修身养性、术德兼修的好地方。美国南部地域广阔，气候温暖而舒适。杜克花园 (Sarah P. Duke Gardens) 风景优美，是远近闻名的景点。
杜克的学生体育好是出了名的，而他们也自豪地宣称“杜克有全世界最好的篮球队”。杜克大学的篮球队教练，也是现在美国国家篮球队的教练，人们俗称他为“K教头”。史上更是人才迭出，从乔丹接班人格兰特希尔，到现在火箭队的防守大将巴蒂尔，再到英国队的绝对核心、芝加哥公牛队的主力球员罗尔邓，都是杜克大学培养出的优质篮球人才。
还有，它的学生参与社交活动也非常丰富，在全美的拉拉操比赛中杜克大学曾多次获得比较好的成绩！
到了现代，杜大成为当今主要的学习中心之一。杜大的医学中心已赢得了世界声誉，许多院系也持续位居美国最佳院系之列。杜大常以其研究成果和学术革新引起社会各界的关注，其教师也常被邀请担任国内外许多学术和专业 组织的负责人。1991年，在《美国新闻与世界报导》所作的年度大学评估中，杜大名列全美第7所最好的研究性大学。今后，杜大将继续努力以实现其创建者的 宿愿，使杜大“真正成为世界教育事业的领路人”并“促进人类进步……发展我们的资源，增加我们的智慧，并提高人类的幸福”。
杜大目前共有9个学院：三一文理学院、工程学院、法学院、神学院、医学院、护理学院、森林与环境学院、福奎阿商学院和研究生院。另外还有40多个研究所和研究中心。
杜大其它一些重要学术机构还有：资源与环境政策研究中心、杜大威特兰动植物研究中心、海洋实验室、海洋生物医学中心和热带环境保护中心等。

The Founding of Duke Divinity School

In September, 1926, the new university's first professional school, then called the School of Religion and now known as the Divinity School, opened its doors. It was an inauspicious time to be launching a professional school in the South dedicated to the academic training of clergy. National attention had been riveted on the fundamentalist wing of Southern Christianity during the recent Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee. A survey of Methodist clergy in the South revealed that 53 per cent had a high school education or less, 11 per cent had a college education, and only 4 per cent had training both in college and a theological seminary. It was difficult to discern whether potential for a School of Religion was so great that success would soon follow or the obstacles so large, it would take a long time to succeed.
That Duke's first new professional school was a School of Religion was not surprising. The institution had a religious affiliation since 1838 when Methodists and Quakers joined forces to form Union Institute to permanently educate their children. More formal ties emerged with the Methodist Church and in 1859 the school became Trinity College with the motto Eruditio et Religio. In 1890 the future of the college became forever linked to the wealthy Duke family when church ties led to Trinity becoming the primary focus of the family's philanthropy. In 1924 at James B. Duke's behest, the indenture creating Duke University read in part, "I advise that courses be arranged, first, with special reference to the training of preachers, teachers, lawyers and physicians, because . . . by precept and example they can do most to uplift mankind. . . ." There was no more willing advocate than President William P. Few who had long sought to increase limited curriculum offerings in the preparation of preachers. The Duke gift presented the opportunity to move beyond undergraduate instruction provided in part through support from the local conferences of the Methodist Church.
From the beginning it was clear that the School of Religion was to be ecumenical, staffed by first-class academically-trained faculty, and subject to high standards. As the college became a university, Few's first selection as a Dean was Edmund D. Soper, a New York Methodist then teaching at Northwestern University. His degrees were from Dickinson College and Drew Theological Seminary. Also added to the faculty were Elbert Russell, a Quaker, who came from a position at Swathmore College and had degrees from Earlham College and the University of Chicago, and Bennett Harvie Branscomb, a Methodist with undergraduate training at Birmingham-Southern College and two degrees from Oxford University. Already on the Duke faculty were James Cannon III in Religion, who was educated at Trinity and Princeton, and Paul Neff Garber, a former member of the Church of the Brethren who had become a Methodist. Garber transferred from the history department where he was teaching with a Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania. Russell, Garber and Cannon were to become Deans of the Divinity School, and Branscomb was to be Director of the Libraries at Duke and a distinguished Chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
Candidates for admission to the School of Religion had to be graduates with certified transcripts from colleges of recognized standing. Women were admitted on the same conditions as men and either a local pastor, church official, or college professor had to attest to the applicant's Christian character and purpose. Graduation was dependent upon satisfactory completion of ninety semester hours of work, usually taken in three years, plus the approval of a written thesis.
With a minimum of publicity, twenty-three students, twenty men and three women, enrolled the first year. Twenty students were graduates of Trinity and Duke with degrees earned between 1906 and 1926. All but two were from North Carolina. Within five years enrollment reached one hundred fifty, with students from eighteen states and Korea and Japan. While fifty-three per cent were from North Carolina, every southern state as well as eight additional states were represented. Students from over forty undergraduate colleges enrolled with Duke continuing to provide the most by a large margin.
The School of Religion achieved recognition rapidly for offering above average training for all types of Christian service. While focusing clearly on the role of the minister in a local church, the school also sought to prepare missionaries, teachers, directors of religious education and social workers. Proud of its Methodist heritage and ties, the school, nevertheless, was conducted on ecumenical and not narrow denominational lines. But above all, it was launched on the strong conviction that the education offered should be based on standards of the highest level.

The University's Insignia Haven't Avoided Controversy

The history of the seal and motto of Duke University has been mercurial with an unpredictable changeableness through the years. With the adoption of a shield (above), primarily for marketing, the official seal is not as visible as it used to be. However, the seal is carved in stone at several places on both East and West Campus. The seal is circular with Duke University in Latin and the motto, Eruditio et Religio, around the outer edge. The interior design consists of a wreath composed of two different kinds of leaves with a cross with rays of light behind it in the center.
There is no official record of the adoption of the seal even though the use of one is authorized by the charter of 1851. The earliest extant examples of the seal are on diplomas in 1869 and a bank loan in 1883. The first printed representation of the seal and motto is on an invitation to the commencement exercises of 1889. An early institutional history by Bruce Craven, grandson of President Braxton Craven, notes that President Craven selected the motto in 1859 at the time the name of the college was changed to Trinity. Braxton Craven stated that "for a church college, the name Trinity included everything that a church college ought to stand for, and that with the motto, formed a consistent plan of Christian education."
The motto "Eruditio et Religio" most probably originated from a Methodist hymn by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Titled "Sanctified Knowledge" in the contemporary pre Civil War hymnal, the third stanza begins "Unite the pair so long disjoined, Knowledge and vital piety . . . ." Further proof that the hymn was well known by the founders of the college is that another phrase from the hymn, "ignorance and error," appears in the preamble of the constitution of Union Institute, a name of the institution before it became Trinity College. The desire to join education and religion in a common endeavor is not at all surprising when one remembers that Methodism originated on the campus of Oxford University when John and Charles Wesley were students, and that one of the worldwide legacies of the Methodist Church is the founding of institutions of higher education. In North Carolina the most prevalent form of higher education was sponsored by the church. The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers each founded institutions known today as Duke University, Greensboro College, Wake Forest University, Davidson College, and Guilford College in the 1830s.
The first reference to the seal in the minutes of the board of trustees is a curious handwritten note dated May, 1888, by the new president, John Franklin Crowell. Crowell emphatically stated that the Latin on the existing seal was indefensible and that he would not sign a diploma using it as "it would be a reflection on my scholarship." This comment was followed with the bold command, "Get a new seal." After the change of name to Duke University in 1924, the Latin inscription read Sigillum Universitatis Dukensis which was changed again in 1957 to Universitas Dukiana. Apparently the designers of the seal have had difficulty agreeing on the proper Latin through the years.
President Douglas M. Knight initiated a study of university symbols in 1964 which implemented far reaching changes. A committee consisting of representatives from the medical center and the art department composed an official shield designed for use on a variety of commercial products where the seal was thought to be inappropriate. The shape of the shield is patterned after the Duke family crest with the notched top inspired by the roof lines of the Gothic architecture of West Campus. A triangle, the symbol of unity and the Trinity, is incorporated within the borders of the shield, with the theme further emphasized by the repetition of three vertical bars representing education, religion, and health. This is the first time the concept of health is visually introduced in a university symbol. The motto is repeated on a ribbon beneath the shield. With the approval of the new shield, the seal was reserved for use only by authorization of the board of trustees. Additional committees at the same time recommended the design of a Duke flag, the designation of an official shade of Duke blue, the authorization of an official distinctive Duke doctoral cap, gown and hood, and the design of an official chain of office and mace (above) for use by the president.
The aims of the university date from bylaws prepared by President John C. Kilgo at the request of the board of trustees in 1903. When Trinity College became the undergraduate school of the new institution, Duke University, in 1924, the aims, motto and seal of the college were adopted and thus continued by the university. The aims of the university are most prominently displayed on a bronze plaque in the main quadrangle of West Campus which was a gift of student and alumni members of The Order of Red Friars, a local honorary society. The plaque was dedicated at Homecoming Weekend in 1942.
In 1993 the university telephone directory had on its cover a striking color photograph of the pediment above the entrance to Baldwin Auditorium on East Campus which depicted the seal of the university. Taken with a telephoto lens the close up image of the motto revealed the stonecutter's misspelling of the Latin word Religio! Thus a permanent reminder of the difficulty with the Latin in the official seal through the years is displayed for all to see. The prominent cover touched off a flurry of correspondence in the Chronicle over the "newly discovered" seal of the university. Some writers thought it to be politically incorrect while others defended it as quite appropriate. Also many references over the decades have attributed the origin of certain university symbols to either Washington or James B. Duke. What we know of the origin of the seal, motto and aims of the university are attributable to the actions of the board of trustees in the context of the total history of the institution from its inception in 1838. Discussion is always welcome about university symbols but it should be based on an accurate understanding of the institution's history.

The Graduate School

Dean William H. Glasson Directs Growth in Graduate Studies

The signing of the Duke Indenture in 1924 marked a dramatic departure for Trinity College but in some cases it simply greatly accelerated commitments already made. In graduate education the college had awarded masters degrees for decades but the nineteenth century MA. was almost honorary in comparison to the twentieth century research based degree. The commitment to modern graduate education was formalized in 1916 with the appointment of the first permanent faculty committee on graduate instruction. Unfortunately World War I erupted as the committee's recommendations were being implemented. Demand, however, was accelerated with the influx of postwar students. Thirty-five graduate students in 1923 represented a three fold increase over prewar enrollment.
A 1923 report of the committee on graduate instruction established a master of education degree in addition to the master of arts degree, required a written thesis for each with a defense before a faculty committee, and more clearly differentiated between undergraduate and graduate level instruction. The move toward graduate instruction with high standards was well underway when Trinity College became Duke University.
President William P. Few formally recognized the graduate program as a constituent part of the new university in 1926 with the appointment of William H. Glasson (left) as Dean of the new Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Glasson, trained at Cornell and Columbia, had been at Trinity as Professor of Political Economy and Social Sciences since 1902. Few and Glasson believed that, more than anything else, the Graduate School would determine the standing of the university in the educational world.
The two administrators were not disappointed by the spectacular growth in graduate enrollment. In the 1927-28 academic year, the Graduate School enrolled 128 students representing 48 undergraduate institutions and 20 states plus China. Glasson proudly proclaimed that "the Graduate School has a spirit and background far different from a merely local institution." He felt very strongly that the varied background of the students and the research emphasis of the graduate school contributed vitally to the academic atmosphere of the new university.
Perhaps more than anyone except Few, Glasson understood the importance of the interrelation of the component parts of the new institution. He had almost single-handedly achieved the awarding of a Phi Beta Kappa chapter to Trinity College in 1919. He also constantly emphasized that the professional schools of the university would be vitalized and enriched by a research centered graduate school. To that end Glasson won approval for students in the medical school and departments of biology, chemistry and psychology to take each other's advanced courses.
The Graduate School experienced growth despite the deepening economic depression. In the spring of 1931 there were over 600 applicants for 27 fellowships and 21 scholarships and assistantships. Working closely with the Director of the Summer Session, Glasson scheduled graduate offerings in the summer term equal in quality to the winter academic courses. Such an arrangement employed faculty year around, enhanced choice by offering courses like travel abroad or field experience through botanical stations in the mountains or on the coast, and enabled students to earn credits faster, thus incurring less financial debt. In the summer of 1930, 447 of the 1,212 students enrolled, or 37 per cent, were degree candidates in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
The institution awarded its first doctor of philosophy degrees in 1928 to Frederick Holl and Dean Rumbold in zoology. In 1929 Rose May Davis became the first woman to earn a doctorate when she was awarded the Ph. D. degree in chemistry. In the 1990s Duke began awarding more graduate and professional than undergraduate degrees.