Best Duke Presidents

[jimsumner]

Gov. Sanford was an inspired choice to lead Duke out of the long nightmare of the Vietnam War. He had been a bright young star in the Democratic Party -- one of the few southerners to back John Kennedy while he was Lt. Gov. of NC. He became governor when Luther Hodges became Commerce Secretary in 1961. Uncle Terry was able to return calm to the campus and deserves a lot of credit. My earlier criticism of Sanford's academic vision and leadership is till valid, I believe, although there may have been leadership from the academic side that more than made up for his deficiencies. And FWIW, Gov. then Sen. Sanford was the second-longest tenured Duke President -- his 16 years as President eclipsed only by the 1910-1940 reign of William Preston Few.


sagegrouse

One correction on Terry Sanford. He became governor in 1961 because he was elected to that position in 1960. North Carolina governors could not suceed themselves in those days, so Hodges could not run. His position as Commerce Secretary was irrelevant.

I haven't gotten into Sanford's tenure as governor because I didn't want to venture into public policy areas. But let's just say he was a visionary, progressive goivernor at a time when many southern states were electing staunch segregationists, committing to fighting for that position with great enthusiasm.

[fuse]

If you were to list and rank the duties and responsibilities of the president of a word-class research institution, where would ensuring the ready access of alcoholic beverages for undergraduates place? In the top 50? Top 100?

I would very politely and respectfully suggest that there is a difference between ignoring, enabling, and actively seeking to disrupt/destroy.

Most administrations took the "blind eye" / ignoring stance. Keohane decided part of her charter / mission was to eliminate the play hard part of the work hard / play hard culture at Duke.

Probably more than enough said on this topic. I appreciate and respect your perspective.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

If you were to list and rank the duties and responsibilities of the president of a word-class research institution, where would ensuring the ready access of alcoholic beverages for undergraduates place? In the top 50? Top 100?

My dislike of Nan is unrelated to what was done to beer/alcohol consumption. I understand what the dram shop laws are and how Duke and every other University had to restrict open consumption, primarily to protect themselves (the Universities, not specifically the leaders, although they would be held culpable in law suits also). I blame the lawyers for that.

[sagegrouse]

One correction on Terry Sanford. He became governor in 1961 because he was elected to that position in 1960. North Carolina governors could not suceed themselves in those days, so Hodges could not run. His position as Commerce Secretary was irrelevant.

I haven't gotten into Sanford's tenure as governor because I didn't want to venture into public policy areas. But let's just say he was a visionary, progressive goivernor at a time when many southern states were electing staunch segregationists, committing to fighting for that position with great enthusiasm.

Thanks for the correction. I never look this stuff up, and it was 50+ years ago. Let's agree that events of 50 years ago are history, not public policy.

sage

[SoCalDukeFan]

I am one who will thinks Brodhead totally failed in handling the lacrosse mess. I stopped giving to Duke at that time and have not restarted.

I do know a couple of people who live in Durham and they think he handled it about as well as could be expected.

I am rethinking my position on Brodhead. So far, have not changed my mind.

SoCal

[Dev11]

I've met Brodhead on several occasions. I've shaken his hand and had brief conversations. Never been impressed with him personally. I think he's a weenie.

'Weenie' is a great description for President Brodhead. Posters here who say he 'relates well to students' must know different people than all of my friends, as I understood the general consensus on Brodhead is that he is an aloof person. I don't think he connects well with students at all, as any Brodhead discussion I ever was a part of quickly devolved into who could do the best impression of his voice (I think my interpretation is pretty good, but hey, to each his own). He's fine at his most important job, which is fundraising.

I still give to Duke despite thinking that Brodhead is a goof. I believe my contributions go to the folks they are earmarked for.

The Nan days sound awful, if they were more socially restricting than the current administration.

[hurleyfor3]

MBB Championships Won by Presidential Administration

Brodie 2
Nan 1
Brodhead 1
Everyone else 0

[OldPhiKap]

MBB Championships Won by Presidential Administration

Brodie 2
Nan 1
Brodhead 1
Everyone else 0

I am pretty sure we won despite Nan, and not because of her.

Duke's first NC in any sport IIRC was men's soccer in 1986, which I think was H. Keith H. Brodie's H. first H. presidential H. year.

[BD80]

MBB Championships Won by Presidential Administration

Brodie 2
Nan 1
Brodhead 1
Everyone else 0

MBB Championships won by a coach hired during presidential administration:

Sanford: all of them.

Booyah!

[77devil]

MBB Championships won by a coach hired during presidential administration:

Sanford: all of them.

Booyah!

Excellent. The president who makes the hire should get the all credit. I'm not sure Brodie ever found Cameron Indoor.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

I was at Duke during Nan's tenure and she was generally not very popular. As trivial as the alcohol policy might seem, she appeared to make it a cornerstone of her tenure, so she brought this grief on herself. I was not a particularly big partier and I recognize that she was dealing with legal issues beyond her control when making these changes, but it was just handled very poorly and left a bad taste in the mouth (like a 2 week old keg from the pre-Nan days).

Along these lines, many felt that she came from the northeastern establishment and tried to jam that mentality down Duke's throat, rather than letting Duke be Duke and embracing what makes the university unique. From all that I heard, what made Sanford a great president was that he managed to balance national/global ambitions for the university while trying to retain its distinctive characteristics. Nan came across as much more aloof.

From what I have seen, Brodhead comes from a similar background as Nan, but has made more of an effort to become part of the existing Duke community rather than impose his views on the school. Granted, the Duke he came to had been shaped by Nan so was a bit more familiar to him than the Duke she arrived at, but I appreciate his efforts. His handling of the lacrosse case was poor, but he has bounced back from that fairly well. I assume that he will complete the current capital campaign and move on.

[CathyCA]

Uncle Terry.

He loved his students. He was accessible to us. He came to all of the basketball games. He invited us to his house when we were freshmen.

[Olympic Fan]

As a student during the Douglas Knight days -- and one who was tear-gassed during the National Guard riot during the Allen Building takeover (I shouldn't complain, the Guard only flipped out and fired tear-gas at the students in the quad ... that was about the same time as Kent State, when in a similar situation they actually fired on the students) -- my view of Dr. Knight is a bit skewed.

The view at the time was that he wanted to turn Duke into an Ivy League South. Together with his supporters on the faculty, they did everything possible to upgrade the academic status of Duke and to denigrate athletics. Did you know that in 1969, the Knight-led faculty approved a resolution calling for Duke to stop giving scholarships and to drop out of the ACC? Luckily, the Board of Trustees disagreed ... but from that point on, there was a very hostile atmosphere toward athletics -- especially football -- on campus. That's obviously when the decline of Duke football began.

Actually, it began when Bill Murray retired. You wouldn't believe the guys lining up for that job. Eddie Cameron sent Wallace Wade to New York to offer the job to Bud Wilkinson (then working for ABC). But Knight wanted an Ivy League type guy and forced Cameron to hire Tom Harp, who had a losing record at Cornell (and he had a losing record at Duke too -- the first Duke coach since 1924 with a losing career record).

I hated Knight.

I was also at Duke when Terry Sanford arrived. The incident I remember most was when a group of students staged a sit-down at the traffic circle. You can imagine the headaches that caused. Sanford didn't call out the National Guard ... he went out and spoke to the students and asked them about their grievances. After listening to them, he told them he agreed with them and wanted to join their sitdown strike. An hour later, it was over ...

Not sure how Sanford was with athletics -- I think he was fairly neutral. Under him, the university continued to cut back direct funding, forcing the creation of the Iron Dukes and the concept of booster support to pay for athletics. Tom Butters -- who ranks with Krzyzewski as the most significant figure in Duke athletics post-Cameron -- started his rise to prominence under Sanford (finishing it under Brodie).

Just one more point. I've been told that the entire Krzyzewski-to-the-NBA furor in the spring of 1994 was designed to send a message to Nan about the importance of basketball (and Coach K) at Duke. In her first months on the job, she sent her toady, Tallman Trask, to try and exert control over the basketball program. After the Memorial Day weekend explosion, she was brought into line. Don't know for sure, but interesting that K's flirtation with the Lakers in 2004 happened to coincide with Brodhead's first weeks on the job. I do know that he was there, singing Coach K's praises at the press conference where K announced he was staying.

Count me among those who will always hold Brodhead's behavior in the lacrosse hoax against him.

[Mike Corey]

Don't know for sure, but interesting that K's flirtation with the Lakers in 2004 happened to coincide with Brodhead's first weeks on the job. I do know that he was there, singing Coach K's praises at the press conference where K announced he was staying.

It was actually Brodhead's first official day in office when the news broke that K was talking with the Lakers. And yes, Brodhead was present at K's announcement that he'd be staying in Durham. Beyond that, Brodhead joined a student vigil to help persuade Coach K to stay in Durham.

"I must say that I am enormously excited that, at the end of the day, that you decide that your place was in college basketball," Brodhead said at the presser.

[Duvall]

Seems like the debate should be over who places a distant second behind Few. Since then Duke's growth and ascent has been smooth enough that it's hard to make distinctions, which I guess is why there's so much talk in thread about relatively trivial factors.

[sagegrouse]

It was actually Brodhead's first official day in office when the news broke that K was talking with the Lakers. And yes, Brodhead was present at K's announcement that he'd be staying in Durham. Beyond that, Brodhead joined a student vigil to help persuade Coach K to stay in Durham.

"I must say that I am enormously excited that, at the end of the day, that you decide that your place was in college basketball," Brodhead said at the presser.

The first time I met Brodhead was at the 2004 Final Four in San Antonio. He had been named President but not yet arrived on campus. I was standing next to him as the event started in the Longhorn Saloon. The next thing I knew, he was on stage hugging the Blue Devil, which may have been his first formal act at Duke.

sagegrouse

[Dev11]

she sent her toady, Tallman Trask, to try and exert control over the basketball program.

I don't think I've ever heard that term before, but if it has anything to do with his physical description, it is a great description.

[duke79]

If you were to list and rank the duties and responsibilities of the president of a word-class research institution, where would ensuring the ready access of alcoholic beverages for undergraduates place? In the top 50? Top 100?

LOL. Very funny. I guess it all depends on who you ask. If you asked the students, I'm sure it would be in the top 5. Parents or faculty or trustees, not so high.

Always hard to rate presidents of a college or university. What criteria do you look at. Fund raising, athletic success, academic rankings, faculty hirings, student applications?

I was at Duke during the tenure of Terry Sanford. Like all good politicians, I think he understood the importance of making the different constituencies on campus feel like they actually had a voice in how the university was run (whether or not they actually did). Plus, he had the "Mayberry RFD" accent and personality that made it hard not to like him.

One of my favorite stories about Uncle Terry is one Halloween when I was there, when there was a controversy on campus about the number of "temporary triples" Duke created on campus (putting three beds in rooms meant to be doubles), three of us from my dorm went to Terry's house off of campus drive and roped ourselves together. We rang the door bell and "Miss Rose" (I believe the name that Terry called his wife) answered the door. We told her that we were there to trick or treat and that we were a "temporary triple", but she had no clue what the hell that meant. Then, Terry came up behind his wife and he had a good chuckle at the costume. He invited us in and served us milk and cookies and assured us that the dorm overcrowding was just a temporary phenomenon due to more student acceptances that they had anticipated.

[Indoor66]

LOL. Very funny. I guess it all depends on who you ask. If you asked the students, I'm sure it would be in the top 5. Parents or faculty or trustees, not so high.

Always hard to rate presidents of a college or university. What criteria do you look at. Fund raising, athletic success, academic rankings, faculty hirings, student applications?

I was at Duke during the tenure of Terry Sanford. Like all good politicians, I think he understood the importance of making the different constituencies on campus feel like they actually had a voice in how the university was run (whether or not they actually did). Plus, he had the "Mayberry RFD" accent and personality that made it hard not to like him.

One of my favorite stories about Uncle Terry is one Halloween when I was there, when there was a controversy on campus about the number of "temporary triples" Duke created on campus (putting three beds in rooms meant to be doubles), three of us from my dorm went to Terry's house off of campus drive and roped ourselves together. We rang the door bell and "Miss Rose" (I believe the name that Terry called his wife) answered the door. We told her that we were there to trick or treat and that we were a "temporary triple", but she had no clue what the hell that meant. Then, Terry came up behind his wife and he had a good chuckle at the costume. He invited us in and served us milk and cookies and assured us that the dorm overcrowding was just a temporary phenomenon due to more student acceptances that they had anticipated.

FYI, her name was Margaret Rose - which is what Terry called her..

[jjasper0729]

I was at Duke during Nan's tenure and she was generally not very popular. As trivial as the alcohol policy might seem, she appeared to make it a cornerstone of her tenure, so she brought this grief on herself. I was not a particularly big partier and I recognize that she was dealing with legal issues beyond her control when making these changes, but it was just handled very poorly and left a bad taste in the mouth (like a 2 week old keg from the pre-Nan days).

Along these lines, many felt that she came from the northeastern establishment and tried to jam that mentality down Duke's throat, rather than letting Duke be Duke and embracing what makes the university unique. From all that I heard, what made Sanford a great president was that he managed to balance national/global ambitions for the university while trying to retain its distinctive characteristics. Nan came across as much more aloof.

From what I have seen, Brodhead comes from a similar background as Nan, but has made more of an effort to become part of the existing Duke community rather than impose his views on the school. Granted, the Duke he came to had been shaped by Nan so was a bit more familiar to him than the Duke she arrived at, but I appreciate his efforts. His handling of the lacrosse case was poor, but he has bounced back from that fairly well. I assume that he will complete the current capital campaign and move on.

Having been at Duke for the end of Brodie (1 year) and start of Nan (3 years), I have to second this about her. Granted that was the period where the "awareness" about over-drinking started and was the start of planned spontaneity around campus. I never much took to the central planning of student socializing. I always felt like Crazy, that she was trying to ram the northeastern mentality down our throats and make us as much like an Ivy wannabe as possible.

I met Gov. Sanford when the public policy building was dedicated in his honor. I believe he died not long after. He was very congenial and pleasant to be around in the crowd and gracious with his time for everyone that came up to speak with him.