Duke Annual Fund

Gifts to the Annual Fund have an immediate impact on what the Duke experience is now and what it becomes in the future by providing funding for things like financial aid, student internships, and faculty-mentored research opportunities.

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Check out examples of all that donors make possible across Duke in 2015

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

More than half of Duke’s undergraduates receive financial aid, which is made possible in part by gifts to the Annual Fund in support of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Thanks to your donations this year, talented students like Rosie Williams are able to attend Duke.

When most other high school seniors were worrying about SAT scores and admissions essays, Rosie’s biggest concern was how she and her family would afford tuition at a top school like Duke. But that changed when she received her financial aid package.

“With a big family comes big financial stresses, and I feared a financial aid officer wouldn’t understand the nuances of my story. And most did not. But Duke was different. Duke listened. Duke cared,” said Rosie, a rising senior from Madeira Beach, Florida, majoring in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

“To me, financial aid is more than money. It’s a life-altering experience. Duke has shaped who I am today in so many ways—I’ve been taught by phenomenal professors, learned two new languages, participated in academic research, and even discovered my life passion of studying art. But it was the financial aid office that opened the door to all the boundless opportunities that Duke offers. I know that Annual Fund gifts in support of Trinity College are what make my financial aid possible, and I’m incredibly grateful for all the donors who support the fund each and every year. Thank you!

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Sanford School of Public Policy

For the first time in the school’s young history, Sanford reached a new milestone, raising more than $700,000 from over 1,500 donors in Annual Fund support.

Thanks to your Annual Fund dollars this year, 15 first-year M.P.P. students are participating in a pilot mentoring program involving nine M.P.P. alumni, four faculty members, and two public policy Ph.D. candidates. The program will offer these students additional opportunities to enhance their professional development and interpersonal communication skills, as well as gain insight into career planning.

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Pratt School of Engineering

Engineers today work in teams around the world, engaging in projects that often involve colleagues in many far-flung locations all at once. So it’s more important than ever that engineering students gain international experience before heading into the marketplace.

The Annual Fund helped make these transformational experiences possible for many students last year. More than a third of the engineering Class of 2015 studied abroad—a number far higher than most other engineering schools—while another 25 percent participated in volunteer activities overseas.

“A lot of people think engineers only need to deal with numbers and equations and don’t need to bother with the softer sciences, but that’s so far from the truth,” said Katrina Wisdom E’12, now a graduate research fellow at Stanford University. “In an increasingly global economy, everyone is going to be working or conducting research with people of different ethnicities.”

"My Duke experience has allowed me to truly experience how engineering can be applied to help solve some of the biggest problems in today's world,” added Kendall Covington, E’15, a Duke Grand Challenge Scholar who participated in research and service projects in Africa and Nicaragua. “Never could I have imagined that I would be heading up a project to potentially light up an entire community in Kenya, or that I would be independently designing medical technologies to help improve clinical care in such an under-resourced setting!"

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke School of Nursing

Bridget Bissell moved to North Carolina from her home state of California hoping to earn a nursing degree and ultimately provide care for underprivileged communities. She intended to apply to several programs, but her Duke Day visit instantly narrowed that list to one.

“I was blown away by the program, the resources, the professors. After that, there was no way I was going anywhere but Duke.”

There remained one rather significant hurdle. Bissell, like the other students in Duke’s Advanced Bachelor of Science Nursing program, already had one bachelor’s degree—hers was in Global Studies from the University of California-Santa Barbara—and the cost of pursuing a second degree posed a financial challenge that threatened to derail her dreams.

Fortunately, help was at hand. Bissell applied for and received a scholarship that is funding her nursing education at Duke. She is now well on her way toward her ABSN degree and, she hopes, her eventual return to the West Coast to serve people in need. Thanks to your support of the Annual Fund this year, she knows she’ll be able to focus on her studies and her patients without being burdened by an unmanageable load of debt.

“It makes all the difference,” she says. “I know people who were accepted to school but couldn’t come because they couldn’t afford it. This is a second bachelor’s degree, so most of us will be in our mid- to late-20s when we graduate. Starting a career at that age with overwhelming debt is an insurmountable hurdle for so many students. For me, having a scholarship available has meant everything.”

Every gift to the Annual Fund goes directly to support student scholarships so we can attract the best students, like Bissell, and ensure they graduate with lower educational debt.

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Nicholas School of the Environment

Gifts to the Annual Fund in support of the Nicholas School make it possible for graduate students to attend professional conferences in their field to present research. These opportunities help them launch their careers and cultivate valuable networks.

This year, your gifts sent Peyton Ward, M.E.M. ‘15 and Genna Gomes, M.E.M. ’15 to the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA)’s Sustainability Insights Conference and Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, they presented their research project on flame retardant chemicals to the OIA’s Chemicals Management Working Group. This experience allowed both students to connect with nearly all of North America’s leading outdoor brands, as well as representatives from chemical companies and private consulting firms.

“I am hopeful that the relationships we have forged with different brands will provide the foundation for my job search in the outdoors or apparel industry,” Peyton said. “Since returning from Salt Lake City, I have been in communication with many of our partner brands, as well as other companies represented at the show and conference. None of this would have been possible without support from the Annual Fund.”

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 The Nasher Museum of Art

Duke students had an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the works of American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) during the exhibition Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting, at the Nasher Museum of Art. The exhibition was made possible in part by your Annual Fund gifts to the museum.

The exhibition, which was on view August 28, 2014, through January 11, 2015, included more than 30 works from Rauschenberg's own collection, as well as selected works from the Nasher Museum’s collection. The exhibition spanned two of the museum’s gallery pavilions, which were organized into eight sections to display the works. Many were on view for the first time.

Kristine Stiles, the France Family Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, served as guest curator and taught a two-semester seminar in conjunction with Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting. Duke undergraduates Taylor Zakarin, Lauren Acampora, Emma Hart, and Jacqueline Samy traveled to the Rauschenberg Foundation in New York, where they met scholars and personal acquaintances of the artist. They wrote wall texts and explanatory gallery texts, and original essays for an online catalogue published on the Rauschenberg Foundation website. From this immersive experience, the students graduated with distinction for their involvement in the project.

Thanks to your Annual Fund dollars, these talented students had a chance to engage more deeply with an iconic American artist. Their experience is another example for how the arts connect to the broader student academic community.

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke School of Medicine

Last year, an increase in Annual Fund support from alumni and friends for the Medical Scholarship Fund allowed us to provide much-needed scholarship support to students like Yasmine Tameze-Rivas.

“I can’t thank you enough for your investment in my capacities to become a great doctor,” Yasmine says. “It is certainly a great motivation for me to continue to explore my intellectual capacities to make a great impact on my community. I can only hope to one day pay it forward and help students follow their dreams the same way as you are helping me live mine.”

An investment in scholarships is an investment not only in a student’s education, but in the beneficial impact that student will have on the lives of others for a lifetime. Our scholarship recipients are grateful for the financial support you provide that allows them the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 The Marine Lab

This year, your Annual Fund gifts to the Marine Lab made a tremendous impact. Here is just one example of the many ways your support made a difference. Annual Fund support helped underwrite the cost of approximately 100 undergraduates who participated in one of the Duke Marine Lab’s “Beaufort Signature Travel Courses” to gain first-hand experience and a deeper understanding of the topics they are studying.

The Annual Fund helps to elevate our students’ experiences by providing them with hands-on learning, intensive field experiences, and lectures delivered through the “Beaufort Signature Travel Courses.”

During the travel course, students study topics such as “Community-Based Marine Conservation in the Gulf of California,” “Caribbean Marine Ecology” in the Bahamas, “Tropical Marine Ecology” in Panama, and the “Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles” in Puerto Rico.

These weeklong, intimate trips are a hands-on learning experience unparalleled by other programs or opportunities, and are made possible by your Annual Fund support of the Marine Lab.

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke Libraries

In 2014-15, 2,025 Annual Fund donors contributed $928,676 to the Libraries to help fund initiatives that support student learning and faculty research.

Meeting the needs of nearly 15,000 students, some 1,800 faculty and more than 30,000 employees of a major research university is challenging work.

Your Annual Fund gifts help to extend the university’s reach across campus and around the world. For example, the map above illustrates the number of times Duke students, faculty, and staff around the world accessed Duke Libraries resources through the website during a typical week in October 2014.

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke Law School

In 2014-15, your Annual Fund contributions helped Duke Law fund a portfolio of programs that include our nine student-run law journals, 10 legal clinics, and 12 faculty-led centers and programs. Such robust clinical and scholarly programming provides our students with a variety of options to pursue their professional and academic interests.

In the past few years, Duke Law has developed three new legal clinics. One of our newest clinics, launched last year, is the International Human Rights Clinic, which educates students on human rights legal theory and practice. Jayne Huckerby, associate clinical professor of law, oversees the clinic and recently worked with students to help draft United Nations principles to address human trafficking in the Middle East and North Africa.

Through the clinical and externship programs, our law students provide over 58,000 hours of pro bono work each year. This is a wonderful example of our dedication to providing knowledge in the service of society.

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 The Graduate School

Annual Fund gifts pay for summer research fellowships that enable graduate students to focus on their dissertations and coursework, which often shortens their time to degree completion. In 2014, 45 Ph.D. students—including Melody Jue—received summer research fellowships, all of which were made possible by your Annual Fund gifts.

The funds gave Jue a chance to dive into the ocean humanities, an emerging field of interdisciplinary scholarship that examines how the ocean shapes the way we view the world. Combining her lifelong love of the sea with her passion for literature, Jue spent part of summer 2014 exploring algae-covered underwater statues by Jason deCaires Taylor in Mexico. Those dives yielded important insights into how the ocean can change a person’s relationship to artworks.

“Instead of being this passive observer in the museum, you have to really be active about where you are in relation to the sculptures,” Jue says. “I’m really thankful for the support that made the trip possible.”

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Sarah P. Duke Gardens

This year, your Annual Fund gifts supported students like Abigail Hull M.Div. ’16 who cares for Duke Gardens through the work-study program. Here’s what she had to say:

“At Duke Divinity School we talk a lot about what makes for human flourishing, both for individuals and communities—that the work of ministry is the work of caring for souls and bodies and people in the hopes of promoting their growth.

We talk about it in a really theoretical way in the classroom, and not so much in a practical way. But working at Duke Gardens, I’ve seen that caring for plants is a type of ministry as well. You’re looking to promote the growth of individual plants and also the whole garden. So you ask questions about flourishing: ‘What’s the soil condition that makes for proper growth? How can we care for these plants in a way that enables them to become the full, flourishing, and beautiful plants they were intended to be?’

What I’ve found is that the kinds of questions I'm asking as a student translate into the garden, and the kinds of skills I'm developing as I garden translate back into the work of ministry.

It’s been a gift to learn from professionals that care deeply about Duke Gardens, and to get to work alongside them, to apprentice myself to them in this other work of caring.”

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 The Fuqua School of Business

Fuqua's Daytime MBA program claimed the top spot for the first time in the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings in 2014. The generous Annual Fund support of Fuqua's alumni and friends played a key role in helping the school reach this exciting milestone, quietly funding the teaching, research, and student experience that make Fuqua — and our graduates — great.

The Team Fuqua ethos of leadership through collaboration was a key element driving the ranking, with recruiters noting that our graduates are particularly good at working collaboratively—a prominent theme in our programs. Many of the experiences that build our students' leadership abilities are supported by the Annual Fund.

Our faculty also landed among the top in Bloomberg Businessweek’s ranking for intellectual capital — a measure of the scholarly research output of Fuqua's faculty in major academic journals. From helping the school attract and retain great scholars and teachers to providing support for long-term research projects and papers, to affording opportunities for faculty to serve in advisory roles, the Annual Fund has played a key role in ensuring that Fuqua remains a top institution.

Check out more examples of all that donors make possible across Duke

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke Divinity School

In 2014-15, your Annual Fund gifts added up to $700,000 in need-based financial support for 160 students. Thank you!

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15 Things Made Possible in 2015 Duke Chapel

Twenty-six of the 88 PathWays Chapel Scholars received grants for Christian mission and service trips last year, which totaled $8,163. Because of your investment in the Annual Fund, PathWays can offer students opportunities for study, artistic expression, counsel, service, and community, as purposeful steps toward bridging their distinctive gifts and talents with the world’s deepest needs.

For example, last year, 77 students enrolled in the PathWays course, “Ethics in an Unjust World”—almost double the number in previous years. The course, taught in the Sanford School of Public Policy by the Chapel’s Director of Student Ministry, asks the question: “How can we fix poverty?”

Alumni, whose work aligns with the themes of the course, are invited to speak to the class. The class also spends time at Durham non-profits working alongside and building friendships with those who are less fortunate.

Similarly, the Chapel’s Community Minister facilitated a Duke House Course on the evolution of mission work in the 21st century, which concluded with a student mission trip to Costa Rica. “We’re helping them, but also, they’re helping us,” one student said. “The relationships we form help build the relationship between all of us and God.”

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Ishan Thakore ’15

My global education experiences have really defined my time at Sanford. I’ve been fortunate to travel through several programs and conduct independent research projects that have pushed me to be flexible and learn about different cultures. I’ve learned to be critical of my experiences and to question the service I’ve been doing and how I’ve been doing it.

I’m particularly proud of my senior thesis, which looked into how a voice-based system for mobile phones might be used to provide treatment for perinatal depression in low-resource settings. Depression as a whole is the largest contributor to global mental, neurological, and substance-use disorders.

My thesis research, funded in part by a Dean’s Summer Research Fellowship, focused first on conducting background interviews to understand how mental health was viewed by health workers. Then, with professor Eric Green, I did usability studies with interactive voice response systems. We wanted to see how phones might be able to help health workers since mobile phones are nearly ubiquitous in low- and middle- income countries.

Professionally, the project enhanced my research abilities, from planning to implementing a study. I also learned a great deal about writing journal articles and organizing my findings. Personally, I made great friendships. I got to know my professors better, as well as other Duke students who accompanied me. I also became close with our Kenyan research assistant and his family, who I still communicate with today. Without them, I couldn’t have finished the project.

Annual Fund dollars help make hands-on learning opportunities like mine possible. Because of donor support, I’ve been able to pursue my passion and study with renowned professors in the field.

I can’t imagine my time at Duke without these experiences, which have affected my outlook of the world and been integral to my time here.

Thank you—and I hope you consider contributing to the Annual Fund this year!

Ishan Thakore ’15