Editorial: Chafe's legacy

The latest in a string of top-flight administrators leaving the University, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education William Chafe announced Sunday that on June 30, 2004, he will step down from his position, in which he has served since 1995. Chafe, also an Alice Mary Baldwin distinguished professor of history, came to Duke in 1971, since which time he has focused on studying issues of race and women's history.

As dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, Chafe is in charge of the Arts and Sciences budget, allocates space for departments, determines and implements the strategic direction of Arts and Sciences and authorizes faculty hires. In his position as vice provost for undergraduate education, Chafe has also played a role in the new residential life plan and attempted to sell Duke's intellectual life and improve Duke's image. Together, these dual roles make Chafe one of the most important individuals at the University.

Chafe's major legacy to the University will probably be as a visionary, someone who had an idea of what Duke should become and how the University should style itself. Under his tenure, the John Hope Franklin Center and the Center for Child and Family Policy have been established. In addition, Curriculum 2000 and the new residential life plan have made an indelible impression on undergraduate life for years to come. Chafe does not receive enough credit for his vision and the role he has had in shaping the University.

At the same time, however, Chafe's tenure has been rocked by several major scandals and many faculty members have expressed disapproval of his management style. Part of the criticism Chafe has taken is because of the nature of his job. It involves making tough decisions about budgetary priorities, and the University must inevitably disappoint some departments in the hiring process. Nevertheless, Chafe's priorities in the budget have at times been questionable. Scandals like the downsizing of the biological anthropology and anatomy department, the treatment of the Primate Center, sexual harassment in the physics department and the embezzlement from the Center for Demographic Studies have all called Chafe's deanship into question in recent years.

Regrettably, Chafe's major legacy will be the Arts and Science budget deficit, which threatens to subsume the school and has necessitated a hiring freeze and led to occasional talks of cutting back the number of faculty positions. This problem is something Chafe's successor will have to wrestle with for years to come.

Among the things the University needs to decide in hiring Chafe's replacement is whether that person should be from the natural sciences, able to direct the University's continuing expansion in that area, or from the humanities or social sciences, to show that those areas are not being entirely neglected at Duke. Obviously, the new hire should be someone from within the University whom the faculty respect.