November 10 was the day the economic turmoil of the past year and a half hit home for many Duke undergraduates.
That Tuesday, students found out that the University was planning to lay off the director of the Multicultural Center and another well-liked staff member.
Nearly 300 employees—mostly secretaries, housekeepers and other lower-paid workers—had already accepted retirement packages, and another 200 were being offered incentives to leave. Departments—from academics to athletics—were cutting spending. The threat of further layoffs was in the air (and remains in the air: 57 percent of the University’s spending [link opens PDF] goes to salaries and benefits, after all), and the University was searching for still more ways to cut its budget, working to close a $125 million hole left by a falling endowment and empty-pocketed donors.
The decade wasn’t supposed to end this way, with impassioned students protesting and petitioning the administration to retain beloved members of the Duke community and cancel a planned merger of the Multicultural Center and International House (The protests failed on the first goal and succeeded on the second).
Until the last years, it had been a decade of growth on every front for Duke.
Surging endowments and overwhelming giving helped build buildings, hire professors and bring in more students than ever before. Deep pockets funded top-10 sports teams and lured a football coach who knows how to win.
Money also led to big dreams: A New Campus was planned to replace the garden apartments of Central Campus and redefine residential life at Duke. Designs were drawn for a glass pavilion to replace the West Union building.
Today, construction plans have been put on hold, professor hiring is down and athletic spending stands to be scrutinized.
Blue Devils, from the top of the administration to job-hunting alumni and undergraduates, have been forced to dream smaller.
The effects of the recession is number 1 on our stories of the decade list. These are the issues and events that made headlines for weeks at a time over the last ten years, those that sparked the most debate on campus and beyond, and the ones that we believe will continue to shape our coverage in the years to come.
Photo Licensed via Creative Commons from Corey Butler
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