Give Duke time

As the University’s endowment reaches a new high water mark of $7 billion, we take a moment to pause and reflect on just how far Duke has come.

The endowment’s resurgence comes on the heels of a 20.1 percent return on investment delivered by DUMAC, an investment group controlled by the University. We find this increase to be especially meaningful in the context of Duke’s relatively young history. While theoretically founded in 1838, the school’s iconic West Campus was not completed until 1930 and as of 1997, our endowment stood at only $1.8 billion.

As we watch our school rise in national and global university rankings, it’s easy to begin comparing Duke to its new peers across all possible metrics. When students begin this process, its not uncommon to hear the University bemoaned for this, that, or the other thing, without providing any real appreciation for just how far we’ve come.

The reality, as we view it, is that Duke continues to entrench its position as a top research university which has seen a rapid acceleration in its growth and global perception over the past two decades. However, Duke competes at a disadvantage of hundreds of years to many of the universities it is most often compared to, sometimes leading to discouraging results.

Duke has been able to outpace the growth of its peer institutions for two primary reasons: first, its willingness to make long-term strategically transformative investments in its future and second, the impressive dedication of its alumni in consistently donating. This high growth comes at a cost, one that Duke students encounter on a daily basis. Massive constructions projects and changes in academic requirements affect all of our lives, but they are more importantly indicative of progress.

While construction can be a burden on everyday life, we would encourage you to view it in the context of the larger Duke story. The revamp of West Campus is a necessary investment which will provide long-term returns to the school’s reputation and transitively the value of our own degrees, despite the fact that we won’t see the renovations completed before our graduation.

These current inconveniences are necessary to the development of our alma mater and Duke would not be what it is today without the sacrifices of thousands of alumni before us. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank alumni for their consistent support, while also realizing that every student eventually becomes an alumnus.

For graduating seniors, the first test of willingness to give back to Duke is the class gift, organized by the Office of Development and the Senior Gift Committee. The gift asks each graduating senior to pledge roughly twenty dollars annually, beginning upon graduation. Although historically successful, recent years have seen a significant lag in student participation rates.