4.4: Campus Culture
Develop programs to improve campus culture Other Information:
The culture of the campus outside the classroom is a critical component in developing the intellectual, social and ethical
qualities of our students. We must, therefore, dedicate substantial attention and resources to assuring that campus culture
supports the values we seek to promote. While we have engaged in various initiatives over the past ten years to address issues
of campus culture, we intend to sharpen our focus on issues of the relationship between the non-curricular opportunities and
choices we offer our students and the ones they seize or make on their own, and the broader culture of learning and individual
and community development we seek to foster. This focus must include issues of difference and respect, campus and community,
race and gender, but also how individuals form and live by their own values and act responsibly consistent with them. The
Campus Culture Initiative, launched in April 2006, will help us develop a clear vision of the values and behaviors that should
guide Duke students in their relations with others. We will examine educational practices inside and outside the classroom;
evaluate the ways students develop personal responsibility, social responsibility, and civic engagement; and assess how students
relate to each other and other members of the campus and community across bounds of race, gender and other social divisions.
In the course of our work, we will support and align curricular and co-curricular opportunities, including programs in residential
and social life, to help students gain greater perspective on their actions and to foster greater empathy for others. As we
seek to improve campus culture, we will be aided by efforts to bring a greater wholeness to our administration of undergraduate
education. Initial steps include more integrated oversight by the Provost, who has established an Undergraduate Leadership
Group that brings together, on a regular basis, leaders in academics, athletics, and student life, and a restructuring of
the Board of Trustees committees to allow for more comprehensive consideration of issues related to a Duke undergraduate's
experience.
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