Richard H. Brodhead
Encyclopedia
Richard Halleck Brodhead (born 1947)Marquis Who's Who on the Web currently serves as the ninth president of Duke University
and is a scholar of 19th-century American literature.
. His family moved to Fairfield, Connecticut
when he was six years old, where he attended public schools. He went on to attend Phillips Academy
, where his high school classmates included Dick Wolf
and George W. Bush
. Brodhead graduated from Yale College
in 1968 (summa cum laude
with Highest Distinction in the English major). During his senior year at Yale was tapped for membership in the secret society
Manuscript
. He continued in at Yale for graduate school and earned a Ph.D.
in English in 1972. He met his wife, Cynthia Degnan, while both were graduate students at Yale.
An expert in 19-century American literature, Brodhead has written or edited more than a dozen books on Nathaniel Hawthorne
, Herman Melville
, Charles W. Chesnutt
, William Faulkner
, Harriet Beecher Stowe
, Louisa May Alcott
, Richard Wright
and Eudora Welty
, among others. His scholarly work has been honored by election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. Brodhead won the DeVane Medal for outstanding teaching at Yale and spent eight summers teaching high school teachers at the Bread Loaf School at Middlebury, Vermont. He has lectured widely in universities in the USA, Europe, and Asia.
As dean and as a professor supervising graduate students, Brodhead was involved in the controversy surrounding efforts by graduate student-employees (GESO) to unionize
; he was accused of attempting to blacklist
unionist students. In 2003, Brodhead was named a defendant along with, Richard Levin, Linda Lorimer
in a lawsuit by Yale professor James Van de Velde claiming damage of reputation after Van de Velde was accused of murdering Suzanne Jovin, a female student, and Brodhead subsequently canceled his class citing his presence as a "major distraction." In 2007, A Connecticut Judge reopened Velde's lawsuit against Brodhead et al.
in 2004 to become President of Duke University, succeeding Nan Keohane. Much of his leadership at Duke has focused on enriching the undergraduate experience of Duke students and expanding the university’s financial aid endowment to ensure that a Duke education is accessible to qualified students regardless of their family’s financial circumstances. He has called for Duke to become an international center in addressing health care inequities through a major global health initiative involving faculty and schools across the university, and has championed Duke’s efforts to bring the fruits of faculty and student research through a translational process to serve society. Brodhead has also been active in Durham promoting K-12 public education, several new community health clinics, neighborhood revitalization through the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, and the future strategic direction of the Research Triangle Park.
Brodhead led the successful Financial Aid Initiative, which raised $308.5 million for need-based scholarships at Duke at its conclusion in 2008.
His signature program has been DukeEngage, which "empowers students to address critical human needs through immersive service, in the process transforming students, advancing the University’s educational mission, and providing meaningful assistance to communities in the U.S. and abroad." More than 300 students participate in DukeEngage each summer.
Brodhead serves on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
’s National Security Higher Education Advisory Board
.
One month into Brodhead's tenure as president, the Palestine Solidarity Movement
(PSM) was scheduled to hold their annual conference on Duke's campus. While this led to opposition, Brodhead approved the conference, citing free speech and the desire for improved dialogue regarding this contentious issue.
were falsely accused of raping a stripper hired to perform at a team party off campus on March 13, 2006. Brodhead stated that "whatever they did is bad enough." while saying "our students must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise," while also talking about the horrors of sexual assault and racism in society. On April 5, 2006, Duke's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was fired and Brodhead canceled the remainder of the 2006 season. Student body president Elliott Wolf said that Brodhead faced a public perception "that [Duke] simply washes its hands of students."
On December 20, 2006, Brodhead stated that "the DA's case will be on trial just as much as our students will be." On April 11, 2007, the N.C. Attorney General's Office
dropped all charges against the players, declared them innocent, and called them victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse." Later, Brodhead apologized to the lacrosse players and their families for the university's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril." Brodhead and more than 30 other individuals were named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed in 2008 by the unindicted members of the lacrosse team.
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and is a scholar of 19th-century American literature.
Early life and education
Brodhead was born in 1947 in Dayton, OhioDayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
. His family moved to Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is bordered by the towns of Bridgeport, Trumbull, Easton, Redding and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 59,404...
when he was six years old, where he attended public schools. He went on to attend Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
, where his high school classmates included Dick Wolf
Dick Wolf
Richard Anthony "Dick" Wolf is an American producer, specializing in crime dramas such as Miami Vice and the Law & Order franchise. Throughout his career he has won several awards including an Emmy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.-Early life:Wolf was born in New York City, the son...
and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
. Brodhead graduated from Yale College
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1968 (summa cum laude
Latin honors
Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and in many countries of continental Europe, though some institutions also use the English translation of these...
with Highest Distinction in the English major). During his senior year at Yale was tapped for membership in the secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
Manuscript
Manuscript Society
Manuscript Society is a senior secret society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Toward the end of each junior year, 16 undergraduates are "tapped" to be inducted into the society, which meets twice weekly for dinner and discussion...
. He continued in at Yale for graduate school and earned a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in English in 1972. He met his wife, Cynthia Degnan, while both were graduate students at Yale.
Career at Yale
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1972, Brodhead was appointed an assistant professor of English at Yale. In 1980, he received tenure and was named Director of Undergraduate Studies in English. By 1985, he had been made a full professor and was named chair of the English department. He was appointed Dean of Yale College in 1993 and served until 2004. Together with current Yale President Richard C. Levin, Brodhead oversaw a major curricular review at Yale.An expert in 19-century American literature, Brodhead has written or edited more than a dozen books on Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Charles W. Chesnutt
Charles W. Chesnutt
Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, where the legacy of slavery and interracial relations had resulted in many free...
, William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
, Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
, Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
and Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...
, among others. His scholarly work has been honored by election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
. Brodhead won the DeVane Medal for outstanding teaching at Yale and spent eight summers teaching high school teachers at the Bread Loaf School at Middlebury, Vermont. He has lectured widely in universities in the USA, Europe, and Asia.
As dean and as a professor supervising graduate students, Brodhead was involved in the controversy surrounding efforts by graduate student-employees (GESO) to unionize
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
; he was accused of attempting to blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
unionist students. In 2003, Brodhead was named a defendant along with, Richard Levin, Linda Lorimer
Linda Lorimer
Linda Lorimer is an American university administrator.Lorimer graduated from the Norfolk Academy, Hollins University, and Yale Law School. She practiced law in New York City with the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell before holding a series of administrative positions at Yale between 1978 and...
in a lawsuit by Yale professor James Van de Velde claiming damage of reputation after Van de Velde was accused of murdering Suzanne Jovin, a female student, and Brodhead subsequently canceled his class citing his presence as a "major distraction." In 2007, A Connecticut Judge reopened Velde's lawsuit against Brodhead et al.
Career at Duke
He left New HavenNew Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
in 2004 to become President of Duke University, succeeding Nan Keohane. Much of his leadership at Duke has focused on enriching the undergraduate experience of Duke students and expanding the university’s financial aid endowment to ensure that a Duke education is accessible to qualified students regardless of their family’s financial circumstances. He has called for Duke to become an international center in addressing health care inequities through a major global health initiative involving faculty and schools across the university, and has championed Duke’s efforts to bring the fruits of faculty and student research through a translational process to serve society. Brodhead has also been active in Durham promoting K-12 public education, several new community health clinics, neighborhood revitalization through the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, and the future strategic direction of the Research Triangle Park.
Brodhead led the successful Financial Aid Initiative, which raised $308.5 million for need-based scholarships at Duke at its conclusion in 2008.
His signature program has been DukeEngage, which "empowers students to address critical human needs through immersive service, in the process transforming students, advancing the University’s educational mission, and providing meaningful assistance to communities in the U.S. and abroad." More than 300 students participate in DukeEngage each summer.
Brodhead serves on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," is one of the oldest, largest and most influential of American foundations...
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
’s National Security Higher Education Advisory Board
National Security Higher Education Advisory Board
The National Security Higher Education Advisory Board was created by American Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert S. Mueller III on 15 December, 2005...
.
One month into Brodhead's tenure as president, the Palestine Solidarity Movement
Palestine Solidarity Movement
The Palestine Solidarity Movement is a student organization in the United States which was established in 2000 after the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel. The organization aims to use "divestment as a tactic to non-violently influence a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." ...
(PSM) was scheduled to hold their annual conference on Duke's campus. While this led to opposition, Brodhead approved the conference, citing free speech and the desire for improved dialogue regarding this contentious issue.
Duke lacrosse case
Brodhead's actions during the Duke lacrosse case proved very controversial and garnered much criticism after three members of the nationally-ranked men's lacrosse teamDuke Blue Devils men's lacrosse
The Duke Blue Devils men's lacrosse team represents Duke University in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I men's lacrosse...
were falsely accused of raping a stripper hired to perform at a team party off campus on March 13, 2006. Brodhead stated that "whatever they did is bad enough." while saying "our students must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise," while also talking about the horrors of sexual assault and racism in society. On April 5, 2006, Duke's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was fired and Brodhead canceled the remainder of the 2006 season. Student body president Elliott Wolf said that Brodhead faced a public perception "that [Duke] simply washes its hands of students."
On December 20, 2006, Brodhead stated that "the DA's case will be on trial just as much as our students will be." On April 11, 2007, the N.C. Attorney General's Office
North Carolina attorney general
The Attorney General of North Carolina is the head of the state's Department of Justice and provides legal representation and advice to all state agencies. He or she does not have the authority to prosecute specific crimes unless requested to do so by a local district attorney...
dropped all charges against the players, declared them innocent, and called them victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse." Later, Brodhead apologized to the lacrosse players and their families for the university's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril." Brodhead and more than 30 other individuals were named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed in 2008 by the unindicted members of the lacrosse team.