Diversity at Duke
What kind of diversity does Duke offer?
Duke students come from all over the world and represent a variety of ethnicities,
races, sexual orientations, religions and socioeconomic backgrounds.
The university’s population has changed dramatically in recent years: More than a third of undergraduates are now students of color. The percentage of African-American faculty members has doubled in a 10-year span, and a third of all graduate and professional students come from other countries.
Duke also hosts organizations such as the Samuel DuBois Cook Society. Samuel DuBois Cook was the first black professor to be hired and subsequently tenured at Duke University. Furthermore, Dr. Cook has the
distinction of being the first African American to hold a regular faculty appointment at any predominantly white college or university in the South.
He served as a member of the Duke Board of Trustees from 1981 to 1993 and was then elected to the Board as a Trustee Emeritus. Dr. Cook left Duke
to become President of Dillard University and served in that role for twenty-two years.
The Samuel DuBois Cook Society was founded in the spring of 1997 to honor the years of service that Dr. Cook has offered to Duke University and to
higher education. Members of the Society commit themselves to the objectives to which Dr. Cook dedicated his professional life - to
translate the promise and potential of African Americans into fulfillment and actuality, and to seek to improve relations among persons of all
backgrounds. Dr. Benjamin D. Reese, Jr., Vice President for Institutional Equity, serves as the Society's Convenor.