DURHAM – Duke likes UNC?

Yes, Duke University President Richard Brodhead says in the accompanying video.  It might not be evident from sports rivalries, but Duke supports and enjoys a collegial relationship with its neighbors from the University of North Carolina System.

“We, like everybody else in the state, need and absolutely require a great public university system for our health and for the health of the state,” Brodhead says.  “Eighty percent of the students in America who go to four-year colleges and universities go to publics.  Less than 20 percent go to privates.

“So if we think of all the needs there are – the basic needs to train an educated citizenry, the special needs nowadays to train people for the knowledge economy – you’re going to have to look for the lion’s share of that work to be done in the public system.  And that’s one of the many reasons we’re big fans.”

Brodhead discusses how neighboring scholars at UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and NC Central University create a much richer intellectual community than any of the schools could create by themselves.

He also discusses billions in research that create economic benefits for the entire region. He notes that Duke celebrated how Duke scientist Paul Modrich and UNC scientist Aziz Sancar shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2015.

“I think that’s just a wonderful emblem” of the universities’ parallel pursuits, Brodhead says.

People who know Duke and UNC schools only through sports would think they’re bitter rivals on all fronts, Brodhead says.

“Actually, the universities have a very, very friendly and cordial and collegial relation.  And I think everyone who comes to be a faculty member at Duke understands that these good neighbors are part of the great benefit of being here.”