Co-Charting the Course: The History of Duke GBOV

In this episode of Duke GradCast, Suzanne Barbour, dean of The Graduate School, sits down with Bill Hunt, the inaugural chair of the Graduate Board of Visitors (GBOV).

Established in 2010, the Graduate Board of Visitors serves an important advisory function for the dean of The Graduate School. Comprising alumni from a broad geographic area and representing the comprehensive nature of The Graduate School, the board helps to support and promote The Graduate School's mission. The board considers and provides information and makes recommendations on matters relating to the graduate experience at Duke. It gives informal advice and assistance about programs and projects and enhances communication among the constituencies of The Graduate School.

Together, Suzanne and Bill explore the board's history and its lasting impact on graduate education. Against the backdrop of Duke’s centennial, the two reflect on the origins of the board and how its collaborative spirit has helped navigate over a decade of shifts in higher education. 

Transcript

Suzanne Barbour: 0:04

Hi, and welcome to Duke GradCast. I'm Suzanne Barbour, dean of The Graduate School. And today, you'll be joining me for a conversation with Bill Hunt, a longtime friend of The Graduate School and supporter of graduate education at Duke. As the inaugural chair of Duke's Graduate Board of Visitors, Bill has a unique perspective behind the curtain of how graduate training at Duke has evolved over the past quarter century. Today, the Graduate Board of Visitors, or GBOV, as we call it, comprises graduate alumni from across the country. They represent leaders across fields, from industry to academia and everything in between, who provide invaluable insight on how to optimize the graduate student experience at Duke. Bill is president and CEO of the Elmhurst Group, a Pittsburgh based company that invests in commercial real estate in the hospitality industry. Today, we'll talk about his connection to Duke, how GBOV came to be, and how we can leverage GBOV to deliver the best possible graduate education. Well. Hello, Bill. It's wonderful to meet you face to face.

Bill Hunt: 1:05

Yes. It's great. It's good to be here.

Suzanne Barbour: 1:06

I'm really glad we were able to spend this time together. I've heard so much about you and all the wonderful things you've done with The Graduate School over the years. And we're so, so grateful for the fellowship. And, you know, nearly 100 students have been funded by it. Now, 100 lives changed, so I'm looking forward to chatting today and learning more about the history and the origins of GBOV. I joined Duke in 2022, and I know GBOV was in existence long before then, so I would love to know more about how GBOV got started. And maybe a good way to start our conversation is start to talk about what drew you to working with The Graduate School in the first place. I understand your dad was a dean in the graduate school at Harvard. Was that the inspiration?

Bill Hunt: 1:47

That's interesting. Yeah, it's, I mean, to get right off the bat, I was not a graduate student at Duke nor a graduate student anywhere, actually. So I was an undergrad at Duke. And but I did grow up in a academic setting. My father was at Harvard, and I grew up in Cambridge, right outside Harvard Square. And, he was associate dean of arts and sciences at Harvard. And so we had a lot of intense conversations over time with his TA's that would come to dinner and I would sort of soak it in, I guess indirectly. And I guess really I had been involved, undergraduate. I was on the Trinity Board of Visitors, and, one of the— Nick Dyslin, who was my contact here at Duke, called up one day and said, "I'm here with them coming to Pittsburgh with the dean, Jo Rae Wright, of The Graduate School." And "we just wanted to pick your brain" is literally what he said, "To talk about what ideas you would have for us regarding starting a new a board of visitors." And because they're they're unique, entities, is probably the best way to put it. So we had lunch in Pittsburgh, and, and I mentioned my vision for a board of visitors usually is really is a "focus group" is the term I use. And they said it's really for to bring people of expertise in. And they're not a fiduciary. They're not overseeing. But there's they're really helping the dean. And but as part of that, the dean needs to provide a sort of a vision, strategy sessions, themes for the meetings and obviously would have updates on what's going on with The Graduate Schools. But then really, these are the pressing issues and have those up front have then have this group of focus groups, so to speak, or Board of Visitors and that's it. Come through and give their opinions over a day and a half, their thoughts, their expertise, how they want to look at these ideas. I would say in some respects that's the best board to be on, is not to have to worry about budgets, but to really sit there and say to the Dean, "I think this strategy for such and such a program here rolling out needs a little bit of refinement here or there" and that type. So that was lunch. And then she called me from the airport and said, "I'd love you to be on the board, but not only now, but chair it," and honestly, I thought about it. I said, you know, not having been a graduate student, how awkward was that? And what made me think about it? And I thought about it. Of course, I didn't say yes. I thought about it overnight. We came back as I thought, you know, a lot of times in my business, I run a real estate company in Pittsburgh. We do bring in facilitators, and there's no way that a facilitator knows my business like I know it. But he or she's job is to get with my senior team and the facilitator and really help us find the answers or help ask the right questions. And I think I knew enough about The Graduate School programs with my father. And I probably was enough distant that I could ask the questions and stir things and help the dean, but not necessarily have been a not a victim of the process.

Suzanne Barbour: 4:33

And, you know, frankly, as, as being on the receiving end as a dean, having folks who haven't been part of the process and have an external view, external eyes has been really, really helpful to me because, you know, a lot of the things we do, quite frankly, have been passed down from dean to dean to dean, they're set in stone in academics. And to find out that there are other ways to do them that work very well in the corporate sector, real estate sector is very helpful to us. So I, I can see a lot of merit in that.

Bill Hunt: 4:58

Well that's great. It was it was that interesting. And, you know, we talked about I could certainly see a lot of the issues and I'm sure we'll talk a few of about them that, you know, are still with us today. And these things don't change and they morph and evolve into different things. But, you know, the challenges are still there. And it's a it's a fascinating-- I really enjoyed, I was there for, I guess three years. I was chair for two and then I stayed on for one more year after that. And we had we met twice a year. I suspect you still do--

Suzanne Barbour: 5:24

We still do, mhm.

Bill Hunt: 5:24

do that. And, we had, and I may I just walk through some of the, maybe some of the, our first meetings. [Suzanne: Yeah, that'd be great!] It was interesting. And I will say the, the, we got to we had the group together and we met, actually, I think it was in Perkins Library. And I remember the provost was a gentleman by the name Peter Lang, but Peter spoke to us right off the bat and talked about how The Graduate Schools are the foundation of the university and added, really a credibility to the group. You know, because I do think there's a lot of graduate students at least-- and this was 2010, I should mention. So the reference, I think back then, I think there was maybe a sense of some of the, you know, are we really an afterthought at the University and to just have the provost get up and look us all in the eye and really say, "this is the most important place," and there's obviously many undergrads. It's all very important. But the foundation, he kept using that term, and how important that was. And then Jo Rae, she had three different themes that she wanted to accomplish. And one was to go out and and really engage with the alumni. And apparently that had really not been done. In fact, they didn't really know where a lot of the alumni were.

Suzanne Barbour: 6:24

I'm happy to say we're doing a little bit better on than on, [Bill: Good, good.] but now we have a a map on our website, for example, that shows at least the first placements for recent Ph.D. and master's graduates.

Bill Hunt: 6:34

Good, because, you know, that goes to something we'll maybe we'll get to later too, just as far as you know, the ongoing engagement I mean, you know, you shouldn't come to Duke just for an event. [Suzanne: Absolutely.] It's a lifetime engagement.

Suzanne Barbour: 6:44

And even for our Ph.D. students, you know, there was a time when people went into the Ph.D. programs because they ultimately wanted to be faculty. [Bill: Yeah.] But a large percentage of our Ph.D. students now come here with the expressed purpose of going on to roles that are outside of academia. So having that connection with alums who are in those roles is incredibly important. And that's another really important function of the board.

Bill Hunt: 7:06

It's interesting you bring that up because, we met with graduate students, would come and have lunch with us and I remember one very specifically was saying, you know, "it's a new era now where I want to go into private sector, and I have some of my older professors who are not happy about it, and they feel like that I should stay in academia because that's what they did." And frankly, in 2010, the Great Recession was a year and a half before that. A lot of them were having issues with placement, and so that was a concern. But there's just that movement and I'll touch on it as an outsider now, suddenly is a second. As a donor, you know, you do have to think about should I be supporting a student who's going to be working at, I'll just say DuPont or something like that. That's that's where he or she wants to go. And they have a whole plan, you know, should not DuPont pay for that student, you know? And so I just bring that up as a question.

Suzanne Barbour: 7:55

This is actually part of a broader question that's coming up in higher ed now, you know, as you're I'm sure very much aware, the access to federal funding is not what it once was. We don't know whether it will come back. And so there are questions now, especially in the sciences, quite frankly, which have been heavily dependent on federal resources to fund Ph.D. programs, of what, where the funding should come from. And the question becomes if 80%, 70% of our students in STEM are ultimately going to work for the Duponts and the Mercks and the, you know, the Burroughs Wellcomes of the world, are those the folks that should be paying for the for the education? The flip side of that, of course, and I think it's a really important flip side, is if we do ask them to pay for the education, then they're probably going to want some say in what students actually learn and how they're taught. I would say that, most faculty, especially in the sciences, because this conversation, my background's in science. [Bill: Right, right.] And even when I was in graduate school, 100,000 years ago, I'd say 30% of my peers did not go into academic roles or didn't even indicate they wanted to go into academic roles. Our faculty were grappling with this 40 years ago. Now, I'd say science faculty are pretty much on board with the idea that when they're training a student that student's got a whole world if opportunities out there; academia is only one of them, and it may not be the opportunity of choice.

Bill Hunt: 9:13

And clearly there's a different ratio with humanities, obviously.

Suzanne Barbour: 9:16

Yeah, it's different. But I mean, in those disciplines, I think, you know, quite frankly there weren't as many opportunities outside of academia at one time. But I think that's expanding now, too. And in particular, as we go into this, this new AI-driven world, a lot of folks focus on AI as a technical tool and the development of AI as a technical problem. But ultimately, AI only works well when there's a human interface, when there's a human face on it. And that's where the, the folks in the humanities, I think we're going to have tremendous opportunities going forward.

Bill Hunt: 9:44

Right. No, I think that's right. I certainly have been thinking about that in the last few years, about how, at least when I was involved here, that the humanities were certainly on the way-- I won't say the way out, but they're certainly diminishing each year of, of, you know, and America was saying that to do we need as much philosophers as we need more STEM and either China and others beating us in this game and all that. And it is interesting. Now you start to say with AI, it actually could do the reverse. [Suzanne: It's it's time to start rethinking that.] Human centric skills might be needed and science skills may be more outsourced to AI. So it's kind of an interesting-- [Suzanne: -- reversal of fortune.] You know, what goes around sometimes comes back to reverse way. So so that the first session and then she talked about so re-engaging, which was very important with the alumni, diversity-- I hope I can say that word, I don't know anymore. [Suzanne: Oh please do.] This was this was 2010. So yeah. But that was very important for the group. And I think there was some issues regarding, where we were with regards to some of the diversity initiatives and with regards to she wanted to change that. And I'm trying to think the third one, was going through was, you know, collaboration, the interdisciplinary aspect of it. And you know, it was universities. Everyone could study from home if we didn't really want to focus on interdisciplinary. And I think that's something that's the most important area. Yeah. I assume it's got to be a challenge sometimes where you have, department heads that may they feel they're in there doing the right thing at that point in time. And this is going to dilute. Or you may have also world class students, graduate Ph.D. students that really feel that any type of reaching out to others is just diluting that hours that they have to, to accomplish what they need. But the reality is, on campus, I just sit there and I think about if someone comes up with a potential scientific breakthrough, you know, wouldn't that be great to be able to talk to about, you know, someone to say, [Suzanne: Oh, I so agree.] you know, a humanist to say, what about the ethics, a business person about business and law, and you're on campus. You can you can run into these people.

Suzanne Barbour: 11:44

I completely agree. And that's where Duke really shines. You know that. That's what we're known for, I think, [Bill: I'm glad to hear it.] was it last year? I believe we were number five in the Times Higher Ed ranking for interdisciplinary science research. So this this is something we do really, really well here at Duke. And just as an aside, earlier today, I was in a meeting for a new initiative on campus called IGEC. It's Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Collaboratives. And the idea is that, it kind of leverages the sort of the concept of an interdisciplinary certificate. But we have these theme- based programs that, basically the students are recruited through their regular channels. So they're recruited into discipline-specific programs, but then they come together around themes. One of them, for example, is society- centered AI. This is an opportunity for students to get their discipline -specific training [Bill: Perfect. Yeah, good.] and apply it to a problem where they see how it's applied from the perspective of different disciplines. Because, you know, ultimately when you leave here, whether you stay in academia or go into the private sector, you're going to be working in an interdisciplinary environment. We feel like we should be mimicking that for students, modeling it for for them while they're here in graduate school. And that's what these IGECs are meant, [Bill: That's great, yeah.] meant to do.

Bill Hunt: 12:54

You know, as someone from the private sector, I don't think I've in 40 years of business, ever really done anything by myself. [Suzanne: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.] It's a good thing. So that's, and then just real quick too, so the other the second meeting was about placement, and this again, during the whole process of the Great Recession, there was a lot of discussions about placement back then, but there's there were some frustrations and I think that was in the humanities. We just, which we talked about too, this, it was a lot of that. And you know, it's we both know You know, humanities, you go through some of that much more with the language and other things. That's actually it's more of a difficult term path forward in something.

Suzanne Barbour: 13:31

And within the disciplines, they rank each other based on placements and that's not just does a student find an academic position, it's does a student find a tenure-track faculty position at a Research 1, ideally Ivy+ institution? [Bill: Yeah.] Well, many of our students are interested in staying in academia, but they don't necessarily want to be tenure -track faculty members at Research 1/Ivy+ institutions. And another part of the evolution has been the embracement of, you know, what the student wants to do. We have students who will come in and they say, you know, "Ultimately, I'm going to go back and work at a small undergraduate institution. That's where I got my undergraduate degree. I want to work directly with students. And I don't necessarily want research to be a number one thing that I'm doing," and we're fortunate here at Duke in that I think our culture has evolved to the point where faculty understand that now. And, we've got a couple of new, internship opportunities for students that are allowing them to take a little bit of time and kind of figure out what they want to do. And often it's not what their, what their faculty advisors are doing.

Bill Hunt: 14:30

Yeah. That's great. I was thinking, as a donor, too, It's not you don't want to just support a program that tests metrics that are often done at that type of tier one research. Ultimately, the goal is to help society. [Suzanne: Exactly. Exactly. That's why we're all here.] That's why the university that that changes potentially more lives. [Suzanne: We're made for this, right. That's what we're made for.] So the third meeting was the day in the life of a student or the life of students. And we went through a lot of, that's where I learned [Suzanne: That's a neat idea.] that the graduate students, at least in 2010, had a higher percentage of attendance at basketball games than undergraduates. So they were very proud of that. [Suzanne: That's interesting.] Parking was a huge issue. [Suzanne: It still is.] And it's also being in Durham, I remember I remember people were saying, you know, "We feel like we're so focused on downtown Durham. We don't really sense the campus. We come in, we do our thing and go back." You know, these are those were some of the three things that sort of I remember. But it was it was a positive, certainly. And then the last one was teaching, that was sort of the-- and sadly, I will say the fourth one we didn't have Jo Rae; unfortunately, she had passed away between our third and our fourth meeting. And so that was a really tough, obviously a very difficult time, an amazing human being. Just a great person. But we did we went on and off the fourth. The teaching was fascinating, too, because, you know, that was another one where I sort of got a sense from my father and how that challenging that can be. And I remember even first hand, to be honest with you, as an undergrad, we sometimes saw the TAs or the teacher be teaching the the Friday session of a lecture class as an undergrad. And, you know, we knew some of them really got it and some just were sort of... they were scared of us almost. And I'll pass on one other great quote I remember, "You have to remember, you don't always get the students you want. You get the students you have." [Suzanne: Yeah, point taken. That's a great point.] You know, because because I think a lot of graduate and Ph.D. students school go in and, and actually expect to have students that are at the level, not necessarily the intellectual level, but the the actual energy level, [Suzanne: Yeah, the enthusiasm and the passion and the commitment.] the enthusiasm of what they're doing. And then some of these other folks, this may not be their field and they may be doing having other priorities in life. So at age 17 or 18, 19 or whatnot. So, it was a very interesting program. And then it went on, you know, certainly after I stepped down as chair. But those are the first four.

Suzanne Barbour: 16:45

Yeah. I think we're still trying to work on the teaching piece, but I think we're getting better at that. You know, the other thing your comments prompt for me is I would almost use the word "evolution." I think that's a fair way to put it. I think our, I could, I could see a direct connection between our, our current GBOV, its foci and what you've just described. For example, one of the big conversations we're having now is around mentoring. And, you know, mentoring and teaching are not exactly the same thing, but certainly a good teacher tends to be a good mentor. And we all, I think, can trace our success to having some kind of structured or maybe not -so-structured mentoring in the past. Well, we're trying to put some more formality around the way we train faculty to be good mentors with the idea that a faculty member who's a good mentor is going to have students who are more successful, who achieve life-work balance, who get the opportunity to decide amongst the plethora of career options which one is going to be the best for them. And the GBOV has been incredibly helpful in those conversations because we've been able to talk about faculty mentoring. We we've so far, designed our faculty mentoring strategies based on what we see here in academia. But it's so fascinating to hear our GBOV members talk about what mentor training looks like in the private sector. The idea that a mentor is not the same thing as an evaluator and that you would never call someone a mentor if they had an evaluative relationship with you. So, again, a conversation that you started back in 2010, that's kind of evolved into something that, you know, is related. But I think, again, helping us to enhance the quality and the value of the graduate education that our students get here.

Bill Hunt: 18:22

So my suggestion, too, is to tell the mentor that you really are a life coach. It's, it's more than just "This is the curriculum path you should take," or, "This is the professor that maybe you want to help with such." And this is more than that as you as you touched on the life-work balance, and.

Suzanne Barbour: 18:36

And you may need more than one mentor. You know, there's, you may need a mentor who's going to help you with the research. But that may be a very different person than the one who can have a conversation with you about life -work balance, or about the career paths, or help you develop your professional network. And so this dyadic mentor -mentee concept may, you know, may be kind of going by the wayside as well.

Bill Hunt: 18:55

We touched on this, but how do you get graduate students that are so engrossed in what they're doing, and in a good way, but to reach out and to maybe run it, say, "I really want to talk to someone if the law school about how this could impact," I'm making up the example, of course. But how do you encourage such matters in the process?

Suzanne Barbour: 19:10

It's a great question. You know, I think the IGECs were in part meant to do that, to bring students and faculty together across disciplines, to have conversations that go beyond just the the research problem they're addressing, but also the, you know, what does this mean for me? What does this mean for my life? How do I work collaboratively with other folks to achieve our goals? You know, I'd say we've also got this wonderful program in The Graduate School called Emerging Leaders that I just absolutely adore. I don't know if it existed when you were on the board, [Bill: It did not.] but, it's a program not just for Ph.D. students. Master's students are involved in it as well, and even postdocs. And they come together in interdisciplinary teams to address a problem. So I think we do have some more opportunities for students to engage across schools, across the university, around issues that matter to them. And what I love about Emerging Leaders is they not only get to engage around the issue, they also get to propose a potential solution for the problem they've identified.

Bill Hunt: 20:05

So I remember talking with Jo Rae, one of the issues there was, as a donor, and particularly with the larger foundations, the challenge of going forward and saying this is a contact of department "x," for a certain department and say, we want to go in and we want to reach out to this donor and we'd like to do it as part of the grad school. And obviously there's a turf issue, of course. And, you know, I respect that. But I remember we said, "If you do this as a collective, you'll end up with more than you would individually at those two trips," because sophisticated foundations and the like really look at this and say, "We want to hear more than just supporting the same old. We want to hear about collaboration. We do want to hear about interdisciplinary," but there was a sense of saying that collectively, we can do a lot.

Suzanne Barbour: 20:48

Absolutely. I'm smiling because Allie and I are involved in something like that right now. Allie Boyer is our director of development. [Bill: Good.] I'll tell you two quick, quick stories. The first one, so, you know, we're in a new campaign now, Made for This, and there is a very ambitious goal for fellowships and scholarships for graduate and professional students. And so there's a team in AED that's working together with Allie and I on a strategy, basically, to bring folks together and rally around that goal. And then the idea is to bring the deans in so that they can have the more specific conversations about their needs within their programs. So very excited about where that's going to go. It's something that's brand new. [Bill: That's right, right on target. That's great.] But the other thing that we've just concluded that I'm really excited about, and kudos to Allie and her team for all they've done along these lines. We got a gift from the Duke Endowment a couple years back, that had a matching component. And, we used that matching component to work with other schools on developing a series of fellowships. And so, long story short, we turned $10 million into $14 million. We developed 39 new fellowships. But all of this was done collaboratively, so whether Allie identified the, you know, the potential donor or the potential donor was identified by one of the other schools, in the end, the match was done in a collaborative fashion. And I think that's just super exciting because it shows exactly what you said, a rising tide floats all boats. [Bill: Absolutely right.] Yeah. So what sorts of initiatives came out of those first four meetings? After the conversation, what kinds of action items arose?

Bill Hunt: 22:22

Well, we certainly I mean, obviously, unfortunately, with Jo Rae passing, things were a little bit of a, a slower process. But I do think everybody wants to help, and we all love Duke. And, you know, we're glad to be asked. And it's an amazing amount of successful people that have gone through the doors here and, you know, so I encourage that, you know, going forward. And also, you know, maybe there could be a mentorship program of alumnus, and maybe you do this, with some of the Ph.D. students to say, you know, "I'm having a hard time" and, you know, here there's this a person who graduated four years ago, you know, just maybe just to reach out and just to have a conversation with them and to say, you know, "This is what what got me through, this is what helped me, or this is the way I got my job placement. I actually had a different idea and it worked." You know, there may be ways of using alumnus as mentors and recent alumnus, primarily because they're the ones that probably are peer to peer.

Suzanne Barbour: 23:15

You know, actually, we have a twist on that that we built into our meetings now. [Bill: Great.] So there are a couple of things that happen. We usually have a panel where we bring back recent alums, from different, different disciplines, different career paths, and they share exactly the kinds of things that you've described: how they got into the career path, the kinds of networks they had to build, the things elements of their CV or their resume that they had to build. And so the students get to, you know, get kind of a snapshot of what their career path has been. And then afterwards is a sort of a career speed dating, where the panelists and the board members sit at tables and the students move from table to table, getting a chance to interact with them, ask some questions, maybe get some follow up, some feedback, some advice. And we're hoping that some of those mentoring conversations you just just described are, are nucleated by that those kinds of interactions. And so and any students who are listening, I recommend you reach out to Melissa Bostrom, our assistant dean. She's going to be organizing the next of these, these panel discussions and career speed datings for our our GBOV meeting in March. I'd also encourage our alums to make sure that your contact information is updated, because we'd love to reach out to you and get you involved in those activities and some of the other activities that we have on board.

Bill Hunt: 24:25

Yeah, you know, networking in academia is just as important as in the private sector. It is. [Suzanne: Absolutely.] I mean, and people may say, "I am now in my first placement. It's great. And I really like the university or the setting I am, college where I am, but I met somebody and it's at the right moment. Three years later I ended up getting another placement and it's it was even better," you know, that type of thing.

Suzanne Barbour: 24:45

And that's one of the things that is very unique about a Duke education. You come to Duke because there's this robust network that you can build. Another new initiative that Allie has started is an emerging leaders category for board membership. So these are young alums. They're alumni who are, within just a few years of graduation. We have our first three on the board now. And, they're doing amazing things for us. In particular, they're great near-peer mentors to students. And so they participate in this speed dating thing, for example, when they come to our board meetings. But they're also wonderful in the board meetings themselves because they provide that recent graduate, boots-on-the-ground sense of what the impact is of the initiatives and the ideas and the, you know, the things that we're planning to do. Oh, and by the way, this is a different emerging leaders than the Emerging Leaders I talked about a minute ago. This is the emerging leaders board membership category, as opposed to the Emerging Leaders training program for graduate students.

Bill Hunt: 25:40

Well, I'll mention too, we-- my wife Janet, who I met here at Duke as an undergrad, we wanted to make a commitment to the The Graduate School, and, so what did I do? But I went up to Boston to sit down with my father and said, "What do you think would have the best impact?" And we talked a lot about different graduate issues at Harvard and what he thought about it at Duke. And then he finally came back and he said, you know, "I just think you need to help them get on with their mission as soon as possible." And so we funded a program to really help them do the research during the summer, and basically a 12-month funding program. And it wasn't, you know, terribly sexy, so to speak, but it was really instrumental. But we did that and I, you know, I say that to other donors as well, sometimes you really shouldn't go in and try to create a new program that, even if it's well-meaning, you know, trust the school, trust the dean; at the end of the day, it's the most pragmatic. And I think it's a really a high rate of return on that, that people are not at year 8 getting their, their Ph.D. [Suzanne: Absolutely.] And hopefully it's year 6 or whatever the example would be. They need to continue to pay their expenses.

Suzanne Barbour: 26:40

Well, I'm happy to say that in effective fall of '22, we have 12-month funding for all of our Ph.D. students. [Bill: Yeah, there you go, that's great.] So I'm really excited about that. And that provide-- not only provides students with stability once they get here, but it also allows us to recruit the absolute best and brightest students. Now we're competing with institutions that, you know, quite frankly, some of them can afford to pay larger stipends that we can, and we're very, very fortunate now to be able to support our students for 12 months, thanks to you and your dad and the vision, and your father was ahead of his time on that.

Bill Hunt: 27:11

Give him credit on that. We went through all these very exciting ideas and he finally said, you know, "I just, it just kills me at Harvard to see some of these students and they're year 8 or 9, and they don't need to be," he said. "But why is it not funded at all?" And I said, "That's the structure. It's been like that forever at Duke." And he said, you know, "Let's try to change that." So anyway, that, I'm glad to hear that. That's a competitive advantage. It's, it sounds like a humanistic advantage , the right thing to do, but also it's clearly a competitive advantage. And, and you need to be competitive to get the top class of people in the world.

Suzanne Barbour: 27:44

And we want our students ultimately, we we talked about health and well-being and, and life-work balance. We also, we want our students to be successful in their graduate programs, but we also don't want them to walk away wounded because they haven't felt stable, or they haven't had any opportunity to be people while they're here. We talked earlier about the value out of doing things outside of one's discipline, outside of one's program. So this financial support makes all the difference for our students. We're using a new terminology, I'd be curious to know what you think of it. We're starting use this term: "holistic graduate education." And the idea is that, I mean, students come here to work in a particular discipline, to learn in a particular discipline. Many of them come here to work with a particular faculty member. That's why they come here. But to get, to derive maximum impact from that, that interaction, they have to have some additional support, wraparound services that allow them to do, to do more, more than just be students. You know, for example, they need wellness programming. They need to have a sense of how to how to set boundaries, how to stay within those boundaries so they can stay both mentally and physically well. The mentoring piece is so incredibly important. And students need not just strong mentoring from our outstanding faculty, but they also need to know how to take advantage of that mentoring so they can derive maximal benefit from it. They need professional and career development-- again, going beyond just the academic career roles. And that's what this concept of holistic graduate education is meant to, meant to be. So we've got a new concept. It's the idea of of having a center of holistic graduate education here at Duke. It would be a center within The Graduate School. It would be modeled after a center that already exists on Sloan Foundation funding, that's the the University Center for Exemplary Mentoring. But again, the whole idea is that, you know, in order for students to get the most out of graduate school, they need more than just the discipline-specific training. The synergistic partnerships across campus bring them these additional resources together that allow students to feel at home. [Bill: Yeah, right.] Belonging is a big piece of this. And you used the word "diversity" a little while ago, and I'd love to have a conversation about what, what the thought was about diversity when you were on the board and love to give you a sense of how those ideas are evolving, too. And you we know, we--

Bill Hunt: 29:58

I do remember we had-- when I came back for the fifth. So we'll call it the reunion, but the fifth, dinner, we had a speaker and it was the first woman of color who had graduated from The Graduate School, who was Ida Stephens Owens. She was a wonderful speaker. But we didn't realize, and it was shocking to me, that it was 1960 was when she matriculated at The Graduate School. And I realized, you know, that was 20-- and I got there in 1980 as a, as an undergrad-- that was only 20 years.

Suzanne Barbour: 30:27

Well, having been born in 1962, that really resonates with me. [Bill: Yeah.] We are in complicated times, and our approaches have had to modify. But, our ultimate goal is to ensure that a Duke graduate education is available to every student who has the ability and the interest and the commitment, and that once students get here, they have a sense of belonging. So again, they're able to take full advantage, maximal advantage of everything that Duke has to offer.

Bill Hunt: 30:53

So help me with that, too. So obviously, with Ph.D.s, that's always there. Master's programs-- as far as, with diversity, is-- that's usually more of a profit center. And there's some money. That cost structure is a little bit different. Can we help that is that is is it as diverse as the Ph.D.?

Suzanne Barbour: 31:09

Actually, it's even more diverse. Our master's programs are diverse because we have a huge number of international students. This year, our incoming class of master's plus Ph.D. students was over 50% international. Students came from 58 countries. And what an incredible opportunity for a student here at Duke to train with students from 58 other countries. That's one of the things, honestly, that we that we pride ourselves on. [Bill: Yeah.] I got an email from someone earlier today who used the term "compliant, but not complacent." I'd say that's where we are right now. We're going to continue to use every strategy we can within the law to ensure that we can provide a Duke education to every student who deserves it, wants it, and wants to commit to Duke. And once they get here, we want to make sure that they, they feel like they belong here, but they're part of our community.

Bill Hunt: 32:00

Yeah, it is a challenging time, but, you know, we owe it, and you owe it, to the past 100-some years worth of Duke students. [Suzanne: Absolutely, absolutely. Couldn't agree more.]

Bill Hunt: 32:07

And how important that is. And so externalities have to be somehow pushed aside for some of these important initiatives.

Suzanne Barbour: 32:15

You said 100 years; our centennial is this year! And, so, I'd love to get some advice from you on how can we leverage this year? You only turn 100 once. How do we leverage this 100th year to find more Bill Hunts, to find more folks who are excited about graduate education, excited about Duke, and want to help us envision the best possible graduate education going forward?

Bill Hunt: 32:39

I think, I always say, it's people to people. And, I would think that if you could have, certainly your young alumnus, your students, your Ph.D.s, postdocs, however, really reach out to the alumni. I think, not anyone who's in academia, but anyone who's gotten a Ph.D., they have to have a sense of wanting to give back and to be part of that. So I think that's and, you know, certainly financial support is important. But I also, I just think about how much knowledge and intellect that have walked out this doors and, you know, let's, let's have them, you know, give some of that back. Whether that's advice, consultation, working through with some of your boards, but also maybe there's some other sort of subcommittee groups that could get together.

Suzanne Barbour: 33:22

The provost actually has an initiative on pluralism, free inquiry and belonging right now. This might be a really cool opportunity for us to leverage that initiative to bring graduate alumni together to have conversations with students.

Bill Hunt: 33:34

Yeah, that would be great. That's exactly right.

Suzanne Barbour: 33:34

What a really neat idea. So, what kind of advice would you give students now if you were sitting on the board and going to board meetings and interacting with students during that lunch or during the career speed dating, what would you tell them? How would you tell them to prepare themselves for that brave new world?

Bill Hunt: 33:52

Well, certainly enjoy where you are right now. It's a gift. I mean, I hate to say it, but it really is to be here. I mean, it's amazing to be around so many other people, and interesting people. You may never have that quite in your life. I mean, you certainly maybe you've got academia and you go to other universities, but it's it's pretty rare when I think about my world in business, and we're a lot of smart people, but never 7,000 people at the same campus, so to speak, or more.

Bill Hunt: 34:16

You know, get out of your box sometimes and get out of your immediate field and really seek out other disciplines. And just say, "I have some thoughts on this. How do you feel about it? And you have you come from a different angle?" And it really needs to be much bigger than just your field itself. And, and doesn't have to be a lot of your time. But certainly you should dedicate I'd say, you know, 10% of your time here to do things that are tangential to your initial initiative.

Suzanne Barbour: 34:43

Gosh, I love that feedback. Thank you so much, Bill. This has been a wonderful conversation.

Suzanne Barbour: 34:46

[Bill: I enjoyed it myself.]

Suzanne Barbour: 34:48

I've learned a lot, and I know our students are going to learn a lot from the conversation. And, I look forward to working with you as we chart the future of graduate education.

Bill Hunt: 34:57

Great, I know it's bright, so good for you.

Suzanne Barbour: 34:57

Cheers. Thank you.

Bill Hunt: 34:59

Thank you.