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 and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established Duke University, at which time the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke.The university's campus spans over 8,600 acres (35 km2) on three contiguous campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. Duke's main campus designed largely by architect Julian Abel incorporates Gothic architecture with the 210-foot (64 m) Duke Chapel at the campus' center and highest point of elevation. The first-year-populated East Campus contains Georgian-style architecture, while the main Gothic-style West Campus 1.5 miles away is adjacent to the Medical Center. Duke is also the 7th wealthiest private university in America with $11.4 billion in cash and investments in fiscal year 2014.Duke's research expenditures in the 2013 fiscal year were $993 million, the eighth largest in the nation.[9] In 2014, Thomson Reuters named 32 Duke professors to its list of Highly Cited Researchers, making it fourth globally in terms of primary affiliations. Duke also ranks 5th among national universities to have produced Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater, and Udall Scholars.Nobel laureates, 3 Turing Award winners and 25 Churchill scholars are also affiliated with the university. Duke's sports teams compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the basketball team is renowned for having won five NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships, the most recent in 2015.Duke's growth and academic focus have contributed to continuing the university's reputation as an academic and research powerhouse.In summer 2014, Duke Anshan University (DRU) opened in Anshan, China. DRU blends liberal education with Chinese tradition in a new approach to elite higher education in China. The DRU will conduct research projects on climate change, health-care policy and tuberculosis prevention and control.In August 2005, Duke established a partnership with the National University of Singapore to develop a joint medical program, which had its first entering class in 2007.The university is part way through Duke Forward, a seven-year fundraising campaign that aims to raise $3.25 billion by June 30, 2017, to enrich the student experience in and out of the classroom, invest in faculty and support research and initiatives. Every dollar donated to Duke's ten schools and units, Duke Medicine or university programs and initiatives counts toward the campaign's goal.Among academic achievements at Duke, three students were named Rhodes Scholars in both 2002 and 2006, a number surpassed only by Harvard in 2002 and the United States Military Academy in 2006.Overall, Duke has produced 43 Rhodes Scholars through 2014, including 22 between 1990 to 2011.Also, the first working demonstration of an invisibility cloak was unveiled by Duke researchers in October 2006. In 2006, three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape, which garnered significant media attention. On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. Cooper stated that the charged players were victims of a tragic rush to accuse.The university has historical, formal, on-going, and symbolic ties with the United Methodist Church, but is a nonsectarian and independent institution.