Duke University has grown from its rural beginnings as Trinity College in Randolph County into an internationally-respected institution that combines educational excellence with an ambitious research agenda. Yet it has always retained an intrepid spirit that celebrates innovation. Mary Duke Biddle wanted to make sure that the university bearing her family name would continue to thrive and prosper after she was gone, and so the charter of The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation stipulates that at least half of the endowment’s annual principal or income is directed to the university. In 2008, the Foundation awarded $830,136.50 to 94 initiatives across campus.

In silhouette: Spectrum’s Theater of Needless Talents.

Duke Performances mounted another compelling assortment of offerings in its 2008-2009 schedule, including residencies integrated with academic programs, community outreach and education, and live shows that reflected the tenor of our time. Two of the Foundation’s seven grants to Duke Performances supported programs in the ART/POLITICS/NOW series: Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Company’s production of The Theater of Needless Talents and David Dorfman Dance’s Disavowal. Both shows merged historical events and themes—the Holocaust and slavery, oppression and rebellion—to provoke ageless questions about the human capacity to be unspeakably cruel, or fearlessly brave.

In 2008, the Foundation contributed to the Nasher Museum of Art’s blockbuster exhibit, "El Greco to Velázquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III," which Time magazine named one of the top ten exhibits of the year. (It also earned exhibit curator Sarah Schroth a knighthood from Spain.) Another Foundation-supported exhibit, "A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections," celebrated the pivotal cultural influences of an eclectic collective of artists and intellectuals, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Virginia and Leonard Woolf,and John Maynard Keynes, among others.

Joy of creation: David Dorfman leads pre-performance workshop.

In addition to these and other select exhibits, the Foundation funded some of the Nasher’s behind-the-scenes activities that visitors rarely see—conservation and maintenance efforts, for example, and staff support for educational outreach. In keeping with the Foundation’s approach to providing seed money as an investment in the future, three students are selected each year to receive The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation summer internship awards. These provide funding for undergraduates interested in pursuing careers in art history or museum administration to pursue internships with major U.S. museums—including the Nasher itself. The 2008 recipients were Caroline Schermer, Kelly McCann, and Sarah Leggin.

The Foundation also invested in student futures by allocating two grants to the university’s Financial Aid Initiative, a three-year effort to raise new endowment money for financial aid. The project, which reached its successful conclusion at the close of 2008, helps Duke maintainits commitment to "need-blind" admissions. One grant was given for Trinity College scholarships; the second was directed to the James Belvin Scholar ship Fund. During his thirty-two years as director of Duke’s financial aid office, Belvin and his staff helped more than 30,000 students attend Duke.

Mobilizing: Student Action with Farmworkers interns plan rally activities at a participant orientation.

Grants to the Music Department helped programmatic priorities, such as the Mary Duke Biddle Graduate Fellowships in Composition, as well as high-visibility public events. Encounters: With the Music of Our Time, now in its twenty-eighth year, showcases contemporary music and musicians. As part of the 2008-2009 season, a Foundation grant supported the residency of Alarm Will Sound, a twenty-member band that works with composers across a range of styles—improvisation, jazz, world music, pop, and electronica. As part of their residency, members of the band provided input for reading of new works by graduate composition students, and debuted the world premiere of 1969, a multimedia event that imagined the musical convergence of the Beatles, Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and others in the wake of that year’s tumultuous events.

Modern approaches also inform the curriculum of the Dance Program, which has seen its popularity soar among undergraduates. Even in the realm of ballet, traditional techniques serve as foundation for pushing the art form to new levels. Among the Foundation grants to the department is one for faculty support for Tyler Walters, an experimental ballet choreographer and co-director of Duke Ballet Repertory Ensemble. A leading dancer for the Joffrey Ballet for more than a decade, Walters comes to Duke after guest stints for numerous professional training programs and companies across the country including the Juilliard School. The Foundation also funded an initiative to document and preserve a dance form even older than ballet. Garba, a ritual performance from the Gujarat state of India, dates back at least to the 15th century. Faculty member Purnima Shah has embarked on a documentary project to capture the religious rituals and significance of the participatory circle dance, which honors the goddess Devi.

Through the Medical Center, the Foundation helps to cultivate the next generation of health care providers by providing annual support for medical school scholarships. We also fund initiatives that reflect the continued quest for solutions to health problems related to trauma and homelessness, and for progress in treating diseases such as AIDS and schizophrenia. In ongoing recognition of the instrumental role played by the late physician James H. Semans in shaping the medical center and its approach to integrated patient care, the Foundation contributes annually to the James H. Semans Endowed Pro fessorship in Urology, which was established in 2006.

Mary Duke Biddle and other members of the Duke family believed in the obligations of serving one’s com munity, so it is customary for the Foundation to award grants to Duke-Durham partnerships that provide mutual benefit. In 2008 these initiatives ranged from a grant to the Student Action with Farmworkers group, coordinated through the Center for Documentary Studies, to a mentoring program for local girls to encourage them to pursue careers in math, engineering, and science. The Foundation also supports the Law School’s Children’s Law Clinic, which provides free legal advice, advocacy, and legal representation to low-income children; and the AIDS Legal Clinic, which provides free legal assistance to low-income HIV-infected clients. Both are staffed by Law School students, who gain valuable experience in legal ethics, advocacy work, and the lawyer-client relationship.Mobilizing: Student Action with Farmworkers interns plan rally activities at a participant orientation.