Centennial Oral Histories:
Joel Fleishman

Luke Powery  0:19 

I’m Luke Powery and I’m here with Joel Fleishman for the Duke Centennial Oral Histories Program. Joel, it’s a privilege to sit with you this afternoon and to hear from you.

Joel Fleishman  0:36 

I feel very honored to be chosen for this. I’m not used to it, but I’ll get used to it pretty fast.

LP  0:46 

I’m sure you will. We know that you came to Duke in 1971. Could you speak a little bit about how you came to Duke, and describe your relationship with former North Carolina governor and Duke President Terry Sanford? How were you first connected to him and what motivated you to join him at Duke?

JF  1:13 

I met Terry Sanford when I was a sophomore at [UNC] Chapel Hill. He lived in Fayetteville, which is my home. And some of my friends who knew him — I didn’t know him at all — but [my friend] said, “He’s now the head of the Young Democrats in North Carolina [North Carolina Young Democratic Clubs]. And since you, Joel, bring visiting speakers to Chapel Hill as the head of the Carolina Forum, I think that Terry Sanford could help you get some speakers to come.” And I said, “Well, why not?” So I got to know him. We ultimately became very good friends. And it was that introduction — basically, he did, in fact, help me with speakers — I think I think it’s fair to say that we took a liking to one another. And when he decided to start running for office, I signed up for his campaigns. So he made a sort of a quick try at running for — I believe at that point it was governor — and then dropped out. But then the campaign that he ultimately stayed in was the campaign for governor that was elected to the Democratic nomination. If I remember correctly [it was] in 1959. And that was the election in which he beat Dr. [Isaac] Beverly Lake [Sr.] who was ardently in favor of separate schools, essentially.

He won the Democratic nomination, and then went on to win the election in 1960. It could have been 61, I’m not sure exactly. He won the election, and then — I had been at Yale, where I was a faculty member and doing obviously administration [work] up there, I went back to Yale after the campaign — he decided, well, maybe he should recruit me. I was a lawyer. At least, I had a law degree. Whether that makes you a lawyer or not, I’m not sure [laughs]. It doesn’t make you a good lawyer. I don’t know whether I was a good lawyer or not. But I enjoyed it. In any event, I went back to Yale. And then next thing I know, he is doing all other kinds of things. And I don’t know whether I said it [specifically], but he hired me to be legal assistant to the governor, in the Governor’s Office.

So I was a legal assistant to him when he was governor, starting in 1961 until 1965 when he left office. And when he left office, he went back to his law practice [and] I went back to Yale. And the next I heard from Terry Sanford was when he was — I was up there at Yale, doing a variety of kinds of things. One of the things that I did was working with the president of Yale to provide education for disadvantaged, underachieving students. I ended up serving as the director of the Yale Summer High School. The Yale Summer High School identified young people from all over the country, of all races but focusing a lot on people of color. And I ran that up there. When I was up there, that’s what I did. Meanwhile, Terry Sanford got appointed to be president of Duke, when the trustees elected him in the fall of 1969. And then he began trying to recruit me to come down here. And in Terry Sanford’s speech, his inaugural address, he said he wanted to create a program that would train young people about going into politics, working for the government, working for nonprofit organizations, and so on. He made two proposals in his speech — well, that was one of them, and I don’t remember what the other one was. All I know is that after he got settled in the job, he said he wanted me to come down and head up the effort, which ultimately became the Sanford School of Public Policy. I was the first director of it, starting in 1971. I directed it until [1983], when he had found something else for me to do, which was to run Duke’s capital campaign for the whole university. The capital campaign for the arts and sciences and engineering. Engineering got in there because one of the trustees was on the board of the Engineering School at Duke and he insisted that the campaign not just be arts and sciences, it had to include engineers.

So that’s a quick history of how I got involved with Terry Sanford. And, you know, we had a wonderful relationship. I think everybody that worked for him felt that they had wonderful relationships with him. He was easy to approach, and had a great sense of humor. He liked to go out and meet with people all over the state, and talk to various clubs, and everything else. I didn’t have the slightest interest in doing that, frankly [laughs]. So while I was [his] legal assistant, when he was there — I didn’t do the things that he liked to do. But that’s fine, because there’s enough to do for at least two people. In any event, going back to the beginning of my stay at Duke. They started it as an institute, which I infelicitously called the Institute for Policy Sciences and Public Affairs. Well, it turns out that most people didn’t know what policy sciences was. And so, that name lasted one year [laughs].

LP  8:36 

Only one year?

JF  8:38 

Only one year. We quickly renamed it the Institute of Public Policy Studies. And it is now the Sanford School of Public Policy.

LP  8:52 

When did the name become the Sanford School?

JF  8:56 

I think if I remember correctly it was 2009.

LP  8:59 

More recent times. Thinking about the Institute [and] its movement to the Public Policy School — what was the vision, ultimately, for the institute that is now the Sanford School of Public Policy?

JF  9:19 

Well, I should now add in another increment. While I was at Yale, Yale was trying to do something like this. And I actually think it was the Ford Foundation that financed two reports that I did. They were book-length reports, like 300 pages. [The question] was: what do you do about education — pre-work education — for people who wanted to prepare themselves to work in government, or run for office in politics, or whatever? What do you do before they’ve ever done anything? And the second [question] is: what do you do mid-career? So there were two separate reports. But I interviewed everybody in the country, literally. By that time, there were a number of schools — Harvard, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas — all had schools at that time. Meaning in 1967, slightly before Terry Sanford actually began serving as president of Duke. So I had been interviewing people about what it is that an institute like this needs to do. And so it was not totally based on his friendship for me, I think, but because I’d been doing all of this work [and] research on what public policy schools do, basically. By the time I came down here I did know, if I’d say so [myself], a good deal about that question. I literally interviewed every faculty member at every public policy school in the country. And all of this was before I got asked to come to Duke. So I’d already done it. And in a sense, I was, I think, from their view, well-prepared. I think it did make a difference in terms of what we did. So I came down here in 1971. [I] stayed at Terry Sanford’s home briefly until I found a place which I actually bought. I still live in the same house in Chapel Hill. So, there were various aspects that came out of the research that I did that I thought were very, very relevant. Most schools of public policy recognize that you can’t be a good policy analyst if you don’t know something about economics. And most of the policy schools had courses in economics, and statistics, in decision analysis, and political analysis — all of those kinds of things. And like everyone else, we modeled ourselves after what everybody else was doing.

But we added to it things that I thought that other people were not doing. So from the very beginning, we were the only public policy program that had year-long courses in ethics. We had courses in humanistic perspectives on public policy. I don’t know whether you ever run into Alex Harris, who founded [what was] originally the Center for History [crosstalk] and Photography [Center for Documentary Studies]. A photography expert. And ultimately, it was instituted under his leadership into an institute that worked on bringing arts people into education. And really far-out kinds of things, like having classes in photography for blind people.

LP  12:35 

Oh, wow.

JF  12:42 

So it was just amazing. But the point I’m making is we were, in fact, the first public policy school in the country that focused on ethics. With year-long courses at ethics. And that still holds true. It was also the case that we designed a number of courses that combined classroom work at Duke with internship work [including] internship opportunities in Washington or elsewhere. The courses were year-long courses that started in January with a course on campus, followed up by an internship in Washington or New York or wherever the person was interested in, followed by a semester in the fall. The package was “classroom, real world, classroom,” basically.

We had a number of courses designed just that way, so that students got the sense of what real life is in government and nonprofit organizations and so on. But that was very different. Those characteristics were different from most other schools in the country. It’s also the case that we focused on the quality of the person’s teaching as being indispensable to being in the faculty. The Ford Foundation had a program officer who was our visiting program officer when we got support from Ford. Maybe I didn’t tell you: when I got appointed to run this Terry Sanford said, “Now, I want you to know that the deal is you have to make enough money from other sources to start this organization. And once you’ve got the organization going, and have classes, we can provide tuition money to support what you’re doing.” So when we started, I got a lot of experience in raising money at that point — which ended up lasting for quite a while. It was one of the reasons [that] when I stepped down as the director of the school [Sanford decided] to draw me into running the capital campaign for the arts and sciences and engineering.

LP  16:27 

You’re a Renaissance man, in a lot of ways.

JF  16:31 

I’ve had to do things that I never would have thought I had to do. But I have to say everything was fun. I enjoyed the fundraising side. I can’t honestly say I didn’t. But the truth of the matter is that it was a different twist on what I’d always done.

LP  16:48 

Let me ask you — before moving to some further questions about Sanford — you were doing the research on these other public policy schools that had emerged. What drew you into that kind of research?

JF  17:06 

Oh, because Yale was interested in doing something like it. It did not have a public policy school. It still doesn’t have a public policy school. But it does have a lot of courses dealing with the things that the public policy schools have. That was the reason I did it. I didn’t do it only because I was interested. I did it because that was what was preparing Yale to do what it wanted to do. I needed to do [it]. So all of those reports — the interviews and those reports — were all done before I came to Duke. I think it gave him ammunition for why they should recruit me. Because at that point I knew a lot about what all the other public policy schools in the country were doing.

LP  18:08 

Terry Sanford, obviously he’s a key individual in Duke’s history. And we’ve heard some about him already, but I think we’ll begin with him. What kind of leader was he?

JF  18:25 

I have to say, the most amazing leader I’ve ever known. His favorite expression was outrageous ambitions.

LP  18:37 

Right.

JF  18:37 

It was coined during the course of the campaign that I ended up leading. I didn’t think it was a great idea, frankly, but he did. And that was all that counted. Terry just could not take no for an answer. Whether you were working for him, or whether he was trying to get money from you, or whatever. He was absolutely passionate about it. He was the best salesperson that any university could have had, at that point. I’ll tell you an anecdote. True story. The first meeting I attended after I came down here in 1971 was a meeting in his office for his sort-of kitchen cabinet. Of which I was one because I’ve known him for a long time at that point. And he said, “Duke is a great university, but you know, not many people know about it. It’s known in certain core parts of the country, the middle west, and some major metropolitan cities. But people don’t know anything about it.” He said, “I’ve decided that what Duke needs most of all is to be known to more people. The idea I have for getting that done is, I think we should buy a Sunday insert in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, with color photographs of all of our faculty members and descriptions of what they teach, what they do research on, and everything else.” And everybody around the table, including me, said, “You can’t do that. That’s so tacky. That is not what good universities do.” We all said it. Everybody. And he said, “Well, we’re going to do it.”  And so for $25,000, which is what it cost us to buy that insert on a Sunday [Magazine], we did it.

Keep in mind the fact that in 1969, before Terry came here, the Duke Endowment that Duke controlled — I’m not talking about The Duke Endowment, the separate foundation, I’m talking about the Duke University [Endowment] — had less than $100 million. The weakest of the secondary school private schools in the country had that much money in endowment. But Duke didn’t. So he started from a situation in which they didn’t have much in the Endowment. And Mr. Duke did agree [for an endowment], a large portion of which yields income that comes to Duke. That was part of the idea. And so that’s why, in 1963 a new chancellor came in — Ken [Kenneth] Pye, wonderful guy, great chancellor — and said, “You can’t go on like this. Duke doesn’t have the money to finance the university. The bulk of the money is coming from tuition, and [a] modest amount we’re getting from the Duke Endowment. You’ve got to run a campaign.”

That was the motivation for deciding in 1963 that Duke had to start running campaigns. It had two campaigns before Terry Sanford, both of which failed. Neither one achieved their objectives. And so he was determined. That was the campaign that I got asked to run and ended up running. It took us nine years to get it done. But we did, in fact, raise half a billion dollars, which was a large step forward. Mind you, [we were] starting from less than $100 million in Duke’s own endowment in 1969. And then the money being generated over the years, and money-on-money given, the Endowment today is, I think, somewhere around $15 or $16 billion dollars. [It] built up over time, but nonetheless. I have to say that it was an extraordinary experience, because I’d never raised money. I’d raised money from foundations to help start what is now the Sanford School. I had [no] prior experience with that. It’s also interesting that when I took over that campaign, Duke had zero records on what our alumni did. They had a list of the names of the alumni, and usually had up-to-date addresses for them. But not always. [They] didn’t know anything about which alumni could actually afford to make gifts to the University, because they didn’t have any data on it. I found it necessary at that point to go around the country, go to different cities where I had friends who I’d gotten to know over the years, and who knew something about the local communities, to tell me who the alumni were.[And think about] which ones we should think about approaching for significant gifts. Extremely helpful. And the friends were always willing to do it. I would sit down, give them a copy of the IBM printout with nothing but the names and say, “Who are these people?” In any event, it’s an unusual way to raise money, but it worked. By the end, we did make the money [that was] the goal [of] the campaign. And it was the first campaign [that] was successful.

LP  25:09 

And that was the one linked to outrageous ambition.

JF  25:13 

That was the outrageous ambitions one. Terry was great about [uniting people]. If he wanted to get money from people, he would have breakfast for them. I attended I don’t know how many breakfasts in which he cooked breakfast. He had different dishes named for individuals. So, [writer and administrator] Eli Evans was one of his disciples, as I was. Eli got, I think, eggs named for him. So, “Eggs Eli.” I got “Grits Joel.” I didn’t mind it, because I like grits. But in any event, lots and lots of breakfasts. Lots of dinners at his home. And what’s more interesting [is that] he was gregarious. He wasn’t hesitant. He got to be known as one of the best governors in the country when he was governor. He put North Carolina on the education map more than anybody else, probably 30 or 40 years before [them]. So he was widely known. And he got to know the governors in other states including Georgia. And he got to know the people in Georgia in the campaign there who raise money. I think about who raised the money for the Duke Business School [Fuqua School of Business]. It was Terry Sanford himself who raised it, because of his contact with the people he got to know who worked for the governor of Georgia. That ended up getting one of the prime donors in Georgia to endow the business school at Duke.

But in any event, he was always willing to do it. And that was one of the reasons that he was as successful as he was. He was not reluctant to ask for money, and was very shrewd about recruiting rich people for the board, from whom he could expect to receive gifts for Duke [from] in later years. So it’s an extraordinary story. I started [to talk about] “outrageous ambitions,” as this was his motto for [himself]. But the fact of the matter is, he was a very gracious, extremely good politician [who was] developing friends all over the country. And one of the other things that we did under his leadership just accidentally happened. We didn’t have any idea that we were going to create a journalism program at Sanford. We still don’t have a journalism school. But we do have a journalism program. That program started because [there was] a very distinguished editor by the name of Gene [Eugene] Patterson [who], was the editor of the Atlanta papers, and Kay [Katherine] Graham — the wealthy individual who owned the Washington Post — persuaded him to come and work at The Washington Post. Well, he and Kay Graham did not get along very well. And so he decided he needed to go somewhere else. He knew of Terry Sanford, in large part because of Terry’s involvement with the governor of Georgia. And so Gene said, “You know, I think I’ll go talk to Terry Sanford and see if he has something to do [for me].” He came to see Terry Sanford and Terry said “Of course we will do something [for you], go talk to Joel.” So he talked to me [laughs]. I said, “We would love to have you teach our first course in journalism.” And so, the first course of journalism at Duke was taught by Gene Patterson, who was one of the most famous journalists in the country because of the prizes that he had won covering segregation issues [and] all of those things. He was absolutely amazing, and a wonderful guy. Unfortunately, he lasted only one year. Because one of his friends who owned The St. Petersburg Times [now The Tampa Bay Times], decided he wanted him to come and take over his estate and be the mastermind with how they spent the money. So, it’s all because of Terry’s fame.

Once we got the journalism program going, it opened a whole other door for us. You asked me what was really different about Terry Sanford — what’s really different is that we went out of our way to identify journalists, successful journalists, [with] major national [and] international [outlets]. Mostly newspapers but also, later, television. We have built up something called the Duke Program in Communications and Journalism. Basically, each year we would pick up a group of about 20 or 30 of the leading journalists and ask them to come to Duke four times a year to work with students and train faculty members. All because of the fact that Gene Patterson got us going in that area, and it made all the difference [crosstalk about length of interview]. One of the other things that led to here was really quite a major thing for Duke, and, I think, a major contribution. It was that under Terry’s leadership, there was a premium put on getting the faculty off campus [and] more involved with the areas they were professors in. Students — same thing. Get students off campus for internships [of a] variety of sorts. Bring [in] lots of individuals who were experts in something, but not professional teachers, [and] bring them to the faculty. So in a sense, it was opening the doors to Duke to bring in practitioners. That’s was the motto — bring in the practitioners. And if you look at the dimensions of the non-regular faculty members at Duke at this day, most of the departments have at least as many practitioners on the faculty as they have regular academics. So in a sense, it was an attempt to freshen Duke’s education by bringing on practitioners, whether in business, or people who were social entrepreneurs in the private or nonprofit sector. All of those things.

LP  33:24 

Well, Sanford, I know has had a huge impact as you’re painting the picture here. And others who’ve followed him. In addition to Sanford, are there other individuals that you would name that you think have made a significant impact in the University?

JF  33:44 

I think most of the recent presidents we’ve had have made or are making significant impact. But Nan was the one who put a major emphasis on strengthening the faculty. Raising money for faculty salaries, raising money for graduate students. And we had never done a campaign that focused on that, but that was the whole campaign. I did not have to run it. Someone else had to run it. But in any event, it was a good example of that. Nan was terrific. Dick Brodhead. Again, absolutely wonderful president. Nan I think of as being responsible for increasing the academic stature of Duke faculty and graduate students. Ph.D. people. It’s also the case that Dick Brodhead is really responsible for the internationalization of Duke. Terry became very popular when he was here with faculty. [And] the students would go to the big basketball games or the football games chanting “Uncle Terry.” That’s what they called him. That’s what they chanted — “Uncle Terry” — at the ball games. And students loved him in large part — another anecdote that’s true. Right after Terry we had a problem with a previous president of Duke, whose name I’m blanking on, and there was a student demonstration out in front of the Chapel. Students were out there, and making trouble. One, complaining about the previous president, actually [laughs]. And Terry walked out there with a bullhorn. And he said, “I hear that all of you want to take over the Allen Building. Follow me.” And he led the group. He said, “My door is open. Let’s all go over there right now. And you can take over the Allen Building.” [Laughs] But that’s, again, the kind of audaciousness that Terry Sanford found very compatible with his own values and style of doing things.

LP  36:58 

Well, now, outside of some of those individuals that you’ve named, are there particular moments in Duke’s history that you believe have been pivotal?

JF  37:12 

I’m not sure anything leaps to mind. Obviously the athletic successes that followed, which, [the] president didn’t have much to do with. But it is the case certainly with basketball, and also probably with football, where the coaches were sufficiently outstanding, that they ended up — you may have a better idea of this than I do. All I can say is that during Terry’s administration and thereafter, the popularity of Duke seems to have grown. Now, that may be a side function of Duke itself getting known better. One thing I didn’t mention earlier was thinking about the differences between what the situation was when Terry got here, and what happened afterwards. I told you already about the decision to buy a certain insert in The New York Times, right? That occurred in 1971. In 1985, when Terry decided to retire from the presidency, there was an article in the Times [where] the front cover picture [was] of Duke students tossing frisbees around in front of the Chapel. And the headline of the article was” Duke: The Hot College.” We didn’t have to pay for that [laughs].

Think about that, in comparison to what the situation was in 1969, when Terry Sanford took over. It was also reflected [in how]  the applicant pool at that point was less than 5000 [people]. We’re now used to a pool that’s close to 40,000. That, too, occurred — most of it, not all of it — between 1969 and 1985. You think about the money in the endowment. You think about the number of students. You think about the number of students as a reflection of how better known [Duke is] because of Terry. The frequency of comments about Duke in the newspapers because of the work that the journalistic people who were involved regularly as visiting faculty members. All of those things create a package. The activist [and] business and nonprofit organizations, all those things come together. And you begin to see, and so many of them really did. I don’t mean to say that Terry did everything that has happened [at Duke]. He didn’t. But he did a lot to change the atmosphere in the campus.

LP  40:49 

As you look back — and I believe you’ve been [here for] definitely over 50 years.

JF  40:56

Yes, 53 years.

LP  40:59

More than half of [which is] since Duke became Duke in the Indenture of Trust. As we celebrate the Centennial, what makes you most proud of Duke as you reflect on your time here?

JF  41:16 

Duke’s capacity to change things that needed to be changed. And I’m thinking about everything from representation of people of color, people of different nationalities and countries, ethnic groups, and everything else.

LP  44:07 

I think that’s right. Let’s pivot to 2023. You taught your last class, at the age of 89.

JF  44:26 

Last regular class.

LP  44:28 

The last regular class. You’re still teaching.

JF  44:36 

I still teach individuals, if I choose to. And I still bring in the heads of nonprofit organizations and foundations, and everything else. And have seminars. That’s teaching.

LP  44:49 

For sure. Can you say something about your perspective or feelings just about teaching and the Duke student body. I think some of that was already coming out just now, but also how has teaching and maybe [how have] the students changed in the last 50 years.

JF  45:11 

I mentioned that the main changes were the diversity — the diversity of background, many more people of color, many more international countries represented. What’s astonishing to me [is that] it used to be the case that some students would go abroad for a semester abroad. All students go abroad for a semester abroad now. It’s literally the case. All the students I know end up going abroad. And my impression is, that’s true of everybody. And there’s an openness to the other parts of the world that was not here at that point. I think there was a certain conservatism about people’s desires to visit other countries, but it’s certainly not the case now. And so that’s a major change in the student body, as is the temperament of the student body.

What’s also really interesting to me is the way that the faculty at Duke, led by [President] Vince Price, has engaged with all of the various minority groups on campus — whether it’s Jewish, or Muslim, or what have you — in a way that has encouraged people to think about and talk about differences. The new provost Alec [Gallimore] has a series of programs that focus on bringing in speakers to talk about controversial issues on all sides. And nobody is permitted to interrupt them. If people want to protest, they can begin a protest. But they’re not allowed to stay. That’s a totally different way than other schools. When you think about what’s happened at Berkeley, in California, NYU in New York, Penn, Harvard, Yale — all of these places have had a really serious problem. Thank God we haven’t had it yet. And I don’t think it’s going to happen, because I think the student body is basically different. And I think that the faculty is basically different. I think it’s a faculty and a student body that is open-minded, and yet understands that there are multiple sides to every question.

LP  47:48 

That’s right. That’s good. There’s something about the culture, the Duke culture, here overall.

JF  47:55 

Which has been persistent. It’s been there.

LP  47:58 

So you’re not “regular” teaching [laughs]. But you still are obviously engaged in many things. Could you speak to what you [are] engaged in currently?

JF  48:11 

Three or four different projects. I’ve long felt — and I’ve talked to the president about it, as well as other senior administrators — [that] the only academic program that’s there that really relates to Jewish issues, the Center for Jewish Studies. I think that’s the name of it. It’s under-financed, in my view. When compared to the other similar universities who are competitors which have multiples of the faculty members –10 to 20, faculty members that teach [Jewish studies] — we have basically only three endowed positions in that part of the University. And one of the things that I’ve been encouraging the administration to consider is including in the new campaign getting support for some more positions in the Center for Jewish Studies. I feel it really needs to happen. I think we need to have more courses dealing with things like that. All the more when you think about that against the background and what’s happened in Israel at this point. It’s something that has become an international issue. Whether it’s historical or other kinds of issues dealing with Jewish matters, that’s something that needs to be fixed, I think. So I’ve spent time doing that and still spending doing that. And I will be until we get some progress there, but I think I’m making progress.

Another project that I’m involved with is a problem that — as a general matter, education in the United States has basically gotten rid of all teaching about citizenship [and] civics. You’re probably young enough so that it was happening [crosstalk]. You had it, I had it [while] going to school. It was civics everywhere. There aren’t any [courses] anymore. And so it happens, a couple of foundations have put together support for an organization at Princeton that is basically working to revisit that question and get a number of courses that are taught to students. Stanford is the one university that has taken it to the logical extreme, where it has created a university-wide course theme — with different courses, actually — [where] every student is required to take a course about citizenship. US citizenship [and] what it means, essentially. I think that’s something that’s worth working on.

And there are two projects that I’ve been involved with, that were really pioneered by students, actually. They are the main things. Oh yes, and the third one is the fact that public policy schools do a reasonably good job of teaching economics, statistics, decision [and] analysis. And we do ethics, also. [Also] studies on humanistic perspectives, the arts and so forth, [getting] them involved. But it’s also the case that the general consensus [among] people who know something about this is that we are not teaching any courses dealing with management. Public policy schools figured they were doing management when they were teaching economics. Well, that’s not — economics may be part of it — but that’s not the whole of management. And so we claim to be a place where people [learn to] go into the running of nonprofits and foundations and government. And yet, the courses that we’re offering do not address the main thing that people who are in government and those organizations do, which is make decisions. So I think that’s something that needs to have something done about it, too. That’s another major project that is coming along.

LP  53:15 

Okay. That’s great. One final question. As Duke moves into its second century, what are your hopes for Duke as you look to the future?

JF  53:27 

Well, I want more of the same, but I want it diverse [laughs]. No, I mean, I think when you look at the past 50 years, a lot has happened at Duke. And we’ve talked about some of those things. Duke has an openness to new things, and I want to see even more new things here. You’re seeing it in the activities of students when they go abroad, at a level that they’ve never done before. And they often get more abroad learning than they ever did in the past, actually. So I think that the administration has been steadily getting better in dealing with these problems. It used to be that the university administrations didn’t deal with them. My sense is that President Price is doing wonderfully. Wonderful leadership. As he demonstrates [and] he and his team have done with respect to the demonstrations [related to] Israel and the Palestinians. No university has done that particular kind of problem justice to the extent that we have.

LP  55:17 

That’s right. Well, thank you, Joel, for your time and your insights. And I believe, as we look back over Duke’s history — you’ve named Terry Sanford so much — that there will be many who name Joel Fleishman in the history of Duke as well as one of the luminaries. So it’s been a pleasure, thank you.

JF  55:42 

You’re kind. It’s my pleasure. Wonderful to see you again. And good luck with your own work.