Today’s youngest Duke students probably are barely aware of the lacrosse case; their world starts after it is history. And students who were at Duke from 2004-2009 probably are not entirely aware of the major transformations the university underwent (physically, fiscally, and so on) from the mid-nineties and through Nan Keohane’s presidency. Comparing the Duke of a couple decades ago to the Duke of now, one could make a very strong argument that the biggest story, for Duke, in the past decade, has been its emergence as the university which so many undergrads probably assume it has always been. In terms of Duke’s broader history, all these other events just play out in front of that backdrop. In fact, I’d argue that “Building, building, building” (#9), “Duke goes global” (#3), “Making a smaller Duke” (#1), and even the lacrosse scandal are largely only stories to begin with as a result of the great transformations which occurred at Duke through the 90s and into the 00s and could be marked on this list as “#1 Completion of the Campaign for Duke”. Without this, there would be no building, no global Duke, a significantly smaller endowment to shrink, and the lacrosse scandal would likely not have been as important a national story.

A little something from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nannerl_O._Keohane):
“Keohane became the eighth president at Duke in 1993. During her tenure, she was also a professor of political science, led efforts to increase minority student enrollment, diversified faculty, and oversaw the Women’s Initiative. Keohane also helped raise $2.36 billion during The Campaign for Duke, which ended in 2003, making it the fifth largest campaign in the history of American higher education.”