FOCUS Challenge Fund
FOCUS Challenge, Arts & Sciences, Duke University
Duke University received a gift of $5 million to be configured in the form of a matching challenge to raise 20 endowment funds of $500,000 ($250,000 from individual donors matched by $250,000 from the matching gift) in support of the FOCUS Program at Duke University. These endowments provide strong financial security for the operation of FOCUS and encourage the innovation that has been the hallmark of the program, including the creation of six new FOCUS modules. The matching program provides a choice to donors who may wish to restrict their FOCUS gift to a particular area of interest, but is sufficiently broad and flexible to allow for the changing needs of the program. It will eventually increase the pool of modules to 20, from which 12-14 can be selected in any given year to offer to incoming students.
ARTS & SCIENCES AND TRINITY COLLEGE
The FOCUS Challenge at Duke University
FOCUS is the ideal introduction to university life. Students close interaction with the faculty gives them a different outlook on their college experience. It emboldens them to venture out in taking the initiative, to raise questions and make suggestions, or simply to talk informally with their professors. Their interest in ideas, their zest for critical investigation, their no-holds-barred interaction with their peers in talking about their subject matter this is, in microcosm, really the university as we idealize it.
Associate Professor Emeritus of Religion Thomas E. McCollough,
former director of the FOCUS Program
Duke University received a gift of $5 million to be configured in the form of a matching challenge to raise 20 endowment funds of $500,000 ($250,000 from individual donors matched by $250,000 from the matching gift) in support of the FOCUS Program at Duke University. These endowments provide strong financial security for the operation of FOCUS and encourage the innovation that has been the hallmark of the program, including the creation of six new FOCUS modules. The matching program provides a choice to donors who may wish to restrict their FOCUS gift to a particular area of interest, but is sufficiently broad and flexible to allow for the changing needs of the program. It will eventually increase the pool of modules to 20, from which 12-14 can be selected in any given year to offer to incoming students.
Background
FOCUS began in 1974 with four members of the faculty who were interested in pursuing teaching and research on “Twentieth Century America.” In the 2000-01 academic year, the program involved 71 faculty and nearly a quarter of Dukes 1,300 first-year students in Trinity College who chose from among 14 interdisciplinary programs. The current structure of FOCUS requires that the participants take two seminar courses, one interdisciplinary course, the required University Writing Course and one non-FOCUS elective. The students also live with other FOCUS participants (alongside non-FOCUS students) in East Campus residence halls and have one dinner meeting a week. With the advent of Curriculum 2000, the structure may require adaptation to the new requirements, particularly foreign language study and the writing program. It is envisioned that FOCUS modules will emerge that address these requirements in a more direct manner while still providing the unique small group experience for which FOCUS has become known.
FOCUS has been an enormously successful program, even garnering the praise of the prestigious Carnegie Foundation in its 1998 report on the teaching mission of major research universities. Noted as a “sign of change” in undergraduate education, FOCUS was singled out for its ability to “open intellectual avenues that will stimulate original thought and independent effort, and reveal the relationships among sciences, social sciences and humanities.” The timing is right to secure the future of this model program both to ensure its continued availability and innovative development.
Current Costs
A FOCUS module typically costs $25,000. However, expenses have escalated in recent years. The department of a faculty member teaching in FOCUS must find a replacement teacher for the course he/she routinely taught. Such replacement costs can account for 25 to 85 percent of the base cost. A science module can cost as much as $50,000, because replacement costs for Duke Medical School faculty can be twice those of Arts & Sciences faculty. As Dukes new curriculum is phased in, the writing courses will be taught by the Writing Fellows of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing instead of graduate students. These scholar-teachers who have a strong interest in writing, are recognized as promising scholars, and expressly desire to teach undergraduates. Their impressive credentials also bring increased costs in this area.
Faculty involved in FOCUS tend to be some of the most inventive, dedicated teachers at Duke. As they have developed new FOCUS modules, they have also developed enhancements to the program that can nearly double the average operating costs. These enhancement activities, such as field trips or special speakers, add immeasurably to the impact of the FOCUS experience but place great stress on the operating budget. Three years ago, the FOCUS module known as “The Changing Faces of Russia” added a field trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, during fall break to its activities. Chair and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures Edna Andrews, who directs this module, called the trip “life changing” for her students and noted that “this is what education is supposed to be.” Quite naturally, each successive group enrolled in this module has insisted on the trip, which carries with it a $25,000 price tag. Other FOCUS directors have seen the success of such enhancements, and have suggested similar experiences. Given that enhancements to FOCUS are bound to multiply, it is likely that the average cost of a FOCUS module will climb to $30,000 - 50,000 in the very foreseeable future.
There are also costs associated with each new FOCUS module. “Seed Funds” are required to encourage the development work among faculty to put together the interrelated seminars that constitute a module. For example, the current director of FOCUS is in discussion with members of the faculty about a FOCUS module that would address biotechnology issues and in another case, the field of romanticism. Either of these would make excellent additions to the offerings within FOCUS and would permit other modules to “retire” or rotate, as often necessitated by faculty schedules.
The Structure of FOCUS and the Bass Challenge
Although the nature of future FOCUS modules will arise out of the research work and interests of faculty members and the natural connections between and among them and other professors, modules will continuously be offered in these broad areas:
- Globalization and Cultural Change
- Science, Technology, and Society
- Human and Natural Resources
These categories address both the enduring issues that have challenged the academy for decades, such as “Evolution and Humankind,” and raise new themes that reflect societal and cultural changes. In 1998 “Computers and Society” debuted as a FOCUS module, no doubt reflecting the transforming effects of the “information age.” A phenomenon of FOCUS is that modules often resurface after having not been taught for years, reflecting new scholarship and an expanded interdisciplinary context. As noted above, the strength of FOCUS has been and will continue to be its dynamism, its ability to constantly and consistently infuse students with new ideas, while still providing them with a strong basis in tradition.
A donors gift of $250,000 would be matched by $250,000 from the matching fund to create an endowment named by the donor. The endowment agreement would contain the name of the thematic area being supported, for example, The John and Jane Smith FOCUS Endowment in Globalization and Cultural Change. In this way we can recognize the donors own area of interest whether it be history, the arts, or the natural sciences in a way that does not unduly restrict the use of the funds or tie the endowment directly to a specific FOCUS module that may or may not be offered in subsequent years.
This arrangement will give the Deans of Trinity College the flexibility to apply gifts to the modules within the thematic area in a way that speaks directly to the individual needs of each cluster. In order to create an even distribution of the funds across the three topical areas, we propose offering six or seven matching opportunities within each, creating endowment funds totaling about $3 million, with an expected spendable income of $150,000 in each of the three areas. When the requisite number of funds had been created under one of the three themes, additional endowments could be created within themes only where matching funds continued to be available. When fully funded in each area, endowments could be clustered together to address particularly demanding expenses within a specific module. Funds would also be used in the first three years they are available to create six new modules to replace those that are going on hiatus or into retirement. (This occurs at a rate of 1-2 per year so the addition of six modules will enable provide a steady state of 20 from we will be able to offer 12 - 14 specific modules per year.) In later years, additional modules will be created to replace units that are retired with no plans for reinstatement.
Recognition For Donors
As noted above, participants in this program would be creating perpetual, named funds in support of FOCUS. As decisions were made each year for the use of the funds, donors would be advised as to the application of their endowment in a special communiqu from FOCUS faculty and students. They would be fully recognized in all FOCUS materials, including the annual FOCUS booklet, where their names will appear with the FOCUS modules to which their funds have been dedicated. The donors would also have the option of experiencing FOCUS for themselves through campus visits or participation in FOCUS field trips. Because of the flexible manner in which the funds will be expended, donors will enjoy hearing about not just one, but several FOCUS modules, in which their gift has made a difference, all within a thematic area of particular interest to them. Donors will also be recognized in an annual dinner in which the donors and the direct recipients of their largesse can get to know one another. This might be coupled with an on-campus experience in which the donors actually participate in a FOCUS class or related activity, providing an even more direct link to the activities supported by their generosity.
2001 FOCUS Modules
Globalization and Cultural Change:
The Arts in Contemporary Society
Athens in the Golden Age
Changing Faces of Russia: Redefining Boundaries
Modern America
Twentieth Century Europe
Science, Technology and Society:
Biology, Technology, and Sociocultural Change
Exploring the Mind
Global Environment Change
Health Care and Society
Human and Natural Resources:
Diversity and Identity: Unstable Labels
Humanitarian Challenges at Home and Abroad
Visions of Freedom
2 October 2001