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CONTINUAL LEARNING Learning & Organization Development, a unit within Duke Human Resources, offers 30 low-cost classes for professional skills development.
NEWS YOU CAN USE
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SAVE ON TYPEFACE Gina McKoy learned she could save Duke money on ink just by changing the font of the documents she prints.
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SUSTAINABLE DUKE Prospective students on summer campus tours saw Duke’s first “green” dorm room, an example of how to live sustainably at Duke.
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August 2010
Rebuilding Duke Football
ATTENDANCE AND INTEREST IN DUKE FOOTBALL SOAR AS BLUE DEVILS OPEN 2010 SEASON he first ESPN.com headline dampened the spirits of Duke football fans: “Sources: Cutcliffe on Tennessee’s list.” Another headline from USA Today’s website made things worse: “Cutcliffe reportedly will leave Duke to coach Tennessee.” Or so Duke fans thought. It was something Duke football fans hadn’t experienced in more than 20 years since Steve Spurrier was coach: a high-profile football program was trying to lure away Duke’s head coach. But, a few days after the media reports, Cutcliffe said he wasn’t going anywhere. “When he announced his decision to stay here, people in my office were so happy, we could’ve thrown a party when we heard it,” said Sandy York, a development projects coordinator for University Development. She’s been going to Duke football games for more than 15 years, since she was a student. “That aspect of people talking about football at work, asking if you’re going to the game – I feel like I didn’t have that before him.” York isn’t alone in those sentiments. As the Blue Devils prepare to open the 2010 season at home Sept. 4 against Elon University, attendance and interest in Duke football are soaring. Entering his third season, Cutcliffe has won more games than the previous five seasons combined, reinvigorated student and employee interest to its highest levels in decades and recruited some of the top coaches in the country. “I am more deeply committed than ever to believing that we’re going to get it done at Duke because I’ve seen enough change from a culture of losing in football to now a culture of hope and belief,” said Cutcliffe, whose contract runs through 2015. “When you have choices in jobs, you have a lot of factors, and my family and I deeply believed continuing our work at Duke was the right thing to do.”
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Fa n B a s e R e a w a k e n i n g During the annual Duke Athletics Tour this spring, hundreds of employees, alumni and Duke football fans turned out to see Cutcliffe and his coaching staff at stops throughout North Carolina and Washington, D.C. At the tour’s final event in Durham, children to gray-haired supporters donned Duke blue clothing and cheered with Duke fight songs. They listened as Cutcliffe and women’s basketball coach Joanne P. McCallie spoke about their upcoming seasons.
2009, 2008, 2007 Gold Medal, Internal Periodical Staff Writing 2009, 2007 Bronze Medal, Print Internal Audience Tabloids/Newsletters
Duke Football Head Coach David Cutcliffe signs an autograph during the annual Duke Athletics Tour in May. Hundreds of fans came to see Cutcliffe at stops throughout North Carolina, including at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham.
While TVs played a loop of Duke football highlights, fans such as visiting professor Charlotte Clark talked with friends and family about what they expect in 2010. Clark has been a regular at Wallace Wade Stadium for more than 30 years, first sitting among peers as a student and now with colleagues as an employee in the Nicholas School of the Environment. “I love the community building aspect to events like the Athletics Tour,” Clark said. “I love the opportunity to get some pre-season scoop about the team at this type of event, and to put faces to names of the coaching and support staff.” Students, employees and fans have filled seats at a quicker pace with Cutcliffe as head coach. In his first year at Duke, season ticket sales increased by about 5,600 seats. And sales of the Employee Athletic Pass, presented by the Duke Credit Union, nearly doubled the same year. >> See REBUILDING DUKE FOOTBALL, PAGE 5
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