Investing in the Future of the Environment
$70 Million Gift from Pete and Ginny Nicholas Will Support
New Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions p.3
To this end, the Nicholas School
will establish:
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The Nicholas Institute
for Environmental Policy Solutions. The Nicholas
Institute will address the need for high-quality and timely
data relevant to the world’s most pressing environmental
problems. The institute will work with faculty in focal
areas of the Nicholas School, as strong individual members
of a team augmented by the larger resources of the Duke
University community and others beyond it. In particular
it will establish partnerships with non-profit groups,
government agencies and corporations to identify what
products are needed and how they will be used.
The combination of Nicholas School faculty
and carefully selected new staff in partnerships across
Duke will enable the Nicholas Institute to become an intellectual
“think tank” that can set the national environmental agenda
by forecasting important environmental problems and recommending
effective environmental policy based on unbiased data
and careful analysis of issues.
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University Professorships and
other joint faculty positions. The Nicholas School
anticipates creating eight to 10 positions to link environmental
study with other Duke disciplines such as business, law,
medicine, and engineering.
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Communication vehicles.
The school will create vehicles through the Nicholas Institute
that maximize the school’s impact in public outreach,
media, and information technology, including establishing
Duke Environment Journal as an outlet for interdisciplinary
work on environmental problems and a venue for a biennial
report on the state of the world’s environment.
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Nicholas Hall. It is often
said that on campus, “geography is everything.”A free-standing,
visible building, designed to meet the highest standards
for “green” buildings, will show Duke’s commitment to
sustainable environmental practices on its own campus.
The unified space will make all faculty part of a common
endeavor—to work daily to improve our understanding of
the environment and to conceive the best policies to manage
and sustain the environment for the benefit of future
generations.
The facility also will house all Duke programs
and centers with environmental interests. NGOs will be
invited to establish local offices within the Nicholas
School to cement relationships that translate science
to the development of policy for critical environmental
issues. Local offices of national and state government
environmental agencies will also be encouraged to work
within the Nicholas Institute.
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