Knight, Douglas Maitland, Jr., 1921-2005

Born June 8, 1921, in Cambridge, MA, Douglas M. Knight was educated at Yale University and received an A.B. in 1942, an M.A. in 1944, and a Ph.D. in 1946. He served as an instructor and assistant professor of English from 1947 to 1953 at Yale University. Knight then became president of Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1953.

In 1963, Knight was persuaded to come to Duke University. New beginnings and unique building projects characterized his tenure. The conversion of a science building into an Art Museum, construction of a hyperbaric chamber, a phytotron, and the largest nuclear structure laboratory in the Southeast added new dimensions to research at the University, as did the launching of the first ship built specifically for oceanographic research. In addition, new undergraduate and medical school curricula, interdisciplinary programs in biomedical engineering and forestry management, joint M.D.-J.D. and M.D.-PhD. degrees, and a new School of Business Administration were started. Most significantly the major Perkins Library addition made it possible to double every library service and increase capacity some five times over. That so much was accomplished in a time of increasing national conflict and student confrontation at Duke was remarkable.

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