“When I walk around this university every day, I see people who not only do their work, I see people who take pride in their work and who take pride in trying to live up to a certain quality of service,” Brodhead said. “In the long run, the strengths of this place will be as strong as they’ve ever been.”

What are you most proud of since joining Duke two and a half years ago?

Has the lacrosse situation drawn attention away from other important issues at Duke?

Duke was caricatured as a place with all rich, white students, whereas we have nearly 40 percent minority undergraduates and more than 40 percent of our students on financial aid. Duke and Durham were also caricatured as bitterly estranged forces. But people have been working together in this city for years and years. This has been a painful episode, yet Duke has not lost sight of its mission, which is to create an excellent education, to support the kind of research that pushes the frontiers of knowledge, and to offer truly excellent patient care to thousands and thousands of people every year. Every day, our students, faculty and staff are making a difference in our community and around the world.

How do you think the lacrosse issue has affected people who work here?

The story we’ve all lived through has contained bitterly divisive issues. I think it’s very important for the community to be able to take seriously issues of race, respect, and treatment of women without drawing unwarranted conclusions about this particular legal case. When I think how this has affected the people who work here, I bet it’s pretty similar to the way it’s affected me, which is, anywhere I go in this city or the country, and people say, ‘Where do you work?’ and you say, ‘Duke,’ the first thing that comes to their mind is this story. We’ve all endured a lot of questions and comments as a result.

What would you say to them?

I would say I regret we have all had to live through this. Duke is a place to be proud of, and when I walk around this university every day, I see people who not only do their work, I see people who take pride in their work and who take pride in trying to live up to a certain quality of service. All of our work is service. It’s been difficult to have this event overshadow the good work that goes on here. In the face of that, people have continued to be friendly and service-oriented. They take pride in our mission. I think that has been the great plus, and one of the great untold stories of this university. By facing the lessons this event brings, we can make Duke a better place.

What would you say to someone considering working here about the environment at Duke?

People look deeper than yesterday’s sensational headlines before they make judgments about a place to work or a place to go to school. Actually, all through last spring, we recruited a new class of students; we hired lots of faculty; and we’ve successfully hired lots of staff since last year as well.

I believe that anybody who cares to look at Duke understands that this is a great university with great people. A few weeks ago, we had an event in Boston with 300 people. Someone asked a student on stage with me, ‘How did you come to go to Duke?’ He said he was admitted to a lot of schools, but when he came to the Duke campus, he was standing here with his map, trying to figure out where in the world he was, and five people came up and asked if they could help. That spirit of helpfulness and friendliness permeates Duke.

Support, as well as criticism and anger, have been expressed about Duke’s handling of the lacrosse allegations. How has the criticism affected you?

The situation we’ve lived through has been a very complicated one and very emotional. The allegations are a very serious matter. Going back to those earliest days, there were statements by the district attorney who spoke as if what was alleged had certainly happened. That helped create an atmosphere in which there were very high feelings from every possible angle. And that being so, however the president behaved would have been criticized from a variety of perspectives, and I promise you I’ve been criticized in the fall for things that are the opposite of what I was criticized for in the spring. I try to take that in good heart. I just had to do what I thought was right for the university and right in general. I’ve tried to observe three principles. One, that the category of behavior that was charged is a serious matter. Two, we have to go forward on the basis of the presumption of innocence, rather than assume a person is guilty because a story has been told about them in the newspapers or elsewhere. And three, we need to find something separate from your or my private opinion to look into this matter, to look to the legal process to assess the evidence.

How do we move forward from this?

One way to move forward is to remember that all along, we’ve been here working toward common goals. It takes the work of every single person to make Duke work, and we didn’t stop being good nurses; we didn’t stop being good IT staff; and we didn’t stop taking care of the physical plant because there was a very trying episode. Everyone kept working hard through that time. It would be a lot harder to start the healing if we didn’t have a community pulling together already. Now what we need to do is remind ourselves what we’re here for; remind ourselves how fortunate we are to work with the people around us, and remind ourselves that we all have obligations to our community – from the first-year student to the person who has worked here 40 years.

Much of the focus has been on students and faculty. What role do employees play as we move forward?

There are thousands of individuals who come to work every day and do exemplary work and work well with each other. They are an important part of this community. That was evident last October when three separate town hall events were held for students, faculty and employees as part of the Campus Culture Initiative. The employee event was by far the best attended. That’s a clear indication that employees here not only have an interest in the events of this university, but they take pride in this place and how we get better.