Spring 2006
Long-time Duke faculty member Bruce Payne to become Executive
Director of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation
Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy Studies lecturer Bruce
Payne concluded his 35-year Duke University teaching career to accept
the position of executive director of the Shelley and Donald Rubin
Foundation in New York City at the end of this semester.
“Bruce has been a valuable colleague to us for many years
and we deeply appreciate his inspired and far-reaching contributions
as a teacher, mentor, and program director,” says Alma Blount,
director of the Institute’s Hart Leadership Program. “He
has been a formative influence on untold numbers of undergraduates,
many of whom have formed lifelong friendships with him. At Duke,
Bruce Payne is a legend.”
In his new position, Payne will work closely with the Rubin Museum
of Art, which is principally focused on the art of the Himalayas.
He plans to develop collaborative initiatives with colleges and
universities for the Foundation about the art and culture of the
Himalayan region, and the Foundation will sponsor his ongoing seminar
exploring the ethical and political dimensions of theater in New
York. He will also be involved in the Foundation’s work on
civil liberties, at-risk children, AIDS, and education.
“We heartily congratulate Bruce on his new job,” said
Institute director Bruce Kuniholm, professor of public policy studies
and history. “This position seems to be an excellent fit for
Bruce’s talents and skills and, in some ways, is a position
toward which he has been moving all his life.”
Payne was recruited to Duke in 1971 by Joel Fleishman, then director
of the Institute, to introduce ethics into the public policy curriculum.
Payne was interested in broad themes of leadership development,
and wanted to attract students from across disciplines. Since 1972,
Payne has taught “Policy Choice as Value Conflict (PPS 116),”
which remains the core ethics course for the PPS major.
In 1986, Payne was named founding director of the Hart Leadership
Program (HLP), an initiative launched by Mitch Hart, a Duke trustee
(1983-1991) and member of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public
Policy Board of Visitors (1981 – present). Payne served as
HLP director for three years and remained a core member of the HLP
faculty thereafter.
In 1996, Payne launched an HLP experiential learning program, Leadership
and the Arts in New York (LANY). The semester-long program combined
a full academic course load and intense discussions with attendance
at dozens of plays, operas, dance performances, and gallery exhibits,
as well as conversations with artists, philanthropists, and others.
The central mission of LANY has been to move students to ponder
dilemmas of individual responsibility and public choice, to help
them find in the visual and performing arts both insights about
themselves and resources for creative action. Since its inception,
173 Duke undergraduates have participated in LANY.
“For all the eager anticipation I feel about these new tasks,”
Payne said, “I know that no work is likely to match the satisfaction
I’ve had in so many close teaching relationships over these
past 35 years. Phone calls and emails from former students are a
constant part of my life, and so are meetings with them over meals,
or during intermissions, or, these days, for tea at the museum.
“But my appointment at the Rubin Foundation will give me
the opportunity to extend the work of Leadership and the Arts far
beyond the confines of Duke. I look forward to putting into practice
some of what I have been teaching about ethics, leadership, and
the importance of the arts in American life.”
With Duke’s increased emphasis on the arts, and with Payne’s
expanding network of contacts at other colleges and universities
and in the New York arts world, a future incarnation of LANY is
being considered.
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