The Office of Minority Affairs' records spans the years 1969-1993. The collection is arranged into three series: Administrative Records, 1969-1993; Scrapbooks, 1968-1991; and Summer Transitional Program, 1969-1986.
Materials in the collection include administrative records, correspondence, reports, memoranda, minutes, course schedules, statistics, handbooks, newsletters, financial information, photographs, programs, scrapbooks, and other materials from the Office of Minority Affairs.
Since its inception in 1969, the Office of Minority Affairs (formerly known as the Office of Black Affairs and currently the Office of Intercultural Affairs) has primarily addressed the needs of the African American student population at Duke University. Created soon after the Afro-American Society students led a Black student takeover of the Allen Building to spark University action on the concerns of Black students, the core mission of the Office of Black Affairs was to provide outreach to black students to facilitate rapid involvement with the university community through mentorship programs, financial aid, academic counseling and tutoring, and the development of Black Studies courses. Under some controversy, the name was changed to the Office of Minority Affairs in 1978. While the name had changed, the core mission of the office remained the same, which was to provide an organizational structure through which Black participation in the University and local communities obtained the greatest degree of effectiveness.
One of the more prominent programs of the Office of Minority Affairs was the Summer Transitional Program (STP). Initiated in 1969 as one of the ten demands made of the University following the occupation of the Allen Building, the experimental program was designed to facilitate the student's transition from the secondary level to the demands of the university level. With the original goal of decreasing the attrition rate of black students by raising the level of academic performance and introducing the students to the social structures of Duke University at a very early date, in the early 1970's the focus of STP changed to assist all students, no matter their ethnic group, in their transition to university life.
Processed by Mary Samouelian, October 2007
Encoded by Mary Samouelian, November 2007
Updated by Molly Bragg, August 2011
Accessions 77-199, 85-50, A91-68, A91-117, A94-107, A96-36, A98-22, UA2005-0047, UA2011-0023 were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
