Guide to the Nannerl O. Keohane Interview, 2004

Dr. Nannerl Keohane was born Nannerl Overholser in Blytheville, Arkansas on September 18, 1940. She was valedictorian of her high school in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and in 1961, she graduated with honors from Wellesley College, of which she later would become president. She earned her second bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford. She received a PhD in political science from Yale, where she was a Sterling Fellow and would later be awarded the Wilbur Cross Medal for distinguished alumni.

Before her presidency at Wellesley, Dr. Keohane taught at Swarthmore College, University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University. In 1981 she became president of Wellesley College and was president of Duke University from 1993-2004. She has chaired Stanford University's faculty senate and a Harvard Board of Overseers visiting committee. She now teaches at Stanford.

Dr. Keohane has remained active in her field of political science, maintaining professorships during both of her presidencies. She has held numerous positions in the American Political Science Association and has been editor of its journal. Dr. Keohane is the author of numerous works on the topics of feminism, political philosophy, and education. Such writings include Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment (1980) and Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology (1982), of which she is co-editor. A book of her collected speeches was published in 1995, entitled A Community Worthy of the Name.

Dr. Keohane was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995. She has served on the Council for Foreign Relations, the board of directors for IBM, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Humanities Center, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, the Trilateral Commission, and the Director's Advisory Committee for the National Institutes of Health.

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Dr. Keohane discusses the importance of the medical center to Duke University; the future importance of the medical center to Richard Brodhead as president; Keohane's view of the medical center as president of Duke University; crises in medical care due to managed care; Dr. Ralph Snyderman; Dr. Dan Tosteson; Jerome Grossman; reappointment of Dr. Ralph Snyderman; Dr. Bill Anylan; Dr. H. Keith H. Brodie; Bill Donelan; Fuqua School of Business; decentralized nature of medical center and university; need for more centralization; creation of the health system; health system in relationship to Duke as a whole; Private Diagnostic Clinics; personal constituencies; John Burness; Ad Hoc Governance Committee; Board of Trustees; committee's recommendations for clarification of the nature of the health system; Dr. Victor Dzau; Doris Duke; Dr. Wilburt Davison's relationship with Doris Duke; Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans; African Americans at the Medical Center; Jean Spaulding; Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership Initiative; MaryAnn Black; School of Nursing; Thelma Ingles; nature of Dr. Walter Campbell's book; organizational issues and political nature of Duke University Medical Center's organization; acquisitions and divestments of the Medical Center during managed care; vision of medical center during managed care; economic purpose behind divestments; WellPath; translational medicine; personal views of Dr. Ralph Snyderman's leadership.