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Some graduates of Durham Technical Community College could soon be able to transfer roughly five miles across town to Duke University as part of a new joint program.
Durham Tech President J.B. Buxton and Duke President Vincent Price have agreed to the idea, Buxton said at a recent Newsmakers event hosted by INDY and The Assembly, though they are still working out the details.
The program would allow students who earn their associate’s degree in engineering from Durham Tech to transfer into Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. It would mark the elite private university’s first “formal community college-focused engineering transfer pathway,” Duke associate vice provost Jenny Wood Crowley told The Assembly by email.
The two schools are “currently in an active planning phase,” Wood Crowley said.
Several details, such as the admissions criteria students must meet and when the program will launch, are not finalized. Each school has a team working on the effort, and Duke plans to add a grant-funded staff role to support the program and its students, Wood Crowley said. Longer-term funding for the program, including potential scholarships, “are also being explored,” she added.
“The pathway is intended for academically strong, low-income and first-generation students pursuing engineering or STEM pathways at Durham Tech who plan to transfer to a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree,” Wood Crowley said.
The program is likely to start with a small class, Buxton said at the Newsmakers event.
While the engineering transfer program would be the first of its kind for Duke, Buxton said he expects the program to eventually expand to disciplines in Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.
Duke is already an important partner for Durham Tech, Buxton said. In an effort to address the state’s nursing shortage, the schools launched a program in 2023 to have Duke Health nurses teach clinical rotations for Durham Tech students.
“The thing that we really love about Duke University at Durham Tech is they work with us as a peer community partner, a peer anchor institution, with whom we solve problems together,” Buxton said. “It’s not, ‘Can we put a little money in your pocket for this program?’ It’s, ‘How do we solve problems together?’”