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DURHAM -- A renowned Harvard scholar is coming to Duke University to chair its Department of African and African-American Studies and, he says, "make it the world's greatest department."

And, adds professor J. Lorand Matory, he has been given the resources to do just that.

"I had no reason to leave an institution with very, very strong anthropology and African studies department if I was not going to be given the resources to build the best department in the world," Matory said. "But Duke is a fantastic, nationally recognized university that also made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

The scholar -- a Harvard graduate and a faculty member there since 1991 -- has been guaranteed 13 "full-time equivalent" professor positions for the department as single appointments in African and African-American studies. "But because those will be interdisciplinary positions, I hope that they will be hiring in economics or anthropology or other fields, which will give us the potential of 26 faculty members," Matory said. "We want to get the people who are the best in African and African-American studies but also the best in history, economics, sociology and other fields." African and African-American Studies, which only was elevated to departmental status at Duke in 2006 --[one result of the lax case, IMHO--a capitulation to the activists?] previously it had been a program -- has nine full-time faculty members.

Duke's interdisciplinary traditions will be the greatest resource available to Matory at Duke, said George McLendon, the university's dean of the faculty.

"He has already helped to recruit a leading historian from Harvard to Duke who will be joint between his department and history," McLendon said, "and will be working on recruiting leaders in the arts next