About FLI

What is the Forever Learning Institute?

Feel like a student again. 

The Forever Learning Institute (FLI) is an interdisciplinary educational program exclusively for Duke alumni designed to showcase faculty and alumni expertise in thematically organized courses. Themes are identified in a cross-campus collaborative approach to support new initiatives and strategic priorities for the university, as well as the individual schools and units. New themes are selected each semester, allowing alumni to follow a path and engage in ways that work with their schedules and interests.

How do I participate in FLI?

Courses are supported by combinations of lectures, panel discussions, online courses, and workshops offered virtually to the entire alumni community. Live engagements are offered monthly through fall and spring semesters, and all sessions are recorded then hosted on the Duke Alumni Lifelong Learning YouTube channel for asynchronous learning.

Live sessions typically have 75-150 participants, depending on time and topic, or more if connected with larger scale programs such as Reunions. Participants have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and each other during the program.

What is the history of the Forever Learning Institute?

Born out of a need for high-quality virtual engagement during the global pandemic, the Forever Learning Institute (FLI) was created in Spring 2021 to provide educational opportunities to all alumni, no matter what degree you earned, when you attended, or where you live now. The program’s purpose is to reignite your passion for learning and give you the sense of being a student again.

Through FLI programs, the Lifelong Learning team delivers content that:

  • Presents the best and brightest subject experts from across all of Duke’s schools and initiatives
  • Offers themes through an interdisciplinary lens, sharing multiple perspectives,
  • Engages alumni with learning presented in real time (synchronous) and on your own time (asynchronous),
  • Increases accessibility to free educational content, offering transcriptions and recordings for every FLI program,
  • Supports Duke’s commitment to fostering a vibrant intellectual community by incorporating a wide range of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences in programming content and speaker selection.

Due to the success of the inaugural FLI, the Lifelong Learning team plans to continue providing virtual educational programs among our offerings through the future in order to keep Duke Alumni forever learning.