Carolina and Duke may have a heated rivalry on the court, but there’s more collaboration than competition when it comes to academics.

The Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies utilizes the strengths of the two universities — one public and one private — to offer graduate students at both institutions an unparalleled experience.

The program grew out of the collegiality that has long existed between the German studies programs at both universities, as evidenced by their shared Works in Progress series — meetings where colleagues present their work for feedback — and graduate students’ ability to take certain classes at either institution.

As the broader impact of that cooperation became clearer, it only made sense for the universities to do something larger — something more official. “It occurred to us that it would be an incredible idea to try to formalize this process and to really pool the resources of these two great universities,” says Eric Downing, chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at UNC-Chapel Hill, who has been with the program since it first launched over a decade ago.