Summer brings Law School gift, new Chapel Dean

Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski and Blue Devil divers Abby Johnston and Nick McCrory posed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport last week upon returning from the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski and Blue Devil divers Abby Johnston and Nick McCrory posed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport last week upon returning from the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

In mid-July, Duke Law School received a $5 million gift from Stanley Star, Law ’61, and his wife Elizabeth Star. The donation will be used to establish three full-tuition scholarships for outstanding Duke Law students and create a matching gift fund designed to prompt other donors to give to the law school’s financial aid programs.

Star, the former principal of Cliffstar Corp., said he hopes to inspire others with the donation. This is the latest in a line of gifts to the Law School from the Stars. In 2004, the Stars gave $3 million to construct Star Commons, a community space in the Law School building, and in 2011, they donated $5 million to help create four new professorships.

Of the total donation, $3 million will be allocated to support full-tuition scholarships while the rest will be used to establish the Star Challenge—a matching fund whose aim is to encourage other donors to establish endowed financial aid funds. The Star Challenge will match new gifts for endowed scholarship and fellowship funds at the Law School by providing $1 for every $2 committed.

For Blue Devils concerned with how their school stacks up, the Medical Center ranks eighth best in the updated U.S. News & World Reports released July 16. Duke, pegged as the best hospital in North Carolina, was nationally ranked in 13 of 16 specialty areas. The magazine evaluated 16 specialties at each hospital to come up with the overall rankings.

Other top hospitals included: Massachusetts General, displacing Johns Hopkins as the top-ranked facility; Johns Hopkins, ranked second; and the New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, ranked 7th. It is the 23rd consecutive year that the magazine has ranked Duke among the nation’s top medical centers.

The new dean of Duke Chapel was announced in July: Reverend Dr. Luke Powery, who will come from Princeton Theological Seminary to become the first black dean of the Chapel. Beginning Sept. 1, Powery will succeed Samuel Wells—dean of the Chapel for seven years—who returned to England this summer to become vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Powery was selected by a 14-member search committee of faculty, students and congregation members.

In the Fall, the University will embark on a yearlong celebration of the first five black classmates who entered Duke in 1963—the year Duke desegregated. The celebration succeeds a fund established by Jack Bovender, Trinity ‘67, and his wife Barbara Bovender in April. Bovender, vice chair of the Board of Trustees and Health Administration ‘69, graduated in the first desegregated class at Duke.

The $1 million scholarship will support the University’s efforts to promote diversity on and off campus. President Brodhead announced the scholarship during the reunion for the class of 1967 held in April. Three of the five African American undergraduates—Gene Kendall, Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke and Nathaniel White—were present at the reunion. The remaining two members—Mary Harris and Cassandra Rush—are deceased.

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