The leaders of the University's $2 billion fundraising effort also became its leading donors Thursday with the third-largest gift in Duke history.
Peter and Ginny Nicholas, co-chairs of the Campaign for Duke, have pledged $25 million to the University to endow a new set of faculty chairs and provide additional faculty support, President Nan Keohane announced at Thursday's Academic Council meeting. Seeking matching contributions on a one-to-two basis, University officials hope to eventually raise a total of $75 million for what they have identified as one of the neediest areas of their fundraising efforts.
The Nicholas Faculty Leadership Initiative will bolster faculty support across departments and schools, with $20 million targeted for endowed professorships, directorships and curatorships. The other $5 million will be used to improve infrastructure and endow research grants, sabbaticals and leaves. Building an excellent faculty in every school is the first goal of the University's long-range plan, Building on Excellence.
"The faculty is at the core of the initiative we've undertaken. It was a logical place for us to step in," said Peter Nicholas, Trinity '64 and vice chair of the Board of Trustees. "I think when you leave a place, you remember what was important to you, whether it's your social life, your fraternity or your classes."
The Nicholases' gift makes them the largest individual University donors ever in absolute dollars, with $56 million in gifts, including $20 million in 1995 to endow the school of the environment. It is the largest donation to the University since Edmund Pratt gave $35 million to the engineering school in 1999. The largest gifts remain James B. Duke's original $40 million gift in 1924--which today would be worth over $400 million--and the hundreds of millions of dollars donated by the Charlotte-based Duke Endowment.
Peter Nicholas co-founded Boston Scientific Corporation and now serves as its chairman. He and his wife Ginny, Woman's College '64, have three children--Katherine, Peter and J.K.--all of whom attended Duke.
Keohane said the gift will allow the University to be more competitive in attracting new faculty members at all levels, as well as in retaining some of its best scholars.
She said those efforts will be particularly focused in the University's strategic areas, such as genomics and interdisciplinary studies.
It comes at an ideal time as well, Keohane added, as the Campaign enters its final two years with about $1.7 billion already raised.
"We couldn't believe after Sept. 11 we would stay on track, and actually have an uptick," she said. "It shows a lot of people out there who really care about Duke."
In updating the Academic Council on the overall fundraising efforts, Peter Nicholas said the Campaign began with a goal of creating 100 endowed faculty chairs, and had only reached 72, before the gift was announced. The new faculty initiative, he said, will help the University increase its share of endowed chairs from a fifth of all professorships to a third.
Until now, Nicholas said, fundraising efforts for faculty support had lagged behind other areas, such as facilities, largely because endowing a professorship requires a gift of at least $1 million. Although the University-wide fundraising is nearing 90 percent of its goal, efforts for the faculty had resulted in reaching only 56 percent of its $167 million goal.
"We don't consider it a true success unless everybody's bucket is pretty equal," said Ginny Nicholas.
Several other recent gifts, including a $20 million matching donation--which is 96 percent complete--from Robert and Anne Bass, have also helped create more faculty chairs.
Thursday's gift received a standing ovation from the council, as the Nicholases recounted the impact of their own undergraduate professors.
"It's great to see someone with this kind of devotion to the University," said Craufurd Goodwin, James B. Duke professor of economics who taught Peter Nicholas, Trinity '64, as an undergraduate. "When you dedicate these resources like this you can attract the best people."
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