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Scholarship Created in Honor of Retiring Financial Aid Director Jim Belvin

President Richard H. Brodhead, left, announces the creation of a new fund to honor retiring financial aid director Jim Belvin, who is retiring after 32 years at the job.

After 32 years as Duke University's financial aid director, Jim Belvin doesn't need any help securing a lasting legacy here.

But he's getting some anyway.

At his retirement celebration Wednesday, President Richard H. Brodhead announced the creation of the James Belvin Jr. Scholarship Fund. Colleagues, students, alumni and friends worked over the past few months to create the fund, getting commitments from more than 130 donors that totaled more than $125,000. All of the gifts are being matched dollar for dollar to create an endowed need-based undergraduate scholarship fund of more than $250,000.

As financial aid director, Belvin was responsible for administering financial support that helped enable more than 30,000 students to attend Duke. During that time, the diversity of Duke's students grew significantly, and the number of Duke undergraduates receiving financial aid grew from about 25 percent to more than 40 percent of the student body.

"One of the reasons I made it through Duke is that Jim, a rookie financial aid officer at the time, cared," said Dawn Blanchard T'78. A college counselor herself -- and alumni adviser to the Financial Aid Initiative's Student Advisory Council -- Blanchard helped lead the fund-raising effort for the Belvin scholarship.

Belvin, widely recognized as a national leader on financial aid matters, said he was simply fulfilling Duke's mission of creating greater access to the university.

"I got to be the conduit for Duke's generosity, which helped thousands of students access a Duke education," Belvin has previously said. "And that's very, very gratifying."