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Ten Duke-UNC Projects to Receive Grants

The student-led scholarly projects, designed to enhance collaboration between Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, will each receive $5,000 grants through the Kenan-Biddle Partnership.

Ten student-led scholarly projects designed to enhance collaboration between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have each been awarded a $5,000 grant as part of the inaugural Kenan-Biddle Partnership class.

"We received more than 90 proposals, which made the selection process highly competitive," said Ronald Strauss, executive associate provost at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-chair of the grant selection committee. "We are confident that the 10 projects chosen are well designed to achieve the benefits intended by the partnership."

The Kenan-Biddle Partnership is funded by the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. Partnership grants promote student-initiated, inter-institutional projects designed to strengthen established collaborations or encourage new ones between the two schools.

Each project was required to include at least one public exhibition, presentation or performance, and preference was given to proposals made jointly by students from both institutions.

"We have experienced many successful collaborative efforts between students from our two great schools, and I have no doubt this group of Kenan-Biddle Partnership grantees will contribute admirably to our mutual benefit," said Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs at Duke and co-chair of the grant selection committee.

Grants selected are:

-- Sharing the Mantle for Positive Peace: Collective Leadership Models for Youth and Adult Partnerships in Preventing Youth Violence;

-- Shifting Trends: an Experiment in After-school Computer Literacy Programs;

-- Duke/UNC-Chapel Hill Working Group in Contemporary Poetry;

-- Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, and Science (FEMMES);

-- Triangle University Food Studies;

-- PRIMATE PALOOZA: Multi-disciplinary approaches to biodiversity conservation;

-- The Community Empowerment Fund: Durham Branch;

-- Examining Undergraduate Involvement in the Grassroots Movement for Global Health Equity;

-- Duke-UNC Bhutanese Empowerment Project (BEP);

-- Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill Students Working for Sustainable Agriculture.

An annual call for proposals from both campuses will encourage collaborative arts, sciences and humanities projects that will positively affect both campus communities.

Proposals for the 2012 class of grant recipients will begin in November.

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The William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust was created in 1965 from the estate of alumnus William R. Kenan Jr., a member of UNC's class of 1894. The Kenan family's ties to UNC date to 1790, when James Kenan, a member of the university's first board of trustees, contributed $50 to the construction of Old East, the nation's first state university building. The trust and related Kenan entities and family members were the single largest donor to the university's last major fundraising drive, the Carolina First Campaign, committing nearly $70 million.

Named for the daughter of Duke University benefactor Benjamin N. Duke, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation's mission is to further and extend Mrs. Biddle's life-long interests in religious, educational and charitable activities in New York City and the state of North Carolina. Since its inception in 1956, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation has awarded grants totaling approximately $36 million in support of the goals she endorsed and the values she exemplified.