The Crown family of Chicago has contributed $5 million to Duke University to support scholarships and summer fellowships for undergraduate students, Duke President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday.
The gift will provide $4 million in endowment for need-based undergraduate scholarships, $750,000 in endowment for undergraduate summer fellowships and $250,000 in endowment for athletic scholarships.
"The Crown family has already been incredibly supportive of Duke -- as donors and as campus leaders," Brodhead said. "I am grateful that this gift will go toward what I regard as our most fundamental obligation: providing our students with the financial support that will enable them to reach their potential."
In December 2005, Brodhead announced Duke's Financial Aid Initiative, an effort to raise $300 million in endowed financial aid. To date, the university has received more than $218 million in support of this effort. (More information about the initiative can be found at http://development.duke.edu/fai.)
"Our family wholeheartedly supports Duke's need-blind admissions policy, and we want to ensure its legacy by strengthening the university's permanent financial aid endowment," said Paula Hannaway Crown, a Duke alumna and trustee. "We believe deeply in the university's pursuit of academic excellence and service to society, and we are pleased to be part of this important initiative."
Need-based undergraduate scholarships represent the largest portion of the Financial Aid Initiative's goal. Duke spent nearly $47 million on need-based undergraduate aid in 2005-06. Less than 20 percent of that cost was met with endowment dedicated to student need.
Athletic scholarships are also part of the Financial Aid Initiative. The gift will establish the Crown Family Lacrosse Scholarship to support male and female lacrosse players who demonstrate academic and leadership qualities, including service. Keat Crown, the Duke Annual Fund's national chair of young alumni leadership giving and a member of Duke's New York Young Alumni Development Council, is a former co-captain of the men's lacrosse team. He graduated from Duke in 2000.
The Crown Family Fellowships will support summer learning experiences for undergraduates. Duke has taken steps to enable financial aid recipients to pursue summer learning experiences, from research projects to summer internships, rather than fulfilling "summer earnings" requirements.
In addition, the university recently announced a new program called DukeEngage, which will pay travel and living expenses for any undergraduate who wants to apply his or her classroom learning to address real-world issues. These summer or semester-long service projects could take place anywhere in the world, from neighborhoods in Durham, N.C., to rural villages in Africa. (More information about DukeEngage is available at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/02/DukeEngage.html.)
The Crown family's fellowship endowment will support all of these learning efforts.
"We are especially pleased our gift can support DukeEngage, which will enable Duke students to participate in serious service activities locally, nationally or globally," Paula Crown said.
In 2000, the Crown family established the Lester Crown University Professorship in Ethics at Duke; in 1988, the family endowed an annual Crown Lecture in Ethics at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. Both are named for Lester Crown, the son of Chicago industrialist Henry Crown. Several members of the Crown family are Duke alumni and active volunteer leaders at the university.