The Duke Endowment Award: Reimagining Graduate and Professional Education

left: Sloan Scholar Joshua , the engineering boot camp, and the Duke law's Durham evictions law clinic

The $100 million gift from The Duke Endowment will advance Duke’s strategic goal of reimagining graduate education in several ways.

Most significantly it will:

  • support graduate and professional students at Duke who earned undergraduate degrees from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other designated minority serving institutions, with a preference for students who graduated from institutions in the Carolinas;
  • create a support fund for Duke Law Clinics, which provide free legal assistance to North Carolina citizens. The fund is named for Mary D.B.T. Semans, granddaughter of Benjamin N. Duke and grandniece of James B. Duke.

The Duke Endowment Award

$100 million gift is largest in university history

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Both efforts build on existing initiatives to improve access to graduate education at Duke from underrepresented groups and to strengthen experiential learning in graduate and professional programs.

The support for students from minority serving institutions furthers current efforts from the Graduate School and professional schools to attract a diverse student body. Some of these are funded by the Sloan and Mellon foundations. Other projects provide mentorship and other resources for students to help them to thrive in graduate education.

In graduate and professional programs, experiential learning does more than provide exceptional educational opportunities for students. It also strengthens Duke partnerships in the community that seek solutions on important social needs.

“Our clinics help fill the gap in access to justice in North Carolina. We can serve individuals who cannot afford an attorney and often would not be able to receive assistance from Legal Aid,” said Madison Pinckney, a law student, who works in the Health Justice and Children’s Law clinics.

“I’ve spent this semester in school meetings advocating for the rights of students with disabilities, and we have made significant progress in ensuring that these children are given the tools that will help them thrive, as well as alleviating the burden that parents face,” she said.

Read four stories about how Duke is working on access to graduate education and rethinking graduate education.