From the Duke News Service

July 19, 1999

Duke University has received a $630,000 grant from The Angier B. Duke Memorial Inc. to help support one of the university's most prestigious undergraduate scholarships.

The A.B. Duke scholarships cover tuition for four years and include a six-week summer study program at Oxford, England. Based on estimated tuition rates, a scholarship will be worth more than $96,000 to a student over a four-year period. Candidates are selected on the basis of intellectual performance, creative talent and leadership ability.

Forty-six rising second, third and fourth-year students hold A.B. Dukes, as they are called, and the university awarded 18 in May to incoming first-year students from 12 states and India.

"The A. B. Duke Scholarship is instrumental in our efforts to attract the most outstanding students to Duke University," said Robert J. Thompson Jr., dean of undergraduate affairs for the university's Trinity College. "The program of support provided for these students nurtures their continued development, and A. B. Duke Scholars make significant contributions to the Duke Community through their active engagement and leadership in the life of the university inside and outside of the classroom."

Funding for the program comes from annual gifts from The Angier B. Duke Memorial, income from a fund donated to the university by The Duke Endowment, and from the university's operating funds.

"The Duke Endowment's recently announced $30 million gift to the Campaign for Duke will provide full support for this important scholarship program," said Elizabeth H. Locke, president of The Angier B. Duke Memorial and of The Duke Endowment. "The university will no longer have to draw on its current operating budgets to support these scholars."

The Angier B. Duke Memorial was established by Benjamin N. Duke in 1925, two years after his 39-year-old son, Angier B. Duke, died in a boating accident. Benjamin N. Duke was the older brother of James B. Duke, who established The Duke Endowment in 1924. The endowment provided in part for the expansion of Trinity College into Duke University as a memorial to Washington Duke, the father of Benjamin N. and James B. Duke.

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