Duke University (N.C.) received more than $1.3 million from the estate of business leader Leo Brody to establish a scholarship fund for students from the Carolinas, with preference to those from eastern North Carolina. The gift will be matched by The Duke Endowment of Charlotte at a rate of $1 for every $2 given, bringing the Brody Fund’s total to $2 million. The match marks the completion of the “Carolinas Challenge,” a matching program funded by The Duke Endowment in 1997 that has brought more than $21 million in gifts and pledges to build scholarship endowments for Duke students from North and South Carolina.
Gannon University (Pa.) received a $1 million grant from alumnus Robert H. Morosky and his wife, Dianne, to establish an endowed scholarship fund. The Robert H. and Dianne Morosky Scholarship
will, by the Morosky’s choice, be restricted to academically and financially deserving students who are graduates of one of Erie, Pa.’s six city high schools, or who are city of Erie employees enrolled as Gannon students.
The Grambling State University (La.) graduate program in nursing received a grant of $30,005 from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration. The funds will provide stipends for graduate nursing students enrolled in the GSU Advanced Education Nursing Traineeship Program. Grambling received similar funding in 2004 from HRSA for graduate nursing student stipends.
The Knox College (Tenn.) Center for Community Service, created to expand and coordinate volunteer activities by Knox students in the Galesburg area, received a $30,000 start-up grant from the Ellen Browning Scripps Foundation of California. The center will work with local agencies and organizations to identify service projects and volunteer opportunities for Knox students. The grant will fully fund the center’s first year of operation.
Michigan State University received a $2 million grant from the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation, a grant that will provide $1.5 million to the College of Natural Science for renovation of the Lyman Briggs School of Science laboratories, and $500,000 to the College of Communication Arts and Sciences to enhance the Ellis N. Brandt Professorship in Public Relations.
The University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology at the UP Cancer Institute has received a four-year $1 million grant from the Highmark Foundation to develop a new initiative aimed at reducing environmental health risks in homes, schools and communities, and promoting healthy behaviors. The initiative — Highmark Healthy Places, Healthy People — was awarded to the center in recognition of its work to address environmental threats to health and to communicate how individuals can limit exposure to them.
The University of Minnesota received more than $8.5 million in grants from the Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment for 24 renewable energy projects. The multi-year projects focus on a wide range of topics including bio-energy and bio-products, economic and policy assessments, the production and distribution of hydrogen, carbon sequestration, advancements in nanotechnology, solar thermal heating systems and the conversion of livestock waste to energy and products.
