History

The Nicholas School celebrates it creation date as 1991, but it   represents a coming together of three entities that are almost as old as the university itself. The School of Forestry and   Environmental Studies and the Duke University Marine Lab (both   formed in 1938) came together in 1991 to become the School of Environment, which was named the Nicholas School of the Environment in 1995 following a $20 million gift from Peter M. and Ginny Nicholas of Boston.   In 1997, the Department of Geology (formed in 1936) joined the   school as the Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences and focuses on a number of areas at the intersection of earth and environmental sciences.