Investing in the Future of the Environment
$70 Million Gift from Pete and Ginny Nicholas Will Support
New Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
By Scottee Cantrell
Pete and Ginny Nicholas of Boston have taken
a step that few individuals in the United States have done:
they have placed $70 million on the future of the environment
in this country, giving the school that bears their name
the resources to push ahead in its efforts to assume environmental
leadership and to achieve world-class status and impact.
Given on the last day of the Campaign
for Duke, the gift, a total of $72 million (including $2 million
for Perkins Library) will establish the Nicholas
Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions;
endow university professorships and other joint faculty positions;
and create communications vehicles to maximize the school’s
impact in public outreach, media and information technology.
Concurrent with this, the university is planning to build
Nicholas Hall, a free-standing new “green” building on West
Campus that will house the school, the institute and all related
centers, programs and faculty who deal with the environment
at Duke.
William
H. Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School,
says, “There’s a pressing need to raise the level of environmental
debate and policy-making in our country and around the world,
and the Nicholas School now has an unprecedented opportunity
to bring together a unique constellation of resources to identify
and tackle the problems we face.
“We’re going to move quickly and
thoroughly in the months ahead, enlisting the best people
at Duke and elsewhere to determine how to apply and leverage
these new resources to inform the environmental decisions
that confront policy makers around the globe.”
Schlesinger says this gift will
offer an unprecedented opportunity for the school to use its
resources to develop new partnerships and expand relationships
with non-government conservation organizations (NGOs), industry,
government at all levels, policy makers, academic institutions,
foundations and individuals who are committed to the environment.
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