In December, as one of its first acts of generosity, the new Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States, awarded grants totaling $18.6 million to support the environment, medical research and the performing arts -- including a $400,000 grant to the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (F&ES).
At Yale, the grant will establish the Doris Duke Environment and Natural Resource Fellowships to support 10 graduate students over the next two years, beginning next fall. The students will be working toward master's degrees in applied conservation as well as management of natural resources and environmental systems, according to John C. Gordon, F&ES dean.
"The Doris Duke Fellowships will give us significant additional funds to attract the brightest and most dedicated students for training as environmental leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors," Gordon says. "We are extremely pleased that the foundation selected the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies -- the oldest forestry school in the nation -- to receive one of its first grants."
Doris Duke, scion of the family that endowed Duke University and the wealthiest woman in the United States at the time of her death in 1993, bequeathed the bulk of her estate to the foundation. Based in New York City, the foundation will award approximately
$55 million in grants each year. The environmental grants reflect Duke's long-standing interest in conservation and ecology.
While the Duke Foundation grant will help future F&ES students to become environmental leaders, alumni from the school are already involved in a nonacademic group that also benefitted from the new foundation's benificence: the Trust for Public Land (TPL). Along with the Open Space Institute, TPL received
$5 million to complete the purchase of Sterling Forest, a parcel of open space on the border of New York and New Jersey that is a source of drinking water for
25 percent of New Jersey residents, provides habitats for many species, and offers recreational opportunities for area residents. The goal of the purchase is to create a public park with a mixture of pristine forest lands, historic sites and recreational facilities. Among the F&ES alumni who work at TPL is Rose Harvey, senior vice president of the trust, who received her master's degree from Yale in 1983.