$25-Million Committed to Duke U.; Other Gifts

Duke University, in Durham, N.C., has received a pledge of $25-million from Peter and Ginny Nicholas, of Boston, and their family, for professorships and other faculty support. The Nicholases both graduated from Duke in 1964, and their three children also earned degrees from the university. Mr. Nicholas is co-founder and chairman of the Boston Scientific Corporation.

Other nonprofit groups received big gifts:

American Diabetes Association Research Foundation (Alexandria, Va.): $1-million pledge from Terrance H. Gregg, of Los Angeles, president of Medtronic MiniMed, in Northridge, Calif., and his wife, Louise Cotting-Gregg, to support research into the effects of diabetes during pregnancy.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital Foundation (Little Rock): $3-million bequest from Mary Ann Boyd, of Fountain Hill, Ark., whose late father, John Boyd, owned more than 3,500 acres of Arkansas timberland and was a partner in the Boyd & Nichols General Store, to establish a nursing endowment and a fund to support a program for hospitalized children and youths.

Cornell U. (Ithaca, N.Y.): $15-million pledge from Robert J. Appel, a managing partner of Neuberger Berman, an investment and brokerage company in New York, and his wife, Helen, who teaches history in an adult-education program in Great Neck, N.Y., to help build dormitories and recreational facilities.

Johns Hopkins U. (Baltimore): $2.3-million bequest from Miriam Jay Andrus, of Baltimore, who earned her master’s degree from the university in 1934, to support a geriatrics center at Bayview Medical Center.

Luther College (Decorah, Iowa): $1.5-million from an anonymous donor to help build and endow an arts center.

Music and Dance Theater Chicago: $15-million pledge from Joan W. Harris, president of the theater’s Board of Trustees, and her husband, Irving B. Harris, the retired chairman of William Harris Investors, to help build and endow a theater that is scheduled to open next year; the Harrises also said they would loan the theater $24-million for construction. In addition, the theater received $1-million pledges from an anonymous donor; from Ann Lurie, widow of the real-estate developer Robert H. Lurie; and from Harrison I. Steans, of Bannockburn, Ill., the owner of Financial Investments Corporation, in Chicago, and his wife, Lois.

Ohio State U. (Columbus): $1.5-million from William H. Price II, of Cody, Wyo., a private investor, to endow a chair in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Oklahoma City U.: $2-million pledge from Marjorie J. Norick and her late sister, Frances Norick Lilly, of Oklahoma City, whose family owned a printing company, to establish an arts scholarship fund and a fund to help construct and maintain an arts center.

San Francisco Conservatory of Music: $2.5-million pledge from Phyllis Wattis, of San Francisco, a philanthropist and arts patron, to help the institution relocate to the San Francisco Civic Center. The pledge must be matched by gifts and pledges from other donors.

Scripps College (Claremont, Calif.): $7-million from an anonymous donor to help expand and renovate the Garrison Performing Arts Theater.

St. Lawrence U. (Canton, N.Y.): $10-million from Sarah E. Johnson, of Hillsborough, Calif., a university trustee who was a principal of Franklin Templeton Investments, in San Mateo, Calif., and who owns Spike and Annie, a children’s clothing manufacturer and retailer, to help renovate existing science buildings and to construct new science facilities.

U. of Colorado Foundation (Boulder): $5-million from Tom Marsico, the chairman of Marsico Capital Management, in Denver, and his wife, Cydney, to endow two faculty chairs.

U. of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston): $5-million from Mort Topfer, of Austin, Tex., a retired executive with the Dell Computer Corporation, and his wife, Angela, for pancreatic-cancer research.

U. of Virginia (Charlottesville): $3.9-million from William H. Goodwin Jr., of Richmond, Va., who received a graduate business degree from the university, and his wife, Alice, for cancer research.

U. of Washington at Seattle: $14-million from Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, to help construct a new building for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Western State College Foundation (Gunnison, Colo.): $1-million from Paul M. Rady, the former chairman of Pennaco Energy, in Denver, and president of the foundation, to establish a professorship in petroleum geology.