The Duke Endowment has announced a four-year, $12 million gift to Davidson College in support of faculty development.

The gift will enable the North Carolina college to focus on the strategic recruitment and hiring of tenure-track faculty and provide faculty members with flexible professional development, research, and curricular innovation opportunities. The gift also includes a matching component for donors interested in creating endowed professorships at Davidson.

In 2012, the endowment awarded $45 million to Davidson, the largest single grant ever given to the college, for a major campus renovation project. Over the next two years, it awarded an additional $3.4 million to help Davidson, Duke University, Johnson C. Smith University, and Furman University collaborate on efforts to increase student resilience and awarded $6 million for a range of scholarship programs.

"We must continue to build a faculty that is creative, collaborative, and representative of our multifaceted student body and nation," said Wendy Raymond, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson. "Our graduates are entering a rapidly changing world, and faculty members seek to evolve as teacher-scholars and teacher-artists to best prepare Davidson students for lives of leadership and service. This tremendous gift from the Duke Endowment ensures that the Davidson faculty will remain leaders in the constantly changing landscape of higher education."