Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has announced a $5.6 million gift from Nicholas D. and Eleanor B. Chabraja in support of a number of areas at the university, including historical inquiry and research.

Most of the gift will support the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies. Established in 2006 and named for Nicholas Chabraja in 2010, the center serves as an intellectual community for the history department at Northwestern and scholars interested in historical inquiry. The couple's latest gift to the center will support the expansion of graduate education programs, including fellowships, student-led conferences, and dissertation research, both within and outside the department.

The Chabrajas' gift also will support various undergraduate research opportunities and advance the development of international initiatives, including a student exchange with Queen Mary University in London and a collaboration with the graduate history program at the University of Hong Kong; the annual funds of the Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Law; the department of athletics and recreation and its Wildcat Fund; the Northwestern Women's Board; and the Renée and Lester Crown Speaker Series, which was launched in 2013 to promote understanding of Israeli culture, politics and society.

The former chairman and CEO of defense contractor General Dynamics, Nicholas Chabraja is a 1964 alumnus of the College of Arts and Sciences, a 1967 graduate of the School of Law, and a member of the university's board of trustees. Before his career with GD, he was a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block. A retired teacher, Eleanor Chabraja has been a member of the Northwestern Women’s Board since 2003 and serves on the board of the Naples Botanical Garden.

"The Chabraja Center's impact on graduate and undergraduate research is felt university-wide," said Northwestern provost Daniel Linzer. "History is one of the top-ranked and most popular departments in Weinberg, and we are committed to building a continuous pipeline of promising scholars throughout the university who take historical approaches in their work."