The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
2007 — the Chapman Scholars program founded; October 2026 — the 8 million dollar gift
The gift: Howard and Betsy Chapman established the Chapman Scholars Program at the Fort Wayne campus in 2007, a full-cost scholarship endowment for high-achieving students; Howard Chapman had earlier endowed the Chapman Distinguished Professor of English with a gift of 1 million dollars, recorded in 2001. In October 2026 Purdue Fort Wayne announced the largest single gift in this section's university record after Lilly's: 8 million dollars from the Howard and Betsy Chapman Charitable Trust to the Chapman Scholars Fund Endowment, bringing the endowment to more than 14.9 million dollars. The university's announcement notes the gift among the largest in its history; Betsy Chapman died in 2019, and the trust — administered by Howard Chapman and Stephen Chapman — carries the couple's giving forward.
What it built: An endowment that pays the full cost of attendance for successive classes of Chapman Scholars in perpetuity — a gift measured not in square feet but in students, compounding annually. Together with the 2001 professorship, the Chapmans' documented giving to the campus exceeds 9 million dollars across twenty-five years.
Sources:
- Purdue University Fort Wayne news release (October 2026) — the 8 million dollar trust gift, the endowment total, and the 2001 professorship gift.
- WPTA (October 2026) — the Chapman Scholars announcement.