Duke University

The estate of the first woman to win a case before the North Carolina Supreme Court nearly 80 years ago has pledged $14 million to two North Carolina law schools. Kathrine R. Everett, one of Chapel Hill's first female law graduates, made state legal history in 1920 by becoming the first woman to win a case before its highest court, said Judith Wegner, dean of UNC's law school. Everett died in 1992 at 98 after a legal career spanning seven decades.

"Doctor Who" is celebrating 50 years on the air this year, new episodes begin airing Saturday and to top it all off, the good Doctor has just received a Peabody Award for 50 years of "evolving with technology and the times like nothing else in the known television universe. " The awards, announced Wednesday by the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, are selected by a board of judges to highlight the best in electronic media. The honorees were announced at a ceremony on the University of Georgia campus, but the awards won't be handed out until a luncheon event in New York City on May 20. The Institutional Peabody to "Doctor Who" was just one of 39 honorees named this year.

Duke University named a Harvard researcher as the first woman to lead its medical school. She will also be the only woman permanently at the helm of one of the nation's Top 10 medical schools. "The fact that in 2007 there are still firsts for what women can do in medicine says something about how difficult it can be," said Dr. Nancy C. Andrews, who will officially take over at Duke on Oct. 1. "I hope this does not seem so unusual a few years from now." Andrews, 48, succeeds Dr. R.

Duke University has been honored by the College Football Assn. for academic achievement, because 96% of the football players who enrolled at Duke in 1984 graduated within five years. The Boulder-based CFA said in its announcement today that this marks the fourth time in a decade that Duke has been honored for academic achievement. This year, Duke graduated 24 of 25 of its incoming class of 1984 on time, the CFA reported.

Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized for not better supporting the lacrosse players falsely accused last year in a highly publicized scandal over an alleged rape. Brodhead, speaking at a forum at the university's law school, said he regretted Duke's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril" after a woman accused three players of raping her at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.

A second round of DNA testing in the Duke University rape case came back with the same result as the first -- no conclusive match to any member of the lacrosse team, defense lawyers said Friday. Joseph Cheshire, who represents a player who has not been charged, said the tests showed that genetic material from a "single male source" was found on a vaginal swab taken from the accuser. He said the material did not match any of the players.

It was in the 1940s that economics student Raymond Nasher first decided that Duke University needed an art museum. More than 60 years later, the student who became a Dallas real estate tycoon made it happen. Duke's Nasher Museum of Art opens to the public this weekend in Durham, N.C. Nasher donated $10 million to fund construction of the $23-million museum, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly.

Duke University is eliminating 8 a.m. classes and trying to come up with other ways to help its sleep-deprived students, who too often are struggling to survive on a mix of caffeine, adrenaline and ambition. The North Carolina school will have 8:30 a.m. classes, however, and is also considering new orientation programs this fall that would help freshmen understand the importance of sleep. Lack of sleep among college students appears to be getting worse, according to some national surveys.

Re "Ryan Shannon Joins Duke Football Team" and "Kim Mortensen Overcomes Bout With Anorexia," Aug. 8. Seldom have we seen two articles in the Sports section that pleased us more than the two cited above. And they appeared on the same page in the same edition of the paper. How inspiring to see the stories of two gifted people from supportive families. Mortensen has overcome a psychological problem in order to pursue a championship physical performance; Shannon is a gifted young man who wants to compete in Division I football because, "I like the adrenaline of competing."