Professor Emerita Establishes Purnell Endowed Scholarship for First-Generation Students

Dr. Nina Diamond holds a photo of humanitarian Silas Purnell, who is the namesake of a scholarship established in his honor.

Dr. Nina Diamond taught marketing in DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business for more than 20 years after a successful career as a corporate executive. She remains deeply committed to DePaul, and its Vincentian call to act in service of others, which prepares students to contribute to the collective good.

While updating her estate plan, she connected with DePaul’s Office of Advancement to learn how best to proceed with creating an endowed scholarship that would later be supplemented by a bequest.

She elected to use her required minimum distribution from her retirement assets to fund the scholarship, which will be matched dollar for dollar by DePaul, thanks to the Hay Endowed Scholarship Challenge.

Paying It Forward

The scholarship fund will honor the legacy of Silas Purnell, who enabled more than 50,000 Chicago-area students of color to attend and graduate from college. Purnell recruited, placed and mentored first-generation students who had the desire and determination, but not the means, to go to college.

Through a vast network of contacts and connections locally and at colleges and universities across the country, he identified grants and scholarships, and helped students gain admission to Ivy League schools, public universities and historically Black colleges. He simply requested that they pay it forward by helping others.

Dr. Diamond aims to inspire the same in students who receive the Silas Purnell Scholarship. She has known many former students to leave DePaul and positively impact their communities. “I worked with so many talented students who were the first in their families to attend college,” Dr. Diamond says. “I hope I inspired them, because they certainly inspired me.”

Like Dr. Diamond, you too can take advantage of this rare opportunity to create your own enduring impact. To learn more about the Hay Endowed Scholarship Challenge, or to get started creating a new scholarship for DePaul University students, contact Richard S. Goode, JD at (312) 362-8605 or plannedgiving@depaul.edu.