Emory Magazine | In Brief: Quote, Unquote

EMORY'S Candler School of Theology is one of four beneficiaries of a $166 million trust from the estate of William I. and Lula E. Pitts, the parents of long-time Candler patron Margaret Adger Pitts, whose death last July at the age of 104 activated the bequest. The other recipients are Young Harris College, the South Georgia Methodist Home for Children, and a fund for retired pastors of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The total gift to Candler is estimated at nearly $80 million, making it the largest in the history of the theology school and third largest to the University, surpassed only by a 1979 gift of $105 million from George W. and Robert W. Woodruff and a $295 million gift from the Woodruff Foundation in 1996.


Margaret Adger Pitts on the occasion of her one hundredth birthday celebration.

"This [bequest] is very significant in the history of American philanthropy," Emory President William M. Chace said.

Candler Dean R. Kevin LaGree said the new funds will be used to create eighteen scholarships for master of divinity students. Six are planned to begin this fall, with six more added in each of the following two years. The scholarships will be named for Margaret Pitts.

The Pitts family has a long affiliation with Emory and Candler. The Pitts Theology Library was named for the Waverly Hall, Georgia, family in 1974. A year later, Margaret Pitts encouraged the W. I. H. and Lula E. Pitts Foundation to support Emory’s purchase of the 220,000-volume Hartford Seminary Foundation library for $1.75 million, making the school’s theology library the second largest in North America. She also has supported the library’s special collections holdings in Biblical studies, English religious history, and hymnody, and has funded a major upgrade in the library’s air-conditioning and fire-prevention systems.—G.F