Convincing Lauren Williams, a dyed-in-the-wool University of North Carolina fan, to change her loyalties forever by attending Duke wasn't hard once the senior learned of the merit scholarship the university was offering her. Williams, T'05, is one of 10 B.N. Duke Scholars selected each year from North and South Carolina to receive full tuition for four years, as well as summer community service opportunities.

"Money talks," says Williams, whose family traces its roots to North Carolina mill and furniture workers. "It wouldn't have been possible had I not received financial aid, because my family simply would not have been able to shoulder the financial burden of a Duke education."

The university's commitment to serve North Carolinians is an important part of its educational mission, dating back to the Duke Indenture signed by benefactor James B. Duke in 1924. Today, Duke actively seeks talented North Carolina students such as Williams, a high school valedictorian and two-time state tennis champion who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.

"We make a greater effort to reach out to students from the Carolinas in both the recruitment and selection process than from anywhere else in the world," says Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions. In fact, contrary to what some assume, North Carolina is by far the best-represented state at Duke - almost 15 percent of first-year students are North Carolinians.

The A.B. Duke, B.N. Duke and Trinity merit scholarship programs are among the ways that Duke specifically encourages gifted North Carolinians to attend. Some Duke scholarships, such as the B.N. Duke award Williams received, incorporate community service requirements that encourage students to give back to their home state.

What Williams didn't foresee is that her experience at Duke would strengthen her ties to North Carolina. Williams, who first viewed Duke as her ticket out of the state, has experienced a sea-change after spending a summer working in Asheville with a regional council on housing and the environment and taking history courses on poverty and class from the likes of Bob Korstad and Karin Shapiro. "Those two professors in particular helped show me the influence on public policy that academics can have," says Williams, who now plans to pursue a doctorate in Southern women's history.

"I've come to appreciate who I am at Duke," says Williams, who wrote a paper about anti-poverty programs in Appalachia and took a class that required her to analyze her family through the lens of class. She will return to Asheville to research her senior thesis topic about the activism of working-class women in western North Carolina.

"Although assumptions are changing, too many people have a limited, one-dimensional view of Southerners," Williams says. "So much of who I am is rooted in North Carolina history and industries, the factory workers and farmers. My experiences at Duke solidified that these are the issues I care about."