A celebration of the 600th anniversary of St Andrews University attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in New York on Tuesday night raised £2.2 million for student scholarships, medicine, science and sport at the university.
More than 450 guests attended a gala benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the money raised being used to provide financial aid to students who might otherwise be unable to attend university.
The Duke of Cambridge, patron of St Andrews’ 600th Anniversary fundraising campaign, thanked fellow alumni, parents and friends for their support at this time.
Despite being 600 years old, St Andrews has a relatively small endowment and has embarked on an ambitious international fundraising drive to raise £100 million.
More than £13m is being sought to support bright students who would otherwise be unable to attend university. The campaign has already raised more than £52m, £7m of which has been invested in scholarships.
The university’s principal and vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said: “We need this endowment so that future leaders of the university can invest in an unfashionable idea, can recruit brilliant but impecunious students, can retain star researchers and buy time for promising young scholars.
“We are the third-most highly ranked university in the UK, in the top 1% globally, and we have done this on a shoe string.
“Just imagine what we could do with an endowment.
“Today, we are a unique combination of ancient and modern with the greenest laboratory in Britain close to one of its oldest chapels.
“Of local and global: with 45% of our students from outside the UK. We are the ideal size for a university, big enough to be interesting yet small enough to be intimate.
“Big enough to attract the best academics and most competitive research funding, small enough that the philosophers get to know the physicists, that the students are taught by those who write the books, that we can transform the lives of every student who comes to us.”
The duke and duchess both graduated from the university in 2005.
They were met on the steps of the museum on Tuesday night by a party of US-based St Andrews alumni wearing traditional red gowns.
They attended a brief VIP reception before being piped into dinner in the Temple of Dendur.
As the royal couple departed the event to catch a commercial flight back to the UK, guests stood and applauded spontaneously. P
rofessor Richardson thanked them for their support and gave them a miniature St Andrews red gown for Prince George.
After the departure of the guests of honour, a live auction was held, generously supported by friends of the university and many of its graduates and honorary graduates.
Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Ann Gloag and Ian Rankin are among those to have donated items to the auction.