Duke Flags Lowered: Robert N. Sawyer, founder of Duke TIP, dies

Robert N. Sawyer, the founding executive director of the Duke Talent Identification Program or TIP, died January 10 in Maryville, Missouri. He was 87. 

In 1980, Sawyer was asked by Duke’s provost to launch an ambitious new program to identify and provide educational enrichment for academically gifted students. Seizing the opportunity, Sawyer founded Duke TIP, which would have a life-changing impact on thousands of students over the next 40 years. 

Image

Duke professor emerita Martha Putallaz, who served as Duke TIP’s fourth executive director from 2004 to 2016, remembered Sawyer as “truly an extraordinary person” and praised “the magnitude of what he accomplished during TIP’s first 10 years and all that was built on the strong foundation he established.” 

“Bob Sawyer was an unabashedly fierce advocate for academically talented youth,” Putallaz said. “No one could have been a stronger advocate than Bob for gifted students and the Duke TIP program he established to serve them. During Bob’s 10 years as Duke TIP’s founding executive director and over the 40 years of the Duke TIP organization, he unequivocally enriched the lives of countless academically talented youth.”

In 1980, Sawyer was leading Duke’s summer education program and teaching undergraduate and graduate classes in psychology and education. His background equipped him well for his new assignment. He began his career as a junior high teacher and counselor in Iowa and Missouri. He later earned a doctorate in education from the University of Wyoming in 1966 and was keenly interested in the intellectual development of young students. 

Sawyer had strong support from Duke’s leadership. Then-provost William Bevan, a cognitive psychologist, had come to Duke from Johns Hopkins University, where he had started a gifted-and-talented program that would be a model for TIP. Bevan understood that a similar program at Duke could serve as a pipeline that would help, as he said in an interview, “to attract brilliant individuals to Duke’s student body.” 

Bevan’s vision was also aligned with the strategic priorities of Duke’s president, Terry Sanford. As governor of North Carolina before becoming president of Duke, Sanford championed education and had a particular interest in enriching opportunities for talented young people. Under his leadership, the North Carolina Governor’s School and the North Carolina School of the Arts (now the University of North Carolina School of the Arts) were established. He also helped develop the vision for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM), which opened in 1980. 

Duke TIP thus fulfilled several strategic goals for the university—it strengthened educational opportunities in the South, lifted Duke’s reputation, and attracted top students into the Duke applicant pool. 

Duke TIP was launched with a grant from The Duke Endowment, the charitable foundation founded by James B. Duke and based in Charlotte. 

Sawyer proposed to invite 7th graders to take the SAT and select high-scoring students for further opportunities. The initial area for the “Talent Search” encompassed 13 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. In 1982, three more states were added—Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.

Sawyer reached out to superintendents, principals, gifted coordinators, counselors, and department chairs of English and math in each of the 11,584 public, private, and parochial schools in the search area to promote the new program. More than 11,000 students applied, and in January 1981, more than 8,000 12-year-olds took the SAT alongside much older students. 

Sawyer leaned on new computer technology to carry out his plans. In a 1982 article, Sawyer recalled his “decision to computerize as much of the Talent Search as possible.” He explained: “School addresses for the 13 states were either obtained on computer tapes or keypunched and placed in the TIP computer data base. A computer terminal was acquired. … [The] application and questionnaire were made machine-readable. Hundreds of thousands of forms and envelopes were printed.” 

Based on their SAT scores, 151 young students arrived at Duke in the summer of 1981 for the first three-week TIP residential program. They and their families were personally welcomed by “Dr. Bob” Sawyer, who was a warm, fatherly figure with a special gift for creating a community for the young scholars that fostered both their intellectual and social development.   

Stacy Klein-Gardner, then Stacy Stansell, took the SAT in seventh grade in Oxford, Mississippi, and qualified for “Summer Studies” at Duke. Living on East Campus, she enrolled in challenging courses and made lifelong friendships with like-minded middle schoolers. She recalled finding a sense of belonging and feeling “normal, accepted, average—there was such joy in everything we did.” 

The experience was so rewarding that her parents saved up to send her to Duke TIP four summers in a row. When it was time to apply to college, there was only one choice—she applied to Duke under the Early Decision program. As a Duke undergraduate, she stayed in Durham over the summers to work as a TIP instructor and much later served on the board of TIP. She graduated from Duke in 1991 and is now an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University and a former chair of the Pratt School of Engineering’s Board of Visitors.  

“It was everything,” Klein-Gardner said of her TIP experience. “It shaped much about who I have become.” 

Sawyer stepped down as executive director in 1990 and was named professor emeritus in 1993. 

Over 40 years, TIP thrived and grew, eventually expanding to other colleges and universities throughout the South and Midwest. TIP faculty also contributed to the field of gifted and talented education and helped to lead research into the emotional and social dimensions of gifted children. 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the suspension of the residential summer program, and TIP and the Academic Talent Search were permanently closed later that year. 

Today, Duke’s legacy of summer educational opportunities for motivated young students continues through the Duke Pre-College program. Middle and high school students can dive into challenging subjects and experience living and learning on Duke’s campus. Reflecting national trends, standardized testing is no longer used as a primary means of assessment. In addition, Duke Pre-College collaborates with local and state scholarship organizations to identify and support low-income and first-generation students with financial aid. 

Dr. Robert Sawyer is survived by his wife, Katherine Hann Sawyer; his son, Dr. Paul R. Sawyer, and wife Susan of Hammond, Louisiana; his daughter, Elizabeth Webber of Nashville, Tennessee; and his brother, sister-in-law, sister, and grandchildren. 

A full obituary, shared by the family, may be found here: https://www.bramfuneralhome.com/obituaries/robert-sawyer

Duke TIPsters spell out "TIP" on East Campus in the summer of 1984. 

1 of 4

Duke TIPsters, East Campus, early 1980s.

1 of 4

Duke TIP students with Gregory Kimble, distinguished professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Psychology at Duke. Kimble was a founding faculty member of TIP and also served on the TIP National Advisory Board for 15 years. Photo credit: Stacy Klein-Gardner. 

1 of 4

Duke TIP students on West Campus, 2014.

1 of 4

Next