Butler University recently received a gift of more than $12.6 million, the largest estate gift in University history, from the late Margaret Ice Morey ’29 and Albert Morey, Sr., which will be used to permanently endow an existing scholarship program that annually awards 10 full tuition scholarships to high-achieving Marion County students with financial need. The scholarship program, formerly known as the Butler Tuition Guarantee, will be renamed the Morey/Berry Family Tuition Guarantee in honor of the family, whose longtime connection and service to Butler University spans more than a century.
Morey, Sr. was the former Chairman and CEO of Marsh McLennan, Inc. He was married to the late Margaret Ice Morey, who graduated from Butler in 1929, following in the footsteps of her brother, the late Harry T. Ice. Ice earned his Butler degree in 1926 and became a leading attorney in Indianapolis with the firm Ice Miller, in addition to serving as Chair of the Butler University Board of Trustees. Among the many Bulldogs in the family line are Margaret and Albert’s grandchildren, Sue Morey Berry ’80 and Albert Morey III. Sue met her husband, Ralph ’79, when the two were students at Butler, and Albert Morey III’s son, Al Morey IV ’28, is a current Bulldog. The Morey and Berry families requested that the gift be used to its maximum potential to support Indiana students pursuing a Butler degree.
“Butler University has played an important role in our family for 100 years as an educational foundation for our lives,” the family said in a joint statement. “With this family financial contribution, we are able to thank Butler for what it has done for us and help make Butler a part of many other families’ stories into the future. Thinking about those deserving students and their families, and how this scholarship program will allow their Butler dreams to come true, brings great joy to all of us in the family.”
The gift provides a permanent source of funding for a scholarship program that has existed at Butler since 2008. Since its inception, more than $6.3 million in scholarship aid has been awarded to 128 local students who have so far benefited from the program. More than 81 percent of recipients have either obtained their Butler degree or are currently enrolled thanks to the program.
Among those benefiting from the initiative is Natalie Northerner ’30, a recent Ben Davis High School graduate now beginning her journey at Butler. As a first-year student pursuing a degree in Elementary Education within the College of Education and Human Development, she sees the scholarship as a pivotal step toward leading in her future classroom.
“Receiving the Tuition Guarantee Scholarship has allowed me to attend my top choice college while also being close to home,” she said. “The Tuition Guarantee program has helped my family tremendously and is the reason I am able to attend Butler. Butler has a very positive and supportive community that has allowed me to create connections to my professors and friends, which has promoted lots of growth and provided me with many opportunities as I’m learning how to become a teacher.”
Victory Sampson ’26, who earlier this year earned his Butler degrees in Multilingual Studies and Strategic Communications, was also a beneficiary of the program. He now serves as Managing Consultant, Democracy Programs & Marketing at Black Cultural Capital, a capacity-building consultant collective.
“The Tuition Guarantee scholarship gave me the financial freedom to say yes—to studying abroad, to leadership opportunities, and to experimenting in school to explore the topics that interested me. I am able to be energized by the work I do every day to build up organizations, literacy, and civic engagement because people at Butler believed in me enough to help me craft a vision for my life that I want to live in. Scholarships expand what students believe is possible for their lives.”
To be eligible for the Morey/Berry Family Tuition Guarantee, students must attend a Marion County high school, have a solid academic record, participate in extracurricular activities and community service, and have significant financial need. The gift builds upon Butler’s many programs focused on expanding access to a Butler education, and it extends University financial aid that now totals more than $100 million annually for students in the state of Indiana and across the country.
“We are deeply grateful to the Morey and Berry families for this generous gift that will expand access to Butler’s transformative education for students in our Indianapolis community,” Butler University President Jim Danko said. “While Butler’s reputation and rankings place us among the nation’s leading universities, we are more committed than ever to providing access for promising students right here in our home state of Indiana. This gift allows us to explore how Butler might further invest in programs and initiatives that develop local talent and propel the cultural and economic vitality of Indiana.”