SOUTH BEND — The University of Notre Dame has received recent financial gifts totaling $16 million.

Richard Notebaert, chair of the university’s board of trustees, and his wife, Peggy, made a $10 million gift to fund a new fellowship program in the Graduate School.

The Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellowships will provide significant financial support to the most promising doctoral students.

The fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis to each year’s top doctoral prospects. They will provide up to six years of funding that will cover full tuition, health insurance and a stipend. The university will match the expenditures on a one-to-one basis, doubling the number of fellowships available.

All students accepted into the doctoral program will be considered for a Notebaert Fellowship, and on average at least half of the Fellows will be Catholic.

Notebaert was chairman and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications from 2002 until retiring last year. He previously served as chief executive officer of Tellabs Inc. and as chairman and chief executive officer of Ameritech Communications.

In addition, Notre Dame received a $6 million gift to address development challenges of people living in extreme poverty, especially in Africa, from the family of Notre Dame trustee W. Douglas Ford, of Downers Grove, Ill.

The money will help Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies create the Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity.

The program will expand the Notre Dame Millennium Development Initiative, a cooperative venture designed to reduce poverty and promote development in Africa. The new program is intended to create an alliance to fight extreme poverty wherever it exists. While not confined to Africa, the alliance will start there and build upon existing partnerships.

Ford, a retired oil industry executive, is a 1966 Notre Dame graduate. Formerly chief executive of refining and marketing for BP, Ford previously served as executive vice president of the Amoco Corp. and as president of Amoco Oil Co.

The two gifts are part of the ongoing $1.5 billion "Spirit of Notre Dame" capital campaign.