After graduating from Kansas University in 1934 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Thomas Page was forced to choose a different university to get his doctorate in public administration.

Page wanted to help KU start a doctoral program of its own, so he and his wife, Barbara Kester Page, a KU alumna, bequeathed $2.3 million to KU. Of the bequest, $1.7 million founded the Thomas and Barbara Page Scholarly Activities Fund, which provides for the Edwin O. Stene Graduate Program in Public Administration. KU Endowment Association officials announced Tuesday that the Pages’ gift convinced KU officials to pursue the establishment of a doctoral program.

The current public administration graduate program is ranked No. 1 in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. The program is also No. 6 for public management and No. 12 for public administration.

“We’ve been very successful at the master’s level, and a doctoral program is the missing piece for us as a department,” said John Nalbandian, chairman of public administration at KU.

He said the new program could be in place by fall 2004, if it receives the necessary approval from KU administrators and the Kansas Board of Regents.

After a stint in the Army Air Corps, Thomas Page, a Topeka native, enrolled at the University of Minnesota. In 1949, he received his doctorate in public administration.

For two years during his time at The University of Minnesota and for the two years following, he was an instructor in political science at KU and a research associate in KU’s Bureau of Government Research.

In 1951, he became a faculty member in the political science department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he eventually directed the graduate program in public administration. He died in 1991.

Barbara Kester Page was a Lawrence native who received a bachelor’s degree in history from KU in 1932 and a master’s degree in 1934. She worked for Southwestern Bell in Kansas City, Mo., Lawrence and Topeka. She died in 2000.

The rest of the Pages’ gift — $618,000 — is split between support of the Ethan Allen Scholarship, which is awarded to graduate students in public administration, and unrestricted funds for KU.