New Faculty Chairs Bring the Best to WVU
By Pam Fronko and Shelly
Stump
For active teachers and researchers there is no higher academic position than a chair or named professorship. For universities, there is no more valuable tool to attract or retain the most accomplished academics. Competition for nationally and internationally renowned professors ranges from intense to fierce.
The Building Greatness Campaign seeks to raise $43 million for named chairs, professorships, and faculty development. These endowed funds will create opportunities and support programs that will ensure WVU's competitive position.
Nearly half of the American professoriate will retire in the coming decade and the academic pipeline holds too few graduate students to fill this retirement void. The impending shortage, combined with the increasing ability of universities to use private support to attract the finest faculty, creates a volatile academic marketplace. Equipped with funds comparable to those of its peer institutions, however, WVU will not only succeed in building a strong faculty—it will succeed dramatically.
The Robbins
Chair in History
WVU alumnus Stuart Robbins and his wife, Joyce, gave $1 million
to establish the first-ever chair in the WVU Department of History.
Their gift provides for the Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair in
History, the Stuart and Joyce Robbins Fellows, and a library
endowment for history materials.
"This gift is a way for me to give back to West Virginia University and ensure that students who want to pursue a degree in history receive as excellent an education as I did," said Robbins, a 1965 WVU graduate who majored in history. "WVU helped me learn a lot about leadership, allowed me to develop an appreciation for learning that helped me excel in my professional and personal life, and gave me lifelong friends."
"We hope the Robbins Chair will build a greater appreciation for WVU nationally," said Professor Robert Maxon, History Department chairman. "The professor holding the Robbins Chair will be expected to have a highly active research agenda and to present research regularly at national conferences, and to publish significant books or academic journal articles frequently."
Maxon said the Robbins Fellowships will be an outstanding opportunity for graduate students. "It will provide talented students with the rare opportunity to work on research projects with an outstanding professor for three or four years without the worry of teaching classes," he said.
"West Virginia University has been building greatness by transforming the lives of its students and, in the process, has gradually transformed itself into a university with a national and global reputation for excellence," said Robbins. "As one who had the good fortune to travel throughout this great country and around the world for his business, I can assure you that WVU provides a foundation competitive with anyone."
Robbins is the vice chair of the Building Greatness National Campaign Committee. "By supporting this campaign to whatever extent possible," he said, "everyone who cares about the future of WVU can help build this University into an even greater institution and an even greater source of pride."
Robbins is the retired managing director of global equities for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a leading Wall Street investment firm. He is a member of the WVU Foundation Board of Directors and chairs its investment committee. He also serves on the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board.
Joyce Robbins is a 1967 graduate of California State University of Pennsylvania and received a master's in special education from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. In 1980 she earned a master's in business from Pace University and received her CPA designation.
The Jacknowitz
Chair in Clinical Pharmacy
A $1 million gift to the Building Greatness Campaign from alumna
Michele Vigneault McNeill will establish the first-ever chair
in the WVU School of Pharmacy.
McNeill, a native of Charleston, W.Va., is a 1975 School of Pharmacy graduate. She established the endowed chair in clinical pharmacy in honor of Arthur I. Jacknowitz, chair and professor of clinical pharmacy. "Art Jacknowitz was my mentor. He is a very special man who encouraged us all to be the best we can be. I can't think of a better way to honor him than by giving back to the school that gave so much to me," said McNeill.
McNeill serves on the WVU Foundation Board and on the Building Greatness National Campaign Committee. She is the founder and former CEO of Kern McNeill International (KMI), a contract research organization providing drug development services to pharmaceutical manufacturers. At KMI, McNeill pioneered work in providing drugs that fight life-threatening conditions including cancer and AIDS. She serves on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
"It is very gratifying when a former student makes a significant commitment like this to the school," said George Spratto, dean of the School of Pharmacy. "However, it is even more gratifying when it is done in recognition of a faculty member. Establishing a chair in clinical pharmacy will go a long way in attracting outstanding faculty to the department."
"I am truly honored and very humbled by this recognition," said Jacknowitz. "It's one that every professor dreams of but very few obtain. A quote attributed to Carl Linneaus, the famous botanist, best explains how I feel about Michele: 'A professor can never better distinguish himself than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.'"
McNeill previously established a scholarship in the memory of her father, Frank Vigneault, and made a $350,000 gift to the Mylan Center for Pharmaceutical Care Education.
Her husband, Douglas, earned a master's degree in physical education from WVU in 1975.
The Toyota
Chair in Advanced Brain Imaging
Toshiaki Taguchi, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America,
joined Senator Jay Rockefeller in Morgantown in June to announce
a $1 million gift from Toyota to the WVU Blanchette Rockefeller
Neurosciences Institute. The single largest private gift to date
for the institute, it will be used to establish the Toyota Chair
in Advanced Brain Imaging.
"I am particularly moved and honored by Toyota's generosity and commitment to an endeavor that is of tremendous personal importance to me, my family, and my state," Rockefeller told an audience of state and University leaders, including Governor Bob Wise and President Hardesty. "Toyota and I have worked together to create jobs in West Virginia, and now we are partnering to save lives."
The Toyota Chair will help attract significant additional funding for a related research program, and it will attract some of the world's leading researchers in the area of brain imaging to the Rockefeller Institute, the senator noted.
The Toyota Chair in Advanced Brain Imaging will build upon an impressive foundation already established. WVU has invested more than $20 million in advanced imaging technology.
The Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute is named after the senator's mother, who died of complications from Alzheimer's disease in 1992. The institute focuses on human memory and the development of new drugs and diagnostics to treat and diagnose neurological and cognitive disorders. It is the largest basic science research venture in West Virginia history and the only major institute in the world focusing on human memory.
Other New
Endowed Chairs
The list of WVU alumni and friends who have chosen to support
the University by funding endowed faculty chairs continues to
grow.
Ray Lane '68 and his wife, Stephanie, gave $5 million to the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, including the creation of a chair in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.
Dr. Romeo Yap Lim and his wife, Maria Corazon Wong Lim, endowed a chair in Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the School of Medicine with a pledge of $1.5 million.
In the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, the Hugh I. Shott Foundation endowed a chair that honors the Shott family's 100-year history of leadership in West Virginia's news media.
Also, the Nutting family—Ogden and his sons, Bill and Bob—created an endowment to establish the Ogden Newspapers Visiting Professorship in Journalism.
James "Buck" and June Harless made a $500,000 gift to create two professorships in the College of Law: the James H. and June M. Harless Professorship of Law and the John W. Fisher II Professorship of Law. And, the partners of Steptoe & Johnson pledged $250,000 to establish the Steptoe & Johnson Professorship of Law.