Endowed Chairs & Named Professorships

In a highly competitive academic marketplace, endowed chairs and named professorships are essential for attracting & retaining the most prominent and productive scholars. 

Why this is important
Endowed positions help sustain key faculty members by supplementing or fully funding their salaries, fostering research, professional travel, conferences and symposia, providing graduate assistants and staff support, and recognizing their outstanding accomplishments in the classroom and in the field. In turn, these scholars are magnets for other top professors and for the most outstanding graduate students, who set the standard for the next generation of scholars.  These thought leaders bring considerable expertise to Maxwell’s exceptional faculty and are a crucial factor in Maxwell’s consistent ranking as the leading institution for public and international affairs. 

As the Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs and the director of the Moynihan Institute, Peg Hermann keeps Maxwell at the forefront of global policy studies.

Why Maxwell Needs YOUR Help
Currently only nine of Maxwell's 150 faculty positions are endowed--a number that lags far behind competitor institutions. A school of Maxwell's stature should have 20 percent of its faculty positions endowed, and a major priority for the School is to close that gap. This support is crucial to Maxwell’s ongoing prominence. According to Maxwell School Dean Mitchel Wallerstein, “We nurture young scholars who come up through our faculty ranks, achieve increasing prominence, and then, when they have reached their full maturity as scholars, they are often wooed away by other institutions that have deeper pockets.  We must have the resources to remain competitive for these top people and the competition is ever more intense.”

Ways you can provide support for Endowed professorships
Alumni and friends significantly improve Maxwell’s ability to ensure the excellence of our faculty through gifts that directly support these high-quality scholars, outstanding teachers, nationally-recognized researchers, and experienced practitioners in their work. Opportunities to support Maxwell’s faculty include:

• Named Professorships Often named in honor of a donor or a great Maxwell figure, named Professorships allow Maxwell to enhance the salary and support for a current member of our faculty. 
• Endowed Chairs Creating an endowed chair--or contributing to a current chair, such as the Michael O. Sawyer Endowed Chair in Constitutional Law and the Sawyer Law and Politics Program--fully provide support for a professor and related programs.

Make your donation now in support of the Maxwell School.