The professorship that Robert McClure occupies [see main story: Citizenship in America] is new to Maxwell, funded this year by a $1.5-million gift from John H. Chapple. Chapple, president of Hawkeye Investments (and former CEO and chairman of Nextel Partners Inc.), is a 1975 undergraduate alumnus of Maxwell, with a B.A. in political science. Like so many undergraduate alumni, Chapple, a member of the Maxwell Advisory Board and a Syracuse University trustee, has an appreciation for the School's tradition of orienting young adults to the obligations and methods of citizenship.

Future Chapple Family Professors of Citizenship and Democracy will teach in and provide leadership for the two interdisciplinary, team-taught, undergraduate citizenship courses known as the MAX courses. Versions of these courses have been offered for more than 80 years, helping fulfill the School's founding mission of teaching responsible citizenship. The Chapple Family Professor also will teach other political science courses in the broad area of citizenship and democracy, to both undergraduate and graduate students.

McClure, a former newspaper reporter and legislative assistant to Congressman Lee Hamilton, joined the Maxwell faculty in 1969. He has long been one of the School's most popular and effective teachers; he also directed the University Honors Program (1987-89) and served for 15 years as senior associate dean of the School.

The Maxwell School has also received a generous gift supporting the related topic of civil liberties. The funding comes from Peter Kissel, who, like Chapple, is an undergraduate alumnus of Maxwell (1969, political science) and a member of the Advisory Board; and from Sharon Murphy Kissel, his wife, a 1970 fine arts graduate of SU. Mr. Kissel is a partner and attorney with GKRSE in Washington, D.C.; Ms. Kissel, a librarian with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Kissels' support—part of a larger, $1-million gift for SU—provides resources that will advance academic knowledge, student learning, and public discourse on the importance of civil liberties to democratic life. 

                                                                                   —D.C.