Michigan Tech Community

Faculty Enrichment

Michigan Technological University has long been a center for creative teaching and innovative ideas. A recent campus ceremony reinforced that quality. The ceremony was held to dedicate a "Nobel Grove of Trees" adjacent to the Minerals and Materials Engineering Building on campus. The dedication honored Melvin Calvin '31, the first graduate of Tech's chemistry program and a Nobel Laureate in 1961, for his landmark work in photosynthesis done while on the faculty of the University of California, Berkley.

But this Nobel-inspired recognition of one of Tech's greatest innovators was merely the most recent of a series of honors that have come to the University's cadre of scholar-teachers. These men and women, for more than a century, have found ingenious ways to pursue their new ideas and to bring them to their publications and into their classrooms and laboratories to benefit students and their disciplines.

A major goal for Michigan Tech is to further this tradition by providing endowed chairs, faculty development funds, visiting lectureships, and research support for faculty already at Tech as well as for those who might come to the University. These faculty innovators might well declare, as Sir Isaac Newton said of himself, "I stood on the shoulders of giants."

Endowed Chairs and Professorships

What's so special about an endowed chair? It's not just the money. After all, universities routinely spend a good deal to hire very smart, very qualified faculty. What difference could it make if the dollars come from an endowment or the general fund?

A big difference, as it turns out. Endowed chairs are a lure for leading academics, and their benefits to a university go far beyond the actual day-to-day accomplishments of the chairholder.

For Dr. Dan Crowl, who holds the Herbert H. Dow Chair for Chemical Process Safety, an endowed chairship means freedom. "It gives me the flexibility to participate in activities I normally wouldn't be able to do," says Crowl, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. He serves on several national committees, honors that come with a good deal of travel, lots of work, and almost no compensation. Revenues from the endowment make his committee work possible, and he doesn't have to go hat-in-hand to his department chair every time he wants to buy a plane ticket.

Among his accomplishments, Crowl is the only academic who sits on the Center for Chemical Process Safety's Technical Steering Committee. The center was formed by 80 corporate sponsors following the disatrous 1985 chemical accident in Bhopal, India, and is committeed to preventing and mitigating similar catastrophes.

"Basically, an endowed chair does a couple of things," says Dr. Kirk Schulz, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering. "It allows you to attract or retain world-class faculty. These people are acknowledged to be right at the top. To enhance prestige, they are absolutely critical."

Thanks to a gift from Michigan Tech alumnus James Mack '59 and his wife, the Department of Chemical Engineering is establishing its second endowed chair, which will focus on tissue engineering and cell therapy: the James A. and Lorna Mack Chair of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.

In the School of Business and Economics, 1953 Michigan Tech graduate Robert Carnahan has pledged $2 million to endow the Dr. Robert D. Carnahan Business of Technology Endowed Chair.

The Carnahan chairholder will implement a dream of former Dean Eugene Klippel: the Center for Technological Innovation, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship, or CenTILE.

"These individuals have national prominence, and they bring a lot of credibility," said Gene Klippel, former dean of the School of Business and Economics. "Having a national leader in the field on board will give us enhanced access to outside funds. And, as the endowed chair raises awareness of the University, it becomes a recruiting tool for students and new faculty."

Marcia Goodrich
1998-99 Michigan Tech Annual Report

View a list of Endowed Chairs & Professorships at Tech

Specifics about Endowed Funds

These gifts support the salaries of distinguished faculty members, and program and graduate assistant expenses necessary to conduct internationally significant research and teaching. The following minimum levels to establish named, endowed funds through the Campaign have been established and approved by the University and the Michigan Tech Fund Board of Trustees. These minimum levels will ensure the financial integrity of the programs to be established or supported by endowments.

Endowed Fund Minimums

Endowed Chair $2,000,000
Endowed Professorship $1,000,000
Endowed Visiting Professorship $750,000
Endowed Fellowship $500,000
Endowed Lectureship or Artist $250,000
Faculty Development Funds $100,000
Graduate Assistantships $50,000
Endowed Scholarships $25,000
Student Development Funds $10,000