Accelerating Impactful Scholarship at the University
Dear Faculty, Other Academic Appointees, Postdoctoral Researchers, and Staff,
With the new academic year now underway, settings across our institution are busy with the important work of teaching, learning, and conducting research. The spirit of the University’s motto, crescat scientia; vita excolatur, animates each of those vital endeavors. It is more than a motto; ours is a university that is truly committed to advancing human knowledge and understanding to the benefit of humanity. Today, I am thrilled to announce a significant investment that will bolster our capacity to accelerate knowledge creation and dissemination for years to come.
Alumni Amy Wallman and Trustee Richard Wallman have committed $75 million to endow professorships across the University, and launched a fundraising challenge aimed at inspiring other potential supporters to join them in raising a total of $150 million. This philanthropy will create 30 new endowed professorships that will support ambitious scholarship in divisions and schools across the University. The resulting cohort, which will be called the Wallman Society of Fellows, will be distinguished by their efforts to unite their groundbreaking UChicago scholarship with their active engagements in society benefiting humanity.
Amy and Richard have long been generous friends and partners to the University, having previously championed a number of student-centered initiatives, programs, and scholarships at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. As former students, they know firsthand that faculty serve as the foundation upon which our academic enterprise rests, and with this gift, they are extending their vital support to enhance our ability to recruit and retain the best. The Wallmans’ vision for an institution fortified by gifts that directly impact the faculty of the University is a testament to the range and scale of their commitment.
We can look ahead to when 30 Wallman Fellows, with interests spanning from the humanities to molecular engineering, economics and public policy to biology and medicine, are at the University, defining new fields, bridging scholarship with active work that extends beyond the University’s walls, and creating knowledge that betters the world.
Sincerely,
Paul
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A. Paul Alivisatos
President