Beyond the vibrant learning environments they spark, endowed professors are catalysts for inventions and solutions that ripple across society.
When you endow a professorship, you ensure Drexel’s power to recruit the most engaged teachers and the most talented and creative researchers, in a field that’s important to you.
Awarding a faculty member an endowed professorship confers a great honor on the recipient and creates an enduring legacy for you. Beyond the vibrant learning environments they spark, endowed professors are catalysts for inventions and solutions that ripple across society.
By attracting the best faculty, we also support Drexel’s efforts to assemble a gifted, diverse student body, which further enriches the teaching and learning environment. Great scholars and researchers entice talented graduate students to our campus as well.
An excellent example of this is the Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professorship, which Drexel established with an estate gift from former Drexel Trustee Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach ’52. Yury Gogotsi, PhD, professor in the College of Engineering and founder and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, was inducted as the inaugural Bach Professor in recognition of his pioneering research contributions.
This funding allows Gogotsi and his team to push the boundaries of what can be done with MXenes (pronounced max-eens), a new family of materials discovered and developed in Drexel’s labs that have enormous implications for energy storage, environmental protection, water quality and health.
As Gogotsi explains it, “This endowment allows us to…do something that is high-risk, high-return. This is always very important in science because unless we take risks, we have little ability to really make breakthroughs.”
The need for daring leadership holds true in many other disciplines, including teaching and coaching. Two longtime supporters of the Drexel University College of Medicine, Deborah J. Tuttle, MD, and John P. Piper, MD, endowed the position of the vice dean for educational affairs at Drexel College of Medicine, making possible innovative updates in the medical curriculum.
In athletics, Mary Semanik, who served as director of women’s athletics at Drexel from 1965-91, endowed the position of head coach of the women’s lacrosse team. Semanik was a star athlete herself, and she helped usher in Division I sports at Drexel for both women and men. By endowing this position, Semanik ensured that generations of women student-athletes have the kind of superb leadership and mentoring that she brought to the University.
For a personal conversation about your investment in scholarship, contact a Drexel gift officer.