Spring 2001 -- Vol. 18, No. 1

Endowed Positions Promote Quality Throughout College

Support for positions benefits departments, faculty, and students

In the midst of an experiment, when answering a student’s question, or while preparing a paper outlining his latest findings, Andrew Ewing never stops to consider his title—and as the J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Natural Sciences, professor of chemistry, adjunct professor of neuroscience and anatomy, and head of the Department of Chemistry he has a lot to ponder.

More importantly, he has a lot to do. He ranks as one of the world’s foremost experts on brain cells, their interaction, and the microscale monitoring of nerve cells. He conducts research, teaches, and provides direction and leadership for a department ranked among the best in the country in its field.

Thanks in part to his title, he does that all at Penn State.

“Holding an endowed position makes it easier for a faculty member to advance the science they usually focus on, and to attempt other types of studies as well,” Ewing says. “Having a title does not mean much to me because having more letters or names behind mine is not important. People who know me just call me Andy, not doctor or anything else.

“At the same time, an endowed position means a lot in terms of what you can do for the college, your science, and your students.”

In his role as the J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Natural Sciences, Ewing has done that with regularity.

Like many faculty members, he uses monetary support from the endowed position as a mini-grant that provides unrestricted opportunities. Everything from additional scientific endeavors to transportation costs to overseas meetings for students has come as a result of the support he receives from the chair.

In addition, Ewing has developed a strong relationship with those who supported the position—Penn State graduates J. Lloyd Huck, retired chairman of Merk & Co. who served as chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees from 1988 to 1991, and Dorothy Foehr Huck, who has long held volunteer posts on behalf of the University Libraries and the College of Health and Human Development.

“Dorothy and Lloyd always have an interest in what’s happening,” Ewing says. “They send notes congratulating us on awards or research with regularity.

“When they’re in town, they stop by. Best of all, they’re fun to talk to and they’re really interesting people who just want to help make Penn State even better.”

Professorial Positions

Named professorships have existed in the Eberly College of Science only since the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, a $10 million gift from the Eberly Family Charitable Trust of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, created a $1 million endowed chair in each of the college’s seven departments and provided funding for an endowed chair in science, an endowed professorship in biotechnology, and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. In 1990, the college was renamed in honor of the Eberly family.

As a result of the family’s gift—a “transforming gift” in the words of Daniel J. Larson, Dean of the Eberly College of Science—the college has been able to attract outstanding faculty members and students, and to enhance its missions of education, research, and service.

The gift also started a trend. Many other supporters of the college have subsequently created named professorships and fellowships of their own.

"A lot of other people followed their lead," says Gary Mullen, professor and head of the Department of Mathematics. "Those positions and other support for programs and students have helped our department tremendously. Endowed positions provide a type of flexibility that allows the funding to make a real difference."

All of the college’s nearly 30 endowed positions have been created in the past 15 years—and each of those positions has provided opportunities for the college and its seven departments. According to Robert Schlegel, professor and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, those benefits center around the “Three Rs.”

“We often think of endowed positions only as recruiting tools to attract the best and brightest faculty members to Penn State, and they do allow us to do that,” Schlegel says. “At the same time, they’re valuable in terms of retention and recognition. Almost all of our departments benefit from endowed positions in that manner, as well.”

As both a department head and holder of an endowed position, Ewing appreciates the positions from two perspectives.

He admits the chair helped keep him at Penn State when he was pondering a career move a few years ago, and he enjoys the fact that the talented faculty members in the Department of Chemistry have earned several endowed positions.

“All that support reflects well on the college and the department, and it shows how much our alumni and friends care,” Ewing says. “It makes you proud to be given such support and motivates you to accomplish even more.”

Stronger Students

As the number of endowed positions has increased, the proficiency and talent of incoming classes of students—both undergraduate and graduate—has risen as a result.

Clearly, the quantity of endowed positions has impacted the quality of students within the college.

In terms of graduate students, Schlegel’s department provides an example of the impact of endowed positions.

In the past 10 years, the graduate program in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has grown from fewer than 50 students to 110 for the fall 2001 semester. In that same time, the number of postdoctoral positions has grown from five to nearly 50.

“The quality of the graduate class enrolling this fall is the highest we’ve ever succeeded in recruiting,” Schlegel says. “It’s all part of a process that begins with the fact that our faculty has improved so greatly.

“We’re competing for some of the best and brightest young faculty and we have strong senior faculty members who can provide valuable guidance and support. It makes for a powerful combination.”

Along with faculty members and graduate students, undergraduate students also benefit from that combination. With those talented faculty members as teachers and with resources to assist in research programs, even more opportunities exist for undergraduate students to earn a high-quality education at Penn State.

Not surprisingly, students interested in the sciences have targeted the University a bit more heavily as a result. Since that transforming gift from the Eberly family in 1986, the average number of applications to the college has jumped, as has the average SAT scores of incoming freshmen in the college. In 1993, the average SAT score of an incoming freshman was 1,149. In 2000, that score had risen to 1,239.

Larson’s description of named professorships as having a “growing and profound effect on the quality of the faculty in the college, and the quality of the college in general” rings true.

Perspective, Planning

What makes the endowments even more effective has been their appropriate and judicious use by Larson and the department heads.

Recruiting, retention, and recognition fairly summarize the use of the positions, and those efforts produce an additional impact when done properly.

In fact, several endowed positions remain open because searches for just the right awardee have taken time. While the quantity of the positions has increased in recent years, Larson and the department heads remain committed to putting the highest quality people in the positions.

“Our Eberly Family Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology remains open because it would not be fitting to go the Dean with anything less than a National Academy of Sciences member,” Schlegel says. “That’s the type of person we expect in that position, and we have a responsibility to find the right fit for the department as well as for the incoming faculty member.”

Attracting such faculty members does not happen simply by matching a person with an open position, though.

For almost any faculty member established at another university, moving provides a difficult choice.

In addition, other institutions often find ways to match offers to faculty members or use their own endowed positions to retain faculty.

Decisions about retaining junior faculty members, or using career-development professorships to recruit junior faculty members from other institutions, require just as much attention to detail, planning, and thought.

“Offering or not offering an endowed position rarely follows some set strategy,” Mullen says. “Sometimes the match of a person and a position seem obvious and work well. Other times, any decision or plan results more from an ad-hoc approach.”

Acting aggressively and carefully, departments in the college have been able to make good matches for their endowed positions.

Selections from inside and outside the University have resulted in happy, productive faculty members—all of whom enjoy the benefits the support provides.

“It’s wonderful to have the opportunity for collaboration, research, and teaching without having the administrative headaches of a chairmanship,” says Robert Simpson, the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Molecular Biology who came to Penn State from the National Institutes of Health six years ago. “An endowed position allows you to focus on your science and to serve as a resource for students more than you might typically be able. Those are the things that I tell Verne in my regular stewardship letters to him.”

All of which completes an important process whereby alumni, friends, and supporters of the college provide resources for faculty members and programs. Those faculty members benefit students, enhance research, and ensure ongoing quality.

“It might not be possible to overstate the importance of the role endowed positions play for departments and faculty members,” Schlegel says. “They impact all of us and they impact far beyond the walls of our offices and laboratories.”

 

ENDOWED POSITIONS Eberly Family Chair in Physics: Abhay Ashtekar Eberly Family Chair in Chemistry: Stephen Benkovic Eberly Family Chair in Mathematics: Jean-Luc Brylinski Eberly Family Distinguished Chair in Science: A. Welford Castleman Jr. Eberly Family Chair in Biology: Daniel Cosgrove Downsbrough Faculty Development Professor in Physics: Vincent Crespi Paul H. Cutler Faculty Excellence Endowment in Condensed Matter Physics: Paul Cutler J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Natural Sciences: Andrew Ewing Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences: Nina Fedoroff Stanley Person Professor of Molecular Biology: J. Gregory Ferry Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology: Donald A. Bryant James and Alvina Balog Faculty Fellow: Donald Genson Shaffer Faculty Development Professor in Science: Sharon Hammes-Schiffer Erwin W. Mueller Professor of Physics: Jainendra Jain Raymond N. Shibley Professor of Mathematics: Anatole Katok DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry: Thomas Mallouk Francis R. Pentz and Helen M. Pentz Professor in the College of Science: Roger Penrose Eberly Family Chair in Statistics: C.R. Rao (emeritus) Verne M. Willaman Chair in Molecular Biology: Robert Simpson Russell and Mildred Parker Professor in Natural Products Chemistry: Stephen Weinreb Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry: Jerry Workman

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