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The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust has pledged a challenge gift to the
University, which, if met by other donors, will result in 10 $3 million
professorships -- called Eminent Professorships -- the largest endowed
professorships in University history.
The challenge grant is part of a $27 million lead gift from the Kenan Trust,
the William R. Kenan Jr. Fund and the Kenan family to Carolina's seven-year
Carolina First Campaign. Chancellor James Moeser announced the gift at the
annual University Day convocation.
Under the terms of the pledge, the trust will match, on a one-to-one basis, up
to five Eminent Professorships established and named by other donors, creating
up to 10 new professorships.
Each time a donor gives $2.5 million for a professorship, the trust will
provide a $200,000 matching grant. The University will also apply for a
$334,000 matching grant from the state's Distinguished Professorship Endowment
Trust Fund, bringing the total endowment for each professorship to more than $3
million.
The trust is also pledging $3 million to the University's science complex, a
major component of the campus master plan. New undergraduate classrooms and
laboratories, as well as facilities for emerging areas such as genomics,
bioinformatics, virtual reality and nanotechnology, will be housed in the
complex. Construction is expected to begin in 2003 and end in 2008.
"Higher education, and particularly the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, has always been a priority for the Kenan Trust. In recognition of the
importance of the Carolina First Campaign to the University, the trust wanted
to give a gift that builds on the precedent set by generations of members of
the Kenan family," said Richard M. Krasno, executive director of the William R.
Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.
"The gift to the University is more than a donation, it is a continuation of a
tradition that is more than 200 years old." Moeser said, "Carolina has had the
good fortune to count members of the Kenan family among its alumni, friends and
benefactors. This is one of the oldest philanthropic partnerships in American
higher education. Today the Kenan Trust is joining with Carolina to address one
of the University's highest priorities and greatest needs. This generous gift
gives us tremendous momentum in our drive to create 200 new endowed
professorships through Carolina First."
Endowed professorships are important, Moeser said, because a third of
Carolina's faculty will retire in the next decade, placing the University in
intense competition for the nation's best faculty. The University will recruit
world-class teachers and scholars in all fields, from the ranks of current
faculty as well as from elsewhere, for the new professorships, Moeser said.
The Kenan family has been linked to the chemistry department since 1893 when
chemistry professor Francis Preston Venable, undergraduate William Rand Kenan
Jr. and alumnus John Motley Morehead collaborated on the discovery of calcium
carbide. The discovery made possible the production of acetylene gas and led to
the formation of Union Carbide Co. The department's Kenan Chemistry Library,
housed in Venable Hall, was named in honor of William R. Kenan Jr. in 1953. A
chemistry laboratory building was also named for Kenan in 1971.
During Carolina's Bicentennial Campaign (1989-1995), the Kenan family, the
Kenan Fund and the Kenan Trust gave nearly $31 million to the University,
including $10 million earmarked for the business school's new building. The
business school was named for the late Mary Lily Kenan Flagler and her husband,
Henry Morrison Flagler, in recognition of the Kenan family's longtime
commitment to the University. An additional $10 million went to the school to
build a new executive education facility and to establish a center for
entrepreneurship.
In 1985, under the leadership of Frank Hawkins Kenan, a 1935 Carolina graduate,
the Kenan Trust established the William R. Kenan Fund with a $20 million gift.
The fund has provided support for the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private
Enterprise and the Kenan Center, which houses the institute.
Besides the professorship and science complex pledges, the Kenan Trust, Kenan
Fund and members of the Kenan family have given $8 million to the University to
date in the Carolina First Campaign. The Kenan Trust, the Kenan Fund and the
Kenan family have given nearly $100 million to the University since its
founding in 1793.
To honor Christopher Quackenbush, employees may:
* Contribute to the Albert Ray Newsome Distinguished Professorship for the Study of the South, which Quackenbush established to honor his grandfather, a former chair of Carolina'a history department. Send a check made payable to the Arts and Sciences Foundation, CB# 6115, with a note in the memo line indicating it's for the Albert Newsome professorship.
* Donate to the Jacob Marley Foundation by sending contributions to 49 Amherst Road, Port Washington, NY 11050.
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