20 January 2022
Dear OSU Colleagues:
I write to provide you with an update on one of the investments the university is making in faculty excellence. On behalf of the OSU Foundation and my office, I am pleased to share that in just six months of the Provost’s Faculty Match Program, donors committed $13.8 million to establish 15 new endowed faculty positions across seven colleges. This success, achieved so quickly, demonstrates our donor community’s deep understanding of the critical importance of supporting faculty and all they do to advance OSU’s mission.
I announced the match program during last May’s annual Faculty Excellence event. A partnership with the OSU Foundation, the program was designed to encourage philanthropic investments in endowed faculty position funds. As you know, endowed positions provide valuable discretionary funds to support faculty members’ activities, especially their research, creative work, and public engagement. Increasing the number of endowed position funds is essential to our effort to recruit and retain outstanding faculty.
The new endowed positions include chairs in Forestry (two) and Business (its first); professorships in Agricultural Sciences (two) and Business; a fellowship in Forestry; and faculty scholars in Engineering, Education (its first), Science, Veterinary Medicine, and one to be determined. This brings the total number of endowed faculty positions at OSU to 167.
I would like to thank those who promoted this opportunity to our alumni and friends, including Interim President Johnson and all of our deans. I would also like to thank our colleagues at the OSU Foundation, including Foundation President and CEO Shawn Scoville, for partnering with me to create and launch this initiative, and Director of Development Marlys Amundson, who served as the point person for the program and executed it so well.
Please save the date for this year’s Faculty Excellence Event on May 25, 2022, where we will once again recognize the university’s newest Distinguished Professors, fellows of the nation’s leading scholarly academies and associations, and faculty members newly named as holders of endowed positions. We will also celebrate the success of the Provost’s Faculty Match Program and thank our donors for their generous support.
Sincerely,
Edward Feser
Provost and Executive Vice President