In February, Christopher H. Browne C’69 gave the School of Arts and Sciences $15 million to establish five endowed professorships. It is the latest in a string of gifts by the University trustee, who also chairs the SAS board of overseers. Browne endowed a previous five SAS professorships in 2000, after having made a gift to establish the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics in 1997.
The new professorships will be distributed across the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Faculty support is a major priority in the University’s “Making History” fundraising campaign, which Browne co-chairs [“Seizing the Moment,” Nov/Dec, 2007].
“By creating five more endowed professorships,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said, “Chris is helping us recruit and retain the most eminent professors in the world. These are scholars who are as dedicated to teaching and mentoring as they are to their research.”
Browne, who is managing director of the securities brokerage and investment advisory firm Tweedy, Browne Company, said the gift was motivated by his desire to make Penn an even stronger institution than the one that helped to shape him as a student. “I am convinced that supporting SAS is critical to the future of the University,” he said.
—T.P