Chairs

What is an endowed chair?

It is the highest academic award that the University can bestow on a faculty member, and it lasts as long as the University exists. Thus, it is both an honor to the named holder of the appointment and also an enduring tribute to the donor who establishes it.

The Benefits

To the University

Endowed faculty chairs are crucial for recruiting and retaining the highest-quality faculty. The greatest institutions have the best minds, the most-creative researchers and the most-engaged teachers. Building a mighty base of faculty talent enriches the academic environment, which attracts the brightest students.

To the Professors

Recognizing the continued contributions of senior-level faculty as well as providing funds to push the frontiers of their scholarship are key functions of the endowed positions. The funds can propel research, help pay student workers or create opportunities for collaboration with scholars around the world.

To the Students

One chair can touch hundreds of lives through the courses they teach, the students they mentor, or through their own academic work. Having endowed faculty means students get to rub elbows with the most talented scholars in the world. Students have the opportunity to work in research labs, for example. They do not learn only from textbooks, but from the real world of innovation and discovery.

To Businesses and Corporations

In a rapidly changing world, corporations realize the pace is often driven by the private sector, but much of the long-term thinking, basic research and most fundamental discoveries occur inside universities. Corporations support endowed chairs to give back to institutions that provide them with creative talent. The relationship also connects corporations with professors, researchers and students who can inspire innovation and creative ideas in a competitive environment.

To Private Donors

Donors provide funds for the overall improvement of the University, but some have personal interests in specific areas of study. By funding endowed chairs, donors can convene the brightest minds to focus on particular problems or issues and spur advances in those areas.

FAQ

What does an endowed chair do for the University?

In American higher education, endowed faculty professorships and chairs have become the gold standard for recruiting and retaining faculty. The reality is that if we wish to keep the very best faculty, it’s crucial that we have endowed professorships and chairs. That has become an expectation of truly exceptional teachers and scholars. This tool in our toolbox — endowed faculty professorships and chairs — is essential if we are going to continue to excel as an institution.

What does holding a named chair mean to a faculty member?

One of the key ingredients of endowed professorships and chairs is faculty recognition. The other really important aspect of a faculty chair is that the money that the chair generates is available to faculty members to advance their instructional programs, to develop new research ideas, to fund students’ work and generally to make innovative advances in their own portfolios of scholarly work.

Why do donors make gifts to create and endow professorships and chairs?

The reasons for giving are varied, but the common denominator is that people care about the world around them. One reason is that the donors understand the great strategic importance of such gifts to the University. But another important reason is that donors care about advancing the field in which they’re making the gift. The donor might be a corporation or company that knows the world is changing rapidly, and nearby they need the most talented professors, researchers and students available to them. Individuals may have more personal reasons. It may be, for example, that a parent has Alzheimer’s and the donor wishes to make the world a better place for people who are suffering from that disease. They may want to make a gift to advance research in that field, to educate and train more students who can help solve the mysteries that Alzheimer’s or another medical condition creates.

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Daniel W. Nuss MD, FACS

$400,000 from the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund for the Endowed Chair for Eminent Scholars

The Daniel W. Nuss, MD Chair in Skull Base Surgery honors a physician who has helped transform the field of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery by working to foster and promote a unique interdisciplinary surgical subspecialty, now known as the field of Skull Base Surgery. For over 31 years, Dr. Nuss has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and for 26 of those years, he has served as Professor and Chairman. During that time, Nuss has built a highly prestigious Skull Base Surgery program that has elevated the standard of clinical Otolaryngology care in Louisiana, and the body of work generated by this program has earned him a nationally and internationally distinguished reputation in the field, while at the same time bringing widespread recognition to LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) as a center for such work.

The purpose of The Daniel W. Nuss, MD Chair in Skull Base Surgery is to build upon the contributions of Dr. Nuss and his colleagues by recruiting and retaining an eminent faculty member with outstanding scholarly and clinical accomplishments who will provide leadership to continue to enhance the Skull Base Surgery specialty, the Department of Otolaryngology, the School of Medicine, LSUHSC, and the quality of care provided to patients within the State of Louisiana.