Recently the University has received severallarge gifts that significantly boosted the grandtotal.
While all of the 40 endowed professorships havenot yet been funded, Latin American Studies is nowtwo professorships richer. David Rockefeller '36and Monique and Philip Lehner each donated $3.5million to endow two chairs affiliated with theDavid Rockefeller Center for Latin AmericanStudies--one of the school's many cross-schoolinternational programs.
The chairs are reserved for professors who havecontributed significantly to the study of LatinAmerica--in areas as diverse as foreign policy,culture and economics.
The Lehner Professorship for the Study of LatinAmerica will be based in the Faculty of Arts andSciences (FAS).
"We hope this professorship may help to bringto light answers and solutions that will benefitLatin Americans and bring improvements to thearea," said Philip Lehner '46 in a press release.He will serve on the Advisory Committee of theRockefeller Center, founded in 1994.
Rockefeller's gift--the second University-wideprofessorship he has endowed for the program--willbe named for President Neil L. Rudenstine when hesteps down from his current post. Until then, astradition dictates, it will be the Rockefellerprofessorship.
"Neil's commitment to Latin America isindisputable," Rockefeller said in a pressrelease. "We were partners in creating the center,and I thought it would be fitting that aUniversity- wide professorship be named in honorof someone who was in a very real sense aco-founder of the center."
Rockefeller emphasized that the chairs will beopen to professors from all disciplines.
"The interests that the United States has inLatin America are very broad and cover every fieldfrom medicine to law to the arts and sciences, andtherefore to have two professorships that could befilled at any time, not necessarily in the Facultyof Arts and Science," is ideal, Rockefeller said.
Odds and Ends
In other campaign news, the libraries are now$3 million closer to their $78 million goal. Thedonation made by Harriet Weissman and Paul M.Weissman '52 will go to the UniversityPreservation Center, which repairs and conservesHarvard's books. The center will now bear theWeissman name.
"The Weissman gift will secure the ability ofHarvard to preserve its priceless collections ofbooks and manuscripts," Director of the UniversityLibrary Sidney H. Verba '53 wrote in an e-mailmessage. "The Harvard collection is one of thegreatest in the world and that creates anobligation on the University to protect it forcurrent use and for future generations."
The $78 million, of which $52 million has beenraised, includes money for renovations to theindividual libraries, such as Widener, anddonations to the University Library system thatoversees them.
Verba said those working on the librarycampaign are "not as far as we would like to be,but accelerating as we come down to the laststretch."
Another campaign area lagging behind--thePresident's Academic Initiative, Rudenstine'sdiscretionary fund--has raced ahead in the lastsix months. Alumni have given over $28 million tobring the total to $94 million, $31 million shortof its goal. A $20 million challenge fund wascreated by Harvard's Governing Boards to spurdonors to give to the fund