Jorge P. Lemann '61 has endowed the $3.5 million founding chair of the new Brazilian Studies program.

He donated $1 million three years ago to further Brazilian studies at Harvard has now added another $2.5 million to his gift.

President Neil L. Rudenstine called the new position--to be named the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professorship--the "cornerstone of Brazilian Studies" Friday.

The gift came on the eve of Rudenstine's trip earlier this month to Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires to meet with alumni and promote Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs John H. Coatsworth said the University hopes to inaugurate Brazilian Studies this spring and have the details worked out --and the new professor chair in place--by the fall.

The program, to be run through the Rockefeller center, will be interdisciplinary and is not intended to be a concentration.

Among its activities, the program will organize courses in cooperation with different departments, facilitate travel exchanges for students and faculty between Harvard and Brazil and print publications. It will also sponsor lectures, film series and conferences.

"We hope that this program will provide opportunities for undergraduates as well as graduates that don't exist now," said Coatsworth, the director of the center and a key figure in establishing the program.

He said he has been talking with Lemann for four or five years about Latin American studies. Lemann's first $1 million sponsored a program to bring visiting professors well-versed in Brazilian culture, literature or history to Harvard.