“A center often begins with a set of problems and often an entrepreneurial or charismatic leader and a donor,” Hyman said at the time. “What may happen years down the road when the leader has moved on is that the center may languish and may lack strong regular faculty leadership.”

In a June, 2002 Boston Globe article about Fonda’s anger at the lack of progress in finding a leader for the gender center, though, Hyman was quoted saying that he had reassured Fonda that the center would happen.

“My job was to explain the pace of the University to her, and although it may seem frustrating, that the goal is to find superb people for her center,” Hyman said in June. “I hope that Jane Fonda gives us a chance to get everyone in place.”

Economic Woes

Haas cited the slow economy as the main reason for the gender center’s rollback.

“The primary reason is the downturn of the economy, which affected both the GSE and Ms. Fonda,” Haas said.

According to an interview with Gilligan this fall, Fonda was particularly reluctant to give the GSE more money because the movie star and former wife of media mogul Ted Turner had lost so much money due to heavy investment in sagging AOL Time Warner stocks.

At the time her marriage to Turner in 1991, Fonda received millions of dollars worth of stock in Turner Broadcasting, a company that merged with Time Warner and then with AOL in 2001.

At the time of her donation, a mere year after the much-celebrated merger of AOL and Time Warner, the stocks looked hopeful.

But the company has taken record losses—to the tune of $100 billion in the past year—and stock that was worth about $50 a share in April of 2001, when Fonda gave the gift, is now worth about $12 a share.

Neither Gilligan nor Fonda could be reached for comment over the weekend.

What Remains

Although there will be no gender center and no Gilligan chair, Fonda’s money has been used to fund two GSE initiatives, including project ASSERT.

According to Associate Professor of Education Wendy L. Luttrell, who heads Project ASSERT, Fonda donated $500,000 to the program and will provided “continued support,” but Luttrell declined to specify how much.

It remains unclear exactly what factors led Fonda to withdraw the bulk of donation, but plans for the center and for filling the chair were moving slower than planned.