News of the renaming caught many members of the Faculty of guard, they said, but not completely by surprise. Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, noted that even though FAS deanship renaming is unprecedented, it is common practice to honor donors with nomenclature.

“I don't find it very shocking. After all, the whole university is named after a donor, John Harvard, and I have a professorship that’s named after a donor, as do most professors now,” Mansfield said. “Who are you going to name things after if not wealthy people or famous people?”

Smith, who has held the deanship since 2007, will also retain his endowed title as John H. Finley Jr. Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

—Check TheCrimson.com for updates.

—Staff writer Meg P. Bernhard contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Dev A. Patel can be reached at dev.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @dev_a_patel.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: September 22, 2014

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Harvey C. Mansfield ’53.