Institutional Advancement:

Endowed Chairs and Professorships

Just four years after its creation, the University of California received a gift that established the first endowed chair. Edward Tompkins, an attorney and California senator, made the generous gift — the first major gift to the fledgling university — in 1872.

Several of the University's earliest gifts came in the form of endowed chairs. Few other gifts offer the same promise of enduring impact. The benefactors who endowed those first chairs knew that their gifts would form the bedrock upon which the University's excellence would be secured.

The salaries of UC professors are, in most instances, provided by the state, as part of California's system of public higher education. The state does not, however, provide sufficient supplemental support for research and innovative teaching projects. Endowed chairs make up the difference, empowering the University of California to remain competitive in keeping and attracting outstanding professors.

Mr. Tompkins' gift established the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature, named in honor of Louis Agassiz, a prominent Swiss-born naturalist and geologist who provided counsel in 1860 to the University's founding fathers.

It is particularly striking to look back now and ponder how Mr. Tomkins could have had the prescience to know the importance in the 20th and 21st centuries to California and the nation of our neighbors on the Pacific Rim.

Similarly, scores of individuals have followed Mr. Tompkins' example as a foresighted and generous benefactor in establishing endowments that support teaching, research and public service at the nation's premier public university.