Home > Giving to Chicago > Why Give to Chicago?
David Wellbery
Why faculty support is valuable
I came to Chicago from Johns Hopkins University in 2001, declining a competing offer from Stanford University. Certainly, the offer to become the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor was a major factor in my choosing to join the faculty at the University of Chicago. Endowed professorships are perhaps THE most important instrument we have for recruiting first-rank faculty, many of whom, of course, already hold such chairs at their home institutions.
Research Impact
Through funds made available in connection with my professorship, we were able to establish the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on German Literature and Culture at the University of Chicago. Through the Center, we have organized several conferences and workshops, which, in turn, have eventuated in research publications. The Center has also made it possible to establish productive collaborations among scholars from various fields (philosophy, musicology, art history, film and media studies) who work on German subjects. The result is that the University of Chicago is now recognized throughout the country as perhaps the most significant center of research in the area of German literature and culture.
Chicago is a Great Place to Work
To my mind, the distinctive feature of the University of Chicago is the intensity of intellectual exchange across disciplinary borders. This is evidenced in our tradition of workshops and in the Franke Center, but it is also an aspect of our teaching and our everyday culture of intellectual exchange. Lectures by distinguished visitors often draw an audience from several departments and inevitably lead to a lively debate. In a sense, Chicago is a university that still believes in and conducts its intellectual life according to the ideal of a community of knowers. That is a rare and valuable thing.
An Interesting Experience Related to My Professorship
Perhaps the most interesting and meaningful experience I have had in connection with my professorship is becoming acquainted with three generations of the Carlson family, to whose generosity we owe the endowment of my professorship. They have very close ties to the University of Chicago and a deep commitment to its educational ideals. And they possess a profound understanding of the importance of the University to the city of Chicago and its cultural and business life. Their concerted effort to foster here an atmosphere in which scholarship and education can flourish has been a source of inspiration to me.
Recent Academic Achievements
In 2004, I was awarded the Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, one of the most prestigious awards offered by any German institution to a foreign scholar. Recently, the 1000-page volume A NEW HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE, for which I served as editor-in-chief, appeared from Harvard University Press.
