A Message from President Robert J. Zimmer

I write to announce a wonderful gift to the University that will provide us with a powerful new tool for recruiting and retaining outstanding junior faculty across the University. The Neubauer Family Foundation, led by University Trustee Joseph Neubauer (MBA'65) and Jeanette Lerman Neubauer, has given us a new gift of $25 million to create the Neubauer Family Fellows Program. When combined with previous gifts, including $5 million to support faculty in the Graduate School of Business, this gift raises the total Neubauer family support during the current campaign to $36 million, including the campaign's largest commitment to faculty endowment. There is nothing more important to the University than our ability to recruit and retain outstanding faculty, and we are deeply grateful to the Neubauer family for this dramatic support.

Each year, the Neubauer Family Fellows Program will enable the University to appoint four newly hired junior faculty across the University, chosen for their potential to reshape the academic agenda in their fields, to 5-year positions as Neubauer Family Assistant Professors. When fully established, the program will include 20 Neubauer Family Assistant Professors throughout the University at a given time. They will receive research support to be used in any way they choose over the 5-year appointment, as well as guaranteed leave time for them to pursue research which will further their scholarly contributions and careers. The awards will be made during the period of recruitment on a competitive basis, through the Provost's Office, based on nominations by the Deans. The University-wide scope of the program, the selection of Fellows as a part of the faculty recruitment process for tenure-track positions, and the substantial support awarded will distinguish this program from programs for junior faculty at other institutions.

The Neubauer's gift also marks a milestone in our current campaign, as it is the gift that propels the campaign past its $2 billion goal. As the faculty of the University are at the core of our distinctive intellectual community, and are both stewards of our intellectual legacy and creators of our intellectual future, it is most appropriate that the creation of the Neubauer Family Fellows Program enables us to mark this milestone. We will of course continue to vigorously seek support for our programs, faculty, and students through the completion of this campaign in June 2008, and beyond.

The University of Chicago has long been known for identifying and recruiting talented scholars early in their careers and providing them with both the resources and the stimulating, rigorous, and engaged intellectual environment that allows their work to flourish. This exceptionally generous gift will help the University build on our history of agenda-setting and discipline-defining faculty. I am profoundly grateful to the Neubauers for their continued support of the University of Chicago and for their commitment to ideas, research, and education.