Athens, Ga. – The Board of Trustees of the Arch Foundation for the University of Georgia announced at its meeting in Athens this week the Arch Professorships initiative to enhance faculty recruitment and retention. The board approved $250,000 from foundation general funds for the first professorship, and individual commitments from trustees of the foundation provided another $600,000 toward the new initiative.
“Great faculty members seek universities that have the financial resources to help them reach their professional goals,” said Jack Head, chair of the Arch Foundation development and public affairs committee, who headed the initiative. “They choose institutions that already have a critical mass of individuals like them.” Head said the Arch Professorship program will make UGA stronger by allowing the university to retain the best and brightest and attract other quality faculty in a very competitive environment. With the strong financial commitment of the Arch Foundation now in place, he added that the board plans to move forward with assisting the university in its efforts to secure gifts to create additional professorships to help make UGA one of America’s very best public universities.
Arch Professorships provide a revenue stream to supplement faculty salaries, support faculty research and provide funding for travel and related expenses. An endowment of approximately $250,000 allows UGA to create an Arch Professorship, although the amount varies by school and college.
“The Arch Foundation is pleased to create this important program in recognition that the university’s reputation turns on two important factors – great students and great faculty,” said John Spalding, chair of the Arch Foundation board of trustees. “Great faculty attract great students, and great students attract great faculty. This is happening at UGA and the Arch Professorships will provide added impetus.”
President Michael F. Adams applauded the Arch Foundation’s action to meet a critical campus need. “We are most grateful to the Arch Foundation and to the individual trustees who through their generosity and thoughtfulness have undertaken this important initiative,” Adams said.
Arch Professorships may be given through a variety of means, including checks, securities, gifts of real estate, bequests, retirement plans, life insurance policies, charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder or lead trusts. Gifts may be pledged and paid over a period of up to five years. An individual gift of $250,000 or greater allows for the naming of the professorship.
The Arch Foundation is a private, non-profit corporation that receives gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations on behalf of the University of Georgia and administers the gifts in accordance with the instructions of the donors, helping the university to attain levels of excellence not possible with state funding alone. Among many objectives, gifts to the Arch Foundation are used to provide scholarships for superior students, to support distinguished faculty scholars, to strengthen research and teaching programs and to build vitally needed facilities.