VideosPhilanthropy
Emily Koons Jae: Executive Director of ACTA’s Fund for Academic Renewal
Emily Koons Jae serves as Director of the Fund for Academic Renewal (FAR), a program of ACTA that works closely...
When Shelby Cullom Davis gave $750,000 to Connecticut’s Trinity College in 1976 to endow a chair to teach private enterprise and entrepreneurship, he specified that there would be “no exceptions whatsoever” in the use of the money. A few years later, the college approached Davis about changing allocation of the funds because of evolving views and conditions at the school. Davis repeated that “no other purpose” for the funds would be acceptable to him.
Fast forward to 2008, when the occupant of the Davis Chair, professor Gerald Gunderson, caught wind that the college was diverting some of the funds. Despite his repeated attempts to build an entrepreneurship program in line with the stated wishes of the donor and documented student interest, the college had instead steered much of the money into other projects. Gunderson, who knew Davis while he was alive, reported a violation of donor intent to the Connecticut attorney general. Then-attorney general and now-Senator Richard Blumenthal was sympathetic to Gunderson’s concerns.
Gunderson’s administration was not. “Trinity’s president summoned him to the school’s cavernous Gothic conference room, where he called the professor a ‘scoundrel’ and threatened not to reappoint him,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni got involved, petitioning the board of the college to honor Davis’s intent, as this was “critical to maintaining the trust of current and future Trinity College donors.”
Subsequent investigations showed that Trinity had been diverting monies from the entrepreneurship fund for years. The college eventually returned $193,000 to the endowment, but the slugging between Gunderson, Davis’s descendants, and the school administration continued. With the attorney general’s office refusing to approve the school’s alternative spending proposals, and the prospect of litigation hanging over their heads, a new Trinity president agreed in late 2014 to honor Davis’s wishes.
The Shelby Cullom Davis Endowment Fund will now support two additional tenure-track faculty members.
Emily Koons Jae serves as Director of the Fund for Academic Renewal (FAR), a program of ACTA that works closely...
A few weeks ago, Ken Griffin’s $300 million contribution to Harvard University inspired an op-ed in Inside Philanthropy calling on universities to be more circumspect in allowing naming rights. Named gifts are easy targets for criticism, and many wealthy donors have been accused of making charitable contributions out of mere vanity or as a Quixotic attempt to cheat death.
My research is focused on the complexity of the philanthropy space – how to understand and navigate it. There is far more to private giving for the public good than most people realize, but I also do not want people to feel overwhelmed.
Launched in 1995, we are the only organization that works with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the United States to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives an intellectually rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price.
Discover MoreSign up to receive updates on the most pressing issues facing our college campuses.