You may be a Purdue alum who remembers a favorite professor who made a difference in your Purdue experience and eventually your career. Purdue Agriculture is working to raise the money to honor two such professors by creating endowed chairs bearing their names.

Endowed professorships or chairs are one of the keys to recruiting and retaining influential faculty. Endowments to support these privately funded positions range between $1 million and $3 million, with the income they generate funding the position.

Endowed professorships allow donors to boost the academic areas of their choice and provide professors with the security of positions virtually immune to budget cuts.

Two years ago the College of Agriculture had no endowed professorships or chairs. Today we enjoy five such endowments, and four will be matched in the future to create additional endowments because of the generosity of William and Mary Ann Bindley.

When deciding where to create endowed chairs, academic departments identify important research and program areas where increased funding or a dedicated faculty researcher would make a difference. We then work with them to select a faculty member or someone who has had great influence in that particular area as the honoree for whom the professorship will be named.

For new faculty, receiving an endowed chair is recognition of their achievement and an additional incentive for them to come to Purdue. While about half of the endowed positions go to new faculty, the rest go to reward and keep current staff. In Agriculture, two professorships we are working to endow are the John V. Osmun Chair in Urban Entomology and the David Downey Endowed Chair in Sales and Marketing.

“Those of us who know John Osmun best consider him an industry icon,” says Judy Dold, president of Rose Pest Solutions in Chicago, who chairs a volunteer group working to secure funding for the new chair. “He had the vision and the energy to see what the pest management industry could become and then developed programs and mentored people to make it happen. John is a revered educator and a special friend to so many throughout the country.”

Osmun, who came to Purdue in 1948, established the first four-year program devoted to urban and industrial entomology and helped build the Department of Entomology to one of the best in the country. He retired from Purdue in 1987 but remains active.

Downey, who plans to retire in the spring, began teaching undergraduate courses and working in Purdue Extension in 1967. Early on, he identified a need for education in agribusiness sales and marketing and initiated a course, “Principles of Selling in Agricultural Business.” In 1986 Downey co-founded the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and was instrumental in developing a curriculum in which students can earn a four-year undergraduate degree in ag sales and marketing.

For more information or to help support either chair, please contact the Agricultural Development Office.

Contact Bossung at whitehead@purdue.edu