$10 million in gifts aims to retain UO talent.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

A University of Oregon business school graduate is one of three donors who have given a combined $10 million to help the UO hang on to its best faculty.

The gifts, announced Thursday, will set up endowed professorships and a fund to boost the pay of professors being lured to other universities with deeper pockets than the UO. The gifts will help counter state funding cuts that have left average UO faculty salaries almost 20 percent below the average at similar universities.

"Private gifts like these will guarantee that we can compete on an equal footing with other top universities vying for the next generation of outstanding professors," UO President Dave Frohnmayer said. "This is a crucial investment in the future quality of education we offer our students."

With the gifts, the total raised for the university's Campaign Oregon fund drive tops $440 million. The goal is $600 million.

The new donations include a $5.2 million gift from an anonymous donor to create the Fund for Faculty Excellence; a $4 million gift from the estate of Haya Wallace, widow of the late news magazine journalist James Wallace; and a $1 million gift from UO graduate Abbott Keller, who now owns an investment company in the San Francisco Bay area.

The contribution from Keller and his wife, Laura, eventually will be used to fund an endowed professorship in finance at the Lundquist College of Business. In the meantime, the money is being used to supplement the salaries and fund research for three junior faculty recently recruited from MIT, Columbia and Texas A&M.

The Kellers were on hand for the gift announcement, and Abbott Keller has been a frequent visitor to the UO, sharing his expertise in investment and finance. He said he wanted to give something back to the school that helped him launch his career and business and wasn't interested in seeing his name over the door of a building.

"I don't like bricks and mortar," Keller said. "That doesn't really accomplish anything. What I like about a professorship is that a professor's influence is ongoing; you never know where the impact will end."

Keller graduated from the UO in 1972 and later founded Kestrel Investment Management Corp. in San Mateo, where he remains the chief investment officer. Laura Keller graduated from the university in 1971 with a degree in sociology.

The anonymous gift will provide a fund that can be tapped to help keep rising and top-notch professors from leaving for better pay.

The fund initially will grant five-year awards of $5,000 to $15,000 a year to faculty with national and international standing who might be lost to other universities.

UO Provost Linda Brady noted that the school's professors earn 81 percent of the average for faculty at peer institutions, with the biggest gap among full professors at the height of their careers. She said the long-term goal is to add to the fund and offer supplements to more faculty.

The Wallace gift will establish the School of Journalism and Communication's first endowed professorship focused on reporting and writing. It also will provide more than $2 million to support other faculty in the school.

James Wallace was a 1950 UO graduate who worked as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report.

He retired in 1992 after serving as senior editor of U.S. News & World Report for 10 years and died in 2004. His wife, Haya, died in April.

Another portion of the gift is in the form of objects and artifacts the Wallaces collected while traveling the world. Those items will go to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

Of the $441 million raised so far in the Campaign Oregon drive, $48.3 million has been for faculty support, including 30 new endowed chairs and professorships.