Fox Development site

Developer, wife giving $2 million for professorships

Jodi Heckel, The News Gazette

URBANA - Champaign developer Peter Fox and his wife Kim are giving $2 million to the University of Illinois to help recruit top professors and promote business growth in Champaign-Urbana.

The $2 million will fund four professorships at $500,000 each, with priority given to faculty who are involved in private business and in the development and transfer of UI technologies to the private sector.

"I felt that it might attract people that could further enhance some of the (economic development) efforts the university already had under way," Fox said.

"This seemed like a good time to do this," he added. "We'd been very impressed with (Chancellor) Richard Herman and the new president. It seemed like the people were in place to make sure the gift had some long-term meaning."

The professorships will be in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the College of Business, and in one other department to be determined by the chancellor.

Endowed professorships or chairs are a way to recruit the best faculty, said Herman, who wants to increase the number of such endowments from about 230 now to 500 in the next five to seven years. Herman said the professorships will create "an even closer link between the research of this campus and society."

Fox is the developer of the UI's Research Park. He has worked with UI professors in supporting business ventures coming out of the electrical and computer engineering department and the business school.

"He began to understand firsthand not only the value of a faculty member or a faculty star, but faculty members who bring business acumen, who bring experiences in their field outside the academy," said Craig Bazzani, vice president for advancement at the UI Foundation. "Peter's seen the difference that these kinds of faculty members can make, where they have an orientation toward economic development and technology transfer."

Of the criteria for those holding the endowed professorships, Fox said, "These are just ideas my wife and I wanted them to consider. We felt, after we talked to the department heads, they would go ahead and be able to do that without in any way hurting the academic part of the equation."

Fox said Don Kleinmuntz, a business professor who co-founded Strata Decision Technology, which helps health care organizations make financial decisions, and Andrew Singer, an electrical and computer engineering professor who co-founded Intersymbol Communications to develop high-speed components for broadband networks, are examples of the types of scholars he would like to see holding the professorships.

"Many of our faculty are making major contributions to private industry as well as economic development in this area," said business school Dean Avijit Ghosh. "We will use this position to honor and make it more attractive for current faculty to stay here or attract new faculty to this campus who will make contributions to those missions."

Deborah Leckband, head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, said the professorships will allow departments to reward faculty for their innovation.

"Typically, awards go to faculty for their research and scholarship, and it's not as common that professorships in science and engineering are targeted to individuals who have shown innovation in developing technologies that are readily transferred to the public domain," Leckband said. "It's certainly special in that regard. It allows departments to really highlight and showcase faculty that have been successful in those activities."

She said it will also increase the visibility of her department and give a faculty member holding the professorship the flexibility to begin exploratory research projects that federal agencies might be reluctant to fund initially.

Fox said he would like to see any businesses started by professors the UI hires to be located in the research park, but it is not a condition of the gift.

"That would certainly be our hope. It's not something we can mandate," he said. "There are other spaces in town, like downtown Champaign. If they locate in the research park, that's great for us. If they don't, it's (still) great for the community."
August 5, 2005