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The Department is very lucky to have six endowed chairs. An endowed chair is created by a substantial gift to the university (generally on the order of $1.5 million or greater) and can be named to honor the donor or their designate. The faculty member that holds the endowed chair is then able to use the interest from that endowment each year to support their research, teaching, and extension in any way they see fit. The real power of endowed chairs is that they allow the faculty member to work in new and exciting areas of research related to critical industry needs prior to being able to garner grant support for their project. This can allow the faculty member to try riskier research with potentially higher payback, hire a graduate student that they would not be able to otherwise hire, add a new demonstration to their course, travel to an extra industry event, or any number of other activities that would not be possible without this flexible support. Normally, endowed chairs are held by a faculty member for 5 or 10 years after a competitive application process, and are a true honor for the faculty member as well. Because of the potentially game-changing nature of endowed chairs, it is the goal of Department to eventually have endowed chairs for each faculty member.
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