Stanford 1, Cornell 0

David Gelles, NYT
John Doerr, one of the most successful venture capitalists in the history of Silicon Valley, is giving $1.1 billion to Stanford University to fund a school focused on climate change and sustainability.

The gift, which Mr. Doerr is making with his wife Ann, is the largest ever to a university for the establishment of a new school, and is the second largest gift to an academic institution, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Only Michael R. Bloomberg’s 2018 donation of $1.8 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, ranks higher.

The gift establishes the Doerrs as leading funders of climate change research and scholarship, and will place Stanford at the center of public and private efforts to wean the world off fossil fuels.

“Climate and sustainability is going to be the new computer science,” Mr. Doerr, who made his estimated $11.3 billion fortune investing in technology companies such as Slack, Google and Amazon, said in an interview. “This is what the young people want to work on with their lives, for all the right reasons.”
...

The school, to be known as the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, will be a home to traditional academic departments related to topics such as planetary science, energy technology and food-and-water security. It will also feature several interdisciplinary institutes and a center focused on developing practical policy and technology solutions to the climate crisis.

...
Other major universities, including Columbia, are establishing interdisciplinary schools focused on climate change as well. Yet the Doerr School for Sustainability, Stanford’s first new school in 70 years, will be among the largest and best funded. It will launch with 90 faculty members and add 60 more over the next 10 years. The university said it had raised an additional $590 million alongside the gift from the Doerrs, and that some of the funds would be used to construct two new buildings.

...
[This would not be the New York Times if there wasn't a "but on the other hand" graf or two: Yet some question whether these philanthropic investments can make a difference when it comes to a planetary crisis.

“I don’t see how giving a billion dollars to a rich university is going to move the needle on this issue in a near-term time frame,” said David Callahan, author of “The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age.” “It’s nice that he’s parting with his money, but that billion dollars could be better spent trying to move this up on the scale of public opinion. Until the public sees this as a top tier issue, politicians are not going to act.”

George64
Cornell probably has most of the components in place and formed the Atkinson Center for Sustainability to pull it all together. I just hope that they don’t poach our faculty like they did in 1885, when the “Cornell of the West” was founded.Victor's.

I've checked the transfer portal and so far we're safe.

Scersk '97
John Doerr has absolutely no connection to Cornell that I can ascertain, just in case anyone was wondering.

billhoward

Scersk '97
John Doerr has absolutely no connection to Cornell that I can ascertain, just in case anyone was wondering.

Nor with Stanford: Rice bachlors (ca. '73) and masters in engineering, Harvard MBA. His entire adult life has been in Silicon Valley, though. This is the second biggest university donation: Michael Bloomberg, Hopkins, $1.8B; Doerr, Stanford, $1.1B; .... Cornell, Chuck Feeney '56, $350M (Feeney in total donated $8B to universities and other charities).

Scersk '97

billhoward

Scersk '97
John Doerr has absolutely no connection to Cornell that I can ascertain, just in case anyone was wondering.

Nor with Stanford: Rice bachlors (ca. '73) and masters in engineering, Harvard MBA. His entire adult life has been in Silicon Valley, though. This is the second biggest university donation: Michael Bloomberg, Hopkins, $1.8B; Doerr, Stanford, $1.1B; .... Cornell, Chuck Feeney '56, $350M (Feeney in total donated $8B to universities and other charities).

My issue is with your title. I don't see "Stanford 1, Cornell 0"; rather, I see "Stanford $1.0 x 10^9, Everyone Else 0."

If Cornell should be courting class "richpersonwithmoneywhohasnoconnectiontoCornell" in toto, it's going to have to increase the development budget.

marty
Au contraire, Andy will have a lot of free time as AD emeritus or whatever he's going to be called. Just have him make the asks. His track football record speaks for itself.

Scersk '97

marty
Au contraire, Andy will have a lot of free time as AD emeritus or whatever he's going to be called. Just have him make the asks. His track football record speaks for itself.

This wholly eLynah style of acid puts a spring in my step.

David Harding

Scersk '97

marty
Au contraire, Andy will have a lot of free time as AD emeritus or whatever he's going to be called. Just have him make the asks. His track football record speaks for itself.

This wholly eLynah style of acid puts a spring in my step.

He might be willing to wrestle with the problem.