Academe's massive fund drives no longer aim exclusively at new buildings and expanded facilities. Since the bigger need now is to meet annual operating costs, mainly in teachers' salaries, there is a new emphasis at many universities on setting up endowed chairs. At the same time, sophisticated benefactors have found that giving their names to a professorship is more satisfying than simply seeing them carved on the donor's plaque of a new building.
Columbia University's current $200 million fund drive is centered around the creation of 100 new academic chairs, each to be...