Have you ever wondered who was listening? When you talk I listen.

It is only natural that you seek people.  Do you really feel that you find friends, or do they find you?  We all seem to have types of people that seem to use us as the watering hole for conversation.  No matter how you try to engage in chit-chat, you find yourself deeply mired by the I and Me proclamations for a better understanding.  As I allow myself to be the sounding board, the little…

Behind everything, there is history. History we would never think to discover nor, at times, comprehend. Weather it’s a definition, specific institution, person, or title, there is history surrounding and woven throughout each. In Higher Education Institutions the origination of endowed chairs, professorships and chairs of divinity are deeply rooted into the past, waiting to be dug up and used for our own personal knowledge.

Dorothea Frede, writes in, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “that the origination of giving dates all the way back to back to, “AD 176, in Athens, Rome. Where the Romans were the first to start giving to major philosophy schools, which were originally set up by the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius.” Frede explains that these philosophy schools studied the practices of influential scholars, basing their entire institutions around these major studies, which were Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism.”(1) Marcus Aurelius also created the first Endowed Chair. According to Diane Lebo Wallace, in Endowed chairs: A meeting of minds and means, the definition of an endowed chair is simply, “a position permanently paid for with the revenue from an endowment fund, which is set up, by a donor, for a specific purpose and is typically allocated to a certain college department.”(2) 

When modern university systems began in England of 1502, the practice of endowed chairs and funding were adapted. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, and grandmother to the future King Henry the VIII created what Lady Margaret's 500 year legacy, at the University of Cambridge describes as, the first Endowed Chairs of Divinity or a person of god-like nature, worthy of such a position.(3) First established and created at the university of Oxford.

In approximately 1550, King Henry the VIII established Regius Professorships. In A Brief History of The Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Robert Bruen defines a Regius Professorship as “a university professor with royal patronage or appointment.”(4) Private individuals soon adopted the practice of what is now known as, Endowed Professorships. These types of funding aid a college in that, they provide a faculty member with a position that is of great honor and nobility. Diane Lebo Wallace, in Endowed chairs: A meeting of minds and means states, “the endowed faculty member does not have to be paid entirely out of the operating budget, allowing the university to either reduce its student-to-faculty ratio and/or direct money that would otherwise have been spent on salaries toward other university needs.”(5) According to Robert Bruen, “Isaac Newton was one of these individuals, with whom held the chair of mathematics at Cambridge in the beginning in 1669, but in 1779 it was given to and is still held by, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking.”(6) 

From 176 AD, when Marcus Aurelius first created the endowed chair until now, the act of giving has grown and expanded and will continue to do so. From these original methods, newer ones have emerged, as well as strategies to aid in the promotion of fundraising. Thus, bringing in more revenue for Higher Education institutions. More revenue contributes to and effects a series of Institutional dynamics on a campus, such as: retention and prospective student rates, availability to obtain new equipment and resources, and the improvement of campus-wide facilities. 

Citations:

1. Dorothea Frede, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (plato.stanford.edu/archives, 2012)

2. Diane Lebo Wallace, Endowed chairs: A meeting of minds and means, (Cornell’s Quarterly Magazine: Ezra, 2012)

3. University of Cambridge, Lady Margaret's 500 year legacy, (University of Cambridge, 2004)

4. Robert Bruen, A Brief History of The Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at Cambridge University, (Boston College, 1995)

5. Diane Lebo Wallace, Endowed chairs: A meeting of minds and means, (Cornell’s Quarterly Magazine: Ezra, 2012)

Series of Small Acts

Act without doing; work without effort. Think of the small as large and the few as many. Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts. The Master never reaches for the great; thus she achieves greatness. When she runs into a difficulty, she stops and gives herself to it. She doesn’t cling to her own comfort; thus problems are no problem for…

Tis the season for giving, caring and looking beyond ourselves to help out friends, family  and the community. The shop enjoys donating profits to help others and support good community involvement. We have started our Food Drive and even have some items in and prepared to go to our local Community Care center to provide everything from food, aid and comfort to those in need.

From now and unitl Christmas Eve The Little Sweatshop will be donating 50% of every purchase (online and in show) to our Drive and matching every penny to make sure we have a variety to give. Help us make it big this year!

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