A Gift to Ensure the Recruitment and Retention of Faculty

The distinction of making the largest single gift in the history of the College of Human Ecology belongs to longtime Cornell supporters Joan Klein Jacobs ’54 and Irwin Mark Jacobs ’54, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm.

The $10 million gift to attract and retain faculty members, announced in 2014, includes a $4 million endowment for the Joan K. and Irwin M. Jacobs Professorship in the College of Human Ecology and a supporting Joan K. and Irwin M. Jacobs Graduate Fellowship. In addition, to inspire further philanthropy, the couple committed $6 million to establish four more endowed professorships in the college to be matched by other donors at $1.5 million each, with the naming at the discretion of the matching donors.

CHE is using the professorships to retain senior faculty or recruit top scholars in the college’s eight multidisciplinary research themes: community and family policy; economics and federal policy; fashion and technology; health and design; lifespan development; neuroscience; public health and nutrition; and sustainability.

The transformative gift is allowing the college to leverage support from other alumni and friends far into the future.

“Irwin and I are pleased to support the College of Human Ecology in furthering its teaching and multidisciplinary research across a broad range of natural, social and environmental issues,” Joan Jacobs said when the gift was announced. “As an alumna, I have benefited greatly from the education that I received and am pleased to help provide a similar outstanding opportunity to future students. We are delighted that this gift will bolster faculty renewal during a critical time for the college, and hope that it inspires others to support Human Ecology’s teaching, research and outreach mission.”

Joan, a nutritional sciences graduate, and Irwin, an electrical engineering graduate, have a long history of generosity to Cornell. They gave $133 million in 2014 to create the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City. They also established the Irwin M. and Joan K. Jacobs Scholars and Fellows Programs and the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Professorship, both in the College of Engineering, as well as the Joan Klein Jacobs Cornell Tradition Fellowship in Human Ecology.