Dear AU community,

Knowledge is a central pillar of our mission at American University. The creation and sharing of knowledge for positive change is a common purpose across our community. Our changemaking faculty lead critical research and teaching pursuits every day, exploring the world’s most pressing and complex questions and producing new scholarship that makes both an impact and a difference. Recognizing our faculty’s impact and supporting their future endeavors is one of the primary goals of the Change Can’t Wait campaign, which is approaching our $500 million goal. Today, I am pleased to announce a transformative campaign gift that will propel our pursuit of knowledge forward.

Bob and Arlene Kogod, the namesakes of the Kogod School of Business and AU’s most generous benefactors, have given $15 million to create three endowed chairs. Their support recognizes our outstanding faculty and helps continue the momentum of the university and the Kogod School of Business. The gift is the largest single contribution in the Kogod School’s history, and the Kogods are the second highest individual donors in the Change Can’t Wait campaign. Their support will further the pathbreaking scholarship of Kogod's faculty in key areas of academic focus. The Kogods’ longstanding partnership with AU includes a previously endowed chair in regional innovation and generous scholarships for students. We are grateful for their continued support for our mission and our community. We are also grateful for their inspiration. They are changemakers whose impact has changed the face and culture of Washington DC—not only in building communities, offices, and jobs, but also in improving education, the arts, and health care.

Under the leadership of Dean David Marchick and through the outstanding work of our faculty and staff, the Kogod School is reshaping business education. Kogod provides students with the opportunities to learn from our premier faculty, conduct hands-on work in their fields, interact with business leaders who are changing their sectors (including more than 15 CEOs this year alone), and operate at the intersections of business, government, and society. Earlier this year, the Kogod School won the prestigious Page Award for top sustainability curriculum in the country, joining previous winners Harvard, Duke, and Northwestern. In the last year, the Kogod School has garnered nearly as much philanthropic support as in the previous 10 years combined.

The new chairs, which will each be known as an Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in accordance with the donors’ wishes, will support excellence in finance, marketing, and sustainability.

The Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Finance will be held by Valentina Bruno, professor of finance and Kogod research professor. Professor Bruno studies topics at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance, where her research has built greater understanding of how global financial markets interact with the real economy, including during financial crises. Her groundbreaking work has been featured on the cover of The Economist magazine, in the top scholarly journals and in the halls of the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Professor Bruno is a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, a faculty research member at the European Corporate Governance Institute, and associate editor at the Journal of Banking and Finance. She has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Board and Council on Foreign Relations Fellow in International Economics. She holds a master’s degree in finance and economics and a PhD in finance from the London School of Economics.

Sonya A. Grier will serve as the Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Marketing. Professor Grier is a top scholar in her field and has won the American Marketing Association’s Thomas A. Kinnear award for scholarship five times, more than any other scholar in the history of the award. She won the American Marketing Award for Responsible Research for Marketing and was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame for the PhD Project, which works to increase diversity among faculty at business schools. As professor of marketing, her expertise spans issues of race, diversity, and equity in market domains at the intersection of business and society. She is a cofounder of the Race in the Marketplace Research Network which works to advance understanding of the role of race across diverse markets. She received her PhD in marketing from Northwestern University, where she also received her MBA and undergraduate degree, and previously served in a senior role at the Federal Trade Commission and as a member of the faculty at Stanford University.

The third Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair will focus on sustainability, a leadership area for Kogod and one of the most important topics in business and society today. Kogod, in partnership with the School of Public Affairs, will conduct a search for the inaugural sustainability chair, who will hold a joint appointment in both schools. With this new position, Kogod will have added five new faculty with expertise in sustainability in business in the last two years.

Each of these chairs highlights the extensive impact and ongoing progress happening within the Kogod School of Business and across AU. As one of the highest honors a faculty member can achieve, endowed chairs provide unique opportunities and support for our scholar-teachers and advance our overall research and teaching priorities. Through philanthropic support, we have funded eight endowed faculty positions in key strategic areas from neuroscience to economics to the arts during the campaign. The Kogod Eminent Scholar Chairs gift reflects American University’s momentum in the concluding phase of the Change Can’t Wait campaign. Thanks to our community of changemakers, we have raised more than $433 million to date, putting our $500 million goal in sight. In addition to the endowed chairs, record-setting fundraising over the past several years has supported scholarships and student thriving, advanced our engagement with the DC community and beyond, and bolstered institutional resources. 

Please join me in thanking Bob and Arlene Kogod for their inspiring generosity and congratulating professors Bruno and Grier on this well-deserved honor.

Onward!

Sylvia