Students will be studying cities and urbanization long into the future, thanks to the largest donation ever made to the University by a faculty member.
Professor emerita Louise Carroll Wade donated $1.2 million last year to establish the Carroll Visiting Professorship in Urbanization.
The professorship will rotate among the geography, history and political science departments to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the study of urbanization, said James Mohr, head of the history department.
The first person to fill the position is Larry Ford, a professor of geography from San Diego State University. He earned his doctorate in geography at the University in 1970.
Ford is teaching an undergraduate course in urbanization and a seminar on the new American downtown. Ford will be at the University for spring term.
He said urbanization is important for students to study because most of them will end up living in cities.
“Obviously we haven’t done a very good job of building cities,” he said. He listed problems with American urban areas, such as sprawl and economic and environmental degradation.
“We have become a ‘build and throwaway’ society,” Ford said.
The professorship will fill an important instructional void in the history department.
“Once professor Wade retired we were left without anyone doing the history of urbanization,” Mohr said. Wade retired five years ago and has taught a few courses since then.
The founding of the Carroll Professorship seemed typical of Wade’s character, Mohr said.
“She always cared a great deal about what went on in the classroom,” he said. “She has unbounded enthusiasm. Her courses were very popular.”
The gift was the largest ever made to the University by a faculty member, said David Begun, director of development for the college of arts and sciences.
There have been several six-figure donations, and an economics professor donated $1 million two years ago, Begun said.
Mohr said the size of Carroll’s endowment surprised him in “a wonderful way.”
“This is a gift she wants to give to future undergraduates,” he said.