Why Do Endowments Matter - Advancement - UAB

A CONVERSATION WITH UAB PRESIDENT RAY L. WATTS, MD

What do endowed faculty positions do for UAB?

Simply put, they are the key to attracting and keeping top faculty. Our best people are approached by other institutions nearly every day, and in order to keep them—and to bring other world-class faculty in every discipline to UAB—endowments are crucial.

What does holding an endowed position mean to a faculty member?

Having held endowed chairs myself, including two here at UAB, I think there are two primary reasons why they matter. One is recognition, because in American higher education, being named to an endowed chair is the highest honor a faculty member can achieve. Second, and more important, an endowed professorship or chair generates spendable funds to support the holder’s work—to advance research by funding projects or people in a lab; helping fund work by students in that lab or in the classroom; and to fund travel to professional meetings and conferences that foster collaboration and advance scholarly work.

Why do donors make gifts to create endowed faculty positions?

Every donor has his or her own reasons, but I think the common factor is that our donors truly believe in UAB’s capacity to change the world. They understand that attracting and keeping the best faculty is critical to our ability to develop new knowledge and put it into action. Some donors want to honor a loved one, or pay forward a gift they feel they’ve received, either through their own UAB educational experience or, quite often, from a physician or care team who helped them through a health crisis. Some want to fight a disease that took a loved one from them too soon. And some donors, especially our corporate friends and community leaders, believe that by investing in UAB, they are ensuring that the most talented students will receive a great education from the best professors and mentors, so that they will be prepared to lead.

What’s the difference between a professorship and a chair?

An endowed professorship has a corpus of at least $500,000; for an endowed chair, the minimum is $1.5 million. Each produces annual spendable income of about 4.5 percent, based on the 5-year moving market average, which is available to the holder for his or her academic priorities.

How many more endowed chairs do you think UAB needs?

As of May 2025, UAB has more than 300 endowed chairs and professorships. As our University continues to move forward, our need for endowed positions will continue to grow. And in every school across this campus, there are many outstanding faculty who are deserving of this recognition, and who would take those resources and make great things happen with them. So until every one of our best people holds an endowed professorship or chair, we will continue to make those a top priority for philanthropic and institutional investment.

For information on how you can establish an endowed faculty position, including how to do that through your estate plan, contact Joyner Crane, Assistant Director of Gift Administration and Data, [email protected]; 205.996.7317.