|
A. Richard Diebold Jr. has ties to some of the most prestigious
universities in the nation. He is a professor emeritus of anthropology
at the University of Arizona. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale and
taught at Harvard and Stanford. Yet when he decided to make a
gift of $5 million to endow fellowships for graduate students
in the humanities, he chose to give to a university where he
has neither taught nor studied. He chose to give to UCLA.
Diebold's interest in UCLA began in 1992,
when he joined Friends and Alumni of Indo-European Studies. UCLA
is the only university in the country to offer a dedicated program
in Indo-European studies, Diebold's principal area of research.
It is an interdisciplinary field that examines the history and
prehistory of the Indo-European languages and their speakers
and cultures, which are spread from India, Central Asia, and
the Near East to Europe and beyond. The field makes use of two
of Diebold's specialties, linguistic anthropology and philology.
 |
Kanehiro
Nishimura's
tuition is supported by an endowment established
by A. Richard Diebold Jr. |
|
For over a decade, Diebold has helped to strengthen
the program through his dedicated support, which includes the
creation of fellowships and a professorship. His latest gift,
his largest to UCLA, will create fellowships for the entire humanities
division.
As a professor emeritus, Diebold understands
that teaching and research of the highest caliber depend on the
presence of talented graduate students, and that fellowships are
a vital tool for attracting them.
Diebold's gift is already
poised to make a difference in the department of linguistics.
Arguably the top linguistics program in the country, the department
recently saw six of its professors courted by a competing private
university. All six agreed to remain at UCLA after the university
agreed to increase support for their graduate students, a top
priority for the faculty. Resources drawn from the Diebold endowment
will supply some of the funds needed to make this happen.
The endowment also advances Ensuring Academic Excellence, Chancellor Albert Carnesale's recently launched initiative to help recruit and retain the best faculty and students.
Dieter Gunkel, the first Diebold Fellow
in Indo-European studies, sees Diebold's
support as essential to this process. He says, "I think the sort of generosity
Professor Diebold exhibits is one of the highest forms of philanthropy. "Support
for graduate students is important no matter what the discipline, but it may
be most important for disciplines like Indo-European studies, where the products
of research might not always be easily translatable into capital."
Unless, of course, we are talking about intellectual capital. That is something that benefits us all.
|
