THE SECOND DEGREE:

The $120 Million QuestionThe $120 Million QuestionWhat the largest donation ever to a college will mean for the Annenberg School. The Annenberg School has hit the $120 million jackpot. Now the question on everyone's mind is, how does a school – which until recently had only a $6 million endowment – spend the $120 million that billionaire alumnus Walter Annenberg donated this summer? It doesn't. Or at least not all of it. Annenberg Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson said $20 million will establish and fund the brand-new Annenberg Public Policy Center, set to begin operation next fall. The remaining $100 million will be added to the University's general endowment funds, with all profits earmarked for the Annenberg School. So don't expect ambitious building projects or expensive additions to the school anytime soon. "What everyone assumes with this large endowment is that you're suddenly going to start seeing new things happen," Jamieson said. "The biggest misconception about all this is that with that amount of money you'll see just lavish spending," she said. "There's not going to be a swimming pool on the roof." Virginia Clark, the University's vice president for development and alumni relations, said the gift to the endowment "will provide in the long term for the health and well-being of a very fine school, and will ensure that it can continue to be the finest communications school in the country." Clark said the money in the endowment will provide income to the school for use in developing courses and curriculum and research projects. No special attention is given to the donation from Annenberg after it enters the general endowment, either. "The same people will be handling it who handle all the University's investments," Clark said. But although Annenberg's gift to the endowment is handled as part of the University's general fund, gains from the money "are for exclusive use at Annenberg." Jamieson said that although "you have the security of knowing that the money will be there for a very long time, it doesn't really change the basic range of finance that you have available, because you don't spend the principle." And Annenberg Professor Joseph Turow said he does not expect that faculty members will see too many changes in the future. "You have to realize that while it's an astonishingly generous gift, it's not like we're giving it to the faculty. It's to support ongoing programs," he said. Turow added he is grateful for the gift, saying "we've always been very optimistic about our future, and this helps cement that and give us confidence to move on." · The one tangible change at the Annenberg School will be a new and unique public policy center funded by $20 million of the donation. The center will concentrate on three areas of focus, devised by Jamieson. The primary mission of the center is for these areas to help bridge the gaps between the different schools comprising the University. The three areas currently proposed are "Information and Society," "Media and the Developing Mind" and "Media and the Democratic Dialogue." Jamieson said those topics were chosen because Annenberg faculty and other University faculty share expertise in the three fields, and because they are areas that "we think are important public policy areas in communications." "The center is simply going to be trying to get the existing dialogue refined and to create some financial structure for people who already ought to be talking to each other," Jamieson said. Jamieson said she introduced the idea of the center about a year and a half ago. Last year, armed with a letter of support from school deans, Jamieson approached Walter Annenberg to convince him that the center would be "an important contribution to the University." One of the many unknowns right now is where the center will be housed. A decision on the location for the new center should be made by spring, but Jamieson said there is no room at Annenberg School to house the center. Jamieson will oversee the new center, which has an operating budget separate from the school itself. "It's housed in the Annenberg School for administrative convenience, but it's not going to be a vehicle for funding the Annenberg faculty and the Annenberg students," she said. "We have a separate endowment for that." The center will support 15 scholars in residence – three scholars for each of the three current focus areas and an additional six scholars to work together on a yet undecided topic of inquiry. The special topic, according to Jamieson, will be "as broadly based as possible, will link scholars from at least three schools at the University and will not be a communications topic." One of the most unique aspects of the center is that it will provide a focused forum for scholars to engage in their research, as opposed to the more common degree-granting public policy centers. "The model for this is going to be a research institute," Jamieson said. "It's not an attempt to duplicate existing [University] departments. We decided early on in the process that there wasn't a model for this. We looked at other centers initially, and we looked systematically – they're much bigger than this is and are designed to be degree-generating." In providing research money for both pre- and post-doctoral scholars, the center will create valuable opportunity for graduate students on campus. "Graduate funding is at a premium on this campus," Jamieson said, "and this puts 10 new units of graduate funding there every year repetitively." "Ordinarily if you wanted to get pre-doc, or post-doc funding, you'd have to write a major grant, and there's a lot of competition, and then you probably wouldn't get it," Jamieson said. With the new center, "it's already here on campus." Open competition for the slots will begin in October or November, Jamieson said. For the first two years only internal University candidates will be eligible, after which competition will open up nationally. · The center will be a University-wide resource, Jamieson said, even though only a handful of scholars will receive the direct funding. "We will have people coming to campus who wouldn't have come otherwise, so a student who is interested in those activities is going to see more intellectual activity," Jamieson said. "And everything the center has is going to be open to the campus community." Jamieson said she also sees the center playing a major role in moving University faculty into the national political arena. "What I anticipate is that you're going to see more people from Penn speaking on national public policy matters in Congress and in the media as a result of this public policy center," she said. The center will also help create a directory of faculty for distribution to Congressional staffs and aid in the generation of public policy papers. "Penn is under-represented in Congress, Penn is under-represented in the media, and if anything, the Annenberg school is over-represented." "There's no reason that other Penn faculty from different schools shouldn't be comparably situated in the limelight," she added. "For example, Penn faculty don't testify before Congress as often as they ought to." Jamieson said the real appeal of the new center will be its mission to become a "cross-disciplinary" center that unites the diverse schools at the University. "This center is going to be different than anyone else's model since we start with a very generous amount, and on other campuses they set up a free standing structure and then it has to fight everyone else for resources," she said. Another difference, according to Jamieson, will be the center's focus. "You don't want to duplicate something that everyone else is doing," she said. "The more traditional centers look at press fairly narrowly, and try to examine whether reporters are doing their jobs well. There is no need for one more public policy center that does that." Despite Jamieson's many clear goals for the center, some things will have to remain unknown until the human component is added. "Right now what we have is just an outline. We have the areas, but the human beings who are competitively selected are going to give the center an identity."

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