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Stanford University Announces Largest Gift In Its History - $1.1 Billion From John And Ann Doerr

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Stanford University announced today that it has received the largest gift in the university’s history - a $1.1 billion commitment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur John Doerr and his wife Ann.

The gift will be used to establish the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, which will officially launch this September. The commitment, together with almost $600 million in other gifts from additional private donors (some of which are detailed in the university release), will enable Stanford to create its first new school in 70 years, a multidisciplinary unit spanning several academic departments and research centers that will advance research, education and service into climate and sustainability challenges.

Stanford said that Arun Majumdar had been appointed as the school’s inaugural dean. Majumdar holds the Jay Precourt Professorship at Stanford and is also professor of mechanical engineering, in addition to being a senior fellow and former co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The new school will focus on eight areas of scholarship: climate change, Earth and planetary sciences, energy technology, sustainable cities, the natural environment, food and water security, human society and behavior, and human health and the environment.

It will be organized around three academic structures:

  • Academic departments with about 90 existing Stanford faculty initially, with plans to add an additional 60 faculty over ten years. The existing faculty will be drawn from the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), along with faculty from other units. The anticipated faculty hires will focus on energy, climate science, and sustainable development and environmental justice.
  • Interdisciplinary institutes, including the existing Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy will become part of the school, joined by a new Institute for Sustainable Societies.
  • A Sustainability Accelerator that will drive new policy and technology solutions will help provide laboratories, tools, and expertise to help researchers refine and scale prototypes. The accelerator will also support interdisciplinary policy design and engagement with external stakeholders.

“These gifts will help Stanford bring its full effort to bear on solving the most complex problems in climate and sustainability, and on training the next generation of students who are eager and driven to address these challenges,” said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the announcement. “We have designed a school for the future combining knowledge generation and impact, building on the strong foundation established through Stanford’s history of scholarship in Stanford Earth and our other schools and interdisciplinary institutes. We are deeply grateful to John and Ann for partnering with us to realize the school’s mission, as well as to the other generous lead donors who are leveraging their resources to help us create a more livable future.”

Plans call for the school to be located in a new Sustainability Commons, on the west side of the Stanford campus. The Commons will be anchored by two new flagship buildings that will meet LEED Platinum certification standards. The Commons will also include the existing Green Earth Sciences Research Building and the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building. A promenade will connect the academic buildings, rooftop garden, and multiple outdoor gathering spaces.

“Stanford is making a bold, actionable, and enduring commitment to tackle humanity’s greatest challenge, and we have deep conviction in its ambition and abilities,” said John and Ann Doerr. “We believe the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will be a model for the interdisciplinary collaboration required to solve this existential challenge – and set a new standard for scholarship in the 21st century.”

After working at Intel and founding other companies, John Doerr amassed much of his fortune, estimated by Forbes to total about $11.2 billion, as chairman of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which was an early investor in such businesses as Google, Amazon, DoorDash, and Slack.

Ann Doerr serves as chair of Khan Academy, is a former board member and current advisory board member of the Environmental Defense Fund, and was a former trustee of Rice University.

According to Stanford’s release, the Doerrs have previously supported several other university priorities, including Stanford Medicine, Stanford Cancer Center, School of Engineering, Athletics, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and Stanford Live.

The Doerr’s gift is the second largest private donation to an American university in history, surpassed only by Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion gift to Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater.




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