Any guesses on when UChicago officially changes its name to Pritzker University?
@CU123 I think it will still be called University of Chicago with a school named Pritzker within the university.
…difficult to portray the sarcastic humor in my post.
CU123, I’m a bit lost too, please explain.
$100M is a sizable gift
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/100-million-commitment-launches-pritzker-school-molecular-engineering
but it’s not even 10% of this one
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19/largest-gift-ever-higher-education-will-make-johns-hopkins-need-blind
and Hopkins doesn’t mind, and it’s not going to be called Bloomberg U., so is there anything I’m missing here that prompts the sarcasm?
And of course, there’s more…
https://thebestschools.org/features/most-generous-alumni-donors/
a lot more…
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Major-Private-Gifts-to-Higher/128264
I am glad that U of Chicago is getting into molecular engineering, about time. They have good sciences but could beef up applied sciences. Who is Pritzker ?
Pritzker is U of C’s med school. Thats nothing new, I bet given its rank.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/university-of-chicago-04033
One of them is the Governor of Illinois. But he’s but one member of a family that largely made its fortune by co-founding Hyatt.
Think of them as the Chicago version of the Rockefellers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker_family
As for what Pritzker is - it’s the medical school (named in 1968) and now also the name of the School of Molecular Engineering
Thanks, that helps understand the sarcasm!
Pritzker University? Are you kidding? They’d be better off naming it Hyatt University. The Hyatt brand is much better known worldwide, and will surely attract many more new applications, if that’s the goal.
@SkiEurope - also, the school of law at another major university up the street.
Pritzker is a big name in Chicago but aren’t they personally connected more with Stanford than UChicago?
Love the idea of Hyatt U. Maybe their next academic building can have open balconies and a grand atrium: https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/california/hyatt-regency-san-francisco/sfors
How’s about a rebranding statement - “Country Club U.”
Booth gave more money than the Pritzkers and he only got a BSchool. I bet the Law School’s naming rights is high too - adjusted for inflation and the growth of Dimensional Funds, Booths donation is now allegedly worth 1Billion, so the Pritzkers need to pony up more.
I am still upset that Ken Griffin only paid $125 million and got the naming right to our crown jewel Dept. of Economics. John Paulson had to pay $400 million to get his name on Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science. Our Econ. department has a far bigger impact over the years in the study of economics than Harvard Engineering in its respective field.
@85bears46 - best guess on why it was $125 mill would be that it was the best $$ offer with the fewest contingencies.
Or they should have kept Ted Snyder for a few more years to help sell the naming rights of Econ Department… and the Molecular Engineering school too (I bet he could have gotten the school more $$$)
If there were additional dollars to be gotten for the econ. department and the current crop of economists there couldn’t make it happen . . .
Chicago (the metropolis) has any number of ultra-rich families whose names are not general-public brands like “Rockefeller,” “Gates,” or “Trump,” but who are A-listers in the philanthropic and political worlds. The Pritzkers are definitely among them, as are the Crowns and Irving Harris’ family. Various things throughout the University of Chicago (and other universities as well) are branded with their names.
I have said it before, but there are only two elite colleges with geographic names that have the opportunity to sell naming rights: UChicago and UPenn. All the rest are taken (yes I know Princeton is named after the town, but at this point it is better known than the town).
I would bet that if these colleges tried, they could get about $10B for naming rights, which would put these colleges on a completely different financial trajectory, and able to compete with HYP for the best talent across all departments. I hope that some people in the college are considering this.
One possibility: * Gates University of Chicago (with the “of Chicago” to be dropped later)
Gates, Bezo and WB have the money but they are not likely to donate their fortune to just one single university.
Recently I have gone on a college tour with my kid and we had seen two Bill & Melinda Gates Center/Hall for CS. So the Gates seems to prefer to diversify their donation to different universities.
This is not new. Many years ago I discovered that there seemed to be a Rockefeller Center/Hall in many of the schools I visited.
Well, at $10B, it wouldn’t be their entire fortune for anyone you listed.