… the simple gratitude of former students for professors who were memorably kind to them. In these stories, students who go on to make some money come back to the school and endow scholarships to honor the professors.
Most recently, a Chinese couple who twenty years ago studied with David Kaplan, a music professor at the University of Saskatchewan, just gave a million dollars – the largest donation in its history – to the music school.
Kaplan… was singled out by the two former international students for his effort to help them navigate a new university, a new city and a new culture.
… “David Kaplan took them under his wing and gave them all kinds of encouragement and made sure they succeeded,” said current music department head Gerald Langner.
… Also a former student of Kaplan’s, Langner knows why Xu and Chen remembered their professor 20 after they left the U of S.
“Kaplan has inspired so many students,” Langner said. “He’s one of the best instructors I’ve ever had, period. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be in music right now.”
This method of a university getting money seems much more attractive to UD than the school, in a quid pro quo, putting its absolutely richest hedge fund guy on the board of trustees.
UD acknowledges that if the hedgie approach works, the university gets not one million but one billion. Yes. She can’t deny this. Game, set, and match. But…