Counting Chairs

More universities are appointing endowed chairs in the field of entreprenuership.

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One way to measure the clout of an academic specialty is to count the number of endowed chairs and professorships it commands. By that standard, entrepreneurship wields a big stick these days. According to a new survey by Jerome A. Katz, associate director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies of Saint Louis University, the nation's universities now have 89 endowed positions in the field of entrepreneurship -- up from fewer than 10 in the early 1970s.

Baylor University in Houston, with six endowed positions in entrepreneur-ship, has the most of any American institution. Harvard and the University of Texas at Austin are tied for second with five each, and the University of Pennsyl-vania is third, with four. When you add up the dollars, however, Harvard leads the pack. Each of its five entrepreneurship positions has been funded with $1.5 million from private sources.

And how much might it cost to get a position endowed in the name of someone you know and love? Katz reports that the median endowment for a professorship is $325,000. For a chair, the figure is $1 million. -- Paul B. Brown

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