Sometimes gratitude to a university takes the form of a letter, sometimes of an annual donation.
And sometimes it takes the form of $371,5 million.
The American billionaire and entrepreneur David Duffield, a Cornell alumnus, has made the largest single gift in the university's entire history. Duffield graduated from Cornell twice — he earned an engineering degree in 1962 and then an MBA in 1964. He later built a career in software and became a co-founder of companies such as PeopleSoft and Workday.
The new gift will go primarily toward the development of the College of Engineering. $250 million will form a long-term endowment, another $50 million will be directed to educational programs, and the remaining funds will help modernize laboratories, support students and faculty, and advance research in the fields of AI, quantum technologies and engineering for medicine.
And the results are already appearing. From these funds, Cornell has allocated $25 million for hands-on engineering education — student project teams, work in laboratories and the creation of their own technologies. Another $13,5 million were directed to the development of a new center for quantum research.
And $371,5 million is far from Duffield's first gift to his university. In total, he has donated to Cornell already more than $550 million, including $100 million for the expansion of the engineering building. In his honor, the College of Engineering is now named Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering.
And the story itself became the final chord of Cornell's enormous campaign To Do the Greatest Good. In five years, the university raised nearly $6,8 billion from more than half a million donors. Of that, over $544 million went toward expanding access to education: hundreds of new scholarships were created for students.
It makes for a beautiful circle: once, the university gave Duffield an education that helped him build a career in technology.
Decades later, he returned funds to the university that will now help the next generation of engineers build their own future.
From the sum of $250 million they will create a permanent Duffield Legacy Fund — an endowment whose returns the engineering college will be able to use for many years for strategic projects and new opportunities. Another $50 million will be directed separately to priorities related to the quality of engineering education.
The remaining approximately $71,5 million form the Duffield Launch Fund — money for more immediate and concrete tasks: upgrading the college's infrastructure, developing research laboratories, supporting faculty and students, as well as research in the fields of quantum engineering, human health technologies, artificial intelligence and data-driven decision-making.
Part of the funds has already been given a specific purpose. $25 million will go into the endowment for hands-on student learning: project teams, work in research laboratories, the development and testing of their own technologies and other hands-on programs.
Another $13,5 million have already been directed to the quantum field: $10 million — for the creation of a modern research facility of about 10 000 square feet, and another $3,5 million — for joint research projects in the field of quantum technologies.
That is, this is not simply a "gift to the university": the money is in fact divided between a long-term fund, student education, laboratories, faculty and research into the future — AI, quantum technologies and medical engineering.
