My late colleague and friend Daniel Nathans--professor, interim president, and Nobelist--wrote eloquently about what it meant to be on the faculty at Johns Hopkins.

Teaching is a sacred trust at Hopkins and an integral part of almost everything we do. It is a given here, signaled by example, that only our best efforts are worthy of us...There's something special about this place, emanating from an inspiring history. It has to do with extraordinary freedom, collegiality, and unrelenting pursuit of excellence...and with pride in the University and Hospital that tempers parochial interest.

I am constantly awed by the richness and depth of our faculty. These are truly among the world's finest minds: men and women who are devoted teachers, brilliant researchers and scholars, compassionate and skilled clinicians. What contributions to the world we make daily because of them!

For more than 125 years, several factors have shaped the exceptional Hopkins faculty, beginning with President Daniel Coit Gilman's insistence on none but the best for the first professors. He understood that excellence begets excellence.

This tradition of excellence has been carried forward, thanks in no small part to our benefactors. Johns Hopkins boasts almost 300 named professorships, the earliest of which was endowed in 1889, only 23 years after the University opened its doors. The Johns Hopkins Initiative ushered in the 21st century with the addition of more than 130 new named chairs--including two deanships.

The importance of endowed positions cannot be overstated. They enable the University to recognize extraordinary teaching, research, and medical care, and are often critical in recruiting and retaining top faculty. They help ensure the financial security of the University. They also honor the donor or the donor's designee in perpetuity.

An endowed professorship does far more than underwrite the salary of a distinguished faculty member. The annual income from a professorship endowment may be used in a range of creative ways--for student stipends, crucial equipment, travel--to advance the work of the chairholder, actually making each endowed position a center of learning and excellence. With the chairholder as the nucleus, these centers draw the most promising students and young researchers to Hopkins.

In the pages that follow, we honor the individuals for whom endowed professorships are named, the donors who have made these centers of excellence possible, and the faculty members who have been named to endowed chairs.

This website is dedicated to these individuals. I thank you and salute you all.

William R. Brody, President