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WITHIN THE FAMILY

Investing in People

When John Kluge ’37 was on campus on October 1, 2004, for a celebration of his 90th birthday and his devotion to Columbia, he spoke of his reasons for earmarking his gifts to the University for things such as financial aid, faculty endowments and educational programming enhancements.

“I’d rather by far invest in people than buildings,” he told the guests in Low Rotunda, a group that included many of the students and alumni whose lives he has helped change. “If I can infuse a mind to improve itself, that will pass on to their children, and to their children’s children.”

Kluge, 92, once again has stepped up in this regard, pledging $400 million for financial aid (see page 6), half of which will be dedicated to College students. Kluge previously has given Columbia more than $110 million to establish the Kluge Scholars Program, which has supported more than 500 College students with four-year scholarships; the Kluge Faculty Endowment; and other programs.

This is a remarkable gift whose magnitude and impact cannot be overstated, since it will impact thousands of students when fully implemented. It is the largest in the University’s history, the largest gift for financial aid to any school and the fourth-largest gift to any American school, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education.

The gift is the culmination of collaborative work by many people that began with Michael Sovern ’53, ’55L, president of the University from 1980–93, and continued with current president Lee C. Bollinger. It was especially satisfying for Dean Austin Quigley, whose relationship with Kluge goes back two decades to his time as a faculty member at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where Kluge has a home. Quigley recalls that he could barely get his suitcase unpacked in recent years before his host would tell him how much more enthusiastic he had become about funding financial aid and how much larger the gift was going to be. 

Kluge’s watershed gift got me to thinking about his concept of “investing in people” and how this is done, particularly here at Columbia, where all that we do is devoted to improving the education and life experience provided for our students. One direct way is through financial aid, and Kluge has enabled hundreds of students who could not otherwise afford a College education to reap its benefits.

There are many other ways as well. Those who endow faculty chairs are investing in the people who teach our students. Those who fund the construction or renovation of classrooms, laboratories and libraries are investing in our students by upgrading the facilities in which they learn. Those who contribute to the construction of residence halls, student centers, athletics facilities and community spaces, secular or religious, are investing in our students by enhancing College life and enriching their time on campus.

Everyone who donates to Columbia, whether it is $400 million donated by Kluge to financial aid or $1 donated by a College senior to the Senior Fund, is investing in people. And all of us who teach, counsel, coach or work here as administrators are investing in people as well, which is why most of us choose to be here in the first place.

Someone once pointed out to me that there are two groups of people in the world: those who trust and those who distrust. Those who trust go through life looking for positive results and working to achieve them; those who distrust go through life trying to avoid negative results and doing what they can to avoid them. It’s a basic difference in philosophy, and an informative way of looking at people.

Kluge is someone who trusts. He sees the potential for good in people and does what he can to bring it out, putting his considerable resources behind that effort.

The beneficiary of a scholarship when he attended the College, Kluge has said, “If it hadn’t been for Columbia, my path in life would have been completely different. The best thing I can do is to do something for other people that other people have done for me. If I can help disadvantaged students to experience the sense of a common enterprise and shared dreams that I knew as an undergraduate, then everything we accomplish will be more worthwhile.”

Investing in people — it’s a concept all would do well to follow.

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