The Daily O’Collegian

Faculty reaction to Boone Picken’s latest gift of $100 million to academics has been generally positive.

“Boone Pickens is setting us in a new direction and we owe him a sincere and hardy thanks,” Bob Darcy said.

Darcy is a political science professor and has been with OSU for 31 years.

“This is the ladder that Boone has leaned against the wall for us, we still have a lot of climbing to do,” he said.

The generous donation from Pickens is by law eligible to be matched dollar for dollar through the state’s Endowed Chair Program, which has many obligations to match donations to other schools.

“The state has passed a bond; now they have $100 million to fund Endowed Chairs, about $16 million will go to other schools while $84 million will be split between OU and OSU,” said Gary Shutt, OSU director of communications.

“The state still has an obligation to match the rest of the donation.” Shutt said

“I was thrilled to hear of the gift, I thought it was awesome,” said Ron Thrasher, sociology professor

“The gift could lead to a better learning environment for OSU students.”

“What OSU needs to move into the future is top academics and a great faculty,” said Dr… Eric Reitan, a philosophy professor.

With the recent donation professorships are expected to increase significantly, creating smaller classrooms.

“Smaller classrooms are much better, the ideal size is 15 to 20 students,” Reitan said.

“The real benefit of his gift is that education at OSU is being properly honored, anytime a private citizen donates to education or any worthwhile organization, that is a good thing, ”Louis Sylvester, a teaching assistant in English, said. “Having more professors doesn’t automatically mean that the new positions will be filled with qualified candidates.”

Darcy hoped the move would lead to changes for OSU pay structure for faculty.

“We are very lucky to have a president like Hargis,” Darcy said. “I hope he addresses the problem of salary inversion because our distinguished professors are getting paid less than new teachers, creating a bad morale throughout the faculty. At OU this is the opposite. For the past 20 years 80 percent of funds from the endowed chair program have been going to OU, that’s hundreds of millions we have lost the opportunity to get.”

There are hopes that other alumni would follow in the steps of Pickens, which would help us catch up. “This is the first step,” Darcy said.