UA College of Optical Sciences Receives $20M Gift for Faculty Endowed Chairs

The University of Arizona (UA) College of Optical Sciences announced that it has received a $20 million pledge to support 10 new endowed faculty positions. The gift comes from the college's founding dean, Professor Emeritus James C. Wyant, and his family. It is the largest gift for endowed faculty chair positions in the university's history.

Known widely throughout the optics industry for his academic and professional leadership, Wyant has a history of co-founding successful Tucson-based businesses in optics, including WYKO Corp. and 4D Technology Corp.

In 2013, Wyant made a historic $10 million gift to the college for graduate student scholarships in a campaign called FoTO, or Friends of Tucson Optics. As a result of his initial gift, more than 250 additional donors contributed to the campaign and 30 first-year graduate student scholarship endowments were established, each bearing the name of a donor.

Established in 1964, the College of Optical Sciences is highly regarded for its innovation and interdisciplinary research. It is now the largest and most diverse academic optics education and research program in the nation. In addition to awarding more than 2800 degrees since 1964, the college is recognized for the impact of its research and private-sector engagements, including a prolific intellectual property portfolio that has contributed strongly to the UA's patents and licenses in recent years.