The chairs have been endowed by foundations and individual donors, each gift matched by an anonymous donor

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The Rutgers University Board of Governors has approved the establishment of three new endowed chairs in cancer genomics, Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration research and the philosophy of religion.

The three new chairs have been endowed by foundations and individual donors. Each of the gifts has been matched by $1.5 million from an anonymous donor as part of an earlier $27 million challenge grant to create a total of 18 new endowed chairs at Rutgers.

The Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Endowed Chair in Cancer Genomics was established with a $1.5 million gift from an anonymous donor. The MacMillans, for whom the chair is named, have been generous supporters of Rutgers University for many years. Housed in the Department of Genetics in Rutgers University-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences, the chair will enhance the understanding of the mechanisms of cancer and help lead to improvements in the prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Duncan MacMillan is a member of the Class of 1966 and a cofounder of Bloomberg LP. He is a past member of the Rutgers University Board of Governors, an emeritus member of the Rutgers Board of Trustees and a current member of the Rutgers University Foundation Board of Overseers.

The Krieger Klein Endowed Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurodegeneration Research was established with a gift of $1.5 million from Herbert C. and Jacqueline Krieger Klein to the Brain Health Institute, a joint initiative of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences. Herbert Klein, a member of the Class of 1951, is an attorney, real estate investor and former member of the New Jersey General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives. He has served on the Rutgers Board of Trustees and is an emeritus member of the Rutgers University Foundation Board of Overseers.

Additionally, the Board of Governors has approved the creation of the William P. Alston Chair for the Philosophy of Religion. Endowment of the chair was made possible by a $2.7 million-dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation which supported the activities of the Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion during the last three years. The chair, which is named for William P. Alston, a distinguished philosopher who taught at Rutgers from 1971 to 1976, will be in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick.

Endowed chairs, a fundraising priority for Rutgers, strengthen the university’s stature and help recruit scholars who are among the best in their fields. They also provide permanent resources for the academic disciplines in which they are housed and enable faculty members to pursue promising avenues of research.

Established in 1766, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is America’s eighth oldest institution of higher learning and one of the nation’s premier public research universities, educating more than 67,000 students and serving people throughout New Jersey. Rutgers University-New Brunswick is the only public institution in New Jersey represented in the prestigious Association of American Universities. Rutgers-New Brunswick is also a member of the Big Ten Conference and its academic counterpart, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation – a consortium of 15 world-class research universities.