New Haven, Connecticut -- Yale University has received a $20-million gift from Lee Bass, a member of the Bass family of Fort Worth, to support research and teaching in Western civilization.
“I believe that the study of the core institutions, ideas, and traditions of Western civilization is essential and valuable, and ought to be an integral part of education at Yale,” Mr. Bass said in a statement released by the university. Mr. Bass graduated from Yale in 1979.
The gift is the third $20-million donation to Yale from a member of the Bass family. A gift from Edward P. Bass last May established a Center for Biospheric Studies, and in October, Sid Richardson Bass, gave $20-million to strengthen the humanities at Yale. Each of the donors is an heir to the billion-dollar Bass fortune, made in oil.
The new gift will provide an endowment for seven senior professorships and four junior faculty positions in core areas of Western civilization, the university said. A portion of the gift will also be used to support a group of faculty members interested in establishing a new elective undergraduate program of common studies in Western civilization.
President Benno Schmidt also announced last week the appointment of three senior faculty members as the first Bass Scholars: Henry W. Broude, a professor of economics and economic history; Roberto Gonzalez-Echeverria, a professor of Hispanic and comparative literature; and Donald Kagan, who will be professor of history and classics and Western civilization.
Mr. Kagan, who is dean of Yale College, said the gift was important because it supports a fundamental activity of the university. “And to get a large grant in support of what you’re already doing, rather than something new, is especially delightful,” Mr. Kagan said.
Mr. Bass’s gift came as many institutions, Yale included, were taking steps to broaden their undergraduate programs to increase attention to ethnic and sexual minorities that historically have been excluded from the curriculum. Dean Kagan, who last fall urged members of the Class of 1994 to make the study of Western civilization the center of their education, said he did not view the Bass gift as a blow to multiculturalism.
“It doesn’t represent a loss for people interested in studying cultures other than the West,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of that at Yale. Even as this is being announced, the faculty has just approved a new major in international studies.”
Mr. Kagan said he was confident that the new Western civilization program would contain a diversity of opinion. The program, which is expected to begin in the fall of 1993, will focus on reading and discussing important works central to the intellectual development and major institutions of the West, from ancient Greece to modern times.
“We’re looking for people interested in examining the entire experience of the West,” he said. “Whatever attitudes you have toward the West are not relevant if you’re committed to studying it in an objective way.”