Giving Opportunities for the College of Law

Gregory Gremillion, Major Gifts Officer, College of Law, will arrange for a campus visit, to explain the available funding opportunities and to illustrate how you can get involved in the exciting developments taking place on campus and at the College of Law. Greg can be contacted at gmgremil@loyno.edu or (504) 861-5758.

Endowment Gift Opportunities

Eminent Scholar Chair $600,000 and up

An eminent scholar chair is established with a gift of $600,000 or more to bring in a nationally recognized scholar in a designated field to the College of Law.

With a gift of $600,000, the College of Law applies to the State Board of Regents' Louisiana Education Quality Support Funds (LEQSF) for a match of $400,000. With a gift of $1,200,000, the College of Law applies for a match of $800,000.

The holder of the chair, selected after a national search, would focus his or her efforts on teaching/educational and research/scholarly activities, in which the teaching/educational focus would be pre-eminent. With the participation of external collaborators, the chair holder would conduct academic research related to the designated field and would disseminate findings in academic journals and in presentations to the academic community and public.

An eminent scholar chair at the College of Law would bring a superior level of expertise in a specific subject to the College of Law, its students, the university community, as well as the community of New Orleans.

The chair holder would be expected to provide academic leadership in the College of Law in the designated field and to create a visible and prestigious public interdisciplinary forum. The chair works to provide collaborative opportunities both inside and outside the university for students and other experts in the field. It is expected that a chair holder would provide leadership in the three traditional areas of academic responsibility: teaching, research and service.

Eminent scholar chairs significantly help Loyola to compete on the national level and greatly helps to increase our national ranking.

All references to the eminent scholar chair in official publications and on his or her correspondence both internally and externally, carry the official name of the chair. The donor would also be recognized at the Investiture Ceremony where the selected chair is formally named. As with other major gifts to the College of Law, you would be recognized in the College of Law’s For The Record publication and also in the university’s Loyola Magazine Donor Honor Roll issue.

Distinguished Endowed Professorship in Law $60,000 and up

An endowed professorship is established with a gift of $100,000 to distinguish an existing faculty member. It is possible, however, to endow a professorship with a gift of just $60,000. Using a matching gift from the State Board of Regents' Louisiana Education Quality Support
Funds (LEQSF), you may make a gift of $60,000 that is currently matched with a $40,000 grant from the LEQSF for the total of $100,000. A professorship may be selected in an area of interest to you, as long as that interest area is presently being taught within the College of Law, or the professorship may be unrestricted so that a larger field of candidates can be considered.

An endowed professor may use the income from the $100,000 endowment, approximately five and a half percent or $5,500 annually, to enhance teaching, research or scholarship activities. He or she may use the funds to attend conferences or special activities at which his or her presence would bring recognition to Loyola College of Law. The funds may be used to visit other universities to produce scholarly works or to pay research assistants to help with the faculty member's scholarly pursuits.

In total the College of Law has 19 fully endowed professorships and 6 partially endowed professorships that are awaiting completion of pledges or matching funds from the Board of Regents.

All references to the endowed professor in official publications and on his or her correspondence both internally and externally, carry the professorship's name. You would also be recognized at the Investiture Ceremony where the selected faculty member is formally named. As with other major gifts to the College of Law, you would be recognized in the College of Law’s For The Record publication and also in the university’s Loyola Magazine Donor Honor Roll issue.

Endowed Scholarship $25,000 and up

A major recruiting and retention tool, endowed scholarships serve to offset the College of Law tuition which is just over $26,000. Approximately $10 million of the College of Law’s $20 million endowment is restricted to scholarships. Our financial aid coordinator estimates that a student taking the full allowance for government subsidized and private lender loans borrows $18,500 per year. This still leaves a balance of $5,000 each year just to cover tuition and fees, not including books and living expenses. The result is that many students borrow up to a total of $36,000 by accessing other higher interest private lender loans. Given an average of $30,000 in loans each year, a full-time day student will graduate with $90,000 in debt.

Based on an approximate five and a half percent income from the endowment, a $25,000
endowment would produce about $1,375 annually in scholarship award(s). Similarly, a $35,000
endowment would produce about $1,925 and a $50,000 endowment would produce about $2,750 annually in scholarship award(s). Given the magnitude of students’ debt loads, a $1,375 scholarship award may not seem to be making much of an impact. However, if you consider that this is potentially relieving the student from borrowing that same amount from the government or a private lender, which will in turn be compounded by interest over many years (currently at a combined average interest rate of 4.9%), this award does make a significant difference for a student.

Possible criteria for this scholarship could be need-based and/or merit-based, stipends for student research assistants, given to one student or a designated number of students per year, to follow one student throughout his/her career as long as they continue to meet the minimum criteria, at the discretion of the dean, or as a stipend award for books and expenses above and beyond a full scholarship to attract highly competitive applicants to enroll.

As a donor to an endowed scholarship, one would be recognized in the university’s Loyola Magazine Donor Honor Roll issue.

Your Gift to the College of Law

Gifts to the College of Law can be made in many ways including an outright gift of cash, a pledge or a gift of stock. For a total gift of $25,000 to $35,000, you can pledge payments over one to three years. For a total gift of $50,000 or more, you can pledge payments over one to five years. Certainly, the shorter the pledge term, the greater the growth for an endowed fund and also the sooner we have access to the funds to implement your gift.

Naming Opportunities in the College of Law

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New Computer Equipment

The College of Law is cognizant of its students’ need to have access to the most up to date technology that we can provide. For this reason, we seek to expand our existing computer lab facilities for law students by adding new personal computers and printers.

To provide an incentive for donors to give gifts of computer equipment to educational institutions, the State of Louisiana offers a special tax benefit to donors of computer equipment to educational institutions where a donor gets a state income tax credit of 40% of the value of the donation. The donor, of course, also gets a federal and state tax deduction for the full value of the equipment. We recognize computer donations with a plaque affixed to each piece of equipment bearing the donor’s name or the name of the person in whose honor or memory the gift was made. The plaques are seen by faculty, staff and students each time they use a computer or printer that was donated.

Contact or call 504-861-5555 for more information about making a gift of new computer equipment to the College of Law.

Funding Priorities

In keeping with the university’s general fundraising initiatives the College of Law has defined its top three funding priorities as follows:

Student Scholarship Support

Donors may establish named, endowed scholarship funds with a minimum gift of $25,000. Once a scholarship is endowed, 5% - 6% interest income is earned on the corpus every year in perpetuity and given out as a student scholarship award. Contact or call 504-861-5555 for more information.
Donors may make contributions of any amount to augment existing endowed scholarships, such as the Law Dean’s Scholarship Fund, a general endowment for scholarship awards given to students who demonstrate both need and merit. A complete listing of endowed scholarship funds can be found in the Scholarships and Financial Aid section of the Law Bulletin.
Donors may make gifts of $1,000 or more to establish a one time, annual scholarship. The entire scholarship gift is given to a student in the year that the gift is made. A complete listing of annual scholarships can be found in the Scholarship and Financial Aid section of the Law Bulletin.

Faculty Support

The most popular endowment to support faculty teaching and scholarship at the College of Law has been the endowed professorship. A donor makes a gift of $60,000 which is then matched by the State of Louisiana’s Board of Regents with a $40,000 grant, for a total endowment fund of $100,000. The faculty member selected to hold the endowed professorship then may use the interest income earned on the endowment to enhance his or her scholarly research or teaching, or for travel to present papers, attend lectures or conferences. Our existing professorships are as follows:

Adams and Reese Professorship in Civil Law - held by James Viator
Adams & Reese Professorship II - held by Bobby Harges
Henry F. Bonura, Jr. Professorship - held by Jeanne Woods
Alvin R. Christovich Professorship - held by Marcel Garsaud, Jr.
De Van Daggett Professorship - held by Henry D. Gabriel
Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrère & Denègre Professorship - held by Dian Tooley
John J. McAulay Professorship - held by Patrick R. Hugg
Eleanor Legier Sarpy Professorship - held by Raphael J. Rabalais, Jr.
Ferris Family Professorship - held by M. Isabel Medina
Ted & Lovana Frois Professorship - held by B. Keith Vetter
Dean Marcel Garsaud, Jr. Professorship - held by David R. Normann
Louisiana Outside Counsel Health & Ethics Foundation Professorship - held by David Gruning
Janet Mary Riley Professorship - held by William P. Quigley
Léon Sarpy Professorship - held by Kathryn Venturatos Lorio
Victor H. Schiro Professorship - held by James M. Klebba
Fanny Edith Winn Professorship - held by Dennis L. Rousseau
Michaelle Pitard Wynne Distinguished Professorships ( I & II) - held by visiting faculty members

Other endowments which support law faculty and can be augmented with a gift of any amount:

Law Faculty Research Fund - interest income from this endowment provides faculty members with stipends to conduct research, particularly during the summer months.
Student-faculty Research Funds can be established with a minimum gift of $10,000. They provide stipends for students to serve as research assistants for faculty members. Existing student-faculty research funds which may be augmented with gifts of any amount include the Alfred J. Bonomo, Sr. Family Scholarship and the Rosaria Sarah LaNasa Memorial Scholarship Fund. Descriptions of these funds can be found in the Scholarships and Financial Aid section of the Law Bulletin.