Why they give: Richard Cox
Through the Faculty and Staff Campaign, University employees can help Pitt thrive by contributing to any of more than 2,000 scholarship, fellowship and professorship funds. Payroll deductions are available, and donors of $1,000 or more are recognized through the Chancellor’s Circle program.
Annually, nearly 3,000 Pitt employees take part in the campaign, from every part of the University. Their backgrounds, and reasons for giving, are as diverse as the Pitt community.
The University Times is profiling some Faculty and Staff Campaign donors.
*
When asked why he’s donated to Pitt’s Faculty and Staff Campaign for 27 consecutive years, School of Information Sciences faculty and alumnus Richard Cox says, “I’m just sort of programmed that way. I feel it’s just my responsibility to give back for all the good stuff I’ve gotten.”
Cox started giving when he arrived in 1988 as a lecturer and doctoral student, then continued supporting the Faculty and Staff Campaign as an assistant professor. Today he is a professor in archival studies, a specialization within the library and information sciences program, and supports the archives fund in his school.
“That fund is used to support students when they want to go to conferences,” he explains, and to bring in speakers for school programs.
During a term shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the fund brought in experts to lecture about the impact of the 9/11 attacks on archives and information systems. In the near future it will sponsor a guest lecture about presidential libraries.
“Any time a student says to me, ‘I’d really like to get to this conference,’” Cox says, “I ask how much we need, and we have funds there.”
—Marty Levine