An Endowed Chair That Must Be Assembled

Linnaeus University, a new Swedish institution created from the merger of Kalmar and Växjö Universities, seeks a scholar of marketing/entrepreneurship for the Ikea professorship of “life at home,” according to an advertisement in The Chronicle.

As a member of the faculty of economics and design, the job recipient is expected to “develop a team of innovative researchers and to build bridges to research in other areas such as sustainable interior design and wood technology and manufacturing,” the ad states. ”The candidate to be considered for the professorship should have documented expertise within the areas of life at home.”

An aptitude for assembling flat-pack furniture is presumably a bonus. 

Endowed chairs — so named because each is financed by its own endowment — are prestigious, sometimes controversial (see the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics), and frequently vexing for journalists who must struggle to gracefully insert into their articles job titles that are longer than most freight trains.

Herewith, our favorite endowed chairs, collected over the past few years:

• The La von Duddleson Krumb Professor in the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science
• The Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at the University of California at Davis
• The Champagne Chair of the Reims Management School
• The Pampered Chef Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency
• The Taco Bell Distinguished Professor in the School of Hospitality Business Management at Washington State University

Do you have a favorite endowed chair at your institution? Tell us about it in the comment box below. —Don Troop