Peter Paul gives $1.5 million for new faculty
Ten career development professorships available
In an effort to help young faculty further their careers, entrepreneur Peter Paul has pledged $1.5 million to the institution that furthered his own.
Paul (GSM’71), the president of the mortgage banking company Paul Financial, LLC, will give the University $1.5 million over the next five years to establish 10 career development professorships. To be eligible, faculty members must be within the first two years of their appointment to BU.
“The Career Development Professors started by Peter Paul will launch the careers of future generations of new faculty at Boston University,” says University President Robert A. Brown. “This forward-looking gift will support the future excellence of our University.”
The Paul family’s connection to BU is well established: Paul’s father, Samuel E. Paul (MED’37), graduated from the School of Medicine, and Paul received an SMG Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in 2003, was named to the Board of Overseers in 2004, and became a University trustee in 2005.
“I am very impressed by Bob Brown’s leadership, and my pledge reflects my commitment to help him bring BU to the next level of urban research universities,” says Paul. “By recruiting and retaining some of the best and the brightest young professors, and by attracting partners to financially support this endeavor in the future, I’m confident that Boston University’s educational quality and stature as an institution will be significantly enhanced.”
Paul, who received a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from BU’s Graduate School of Management, is the founder and CEO of the Headlands Mortgage Company. He took Headlands public and raised more than $110 million for the company before its merger in 1999 with GreenPoint Financial Corporation. In 1999, Paul was named Northern California’s Financial Services Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.
Paul is currently also the owner and president of Grove Street Winery in Sonoma, Calif., chairman of the Headlands Foundation, which raises funds for Bay Area underprivileged children and their families, and an avid supporter of the Russian Arts Foundation.
The professorships established by Paul’s gift will be awarded throughout all disciplines and will be selected by the president and the provost from a group of nominees proposed by the deans of the schools and colleges.