Thank You, Mr. Pardee! $25M Gift for Pardee School Building
Boston University alum Frederick S. Pardee (Questrom’54, Hon.’06) has pledged a new gift of $25 million to further support the school that bears his name, five years after he donated the same amount to endow and establish the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. The gift provides initial funding for a future stand-alone building for the Pardee School which will bring together the various units of the school. This gift brings Pardee’s total support to BU’s comprehensive fundraising campaign to $50 million, making him one of the University’s largest supporters.
Speaking to BUToday, Boston University President Robert A. Brown said, “Fred Pardee has an amazing vision for how education and scholarship with a global focus can help shape our world… His generosity has converted this vision into the Pardee School of Global Studies as an enduring academic unit focused on this goal.”
The Pardee School of Global Studies was created in 2014 out of Boston University’s longstanding commitment to global issues, the legacy of excellence of the many academic units that now constitute the School, and the vision and generosity of the benefactor whose name it bears.
University Provost, Jean Morrison, added that the BU is thrilled about Mr. Pardee’s most recent gift, and “his long-standing and continuing support for various elements of our global efforts has ensured that we have outstanding programs and an outstanding School of Global Studies. We are all deeply grateful to Fred for his generosity, which will have long-lasting impact on BU and the world as our graduates go on to become leaders of their field.”
Adil Najam, Dean of the Pardee School, described Pardee to BU Today as a “serial transformer of the University,” and says he has a genuine desire to help shape how the world approaches and solves giant global challenges.
“Having a school of international and global affairs is not a common thing,” Najam said. “Most institutions do not have a place of global affairs; it is a mark of a major university. That’s one transformation right there. This gift does not just help continue what we are doing. It allows us to do things we were not able to do: to become among the leading institutions in this field.”
Najam saw Pardee a week ago in Los Angeles, according to BU Today, and said that Pardee was excited about more than BU’s future: “He is truly optimistic about the potential of what humanity can do.”
According to Najam, the gift is “a manifestation of Fred’s remarkable vision, but also a testimony to the great confidence in Boston University and in the excellent community of scholars and faculty that make up the BU Pardee School.”
In addition to its broad and diverse undergraduate and graduate degree programs, a major reflection of the Pardee School’s commitment to being truly global are the different regional and thematic centers of the school: the Center for the Study of Asia, the Center for the Study of Europe, the Center for Latin American Studies, the African Studies Center, the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, and the Global Development Policy Center.
A former economist who runs a real estate management firm in Los Angeles, Pardee has said his passion and determination to help build a more peaceful society was born when he was a child during World War II. He was able to attend BU on scholarship and has said the financial aid that provided him that opportunity—he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at what was then the School of Management—became a driving force in his desire to better the world.
Pardee first helped establish the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future in 2000, and then, 13 years later, the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. Today, the Pardee School has 750 undergraduate students, 150 graduate students, 5 undergraduate majors, 5 graduate degrees, 40 full-time faculty, and another 150 affiliated faculty from across the University.
After he graduated in 1954, Pardee served in the Air Force before working as an economist for the nonprofit RAND Corporation for $7,500 a year, examining economic, social, and political issues. Although he moved on to a successful career running a real estate management firm, he always maintained his ties to, and fondness for, BU, reflected in his numerous donations to his alma mater and his desire to see the Pardee School of Global Studies thrive. Learn more about his commitment to the Pardee School here.