With $100 million for OSU, Pickens says he's not done
With state match, gift's value will double
With $100 million for OSU, Pickens says he's not done

By Susan Simpson

Published: May 22, 2008

STILLWATER — Boone Pickens' $100 million gift to endow 150 faculty jobs will enable Oklahoma State University to attract the nation's best researchers and professors and establish OSU as an academic powerhouse, the Texas billionaire and OSU officials said Wednesday.

"This gift is going to give us the chance to change this university,” OSU President Burns Hargis said. "Education is the passport to prosperity. It is the greatest gift of all.”

The donation was touted as the largest academic gift in Oklahoma history. And Pickens said he's not finished giving to OSU.

"Boone's back, and Boone's back with money,” Pickens told a crowd gathered on campus. "Be patient. I'm not through.”

The gift was announced before a cheering crowd of about 3,000 gathered on the lawn in front of OSU's Edmon Low Library. The event concluded with bursts of confetti and the unveiling of a huge orange banner across the front of the library thanking Pickens and wishing him happy birthday. He turns 80 today.

Under Oklahoma law, the state must match donations for endowed faculty positions, bringing the value of Pickens gift to $200 million.

Pickens, who gave $165 million to OSU athletics in 2005, said he wanted his alma mater to be competitive academically as well as athletically. The 150 new faculty positions will bring OSU's total of pledged and fully-funded endowed chairs and professorships to 275, about the same number of such jobs at the University of Oklahoma.

Pickens told the crowd that Hargis was a key reason for his donation.

"Burns is a very persuasive guy. I didn't plan on doing this,” said Pickens, a native of Holdenville and a former wildcatter who now heads the Dallas-based hedge fund BP Capital Management LP.

Pickens said he hoped his gift would inspire others to donate to OSU academics, just as donations to OSU athletics increased after his 2006 gift.

Bob Miller, chairman of the OSU Faculty Council, praised Pickens for his gift and said it demonstrates to faculty a "genuine confirmation in our ability to do remarkable things.”

After Pickens' $165 million donation, the largest single gift to a university athletics program, some professors complained that academics were taking a back seat to sports.

Matt Dvorak, a recent OSU graduate, attended Wednesday's announcement and said he was amazed by Pickens' generosity.

"He's caught a lot of flak for donating to athletics, but this will quiet those critics,” he said.

Julie Mathis of Edmond was on campus for freshman orientation with her daughter, Katie, who is enrolled for fall.

She said she's been impressed with the caliber of teaching at OSU, and thinks the Pickens donation will bring even more prestige.

"It's icing on the cake,” she said. "And at a birthday party!”

The $100 million gift is one of the largest ever to a U.S. university and is nearly double the largest non-bequest donation to a U.S. university so far in 2008. The previous high non-bequest gift this year was $55 million to the University of Texas, OSU officials said.

With the latest gift, Pickens, who graduated with a geology degree from OSU in 1951, has donated approximately $400 million to OSU through gifts, pledges and waived fees, university officials said. The football stadium and the school of geology are named after Pickens.

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