Georgios Anagnostropoulos and Carol Vassiliadis

"I was asked if endowing a chair would be something I’d like to do in my late husband’s memory," said Carol Vassiliades, who recently joined several other community members to form a series of endowed chairs in Greek history. "Laki’s heritage was Byzantine, and he loved all things Greek – he would have been so happy to help." 

The local Greek community rallied when asked to help make UCSD’s Greek History department stand out as the best in the nation. As a result, the campus recently created the Gerry and Jeannie Ranglas Chair in Ancient Greek History and the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Chair in Byzantine Greek History with donations totaling more than $1 million.  Soon, when the $500,000 goal for the Modern Greek History chair is met, UCSD will become the only university in the U.S. to have endowed faculty chairs for all three major eras of Greek history.

Over the next decade, UCSD’s general campus will need to add more than 750 faculty members due to growth, retirements and attrition. Endowed faculty chairs provide the necessary resources to recruit world-class educators and scholars. Without these endowments, UCSD cannot be competitive and therefore cannot attract and retain the very best.