President Richard C. Levin has announced that the Archimedes Associates, a group of Yale alumni initially formed by seven members of the Class of 1958 at the time of their 10th reunion, has endowed a professorship in honor of Vincent J. Scully Jr., Sterling Professor Emeritus and lecturer in the history of art.
The gift of the professorship is the result of an experiment originated by Anson Beard Jr. '58, currently an advisory director with Morgan Stanley & Company. In 1968, as a member of the special gifts committee for his 10th reunion, Beard interested a number of his classmates in pooling their capital and investing the funds speculatively. Some of them borrowed the money for the investment, and the leverage feature accounts for the name of they chose for their venture: Archimedes Associates. It was the Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes who, commenting on the action of a lever, remarked, "Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth."
According to a 1969 agreement between the Archimedes Associates and the University, subsequent income and appreciation were to be added to the principal of the fund until such time as the president of the University deemed the principal sufficient to endow a professorship. While it was originally hoped that the establishment of such a chair could be accomplished at the time of the Archimedes Associates' 25th reunion, it was not until 1996 that the funding level was sufficient to accomplish the goal. Following conversations between Beard and Levin, the Archimedes Associates considered a number of possible alternatives for directing their fund. In January of 1997, the alumnus informed the President that the associates had decided to honor Scully by endowing a chair in his name. They further directed that the University should award the chair "to an individual, without regard to his or her field of study, who best exemplifies the excellence in teaching in Yale College and the rigorous scholarship of Vincent Scully."
In commenting on the gift, Levin remarked: "The University is extremely grateful to the Archimedes Associates for the imaginative investment they made years ago in the University's future. We are equally pleased that the Associates have made such an excellent choice of use for their fund. Few other Yale professors in the last half century have had more influence on their students, and on the shape of the world around them than Professor Scully. The Archimedes gift is a fine way to honor that contribution and to assure that Professor Scully's legacy will continue to be appropriately recognized and appreciated by future generations."
Beard added: "The Archimedes Associates believe many Yale alumni share our opinion that Vince Scully is the single most outstanding professor Yale has had in the second part of the 20th century. He has opened the minds of thousands of Yale undergraduates and revolutionized the way they see the world. For this reason we are united in our desire to use our fund to honor him and perpetuate his name."
In addition to Beard, the other original Archimedes Associates, all members of the Yale Class of 1958, are: the late Peter Carlton, Richard A. Manoogian, Richard S. Perkins, J. Cornelius Rathbone, George H.T. Sloane, and Howard W. Zimmerman. With the concurrence of Beard on behalf of Archimedes Associates, a 1995 Campaign gift from Herbert McLaughlin '56 was added to the principal of the fund at the donor's request. In addition, all legal work for the partnership was contributed by Samuel V. Schoonmaker III '58. As a result of their contributions, both McLaughlin and Schoonmaker are considered honorary members of the Archimedes Associates.
Vincent J. Scully Jr. was born in New Haven and attended Hillhouse High School, on the site of what would later become Morse College, where he served as master 1969-75. For a half a century, from 1947 to the present, the professor has taught hundreds of students in packed lecture halls at Yale. He has published many articles and more than a dozen books which span a wide spectrum of subject matter, and is one of the University's most recognized scholars. Among Scully's most well known works are "The Shingle Style: Architectural Theory and Design from Richardson to the Origins of Wright," "Frank Lloyd Wright," "The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture," "Louis I. Kahn," "Pueblo: Mountain, Village, Dance," "The Villas of Paladio" and "The Natural and the Manmade."
Observing early in his teaching career that urban development during the 1950s tended to destroy neighborhoods by the imposition of freeways and superblocks, Scully has since argued fervently that the principles of modernism are incompatible with communal values. Several of his students have gone on to become important American architects, and his influence now manifests itself in the design of many urban and suburban sites throughout the nation. Scully has continued to teach at Yale during the fall of each year, alternating his lecture course on "Modern Architecture" with an "Introduction to the History of Art." This term he and his wife, Catherine Lynn, a preservationist, are in residence at the American Academy in Rome.