I revised my will about three weeks ago, as I realized that two of my impecunious friends to whom I was leaving money were dead. (Don’t worry–I’m fine!) Plus some of the charities to which I’d pledged money were no longer appealing to me (that means you, Doctors Without Borders), so I found a passel of other charities, vetted by Peter Singer’s “The Life You Can Save” site and Charity Navigator, to replace them. I won’t go into details save to say that what I leave will go in general to four causes: helping the poor in third-world countries, especially with sanitation and medical care for children, ensuring education for women in poor countries, conservation effected through buying up habitat for wildlife and plants, and conservation effected by helping animals (this does of course include big cats!).
When I made my list and handed it to the lawyer, I discovered I still had a chunk o’ cash left, and pondered what I should do with it. I’ve lived pretty penuriously and don’t have any luxuries, and the last thing I’d need would be something pricey like a luxury car. My only indulgences are travel and wine.
And then I had an idea: create a graduate fellowship for Ph.D. students who need research money in evolutionary biology. If I started that while I was still alive, I could actually see the results as they played out in real time: research would be done and truth found. Then I had an even better idea: if the fellowship were named after me, I could add the name of my favorite mallard: Honey the Duck. After checking with the University, I found out that I not only had enough to endow a decent fellowship in perpetuity, but also they would also allow me to add Honey’s name!
And that is how the Jerry Coyne/Honey the Duck Evolutionary Biology Research Fund came to be. To wit (this is part of a three-page agreement). Click to enlarge:
For Chicago grad students who would like to tap into this dosh, I’ll say a few words. The money will increase over time from $5000 the first year to around $25,000 per year in perpetuity after 2030. I intend it to go, as the note says above, for research expenses in evolutionary biology studies that involve whole organisms. This reflects my own interests when I was active and is aimed at keeping organismal evolutionary biology (which can of course also involve behavior, molecular work, and so on) alive in the department. But whole organisms have to be involved in some way. These details may be refined when I make up the application for the money, as it’s a competitive process.
More than one student may be funded per year, and once the money is allotted, it will be there until the student gets their Ph.D. Leftover cash will be returned to the fund. Only students who have passed their prelims, and are thus official candidates for the doctorate, can apply, and I hope the first applications will be handed out in the early fall.
One other thing: once the money is in the hands of the Division (only students in the Division of Biological Science [BSD] can apply), my role ends, as it should. I will have no hand in choosing students who get funded: that will be done by a committee appointed by our chairman. That’s appropriate because the field changes over time and I am retired.
I’m giving these details just so students know that next fall there will be a new pot of money to fund research. I also love the fact that I can name the fund after both myself and Honey the Duck: faithful companions for several years. There is too little humor in science, and I wonder if this is the first graduate fellowship in history to be named after a duck.
Here are two pictures: my favorite one of Honey, and the second of me feeding Honey by hand during the pandemic (I was outside and the campus was empty, ergo the pulled-down mask). I will try to put these photos on the application. Evolutionary biology students in the BSD should watch for an announcement by the Higher Ups.
One of the best parts of it all is that Honey and I will be immortalized together–or at least linked together until there is no more evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago.
Quack!
Addendum: from reader Bill with the help of Grok 3
I must have missed it, but what is the problem with Doctors Without Borders?
You can look it up. That was my decision but this post is about a fellowship and a duck. I don’t want to see a bunch of arguments abouit that organization.
DWB whom I used to donate to …. have become if not arms of the Palestinian resistance, at least extremely complicit in their jihad.
(ex donor)
best to you Matt,
D.A.
NYC
Ok, thanks. I was genuinely asking. Not trying to take away from Dr. Coyne’s generous donation. I have been reading less news these days and more focused on my field research, so I had not heard about DWB issues.
That’s very cool. What a great idea.
A lovely story and a wonderful gesture. Thank you for your site and inspiration.
Well said. Plus one.
Glad to hear this – bravo!
This is just perfect.
Way cool.
That is a terrific idea!
Fantastic!
You’ve got me rethinking my own will. We have the money divvied up after we die, but pulling a portion of it forward so that we can watch the results play out while we’re still around to see them is a great idea!
You might want to check if your wife, who will have to live on what’s left after you (almost certainly) die first, is OK with shrinking that nest-egg several years early. I tease my wife that my penurious life style — like Jerry’s — is so she can have a good nursing home or marry a surfer, whichever.
For a single guy like Jerry, what he’s doing is a fabulous idea. I’m thrilled for him that he’s in such a position!
Leslie, yes, of course I’ll have that discussion. It would be a shame if that surfer had to find a real job!
In law school our property professor for trusts/wills said: “I’ll tell you about when the husband dies first. I won’t bother telling you about when the wife dies first as it never happens.” He eventually taught us a bit of both. (But he was kinda right: I’ve never seen it happen in my legal life).
Of course it happens, but statistically it isn’t common. A human universal.
D.A.
NYC
Honey the Duck would have approved. She liked the University of Chicago — and she obviously loved evolutionary biologists.
Perhaps one day the Jerry Coyne/ Honey the Duck Evolutionary Biology Research Fund will be used to fund research on ducks. Who knows?
BRAVO!
If it’s not too personal a question, would you mind sharing how much it costs to fund a research fund like this?
I would dearly love to do something like this but not sure I have the means.
I’d prefer not to reveal monetary details, but you can find out by asking the University what it takes. That’s what I did.
So that jerry does not have to reply: i have not kept up with this area recently, but a few years ago, the rule of thumb was 5% per year awards. So a $3M fund allowed for $150k in annual awards; $100k would yield $5k per year. Maybe somebody familiar with current guidelines can update please.
Thanks, Jim (answers my question below I wrote before reading this).
See? Your wife is wrong – your career and academic advice are still good!
D.A.
NYC
Thanks David, but this is pretty dated information. I hoped that it might prod someone more with up-to-date knowledge to provide more current guidelines…which may prove my wife to be correct after all!
Great move
Congrats. This is exactly how to live on after you die (e.g. an actual “afterlife”.)
When you mentioned something big was coming, I envisioned a bronze of the iconic Honey pose sitting by the pond for the next hundred years! I didn’t even think about coin to graduate students. Nice move.
Sounds like a good idea to celebrate the endowment.
Very nice of you to do such a thing for the students.
A very thoughtful and impactful action. Thank you. It is very nice that you can see and follow recipients in your lifetime.
I’m curious as to the numbers needed to endow a chair. I/we have no children so all our money is discressionary. We’ll be gone one day and I’d like to help some intellectual cause rather some distant, idiot relative.
The “David Anderson scholarship for countering Islamist terrorism and… and the same time… the promotion of psychedelic drugs as therapy and recreation” chair or scholarship.
Nice ring.
Congrats boss PCC(E) – still an important player even outside WEIT and its many readers!
D.A.
NYC
The principal needed to fund a perpetuity of any given size is the target value times the reciprocal of the investment return rate the university as investor can get, after expenses incurred by the investment fund. While this would be confidential, the interest factor is unlikely to be much greater than the interest on a five-year guaranteed investment certificate currently going for 3% in Canada to retail investors. Perhaps UC can get more from other instruments without taking on much more risk. (I just used Canada because I know where to find this info.). Because the fund pays out the entire expected income every year, none is reinvested for the eighth wonder of the world to work its magic, unless in some years the fund performs better than necessary to pay the agreed stipend allowing the excess to be reinvested.
An endowment in perpetuity is a very significant donation. But then it is forever, so there is that. Well done, Jerry.
What a great idea!
What a wonderful thing to do!
Insisting that the research involve whole organisms is great. I remember well—and assume that you do, too—when Harvard’s biology department split into two. One of the two was the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology. (I think I remember the name correctly.) With cellular, developmental, and molecular biology in the ascendancy, it seemed at the time that organismal biology, including biological systematics, might lose some of its luster—and its funding.
Fortunately, people continue to care about whole organisms, protecting and preserving them, understanding them, and learning (through the field of paleontology) of the wonders that have lived on earth through the ages. Thank you for keeping the flame alight!
“I wonder if this is the first graduate fellowship in history to be named after a duck.”
I love the modesty of this question, but I don’t think you really have to wonder. I would be astounded if it weren’t!
This is a lovely, positive thing to do for the future.
Brilliant! Well done!
A bit of fun and joy during these horrible times! Well done.
That’s awesome, Jerry!
Wonderful idea! I love that Honey’s name is in the title.
🦆🦆🦆
Great idea – I hope you stipulated that publications need to cite the full name – sometimes acknowledgements can be amusing to read.
Good point, Simon! I’ll put that in the stipulations!
What a wonderful gesture. Congratulations on such an imaginative and worthwhile initiative.
Good news to brighten today for the rest of us. What a clever, inspiring idea!
What a very clever idea, Honey would be thrilled.
Congrats Jerry and Honey!
Now I wish I was an eligible grad student – that would be a great addition to the CV. My PhD funding had decidedly less fun names.
This is a really great idea and inspiring act. Thanks!
That’s what I have advised my son to do. He’s a professor (in a science field) and isn’t having any children; leaving his estate to his parents or siblings would be pointless because they don’t need the money. (I’m the same age as Jerry.) Get together with the university and set things up so that it can go to students, I said. Glad you filled in the details for me, although I’m sure the university money people would steer him that way too.
Far. Out. !
This is an extraordinary gesture of goodwill. Thank you for such an inspiring message.
One thing you can do with much smaller pots of money is do things like fund travel for current students to go to a conference in Europe (for example). The University of Chicago set something like this up for me, involving a department that I’m not a member of, but the work in that department overlaps my work, and setting up some funds for current students to travel is quite straightforward.
Well done.
Good for you. That sort of thing can have a tremendous impact on the students’ sense of their place in the scientific community.
What a wonderful way to further the progress of evolutionary science. Adding the name of a whole organism, Honey, to the title reinforces your intent that the graduate fellowship involves study of whole organisms, presumably animals. Will there be library space set aside to include books for background reading? I have a few appropriate titles I would be happy to contribute, if from NZ I could get them past customs!
That. Is Awesome.
As a regular reader over the years, I just wanted to add my thanks and tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your column–even if I don’t always agree with everything. It’s one of the first things I look for in the morning. Please consider adding an address where readers can contribute to help build the fund and insure its perpetuity.
I’d like to second the request for an address to send contributions (if it would be possible). My kiddos will get the bulk of whatever I have to leave, but I plan to give at least a bit to other causes and this fund would be both worthy and delightful.
Thank you. I’ll have to ask the Gift official whether other people can add more to the fund, which I’ll do today.
I have sent you the address and information. Thank you!
As I’ll post separately, yes, readers can contribute to the fund, but they should email me for how to do it and where to send checks. Thanks!
Glad to know you’re doing well and investing in a future in a manner that speaks to me.
Very nice!
There’s not much more I can say that others haven’t, but it needs to be said – what a wonderful, thoughtful gesture.
This is a great thing, Jerry. Congratulations.
Jerry, this has made my day. What a wonderful gesture. Perhaps you can get an archive of this website linked to the endowment, so that the scholars can learn more about you.
What a fine thing to do!