English
[Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon | Photo Courtesy: NYU]
New York Univerisity (NYU) announced a $100 million gift from Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon for engineering at NYU. The school will be renamed the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in recognition of the Tandons’ generosity; their donation is believed to be the largest philanthropic gift by a member of the Indian-American community.
The gift—which will principally support faculty hiring and academic programs is intended to further enhance existing programs including cybersecurity and digital education, as well as to boost other programs, including bio-engineering, digital media, financial engineering, technology management and innovation, and entrepreneurship in important areas such as clean energy.
“We feel privileged to be able to participate in the transformation that is happening at NYU and at the School of Engineering,” Chandrika Tandon said. “As a Trustee of NYU, I have had a front row seat to the energy and excitement of the Global Network University and the scale of possibility it presents. We also deeply respect the school’s extraordinary history and are honored to have a part in moving it forward with the visionary leadership team at the school and at the University.”
“More broadly, Ranjan and I are great believers in STEM education, in the applied sciences, and in the analytic and creative disciplines that such an education develops. And we want to give back to the city that has given us so much. Our hope is that this gift will bring more of us together to reinvent engineering, advance New York’s efforts to become a science and tech capital, and foster the talents of young innovators, applied scientists, and entrepreneurs. We believe this is just the beginning.”
Chandrika is a member of the Board of Overseers of NYU’s business school, a member of the NYU Board of Trustees, and leads the NYU President’s Global Council. A former partner at McKinsey and Company, she is chair of Tandon Capital Associates, a financial advisory firm she founded in 1992. She also is a Grammy-nominated musician— her album, “On Namo Narayanaya: Soul Call,” was nominated for Best Contemporary World Music in 2011.
Ranjan Tandon is an engineer by training and a graduate of the Harvard Business School. He is founder and chair of Libra Advisors, a hedge fund he founded in 1990 that is now a family office.
“The Tandons’ extraordinary act of generosity is remarkable not only because of the size of the gift but also because it recognizes the importance of a school with which they had no prior affiliation,” said Katepalli R. Sreenivasan, Dean of the School of Engineering. “Engineering is at the core of so many aspects of our lives, and the Tandons’ generosity will heighten our school’s already significant transformative role in the economy, medical advances, communications, and applied sciences. It is clear that the School is poised for higher levels of excellence. As a fellow native of India, I am deeply moved that the Tandons have chosen to support our path to academic excellence in this way and hope that their gift will inspire other successful Indians wherever they have chosen to live, to engage in large-scale philanthropy.”
Engineering was only recently restored to NYU after a 40-year absence when NYU merged with Polytechnic University in 2014. The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, when the NYU School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, as well as the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly), were founded. Their successor institutions merged in January 2014 to create a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The school has 2,264 undergraduates and 2,738 graduate students, and 180 full-time faculty within 10 academic departments.
NYU President, Dr. John Sexton, said of the Tandons, “They understand how dynamic our School of Engineering is and how their gift can accelerate its magnificent trajectory. This will transform engineering at NYU and will have an impact that will reach far beyond its students and faculty, beyond even NYU. I am immensely grateful to Chandrika and Ranjan.”
For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest Lifestyle News on India.com.