Virginia and Gordon MacDonald

New History Chair Established

By Nicole St.Pierre

A $1.5 million gift from the MacDonald Family Foundation will establish an endowed chair in the College’s history department. USC alumna Marilyn Winthrop, daughter of Gordon MacDonald, directed the gift. It is only the second time an endowed chair has been established in the history department.

The new chair already is helping to attract top graduate students and faculty, such as Joan Piggott. Piggott, a premodern Japanese historian recruited from Cornell University, will be the first to fill the post, named the Gordon MacDonald Chair in History, beginning this fall.

“The MacDonald Foundation gift helped the College attract a historian who has a wide range of interests and experiences, and is also among the very best in a specific field,” says College Dean Joseph Aoun.

Piggott’s premodern Japan expertise will strengthen the College’s study of the Pacific Rim—one of the university’s top-priority areas. Over the next several years, she will develop a center dedicated to premodern Japanese historical studies, complemented by a group of scholars from the fields of literature, linguistics, art history, archeology and religion, among others. As the first center in Southern California to focus on premodern Japan, it will make USC a major venue for study in this area.

While teaching at Cornell, Piggott worked with librarians and other faculty to develop an extensive Japanese library. Similar efforts are already underway at USC, where 2,600 volumes in Japanese have been purchased for the new premodern Japan collection of the East Asian Library. “This collection is very important for Southern California,” says Piggott. “It is the first time a university in [this part of the state] has devoted its efforts to pre-1600 materials.

“The work made possible by this endowed chair will add tremendously to the College and USC.”