$1 million gift to UCI to enhance faculty research

An anonymous $1 million gift to UCI has created the Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair to enhance teaching and research for faculty, school officials announced Tuesday.

The endowed $1 million plus $112,500 in expendable funds goes to a faculty member within the Center for the Study of Democracy in recognition of Peltason’s research interests.

Eligible faculty must be doing research full time, teaching at UCI and show a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration.

Peltason was one of UCI’s founding faculty members and the university’s second chancellor in 1984. In 1992 he was appointed president of the University of California system. Peltason is an expert in American constitutional politics and political institutions and co-author of “Government by the People,” a leading American government textbook still in print after 50 years.

— Joseph Serna