By Deborah Gilbert
News and Information Services
An endowed professorship in reading and literacy will be established at the School of Education by Jean and Charles R. Walgreen Jr.
Walgreen, the retired chairman of the Walgreen Co., received a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the U-M in 1928.
The endowed professorship, which will be funded by a pledge of $1.2 million, is the School’s first. It will be named the Jean and Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professorship in Reading and Literacy, pending approval by the Regents. The gift is part of the University’s $1 billion Campaign for Michigan, the largest fund-raising project ever mounted by a public university.
School of Education Dean Cecil G. Miskel said that an endowed professorship “will permit the School to support a preeminent leader in reading and literacy education whose knowledge and experience would be a focal point for cutting-edge teaching, research and development activities.”
The gift will offer “tangible bases for hope among those who find today’s schools challenged by converging social, economic and technological changes,” he added.
Walgreen has served on the board of directors of the Alumni Association.
He received the Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award in 1986 and a U-M Leadership Award in 1988.
