Alumnus Donates $1 Million For Endowment of New Chair

A commodities speculator last month gave Harvard a $1 million endowment for a chair in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences.

Vasco McCoy, Jr. '49 said yesterday he donated the chair "to educate people and discover knowledge." McCoy is interested in weather because it affects his commodities speculations, he said.

McCoy gave the chair in honor of Robert P. Burden, assistant to the dean of Engineering and Applied Physics for Environmental Problems and a research fellow in Environmental Engineering. McCoy said Burden has advised him in the past on his business matters.

The chair, called the Robert P. Burden Professorship, will add a faculty member to the Center for Earth and Planetary Physics. "The center concentrates on the new geophysics--a modern interdisciplinary science encompassing the study of the earth, its interior, atmosphere, its oceans and other planets," Charles D. Thompson, development officer for the University, said yesterday.

Harvard is now conducting a $4.1 million drive for the center, which has five tenured faculty members and seeks a total of seven. Thompson said. "This endowment will strengthen an already strong teaching and research center," he said.

Allan Robinson, director of the Center said the endowment will enable the Center to expand its teaching and research in areas involving the interaction of the oceans and the atmosphere. "This field is one of growing importance in the understanding of longer-range atmospheric and climatic change," he said.

The center draws its staff from the Geology, Astronomy and Applied Physics Departments, Harvey Brooks, dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, said yesterday.