Harvard Alumni Donate to Fund Construction of Economics Building, New Professorships

Several prominent Harvard alumni donated to the Economics department to fund two new professorships and the construction of the department’s new home, Pritzker Hall, the University announced Wednesday morning.

The University announcement did not disclose the size of the gifts.

Three brothers from the Tsai family — Joseph T. Tsai ’98, Jeffery T. Tsai ’01, and Jason T. Tsai ’05 — will finance an event and teaching space in the as-yet-unbuilt Pritzker Hall. The space, named after their father, Hong-Tu Tsai, will be used to convene faculty members and visiting scholars for public audiences.

“We wanted to be part of Harvard’s new vision for economics,” Joseph Tsai said in a press release. “We were inspired by the approach being taken to the development of Pritzker Hall, which will draw scholars together in a highly interactive space and nourish the intellectual immersion at the foundation of the Harvard undergraduate experience.”

The Tsai family has made gifts to Harvard College for decades, including a 1996 donation that established the Tsai Auditorium in the Center for Government and International Studies.

Construction on Pritzker Hall — a result of a $100 million donation made in September 2021 by Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 — will begin in June 2025 and is expected to conclude by December 2027. The building will be built behind Harvard’s Littauer Center for Public Administration, which currently hosts the department.

Two separate gifts will go toward funding new professorships. A donation from Alexander Slusky ’89, a founding partner at private equity firm Vector Capital, and his wife, Danna Slusky, will endow the Slusky Family Professorship of Economics and Markets Fund for a scholar studying “real-world applications.”

According to the University’s press release, Slusky endowed the professorship partly as a way to pay forward the mentorship he received while studying at Harvard.

“The Harvard Economics Department is a critical part of educating future leaders of America,” Slusky said in the press release. “I want to help it grow this community.”

A donation from Donald M. Smith ’66 — the CEO and co-founder of EnviroBeef, a company working to produce environmentally friendly beef — will fund the Donald M. Smith Professorship Fund for a scholar who studies climate change, natural resources, or energy economics.

According to the press release, Smith, who graduated cum laude with a degree in Economics, made his donation in gratitude for his education with the Economics Department and particularly the mentorship he received from the late Economics professor John Kenneth Galbraith, a world-renowned economist who died in April 2006.

“I wanted to help Harvard find the best scholar in environmental economics,” Smith said. “It’s so wonderful for me very late in my professional life to be doing something that’s meaningful to Harvard.”

The FAS depends heavily on philanthropy, with more than 60 percent of its annual revenue drawn from donations. FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra has traveled frequently — including to New York City, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong — to meet with alumni during her first year and a half in the position.

Last year, fundraising for the FAS endowment increased 13.7 percent — in contrast to a University-wide decline in endowment contributions — but current-use gifts at the FAS dropped by 24.6 percent compared to the previous year. In May, the FAS announced a $20 million gift from newly-minted Harvard Corporation member Joseph Y. Bae ’94 and author Janice Y.K. Lee ’94, his wife.

In Wednesday’s press release, Hoekstra expressed gratitude for the donations and said they would help ensure Harvard’s Economics Department plays a critical role “in developing the future of the field.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.