Vanderbilt parents Laurel and Cliff Asness donated $11.25 million on Sept. 25 to the Institute of National Security and the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation. $10 million will support the Institute of National Security and $1.25 million will go to the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation.
According to a university press release, the donation is the largest gift the Institute of National Security has received since its opening in September of last year. To honor the donors, the university plans to rename its annual program, the Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, to the Asness Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats.
The Frist Center lost substantial funding on Jan. 21 because of federal funding cuts to the National Science Foundation. As a result, the center lost the money they used to support Vanderbilt undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D students, train postdoctoral fellows and help students find jobs.
Keivan G. Stassun, director of the Frist Center and professor of physics & astronomy and computer science, said that the center has been able to continue helping students within weeks of receiving the donation from the Asness family.
“While the grant money was terminated and before some of it was reinstated, we would have had to drop a large number of students who [we] were supporting. The ability of the Asness family to make an immediate gift and for us to start using it right away meant that we didn’t have to let any of our students go,” Stassun said.
Sophomore Jordyn Jacobs, a student in Peabody College, said that the center and its new funding will help promote inclusion on campus.
“The donation to the Frist Center will be a great help to promote inclusivity and maximize neurodivergent talent,” Jacobs said.
Douglas Adams, assistant director of the Institute of National Security and distinguished professor and chairman of civil and environmental engineering, said that the institute’s goal of spanning disciplines to deliver implementable solutions to national security issues attracted the Asness family.
“Radical collaboration and institutional neutrality resonated with Cliff and Laura Asness,” Adams said. “They wanted to invest [and] expressed interest in investing in something uniquely Vanderbilt.”
Adams says that the gift has already made a considerable impact and gives the institute more visibility and credibility nationally. The donation will also help support the annual Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, the institute’s annual event that brings together disciplines to discuss national security topics.
“We’re seeing [more visibility and credibility] just in terms of the number of folks that are now looking at what we’re doing and taking note of it,” Adams said. “In terms of our ambition and what we’re doing with the design of the [modern conflict and emerging threats] summit, we’re seeing huge impacts. The other thing the gift has done is really spark momentum across campus.”
Adams hopes that the donation will encourage greater collaboration between universities and national security, as well as inspire future innovations.
“[The donation is] not the finish line; it’s the launching pad for Vanderbilt to redefine how universities can serve the nation . . . It’s the beginning of a lot of really exciting initiatives that are going to bring technology,” Adams said.
Sophomore Zach Jaffe said that as a political science student, he is excited about how the gift has helped the institute. He looks forward to participating in future events held by the institute that were made possible by the donation.
“As someone who is studying political science, it is exciting to see the Institute of National Security gain prominence in the national field, and I am looking forward to being able to be involved with the future projects the endowment brings,” Jaffe said.
