In addition to the prestige that endowed professorships and chairs confer to their holders, these honors have also proven to be extremely beneficial for the institutions of higher learning that award them. For instance, colleges and universities normally use these prestigious positions as tools for recruitment or retention; both uses benefit the institution directly. The endowed positions may be used to recruit talented faculty members, or to retain highly productive faculty members who might otherwise wish to leave for greener pastures—in other words, those professors who may be receiving offers of higher pay and opportunities if they go somewhere else.
Endowed positions also have been used to diversify departments and colleges, something that benefits both the university and its students.
