Boston University alumnus Frederick Pardee, benefactor of BU’s Pardee Center for the Study of Longer-Range Future, doubled the center’s endowment this month with another $5 million donation.
The donation will provide the center, which promotes the study of human development 35 to 300 years in the future, with necessary resources to expand its studies and publications, according to BU Director of Principle Gifts Constance Kramer.
Kramer, who worked directly with Pardee through his endowment, said Pardee’s gift will mainly help the center commission articles and other publications and possibly create a monograph series in the near future.
‘There will be stimulated growth of certain programs, and publications will increase [the center’s] effectiveness in raising issues,’ she said.
Pardee’s gift will also help expand the center’s two major research projects, Kramer added.
One of the projects, run by BU professors Cutler Cleveland and Adil Najam, broadly examines the question of human development in the future, Kramer said. The two professors are in the process of creating a database that covers important areas of human life, ranging from health and the environment to education and government.
The other project, led by Professors John Gerring and Strom Thacker, focuses on the effect of politics on human lives. The study looks at the effects of corruption in governments and other issues on humans.
The center was established to look at the ‘choices and decisions that the human race will have to face in the future,’ according to the center’s director and BU International Relations and History professor David Fromkin.
The center’s members use analysis, research and the culmination of data on issues of human development to achieve its mission, Kramer said.
Pardee’s main interest in the center is general human betterment, she said. The center focuses on humankind, rather than on changes in the technology of the future, because Pardee has been ‘appalled’ by data indicating worldwide human suffering, Kramer said.
‘Pardee is interested in technology as it relates to the human condition,’ she said.
Fromkin said the center upholds Pardee’s humanitarian goals.
‘We are interested in all phases of the betterment of humankind,’ he said.
Pardee was excited about United Nations efforts toward their similar mission of improving the human state, Kramer said.
‘We are UN enthusiasts,’ Kramer said. ‘There are no formal affiliations [between the Pardee Center and the UN], but we hope to cooperate with them in the future.’
Kramer said Pardee sought out Fromkin to direct the center after coming up with the idea for its mission. Pardee had read one of Fromkin’s books, ‘The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the Twenty-first Century,’ and was enthusiastic about the last two chapters of the book in which Fromkin discussed the future.
Pardee grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from BU’s School of Management in 1954. He worked for 13 years at the RAND Corporation, later becoming an independent economic consultant.
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