Outgoing Chancellor Sean O’Keefe’s fall 2007 agreement to donate $1 million to the University will not come out of his own pocket, but instead from corporate funds not available until his death, according to documents obtained by The Daily Reveille. O’Keefe has served on the E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company Board of Directors since 2005, and the gift agreement was made though DuPont’s Directors’ Charitable Gift Plan. The donation will be paid in five equal annual installments “as soon as is practicable” after O’Keefe’s death, and will be “made by DuPont in the Director’s name,” according to the plan’s summary for recommended organization. O’Keefe wrote a letter Jan. 29 to University donors thanking them for their support of the institution during his tenure as chancellor. “Because of my love for Louisiana and my passionate enthusiasm for LSU, I signed a $1 million gift agreement last fall,” O’Keefe said in the letter. “I intend to honor that commitment and will continue to do whatever I can to support the campaign.” O’Keefe said he sent the letter to “hundreds upon hundreds of people” who participated in the Forever LSU campaign and contributed financially to the University. O’Keefe provided The Daily Reveille with a copy of the letter Jan. 30 and said the letter was partly motivated by his hope that those who began donating during his tenure will continue to do so. “I intend to honor that agreement, and that what I put into my letter and said by inference if I’m doing it, surely you can do it,” O’Keefe told The Daily Reveille on Jan. 30. O’Keefe did not mention the donation’s ties to DuPont in either his letter to donors or during the Jan. 30 interview. O’Keefe wrote a letter to LSU Foundation President and CEO W.G. Bowdon in September 2007 specifying the conditions of the donation. “It is indeed an honor to know that LSU will benefit significantly from my association with DuPont,” O’Keefe said in the September 2007 letter. O’Keefe specified no more than $700,000 of the donation be used to provide for the creation of up to three endowed professorships in the E.J. Ourso College of Business Public Administration Institute. The money will be designated for this purpose under the condition the Board of Regents match the amount from its Support Fund. O’Keefe’s specifications include his preference the professorships “be used to support graduate assistants to the named professor(s)” to elevate their costs associated with tuition, fees, stipends and conference/symposium attendance. If $700,000 is used for the creation of the endowed professorships, the Board of Regents would have to match the amount, raising the total donation to the E.J. Ourso College of Business Public Administration Institute to $1.4 million. All remaining funds less of the $1 million gift, and no less than $300,000, will be given “to establish an endowed scholarship fund to benefit LSU students who are active members of the Saint Alban’s Episcopal Chapel Choir” on campus, according to O’Keefe’s specifications. The LSU Office of Student Aid and Scholarships and the rector of St. Alban’s Chapel will decide which choir members will receive the scholarship to cover tuition, fees, cost of attendance or as a stipend for graduate or undergraduate students. DuPont can amend, suspend or terminate the donation at anytime, according to an August 2007 letter from DuPont Governance Assistant Veronica Demurat to Bowdon. Additionally, the plan’s summary for recommended organization outlines several other conditions that must be met in order for the contribution to be made. O’Keefe must have served on the DuPont Board of Directors for at least five years, or less if he terminates Board service due to death or disability, for the payment to be made upon O’Keefe’s death. O’Keefe or the Board of Directors can amended, suspect or terminate the planned donation as well.
—-Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]