I have received through the post a leaflet from the Centre for Excellence (www.centreforconsultingexcellence.com) based in Wales, UK, in which the CEO (Tom Lambert) describes himself as having 'just had the honour of being the first holder of the newly endowed chair of consulting at Rushmore University in the USA in recognition of his practical contributions to the profession'. Is this a genuine academic appointment in the context of the comments often made on this Board about Rushmore University (see under 'search')?
When I visited Rushmore, it was using a South Dakota address and being run from the basement in the home of its owner in an Atlanta, Georgia suburb. I guess there would have been room in there for an additional chair.
An "endowed chair"? Hahaha. I presume that the message of the "Centre for Consulting Excellence" is that it's first impressions alone that count. In which case, this is a nice example of the theory in practice.
I once endowed a chair. In the Philosophy department at Vanderbilt, when Marina was there, someone had thrown out a lecture chair whose four legs were all splayed outward from an unknown cause. My $10 endowment bought a plastic engraved plaque affixed to that chair declaring it to be the Dolly Dimples Chair of Heavyweight Philosophy. It sat in the student lounge for months; perhaps still does.