In 2009 the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund awarded OSU a $900,000 grant to create an endowed professorship in the College of Forestry. The endowment income is used to augment salary funding in order to retain leading faculty members who excel in teaching. Holders of the professorship may be in a new or existing position from any department, teaching classes in forest management, renewable materials, or forest engineering at undergraduate or graduate levels. The professorship focuses on early to mid-career faculty members and is awarded competitively on a three-year rotating basis.

Among Oregon's largest foundations, the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund supports the good works of Oregonians by making grants to community based, not-for-profit organizations in five core areas: the cultural arts, education, human services, medicine, and public service. The private grant-making foundation was formed in 1970 by the late Maybelle Clark Macdonald and her husband, Fred Macdonald. Her Clark relatives first settled in Linnton, Oregon, in 1902, and developed a timber empire that became Willamette Industries. A noted philanthropist, Mrs. Macdonald founded Meals on Heels (predecessor to Loaves & Fishes' Meals on Wheels program) as well as the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Center and Residence, which serves people living in poverty in Portland. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 93.

Current Faculty Holder

Reem Hajjar