University of Arizona Wildcat legend Steve Kerr — who is making a $1 million gift commitment to UA’s College of Humanities to provide study-abroad scholarships for students — will also join the college as an honorary professor with plans to guest lecture in the future.
College of Humanities Dean Alain-Philippe Durand told the Star they are still figuring out what Kerr’s specific role will be as an honorary professor, and added, with a laugh, that he’s obviously still keeping his position as head coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. In some cases, honorary professors teach a class; in others, they serve as consultants, he said.
University of Arizona College of Humanities Dean Alain-Philippe Durand and NBA Coach/Wildcat alum Steve Kerr, announcing that Kerr and his wife have made a $1 million gift commitment to UA’s College of Humanities for study-abroad scholarships.
The college would like to have Kerr take part in information sessions, especially for students benefiting from the study-abroad scholarships, where they can share their experiences. Durand said Kerr has also agreed to be involved with the Humanities Seminars Program at the UA, where there are no credits or exams, and anyone in the community can enroll.
In a UA news release Wednesday, Kerr explained, “Having grown up overseas and traveled throughout my childhood, I realize and recognize how important cultural exchange and studying abroad can be and I wanted to help provide that opportunity for other humanities students at the U of A.”
After helping lead the Wildcats to their first Final Four appearance in 1988, Kerr went on to be a nine-time National Basketball Association champion, winning five titles as a player and four as a head coach.
The gift commitment from Kerr and his wife Margot — who met as UA students — will fund the Kerr Family Endowment for Humanities Abroad, investing in scholarships for students in study-abroad programs in Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Japan led by the College of Humanities faculty.
“Thanks to the endowment they’ve created, generations of students in the humanities will be able to study the world’s languages and cultures outside of the classroom as well as inside,” said John-Paul Roczniak, president and CEO of the University of Arizona Foundation. “It’s a profound legacy for this campus.”
Durand noted that Kerr believes travel is a transformative experience.
“If you’ve ever studied abroad, whether you were a U of A student or went to another school, you know the importance and the value of traveling, of experiencing a different culture,” Kerr was quoted in the news release.
He was born in Beirut, where his parents were academics, and spent time in France, Tunisia, Egypt and the U.S.
“There’s no experience like traveling, especially as a college student, when you are old enough to really appreciate it but young enough to have some freedom and to see how the world is forming before your eyes,” said Kerr, who graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in general studies from the UA.
He said his experience of living in Cairo, Egypt, for three years as a teenager exposed him to a kind of poverty he had never seen before, and yet he saw the people living pretty happy lives. “There’s still the idea of community and sports and art and music and things that bring joy to people’s lives,” he said.
Kerr comes from a family with a long history of supporting scholarships and research, the UA news release said. His mother, Ann Zwicker Kerr-Adams, created the Kerr Family Centennial Scholars Endowment at the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Near Eastern Studies in 2017.
“As a student, I really gravitated toward the things I loved — reading and writing. I just wanted to have a well-rounded education and be prepared for whatever I was facing. And I can tell you today as a coach, I use that humanities education every single day,” said Kerr. “That’s something you don’t realize as a college student. Your education is going to factor in no matter what you do for a living. But if you lean into what you really love and the subjects that you enjoy, you find a way to connect it to whatever your life course happens to be.”
Durand said UA President Suresh Garimella has given UA colleges the objective of multiplying by three times the number of students who study abroad. This has been a game-changer, he said.
Garimella, in the news release, said Kerr and his wife are inspirational models for what UA Wildcats can achieve with an intercultural perspective and education.
“We have made it a key institutional priority to triple study abroad participation because we believe that an international education can be a life-changing experience,” Garimella said.
Durand said the humanities, and financial investment in its disciplines, are extremely important and should be at the core of UA’s mission and strategic plan.
“Most places, they don’t have a college focusing on the humanities. The humanities is often kind of thrown in with some other disciplines, whereas here at Arizona, there is a college entirely dedicated to the humanities that the administration supports,” he said.
“We are a land-grant university and President Garimella — I really like his approach on the land-grant. Because often when people think about a land-grant, they only think about the agriculture and engineering part. … The humanities are needed for all of those things. You cannot do space exploration without critical thinking, collaboration, adaptability, or all the skills and competencies we teach and research.”
