UCI Given $300,000 for World Peace Study

UC Irvine has received a $300,000 endowment from a Newport Beach couple to establish the university’s third chair for the study of world peace.

The chair, endowed by developer Robert Warmington and his wife, Lori, will be used to recruit a distinguished scholar whose work promotes peace and international cooperation, said Daniel Stokols, director of social ecology. The gift will create UCI’s 15th endowed chair and its first in social ecology, a hybrid field involving study of social and physical environments.

“We think this endowment will make a substantial contribution to the campus,” Stokols said Tuesday. “It will strengthen our program of global peace and conflict studies and broaden our international approach.”

Robert Warmington, owner of the Costa Mesa-based Warmington Co., and his wife, Lori, are members of the UCI Chancellor’s Club and share a longstanding interest in international relations. They were co-hosts in December of an address to U.S. and Soviet scientists at UCI by Georgi Arbatov, a top adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

‘No Greater Gift to Our Children’

The chair, to be named for their children--Erin, 16; Chace, 18, and Drew, 22--is an investment in the future, Lori Warmington said Tuesday. “We feel there is no greater gift to our children than the prospect of sustainable peace,” she said. “Cooperation and the issues that social ecology encompasses are all the issues that will make our world a better place for future generations.”

The gift comes with no precise research emphasis or earmarked candidate. Consideration will include scholars whose work relates to environmental quality, human development and health and international cooperation on these issues, Stokols said.

The chair must be approved by the UCI Academic Senate and the UC Board of Regents. Research by the selected holder of the chair will be paid for with interest income from the gift.

Stokols estimated that candidate recruitment might begin next year, resulting in an appointment within about 2 years.

“We haven’t begun to define the applicant pool,” Stokols said. “There are several highly qualified applicants working in one or more of these areas.”

UCI’s other chairs in global peace are the Thomas & Elizabeth Tierney Chair in Peace Research and the Clifford & Elaine Heinz Chair in the Economics and Policy of Peace.