July 16, 2021

Donors including James B. Lovelace, chair of the Pardee RAND Graduate School Board of Governors, and other longtime board members have contributed to a $1 million scholarship endowment established in honor of longtime dean Susan L. Marquis. The scholarship will support future Pardee RAND students, and pays tribute to Marquis’s leadership as the Frank and Marcia Carlucci Dean of Pardee RAND and vice president of innovation for RAND.

“Susan’s passion—for supporting our students, for building community, and for strengthening all of RAND—is deep. As she inspired so many students to ‘be the answer’ to the challenges around them, she truly was the answer to what was needed to ensure Pardee RAND’s success,” said RAND president and CEO Michael D. Rich.

The gift was announced by Rich and Lovelace following the June 11 meeting of the Pardee RAND Board of Governors, the last board gathering led by Marquis, who is leaving RAND after 13 years at the helm of Pardee RAND.

“It’s the Board of Governors as a group who are building this fund, our way of saying thanks and helping future students remember your achievements,” said Lovelace.

Marquis’s tenure at Pardee RAND has been defined by a transformation of the nation’s largest and oldest public policy Ph.D. program—the establishment and implementation of a new model for public policy graduate education that is designed for our radically changing world. As vice president of innovation, she strengthened the environment for innovation across RAND.

In announcing the gift and raising a toast to Marquis, Lovelace said: “Your boldness to reimagine what a graduate program in public policy can be, and then to bring it into reality is what you will always be remembered for at RAND.”

“The Pardee RAND of today would not exist without her,” Rich added.