PHOTO COURTESY UA DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY UA anthropologists study maps on location in Central Asia. Retired professor Richard Diebold donated more than $1 million to help fund future expeditions and retain faculty.

A retired anthropology professor donated more than $1 million to help fund an archeology endowment in Asia.

UA professor emeritus Richard Diebold Jr., a former professor in the anthropology department from 1974 to 1992 and the Salus Mundi Foundation, which he heads, recently donated $1,020,000 to the UA anthropology department.

More than 80 percent of the donation is planned to fund the Je Tsongkhapa Endowment for Central and Inner Asian Archaeology, said John Olsen, head of the department of anthropology.

Diebold's Je Tsongkhapa Endowment, which honors the 14th-century Tibetan Buddhist scholar, will continue to exclusively support UA archaeological research activities in the Central and Inner Asian region, Olsen said.

These areas include the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expeditions and other ongoing multinational archaeological projects in Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjang and Siberia.

"These funds give us the ability to continue the work we've been doing without the concern of where the funding is coming from," Olsen said. "We clearly want the endowment to grow to help expand our research."

In time, the more than $800,000 endowment will support an increasingly broad geographical and interdisciplinary range of archaeological research activities, while the remaining $200,000 will be used to initiate two new UA professorships in medical anthropology and in socio-cultural anthropology, Diebold said.

The endowment will help the anthropology department join the ranks of similar departments nationwide, which have UA department administrators singing the praises of Diebold.

"Richard is the most generous and compassionate person I have ever known," Olsen said. "He is the dictionary definition of a philanthropist, meaning to love people, and he epitomizes that."

UA's anthropology department is currently ranked fifth and the archaeology department is ranked second in the nation, said Edward Donnerstein, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

"This gift will allow us to continue to maintain those rankings, and we are thrilled and extremely grateful to Richard Diebold and the Salus Mundi Foundation for this generous gift," Donnerstein said.

Diebold said the donation by him and the Salus Mundi Foundation was given now because of the anthropology department's need to be competitive with other top anthropology departments nationwide, to help the department grow and prosper for the future, and give its graduate students financial support.

"We have one of the best departments in the country and I would like to see that status kept," Diebold said.

Olsen said Diebold's donation would help the department survey areas of the world it has not been able to see before.

"Professor Diebold's unsurpassed generosity will make it possible for UA archaeologists to strategically explore one of the most fascinating cultural and geographical regions on Earth," Olsen said.

Although the UA's anthropology department is consistently rated among the best in the nation, it is consistently unsuccessful in drawing the top five or six potential graduate admissions candidates, due generally to the inability to match the financial incentives offered by peer institutions, Olsen said.

"Richard's endowment will help bring other professors to UA and will help us retain the faculty we have currently, all to help benefit our students," Olsen said.

Olsen shared the sentiments in 2002, when Diebold made his first contribution of $2 million to the department, the largest donation the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences has received.

"With the current budget situation, it is difficult to attract and retain the best students and faculty. This $2 million donation will allow us to continue to be one of the top anthropology departments in the country," Olsen said in October 2002.

Diebold echoed the thoughts of Olsen by saying the UA is no longer a top-notch research university without giving faculty and students the incentive to stick around or come in the first place if there are better offers on the table elsewhere.

"It comes to the problem of hiring. What is it that brings them here because it certainly isn't the money," Diebold said. "We're losing future students and faculty. The department no longer gets top ranked students here and this donation will help change that."

Norma Mendoza-Denton, assistant professor of anthropology, said Diebold's contributions have been instrumental in helping linguistic anthropology prosper at the UA.

"The linguistic lab was renamed after him last year," Mendoza-Denton said. "I consider this the continuation of his legacy."

Diebold credits more his foundation than himself for getting the ball rolling on the endowment, though faculty say Diebold holds the department near to his heart.

"The foundation has been very helpful in education over the past few years and I guess my name gets tagged along with that," Diebold said.