The Start of Something Larger
Building on their vision and on their longtime generosity to campus, Stephen ’77 and Louise ’77 Pahl have made a $10.5 million gift to UC Santa Barbara to create the Pahl Center on the Study of Critical Social Issues in the Social Sciences. It includes an irrevocable $10 million gift through their estate and $500,000 in start-up funding for the next five years.
Through the Pahl Center, UC Santa Barbara will raise the work of the Pahl Initiative to new heights, establishing a framework to achieve the ambitious goals it set out. The overall goal remains the same: to explore major societal issues using hard data and to develop potential solutions based on empirical evidence. The Pahl Initiative — now the Pahl Center — will bring a critical lens to accepted dogma.
“Philanthropy allows us to dream big and to think outside the box with new ways of making systemic change,” said Louise. “The evolution of the Pahl Initiative into the Pahl Center reinforces the importance of applied research and plants a stake in the ground for how UC Santa Barbara can fill a unique niche on the national stage. We feel that this is a transformative gift for the Division of Social Sciences and will hopefully inspire others to give generously.”
“The overall goal of the project is to explore real world issues and problems, and utilizing hard data related to the issue, develop potential solutions to remedy the issues on an empirical basis, rather than simply resorting to previously relied upon ‘soft’ solutions and arguments,” said Stephen.
For the Pahls, themselves products of the social sciences at UC Santa Barbara, it’s all about fostering cutting edge research for real world solutions.
Donors to the campus since 1990, the Pahls have focused their philanthropy on student support, endowing an undergraduate upper division “Making a Difference” award in social sciences and a graduate fellowship. The Pahls are members of the Gold Circle Society. Louise is a member of the Division Social Sciences Dean’s Cabinet and the Northern California Regional Leadership Committee. She has served on the UC Santa Barbara Foundation Board of Trustees since 2013.
Established in 2019, the Pahl Initiative has been a remarkably successful endeavor that has grown into a showcase program for the Division of Social Sciences, for the campus, and for higher education across the nation.
The Pahl Initiative annually selects one new proposal for two years of funding. At the heart of the endeavor is a desire for broad impact. The initiative focuses on four key principles: rigorous research of high-stakes social issues; data-driven solutions rooted in research analysis; publicly facing research that reaches beyond the walls of academia; and student involvement in the research process, which emphasizes experiential learning. It has worked perfectly, as the university’s first four Pahl Scholars — one is selected each year — are examining issues ranging from mass shootings, to the pandemic’s impact on the underserved, to the housing crisis, to communication in support of separated Latinx families.
“It has been my enormous pleasure to work with Louise and Stephen in the creation of the Pahl Initiative which, after a four-year pilot, has proven the concept and now will inspire our efforts to build the Pahl Center,” said Charles Hale, SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences. “The founding premise of the Pahl Center is that for every critical social issue we face, we need rigorous data-rich analysis of socio-economic and cultural drivers of change, to find just, effective and durable solutions. Our deepest gratitude to Louise and Stephen for their generosity and vision, and for the trust they have deposited in us to raise the Division of Social Sciences to new heights of excellence.”
“We’re trying to change the thought process,” added Stephen. “Our goal is that we’re not the only contributors to the Pahl Center. We want this to be the start of something larger, not something that starts and ends with our gift.”