New York University’s Stern School of Business received a $20 million gift from alumnus and hedge fund founder John Paulson, the school announced earlier this month. The gift, especially generous in a year when philanthropy has fallen off at most business schools, will help fund facility renovations, scholarships and new faculty chair endowments.

Paulson, founder of New York-based Paulson & Co. and one of the largest alternative asset managers in the field, graduated with a bachelor degree from Stern in 1978. He is also a member of Stern’s board of overseers.

“I am grateful for the education I received at Stern,” Paulson said in a statement announcing the gift. “My hope is that this gift will advance the school’s mission as a global leader in business education and economic research as well as provide scholarships to gifted students with financial needs.”

Stern will use $5 million of the gift to create two new endowed faculty chairs, one in economics and another in finance. The first will be named for Stern alumnus Alan Greenspan (BS ’48, MA ’50, PhD ’77), leading economist and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The second will be named for Paulson. Stern finance professor Lasse Pederson, whose research focuses on how liquidity risk affects security prices and trading, has been appointed the first John Paulson professor.

Another $4 million of the gift will establish scholarships for high-merit, high-need undergraduate business students. Recipients will be known as Paulson Scholars.

The remaining $11 million will help support campus renovation already underway as part of the Concourse Project, a campaign to modernize classrooms and connect Stern’s two primary buildings, the Henry Kaufman Management Center and Tisch Hall. In recognition of Paulson’s generosity, Stern has named the first floor lobby of Tisch Hall and the school auditorium in his honor.

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