A $500,000 gift from a University of Kansas School of Law alumnus will create a new professorship in honor of the late KU professor William R. Scott, KU Endowment recently announced.

The William R. Scott Law Professorship is the third professorship established at KU by alumnus Art Piculell, who graduated from KU Law in the early 1960s and now resides in Scottsdale, Ariz.

William Scott, affectionately known as “Scottie,” graduated from Harvard Law School before joining the U.S. Air Force in 1942, leaving the military in 1946 to join the faculty at KU. There, he taught more than 2,000 students (including Piculell) over 32 years.

Scott, who died in 2002, was also known as an authority on property law, contributing articles to the Kansas Law Review and the Kansas Bar Journal.

Piculell, along with his late wife, Dee, helped create law professorships in honor of faculty members J.B. Smith and Earl B. Shurtz in 2004 and 2014, respectively.