When he returned to teaching in-person this semester, Vinod Menon, a physics professor at City College of New York in Harlem, finally looked through a pile of office mail and found a cardboard box the size of a toast.
The heavy box was addressed to the chairman of the physics department.
Dr. Menon thought that it might be a token of thanks from a former student. It had been sitting in the physics office for more than nine months.
An exciting moment in the lab is when Dr. Menon discovers the way light interacts with matter on a quantum level.
The matter in the box gave him a charge. It was full of $50 and $100 bills.
The letter explained that the money was a donation to help needy physics and math students at the college.
He said that he had never heard of anything like this before. I didn't know if the college would keep the cash.
The donor was explained in the letter. The donor said that he or she took advantage of the excellent educational opportunity to attend Stuyvesant High School and earn a bachelor's and master's degree.
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The chairman of the physics department at City College of New York is Vinod Menon.
The name on the return address was not listed as a graduate in the college's records.
City College has been helped by larger donations. It has raised over $17 million in funds since the beginning of the fiscal year.
The physics department has been providing the gift for many years and Dr. Menon said it was a testament to what the department had done.
He noted that since the annual tuition at City College is $7,500, the donation would go much further than at an expensive private institution in providing scholarships.
Both the college and the CUNY system could not remember a similar type of donation. The Department of Public Safety at City College, the founding school in the city's 25-college public university system, is led by Chief Pat Morena.
He asked if the person who was sending the money was anonymous.
The physics department has had a long and distinguished history and was earmarked for the donation. Albert Einstein gave one of his earliest U.S. lectures there in 1921, and the department has long punched above its weight, with three of its alumni becoming Nobel Laureates in physics.
Robin said that the box sat in the college's main mailroom like a regular, everyday package and was finally taken with other accumulated parcels to Dr. Menon's office, most likely in March.
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The City College of New York was directed to use the money from the untraceable letter to fund scholarships for needy math and physics students.
Dr. Menon had been teaching remotely since March 2020. He did not check his office mail until late summer, after conducting research in a lab across campus.
The person trusted the system so much that they just sat in the mailroom or sent it by mail.
The money was stored in a safe in the public safety office and officials contacted federal authorities to see if it was proceeds from criminal activity.
The chief said that federal agents determined that the cash had been withdrawn from several banks in Maryland in recent years and was not connected to criminal activity.
The address on the package did not lead to anyone connected to the donation.
The postal inspector's office was unable to get a video of the package being sent. The authorities told college officials that the donor's identification was untraceable after a monthlong investigation.
The CUNY Board of Trustees was given the go-ahead to vote on the gift at its meeting on December 13.
They did it with joy.
William C. Thompson, the board's chairman, introduced the vote and said that it was "astonishing" to have $180,000 in cash in a box.
The chancellor of CUNY said it was a first when asked by a board member if it was a first.
A board member said that the box had to be bronzed and put in a display case as the most generous gift.
She said that school officials followed procedure and that they would do all the due diligence.
Dr. Menon said the money would put it toward funding two full tuition scholarships for more than a decade. He said that the students would have to give back in some way in order to be accepted into the fellowship.
The professor, who came from India in 1996, studied and conducted research at public universities and private institutions.
Dr. Menon said he has remained at City College because of its commitment to offering an affordable education to a diverse group of students. Many of his students come from families that have never attended college, and many have never been in a laboratory, he said.
He said that the impact factor of teaching here is higher. It is a place where you can elevate someone.
