Vinod Menon, a physics professor in New York, finds $180,000 cash in his mail

VINOD MENON, PROFESSOR, CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK, ON FINDING $180,000 IN CASH IN HIS MAIL

This article, first published December 23, 2021, is being re-published since Global Indian Times has also begun posting on Substack.

https://www.globalindiantimes.com/globalindiantimes/2021/12/23/vinod-menon-finds-180000-dollars-in-mail

by Ignatius Chithelen* December 23, 2021

Early this week, I joked with Visakh Menon, who handles design for this publication, that he should copy the tricks of his older brother Vinod Menon. Unlike his spending weeks over a painting, I said, Vinod has become a celebrity in academic circles by merely opening a cardboard box.  

Vinod Menon, 49-years-old, is a professor and chair of the physics department at the City College of New York (CCNY). On September 1, he opened a heavy, shoebox sized package, addressed to the chair of CCNY’s physics department. He expected it to be a statue or some other gift.

“I found a letter on the top and started reading it,” Vinod said in a phone interview today from Phoenix, where he is spending the holidays with his wife Michelle and sons Rishi, 9-years-old and Rohan, 7.

The printed letter, sent by someone going by the name Kyle Paisley, and dated 11.10.2020, began “Dear Chairman Menon.” Paisley stated that long ago he -or she - graduated with a “double major, physics and mathematics…I wish the enclosed funds to be used solely to support deserving junior and senior” double majors in physics and mathematics “in need of financial support to continue their studies.” The criteria should be “a proven academic record” of good grades, though “evaluations of their professors should not be ignored.”

Looking for a check in the box, Menon took out the bubble wrap and stopped. The box was tightly filled with packets of $50 and $100 bills. “As a chair of a department, you prepare for several contingencies about students, faculty, fund raising but not a box full of cash,” says Menon. “My excitement about receiving a donation instantly faded and I turned a bit shocked. I had never seen so much cash in my life. I called Susan Perkins, the dean of sciences, and asked her to come and see a gift I received.”

Together Menon and Perkins counted the cash and found it totaled $180,000. Perkins called the campus security officials, who also counted the cash and took it for safe keeping. The security officials contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to find out if the money came from criminal or other illegal activities.

Based on the contents of the letter, Menon was hopeful that the money was legitimate. “I spent the first day or two trying to figure out who the donor might be and his or her motivation in sending cash directly to me,” he says. “But then I decided it makes more sense to focus on how best to use the gift, if it turns out to be clean money.”

CCNY is part of the City University of New York (CUNY). Founded in 1847, CCNY has played a major role in U.S. higher education, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, primarily for recent immigrants in the New York area. The CUNY system comprises 25 institutions, serving more than 275,000 degree-seeking students, as well as 250,000 continuing education and certificate students.

CUNY counts 13 Nobel Prize winners, including three from in physics. All three physicists were alum of CCNY, where Menon teaches, the latest being Leon Lederman in 1988.  

In 2005, the late Andy Grove, a CCNY alum, donated $26 million to the college’s engineering school. Grove, was the founder and former chief executive of the chip maker Intel, which has a market value of $209 billion.

There are currently about 65 undergraduate and 40 graduate students in the physics department at CCNY. Menon’s research interests are in nano and micro photonics and quantum technologies. The goal of his team is to find applications in areas such as quantum simulators, energy harvesting, ultrafast light emitters, and catalysis. He is a co-author of several research papers published in Nature Nanotechnology, Science and other scientific journals. He is also a fellow of the Optical Society of America, now known as Optica.

In 2004, Menon joined CUNY as an assistant professor of physics at its Queens College campus. He was appointed chair of CCNY’s department of physics in 2019. Earlier, from 2001 to 2004, he was a post-doctoral fellow in photonics and a research staff member at Princeton University.

Vinod Menon came to the U.S. in 1996 to study for a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He earned the doctorate in 2001. In 1995, he received an M.Sc. from the University of Hyderabad, India and, in 1993, a B.Sc. from P.S.G. college in Coimbatore, India - both degrees were in physics. Born in Kerala, he grew up in Coimbatore, along with his younger brother Visakh. They both now live in New York City.

CCNY’s mailroom, located in a building closed due to COVID-19 restriction, likely received the box from Paisley late last year or earlier this year. After the building re-opened, the box was delivered to Menon’s office, where it stayed for months. “I went to the campus in the summer of this year, after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted,” says Menon. “But I worked in the laboratory building, where I also have an office. The relevant mail has my lab office address, while the junk mail and magazines usually come to my department office address.”

In October, FBI investigators found that the cash, which was wrapped in paper bands, was withdrawn from banks in Maryland and that it is not from criminal sources. On December 13, following the FBI clearance, the university’s board of trustees, accepted the $180,000 donation “which will be used to fund scholarships for students in…physics and mathematics.” CCNY’s records show no former student with the name Kyle Paisley.

In his letter to Menon, Paisley stated, “Assuming that you are a bit curious as to why I am doing this the reason is straightforward: the excellent educational opportunity available to me – which I took full advantage of at CCNY…gave me the basis to continue to develop: first to an M.A. in Physics (also from CCNY), then a double Ph.D. (Physics and Astronomy), and finally a long, productive, immensely rewarding to me, scientific career.” Paisley could have gotten a reduction of $24,000 or more, in his 2020 income tax payments, if he had donated the money to CCNY via a check. 

“I don’t know if the donor expected the large cash donation would get wide media coverage and hence bring much needed attention to the need for successful alumni to give back to CUNY. After all, they get a cheap, good education at a state-run college system like CUNY,” says Menon.

While small compared to gifts from Grove and other major CUNY donors, Paisley’s generosity has gotten extensive coverage, including from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, UK, CNN, Fox, and other news, TV and social media outlets. This may be due to the act being anonymous, carried out in $50 and $100 bills, trusting the postal mail for delivery and an uplifting story of a gift to help others by someone, who may not be exceptionally wealthy, made public during a second, consecutive holiday season dampened by the surge in the COVID-19 virus, this time the Omicron variant. The news also led to much speculation about the donor in the media, including about the significance of the number 18 for Jews in the Times of Israel.

“A day student pays a total of $7,500 in tuition and other fees a year at CCNY, while a similar quality education at a private college would cost over $50,000“, says Menon. While the fees at the CUNY colleges are relatively low, it is still a burden for many of its students. “I have several students who work two jobs to be able to pay their fees,” says Menon. Also, many of the students are the first in their families to attend college or even finish high school.

In keeping with the donor’s wishes, the physics department will use the $180,000 to fund two undergraduate students, each year for the next 10 years or so. Also, the recipients will be expected to give back, including by volunteering to help fellow students by mentoring them. “The scholarships will allow the recipients to focus on their academics,” says Menon.  

“I don’t know where Paisley’s box is stored,” says Menon. “But I hope others are inspired by the example. I agree with a CUNY board member who says the box should be prominently displayed on the campus.”  

*Ignatius Chithelen is author of Passage from India to America and Six Degrees of Education.

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