At the meeting of the CWRU Board of Trustees this weekend there was a celebration of the remarkable success of the University’s capital campaign. A big part of that success can be attributed to the School of Medicine, which raised $667M over the period of the campaign.
How will that money be used?
First, we added $190.3M to our endowment. We are delighted to have this income in perpetuity, providing a reservoir for the future. The active contribution from the endowment to medical school faculty, students, and programs is 4.7% of the total each year.
We raised about $80M in scholarships – and most of this is earmarked for the endowment. Some of these commitments are still to be realized –including estate commitments, many from our wonderful alumni. Several classes have risen to the challenge and contributed $1M class scholarships. Individual alumni members have reached deep to establish named scholarships of their own. Our scholarship pool allows us to recruit terrific students with significant needs and to offer merit scholarships to the top applicants.
There were 49 new endowed chairs created. Some of these will be completed with estate commitments – but in order to be awarded, a chair must be 50% funded in cash. Some of these have been designated chairs, where the donor agrees to provide a specified amount of cash each year for the salary of the designee to secure his or her time for academic purposes. Endowed chairs are hugely important in today’s competitive academic world. These commitments allow us to honor many of our top faculty members. Because we have so many more that we would like to pay tribute to via this special designation, we’re continually trying to raise additional funds in this category.
Some of the newly raised funds went into the new Health Education Campus that we will occupy very soon, and which we think will further elevate our reputation as one of the nation’s top medical schools, particularly for interprofessional education.
Some went into programs, both educational – such as the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wellness and Prevention Pathway –and research-based, such as the Cleveland Brain Health Initiative and the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer initiative in our renowned Cancer Center. Some went into our accelerator fund to support promising technology development for commercialization.
We are fortunate to benefit from the generosity of several outstanding foundations. The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation provided support for the HEC, Cleveland Brain Health Initiative, and Mt. Sinai Scholars, which targets newly recruited assistant professors. The Cleveland Foundation provided funding for the HEC, Cleveland Brain Health Initiative, and the Proteomics and Bioinformatics Center. Heartfelt thanks to both! The School of Medicine is fortunate to be served by an outstanding development team, led by Carol Moss. Every year that Carol has led the team, we have set a new record in attainment. And I can assure you that she is not letting up simply because we have passed the formal boundary of our campaign. We still need additional funds for our programs and I can think of no better team than Carol and her associates to lead the charge.
Let me conclude by happily and proudly telling you that many faculty members have stepped up to support the School, often in the form of scholarships or support of endowed chairs. Some of us have named scholarships for our parents. Others honor additional special individuals or reserve the naming for their families. I am enormously gratified by these gifts, for they represent support from within. Thank you to everyone who has made such a wonderful gift. The hard work of our development team, the participation of our faculty and students, and the success of our School have made such an impressive record possible. Thank you all for what you have done – you have been magnificent.
Pam