Catalyst Campaign Update: Making Good Things Happen

Under the leadership of UMB Foundation board members and alums Ellen Yankellow, PharmD ’96, BSP ’73, and Brian Gibbons, JD ’87, the University’s most ambitious capital campaign marches toward its $750 million goal. This past October the campaign exceeded the $500 million milestone.

The campaign’s funding priorities are student scholarships, faculty excellence, interdisciplinary research, sustaining funds, and special initiatives within the University’s five Big Ideas of conquering chronic pain, eliminating addiction, furthering critical disease research and care, embracing entrepreneurship, and advancing community engagement.

The campaign’s funding priorities are student scholarships, faculty excellence, interdisciplinary research, sustaining funds, and special initiatives within the University’s five Big Ideas of conquering chronic pain, eliminating addiction, furthering critical disease research and care, embracing entrepreneurship, and advancing community engagement.

UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, said, “It’s gratifying to know that so many of our alumni and friends believe in our work. But it’s not only that: They believe in our work so deeply that they want to invest in it. And that investment obligates us to use their generosity for good — to create positive and powerful change, here at home and around the world. That’s exactly what we do every day.”

Recent significant commitments include:

• A $2.5 million bequest pledge from Leonard L. Topper to endow the Leonard Topper Distinguished Professorship in Pediatric Surgery at the School of Medicine
• A total of $1.2 million from Mary Therese “Terry” Gyi, BSP ’83, PharmD ’06, and her daughter, to endow a professorship in Pharmapreneurism and establish the Felix A. Khin-Maung-Gyi, PharmD, MBA, Memorial Scholarship Endowment for Pharmapreneurship at the School of Pharmacy
• $500,000 from the France-Merrick Foundation to help fund the new UMB Community Engagement Center in West Baltimore
• A gift of $500,000 from Mary Catherine Bunting, MS ’72, CRNP, to the School of Nursing to fund the Community and Public Health and Environmental Initiative with Baltimore City Head Starts and Early Head Start centers
• A $500,000 gift from Charles Chen, DDS ’80, for the Dean’s Innovation Fund at the School of Dentistry
• A $500,000 award from the Green Fund for scholarships for Francis King Carey School of Law students interested in environmental law
• A $300,000 gift from Susan Wolman, MSW ’79, in support of the School of Social Work’s Social Work Community Outreach Service (SWCOS) and Positive Schools Center

Gift support of UMB at any level is welcome, celebrated, and deeply appreciated.