The Board of Trustees voted this week to rename the Medical School after a former patient who gave a $75 million donation, the largest gift among Chicago universities, administrators said Wednesday.
The gift, from the Chicago-based Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, will go toward funding the Medical School’s endowment and research. In honor of the gift, the school will be named the Feinberg Medical School.
The foundation has donated $103 million to the Medical School during the last 13 years – a sum of contributions that lead to the name change, said Medical School Dean Lewis Landsberg.
“(These gifts) provide very important support for our faculty,” Landsberg said. “They help us to recruit talented scientists to the school.”
Landsberg said the new name probably will appear on diplomas in June, although administrators have not discussed the matter.
Reuben Feinberg, president of the foundation, said he became interested in the school after being rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in 1987 for treatment of a cardiovascular problem.
“It was just by chance – when I passed out, the fire department and ambulance took me to Northwestern hospital,” said Feinberg, who is vice-chairman of the Parkway Bank and Trust board in Harwood Heights. “If they would have turned right or left, someone else might have this money.”
The Feinberg Foundation was founded by Reuben Feinberg and his three brothers in honor of their parents. The foundation also gave $17 million in 1989 for the creation of a cardiovascular institute and $10 million in 1996 for the Frances Evelyn Feinberg Clinical Neurosciences Institute, named after Feinberg’s late wife.
Feinberg said he decided to give the Medical School discretion in how to spend this gift.
“I’m not a doctor, so I couldn’t make any decisions for them,” he said. “I’m assuming they’re going to do the right thing, and (NU) may end up being the No. 1 medical school. … I may not be here, but (my name) may end up being famous.”
Landsberg said most of the money will go toward the endowment, which provides financial support for facilities and other day-to-day expenses.
University President Henry Bienen said the gift will provide crucial funding for the Medical School professors after the recent construction of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center and renovations to several other buildings.
“When you build a building like that, you need to put people in it … otherwise it’s a very expensive piece of concrete and glass,” Bienen said. “You’ve got to pay for that building by generating a lot of research.”
The Medical School already has hired 55 of the 75 to 100 planned researchers, Bienen said, and the Feinberg contribution will help close the “funding gap” that can occur between construction of a building and hiring the researchers.
The $75 million gift puts the Campaign NU total at $1.28 billion, close to the $1.4 billion goal for the fundraising drive set for August 2003. The Medical School has received about $426 million from Campaign NU since the fundraising project’s inception in 1998, Vice President for University Development Ronald Vanden Dorpel said.
Bienen said the Medical School has an advantage in raising Campaign NU funds over other departments.
“Medical schools and hospitals have a base of great relations with people who they’ve helped or who have a commitment to clinical care and medical research,” Bienen said.
