In order to continue to attract the best and brightest students, Penn Vet must not only offer the highest level of training for the next generation of veterinarians, we must also make that education affordable. Currently, Penn Vet’s level of annual scholarship support is approximately $1.2 million, which falls short of the support provided to students by some of our peer schools which offer approximately $1.7 million per year.

Since the launch of the Making History Campaign in 2007, Penn Vet has raised more than $13 million towards its $20 million endowment goal to support scholarship.

Growing scholarship endowment will remain an ongoing goal even at the close of the Making History Campaign; the Dean has a goal of awarding $2 million per year in scholarship funds, which would require Penn Vet to secure an additional $16 million for endowed scholarship support.

With the close of the Campaign just six months away, we are thankful for those leadership gifts from Penn Vet Board of Overseer members who have recognized the real need to support students’ education in the field.

Support for VMD/PhD Program

Penn Vet Board of Overseer Chair Mindy Heyer, C’70, W’80 and her husband Andrew Heyer, W’79, member of Penn’s Trustees, have established the Heyer General Endowment Fund with $500,000 dedicated to establishing a matching endowment program for the School’s VMD/ PhD program. Students accepted into the VMD/PhD program are fully funded for their dual degrees.

This Heyer Family Veterinary Challenge Fund encourages gifts to the VMD/PhD program by providing a one-to-one match for qualifying commitments.

Here’s her story about why she and her family support Penn Vet…

About seven or so years ago I noticed an ad in the Penn Gazette. It was a photo of dogs and cats sitting in classroom chairs. The caption read, “Buy a chair in honor of your pet.”

At the time, I had two golden retrievers, and wanted to immortalize them through a gift to the Vet School, and so I bought two chairs in honor of Dally and Midas. Little did I know that would launch my relationship with Penn Vet, Dean Hendricks, and all the wonderful and dedicated faculty and clinicians at the Vet School.

The folks at Penn Vet development invited me down to spend some time at both Ryan and New Bolton Center. I remember meeting Drs. Nicky Mason, Dottie Brown, David Holt, Gary Althouse and Dean Richardson. The research happening at the school and the advanced techniques in clinical care, bowled me over.

Up until that point I was unaware of the contributions that veterinarians make towards advancing human health.

Also, the passionate dedication for the veterinary profession was palpable and the enthusiasm was contagious.

After Dean Hendricks invited me onto the Board of Overseers my husband and I started to consider where to direct a capital campaign gift. Ultimately, we asked Dean Hendricks how best to direct the money. Years ago we had supported scholarship at the University level and knew that access was a core component of the Penn Compact.

So it felt right when Dean Hendricks suggested we consider a gift to the VMD/PhD program. Students in the VMD/PhD program have an opportunity to pursue research projects that have longterm implications for the well being of our beloved companions, but also address diseases affecting human beings. Veterinary/PhD students at Penn are in a unique position to collaborate with their peers at Penn Medicine, Penn Dental and other graduate schools in order to solve problems confronting our community, as well as our world.

While we were not clients at the time we became involved with Penn Vet, we had occasion to visit shortly thereafter. We made our first visit to Ryan Hospital, and I have to say, that particular visit did not end happily. Though we no longer have Dally or Midas, Mighty Dog, our 2 1/2-year-old golden with a reputation for ingesting anything and everything, has been to Ryan Hospital several times. He joyfully bounces in ahead of us on visits to Ryan, as only a golden can.

We know that the care any patient at Ryan Hospital receives will be the best care available. 

Support for Academic-Minded Students

Another member of the Penn Vet Board of Overseers, Mark D. Spitzer, has also recognized the need for endowed scholarship and in 2012 established the Tracy and Mark Spitzer Endowed Scholarship Fund to provide financial support to graduate student/s who will pursue a career in academia upon graduating from Penn Vet. The commitment, $250,000 over five years, helps to offset tuition and loan debt.

Here’s his story about why he and his family support Penn Vet…

Education has been a bedrock value in our family for a long time. Nothing gives Tracy and I more satisfaction than to provide for the education of young people. For many young people, the large cost of an education at the Veterinary School puts that education out of reach. Others already carry a heavy burden from their undergraduate education. The cumulative cost of undergraduate and graduate study prevents graduates from pursuing a career path in the economically challenging area of research.

Tracy and I feel privileged to be able to help by setting up this scholarship fund for vet students that intend to pursue a career in research. This is especially meaningful to us since so much of Penn Vet’s research is translatable to human medicine. The students of today will ultimately be the groundbreaking researchers of tomorrow.

Last year I indicated to Linda Kronfeld, a good friend at Penn’s development office, that I wanted to become more involved at Penn. We discussed various paths and the match with the vet school was a very interesting possibility. Tracy and I breed thoroughbred horses for sale and the racetrack on our farm in upstate New York, so we had a working understanding of the large animal facility, New Bolton Center. But we had no real idea about how Penn Vet delivers education to students, the level and quality of research that is done through NIH funding, and how Penn Vet serves the community with its small animal hospital.

Tracy and I were invited to Philadelphia and we spent a wonderful day on campus with Dean Hendricks, several faculty members and administrators. We found even under the most stressful of fiscal constraints Dean Hendricks and the vet school are keeping to the highest standards for education and research and are also developing a strategic vision for the way forward.

We were deeply impressed with the extremely promising translational research that is ongoing at the school, the hospitality and warmth of everyone that we met and the broad and the extensive intellectual capabilities.

I was also extremely pleased to learn that Mindy Heyer is chair of the Board of Overseers. I served on a board with Mindy several years ago. Because of her longtime passion for and dedication to Penn I knew that serving on this board would be meaningful.

Penn Vet has a little magic in a bottle ready to burst forth under the hard work and leadership of Dean Hendricks, Mindy Heyer and the many superlative faculty members, administrators and employees. As a member of the Board, I am enjoying being just a small part of that effort.

Scholarship will continue to be an ongoing priority even after the close of the Campaign. If you are interested in supporting Penn Vet students in this meaningful way, please contact Jillian Marcussen, director of stewardship and special projects at 215.898.4235.

In addition to their gifts, Board of Overseers members Louis Sallie and Lynne Tarnopol have also offered support of scholarship recently.

Louis, through his role at the Farm Bureau, has led the organization’s commitment in setting up an endowed scholarship that will support a student interested in pursuing farm animal medicine.

Totaling $100,000, the Richard W. Newpher/Farm Bureau Endowed Scholarship through the PA Friends of Agriculture Foundation will provide support to a Pennsylvania resident in his/her third year resident who is pursuing a dairy or large-animal and food production field of study. The scholarship was created in honor of Dick Newpher, who retired after nearly two decades of service with the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“Throughout his career, Dick Newpher has emphasized how veterinary science is essential to agriculture’s productivity and future. The Richard W. Newpher/Farm Bureau Endowed Scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine will help to provide a sufficient force of veterinarians to serve our farms.”

– Louis Sallie, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Administrative Secretary

Lynne has recently offered $100,000 to support endowed scholarship at Penn Vet.

“To me, it is important to support the University in any way I can and because of my love of animals, Penn Vet was a perfect fit. And because four years of vet school is so expensive, a scholarship is the best way to continue to attract the best students. I am happy to continue my support of Penn Vet.”

– Lynne Tarnopol, Penn Vet Board of Overseers