The only public medical school in Massachusetts just announced a $175 million gift from billionaire investor Gerald Chan and his family’s charity, the Morningside Foundation. If the Chan name sounds familiar, it is likely because Mr. Chan’s $350 million donation to Harvard resulted in the renaming of the school of public health to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2014.
The $175 million donation is the largest in UMass’ history. In addition to renaming the medical school to the UMass Chan Medical School, the two associated graduate schools will be renamed the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing and the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
The entire $175 million gift is urestricted, meaning UMass is free to spend it however it sees fit. Dr. Michael Collins, the medical school’s chancellor declared, “This is going to allow us to dream what our future can be like at UMass Medical School. It’s an incredible statement of confidence.”