Harvard announced Monday the university has received the largest single donation in its 378-year history. A $350 million gift has been pledged to the School of Public Health, which will now be renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The gift came from The Morningside Foundation, a philanthropic organization led by brothers Ronnie and Gerald Chan. Their father, T.H. Chan, was a Hong Kong real estate developer who died in 1986. While alive, he is described as often helping family friends pay for schooling or study abroad.
"I think he would have been very pleased … that the school would be part of his legacy," said Gerald Chan, who earned his master's degree from the School of Public Health in 1979, in a statement. "It was very much in keeping with how he lived his life and what he held to be important."
The funding will be used to bolster research in areas that pose significant threats to public health, including global pandemics like Ebola and malaria, as well as issues stemming from war, poverty, an ailing healthcare system and the environment.
The School of Public Health is one of two institutions within Harvard to be renamed in honor of philanthropy. The only other school to bear an individual's name is the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, named for former United States President John F. Kennedy in 1966.
Gerald Chan currently lives in Newton, Mass., and has recently purchased more than $100 million worth of real estate in Harvard Square, according to the Harvard Crimson. His history with the school, and the area, helped inspire his gift. As he told the university's student newspaper:
I’ve been around Harvard for 40 plus years now, and I really feel that the School of Public Health has a very unique voice. There are parts of the school which speak for economic efficiency. There are parts for the school which speak for other approaches to solving problems. ... I think the HSPH has a very unique voice which should be heard more clearly within the larger community.
Proceeds from the gift will go toward expanding financial aid and providing loan forgiveness to graduates who choose to work in underserved communities in the U.S. and abroad. The School's Dean Julio Frenk called the donation "transformational," sharing in a statement, "We can apply it to the priorities of the moment and those priorities that are likely to evolve because public health is a very dynamic field."
In February, Harvard announced what was then the largest single donation granted to the university. Citadel Founder and CEO Kenneth Griffin had given the school $150 million to support its financial aid program.
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