Campaign Results

Scholarships enable students, regardless of financial need, to pursue their dreams and contribute their unique skills and ideas. Endowed scholarship funds that are simply designed, and easy to award, open the most doors for tomorrow’s leaders.

Drexel University was created with the conviction that cost should not be a barrier to the best education. Especially in an era when technology and computer literacy are widening the opportunity gap, higher education is essential. Yet for many deserving students and their families, the cost of tuition, books and housing can be daunting.

You can make a powerful difference with an endowed scholarship fund. When students aren’t worried about meeting each term’s fees or having adequate living expenses for co-op, they can focus on getting the most out of Drexel’s unsurpassed experiential learning model.

Endowed scholarship funds that are simply designed, and easy to award, open the most doors for tomorrow’s leaders. The recipients often grow into the next generation of donors because they want to give back and complete the cycle of generosity.

There are many examples of highly successful Dragons who have chosen to invest in the future of Drexel students. Two trustees who have recently endowed scholarship funds in the Campaign are Denis P. O’Brien ’87, who established the O’Brien Scholarship Fund to benefit students in Drexel’s LeBow College of Business; and Nicholas DeBenedictis, ’68, ‘69 and his wife, Eileen, who are assisting students with demonstrated financial need majoring in environmental engineering in the College of Engineering.

Endowed scholarship funds allow you to express your values and encourage students to pursue the fields of study that you believe have the greatest impact for good. For example, Agnes M. Connors ’68, and her father William Connors ’67, graduated within a year of each other and they celebrated the role that Drexel played in their careers by creating a scholarship fund to assist deserving students majoring in business and engineering.

Scholarships also increase access to education for students who have been hindered by systemic inequities. For example, concerned about the under-representation of women in computing fields, alumni supporters enabled the College of Computing and Informatics to provide 25 scholarships to female students last fiscal year. CCI’s Women in Computing initiative aims to increase the proportion of women studying computer science at Drexel by 50 percent over the next five years.

Because of you, talented young people will have the opportunity to pursue their dreams and contribute their unique skills and ideas, in order to make the future better for all.

For a personal conversation about your investment in scholarship, contact a Drexel gift officer.

When you endow a professorship, you ensure Drexel’s power to recruit the most engaged teachers and the most talented and creative researchers, in a field that’s important to you.

Awarding a faculty member an endowed professorship confers a great honor on the recipient and creates an enduring legacy for you. Beyond the vibrant learning environments they spark, endowed professors are catalysts for inventions and solutions that ripple across society.

By attracting the best faculty, we also support Drexel’s efforts to assemble a gifted, diverse student body, which further enriches the teaching and learning environment. Great scholars and researchers entice talented graduate students to our campus as well.

An excellent example of this is the Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professorship, which Drexel established with an estate gift from former Drexel Trustee Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach ’52. Yury Gogotsi, PhD, professor in the College of Engineering and founder and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, was inducted as the inaugural Bach Professor in recognition of his pioneering research contributions.

This funding allows Gogotsi and his team to push the boundaries of what can be done with MXenes (pronounced max-eens), a new family of materials discovered and developed in Drexel’s labs that have enormous implications for energy storage, environmental protection, water quality and health.

As Gogotsi explains it, “This endowment allows us to…do something that is high-risk, high-return. This is always very important in science because unless we take risks, we have little ability to really make breakthroughs.”

The need for daring leadership holds true in many other disciplines, including teaching and coaching. Two longtime supporters of the Drexel University College of Medicine, Deborah J. Tuttle, MD, and John P. Piper, MD, endowed the position of the vice dean for educational affairs at Drexel College of Medicine, making possible innovative updates in the medical curriculum.

In athletics, Mary Semanik, who served as director of women’s athletics at Drexel from 1965-91, endowed the position of head coach of the women’s lacrosse team. Semanik was a star athlete herself, and she helped usher in Division I sports at Drexel for both women and men. By endowing this position, Semanik ensured that generations of women student-athletes have the kind of superb leadership and mentoring that she brought to the University.

For a personal conversation about your investment in scholarship, contact a Drexel gift officer.

• A significant gift from Stephen A. Sheller, Esq., HD ’17 and Sandra Sheller ’04, ’05 is helping Drexel’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law prepare undergraduate students and working professionals from underrepresented backgrounds for the study and practice of law through workshops, classes and networking programs.
• A significant contribution from Richard A. Hayne, vice chair of Drexel’s board of trustees and chief executive of Urban Outfitters, will support student success across Drexel, including the creation of an experiential learning program that will prepare fashion design and other design students at the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design for careers in retail.
• A generous gift from Jeffrey R. “Jeff” and Jenifer Westphal made in honor of his father, Rainer "Ray" J. Westphal ’59, HD ’02, will help to establish the Innovation Engine, an initiative that will support the integration of experiential learning, curricular innovation, research and interdisciplinary solutions across Drexel.
• Ronald W. ’72 and Kathleen Disney made a $10 million pledge to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and to provide scholarship funds and program support for students from underrepresented backgrounds, primarily at the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business.
• Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design has received $3.9 million in gifts and pledges from two anonymous donors to support exhibitions and research and curatorial fellowships at the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, and to establish a College-wide artist-in-residence program.
• A $9 million gift from Dana Dornsife ’83, HD ’14, and her husband, David, HD ’14, to the Dornsife School of Public Health will help launch a new Center on Racism and Health, recruit and retain faculty experts on racial inequities in health and endow the deanship for public health.
• Support from the Board of Trustees established the Rapid Response Research and Development Fund, which is allowing Drexel researchers to quickly pivot their expertise to solving some of the most urgent challenges of the pandemic
• Albert "Mert" Hill '67 and Joanne Hill '69 made a transformational gift to create the Mert and Joanne Hill Head Wrestling Coach position – the first named male coaching position at Drexel.
• A $1 million gift from the Wilbur C. and Betty Lea Henderson Foundation will fund scholarships for students in the LeBow College of Business’ Real Estate Management and Development program.
• Carol Auerbach and Albert Berger established the Auerbach Berger Chair in Cybersecurity, which will fuel the work of inaugural holder, Spiros Mancoridis, leading researcher and teacher in cybersecurity and software engineering.
• Gregory and Caroline Bentley have endowed a new home for the Pennoni Honors College with a $5 million gift.
• A $1.65 million naming gift ensures the future of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic.
• Drexel Trustee and former student-athlete Jim Bean ’91, and his wife, Christine O’Sullivan, pledge $1 million in matching funds for renovation of the Vidas Athletic Complex.
• Trustee and alumna Nina Henderson endows provost position with $5 million commitment.
• Lenfest Family Foundation provides $3 million for co-ops in cultural nonprofits.
• Wellcome Trust grants Dornsife School for Public Health $12 million to study urban health.