“We are more into supporting people than bricks and mortar.”
Dr. Cecil and Linda Rorabeck made a $1 million donation to The University of Western Ontario’s matching funds program to establish endowed chairs. The funds, when combined with another donor’s bequest of $500,000, will establish the Cecil and Linda Rorabeck Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology.
These are the words of Dr. Cecil Rorabeck, who along with his wife Linda, demonstrated their commitment to investing in people at The University of Western Ontario on Friday through a $1 million donation to the university’s matching funds program to support a newly developed endowed chairs program.
Rorabeck, one of the world’s leading experts on hip and knee replacement surgery, is a professor emeritus and former Orthopedic Surgery chair at Western and London Health Sciences Centre. A Western graduate (MD ’68), he received an honorary degree from his alma mater last October in recognition of the worldwide impact he has made in medicine, and his dedication to the community.
Rorabeck most recently served as interim Robarts Research Institute CEO and scientific director, overseeing its consolidation with Western, finalized in June 2007.
“The fact that we are able to do something in science, in particular, was very important to us,” he says, noting the family has had an affiliation with Robarts for several years. “It’s really because of that allegiance to Robarts that we decided to do this. We believe it to be a world-class institute.”
The Rorabeck gift of $1 million will be combined with another donor’s $500,000 bequest to the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. This will create a total donation of $1.5 million, which will then be matched by the university to create a $3 million endowed chair, entitled the Cecil and Linda Rorabeck Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology.
The chair position will be located in Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Robarts Research Institute, and the holder will be an appointed scientist at the new Centre for Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology at Robarts. The centre’s goal is to discover and translate molecular therapies for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, stroke-induced dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Ravi Menon, Robarts Research Institute deputy director and Canada Research Chair in Functional and Molecular Imaging, promised the philanthropic couple the money will be spent wisely. “I promise you that we will recruit an individual who will flourish in this environment and will contribute to the university and to Robarts,” Menon says.
“The establishment of this program, to establish chairs, is transformational for us,” adds Michael Strong, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry dean. “If we are going to be great at what we do, this is what is required; this is what is going to help us.”
Western President Amit Chakma has outlined an ambitious strategy to increase dramatically the number of endowed chairs at Western – with a goal of 100 new chairs in the next 10 years across all faculties.
In a competitive market, Western must diversify its revenue strategy to reduce reliance on government funding. The university set aside $12.5 million of one-time funds for the matching program to create up to eight endowed chairs by April 2011. The university will match private gifts of up to $1.5 million to fully establish a chair in perpetuity.
“When we make something to be our top priority, we should be able to put in our own resources,” Chakma says, noting the matching funds program “invests in our future.”
By increasing the number of endowed chair positions, Western will be able to recruit top faculty and researchers, as well as give the university some fiscal freedom.
The program will free up financial resources within the faculties, he explains, because the university will not have to draw money from the operating budget to pay the faculty member’s salary. The bar was set at minimum of $3 million to create an endowed chair position (including faculty and university contributions) because it would generate about $150,000 annually based on a five per cent interest rate, Chakma says.
“It allows us to cover a big part of their salary with the endowment,” he says.
The first chair established under the matching program was announced by Western’s Richard Ivey School of Business in September thanks to a gift from Ian Ihnatowycz and Marta Witer, who directed $1.5 million of their $3.5 million gift to endow a Chair in Leadership.
With two of the eight endowed chair positions in place, Chakma is confident Western will come close, if not meet, its goal by April 2011.