Jonathan Tisch and the Omidyars are not the only people to have made generous financial gifts to Tufts in the past year.
A Swiss businessman, a former hockey star, and a large provider of dental benefits have all donated money to the University recently.
Swiss businessman and philanthropist Thomas Schmidheiny recently pledged a $5 million gift to the Fletcher School.
The monies will be used to initiate a two-year interdisciplinary International Management masters' degree program in the fall of 2008, the Boston Business Journal reported on May 9.
According to the article in the Journal, 25 students will initially enroll in the program, and Tufts will hire additional international business and finance faculty over the next five years. Financial aid will be offered to students of the program, but tuition rates have not yet been set and may not be finalized until August.
Important aspects of the program include the creation of an interdisciplinary Center for Emerging Market Enterprises and the creation of a training program on the finance and law of emerging capital markets. The Center for Emerging Market Enterprises will address risk in global asset
management and strategic challenges for emerging market-based multinationals, among other issues.
Schmidheiny was awarded an honorary doctorate of business administration from Tufts and is the chairman of Spectrum Value Management Ltd. in Zurich, Switzerland.
Delta Dental of Massachusetts, an association offering dental benefits to employers in the state, announced that it is "awarding a $5 million endowment to the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine," a May 5 press release from Delta Dental of Massachusetts read.
The endowment will be used to create an academic chair in public health and community service, improve care and access to dental care for persons with special needs and other underserved populations, and expand Tufts' use of a clinical database to create best practices for dental treatment guidelines for persons with special needs.
This chair, in particular, "will coordinate and extend the already-large number of public health and community service programs we have underway and strengthen the public health component of our curriculum," said Lonnie Norris, dean of the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, through Health Sciences spokeswoman Siobhan Gallagher.
"A specialized database will enable practitioners to unify electronic dental records and practice management systems at eight clinics for the Tufts Dental Facilities for Persons with Special Needs located across Massachusetts," the release said.
The statement quoted Norris as saying that the mission of the endowment is aligned with the mission of the dental school.
"The Delta Dental endowment will enable Tufts Dental School to increase community outreach and service to underserved populations," Norris told Delta Dental. "Community service and public health are at the heart of the mission of Tufts Dental School and are integrated into the teaching curriculum ... Our faculty, staff and students are grateful to Delta Dental for its support of our shared vision to address these disparities."
According to Norris, "Tufts Dental School serves more than 15,000 patients with special needs per year at eight clinics across the state, a ... nationally-recognized model of care for persons with special needs.
The Tufts Facilities for Persons with Special Needs has spent 30 years providing care for people with developmental or other disabilities, Norris said, including people with cerebral palsy, autism, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis (MS), muscular dystrophy, and others.
In January, 2000, Delta Dental established the Oral Health Foundation to provide financial grants to qualified community organizations.
The Cam Neely Foundation donated $7 million to Tufts-New England Medical Center, The Boston Globe reported in an Apr. 25 article. Neely is a former Boston Bruin and National Hockey League Hall of Famer.
Two million dollars of The Cam Neely Foundation's $7 million donation will go toward the creation of a pediatric-bone marrow transplant facility at the medical center's Floating Hospital for Children. The rest of the money will help improve the hospital's established neurosurgery program.
"We don't think the hospital, and the cancer center especially, gets the recognition it deserves," Neely told the Globe.
Construction of the pediatric facility has yet to begin, but the improvements on the neurosurgery center are near completion, the Globe reported. These improvements will be named in honor of Neely's father, Michael Neely, who died of brain cancer.
Neely's foundation had previously funded the creation of a residential floor for cancer patients at Tufts, known as the Neely House.
