Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine will undergo a major overhaul with new research areas for cancer control, climate change and other causes, thanks to a new gift from to a long-time sponsor of Tulane University.
With the latest donation, the university received a lifetime commitment of more than $160 million from a donor, Celia Scott Weatherhead, and her family foundation — the largest from a single donor in the university’s history, the officials said Wednesday.
The new gift will allow the school of public health to establish research facilities, fund student scholarships, attract top academics and eventually move into the old Charity Hospital building. The school will also be named in honor of Weatherhead, a longtime Tulane supporter and graduate of Newcomb College, Tulane’s affiliated women’s college.
“This is an important day in Tulane’s nearly 200-year history,” Tulane President Michael Fitts said at a ceremony honoring Weatherhead at the public health school on Canal Boulevard.
Fitts noted that the university, founded in 1834 as a medical school, has helped with disastersfrom yellow fever and cholera to the COVID epidemic.
He said: “Today marks an important milestone that affects our future as we face the most important public health challenges in the region.”
The investment comes as Tulane has expanded its campus and research, taking in more than $209 million in research grants last year and spending more than $200 million to renovate its downtown health care facilities. . Tulane plans to move the health school into the old Charity Hospital building downtown, although renovations to the building have stalled due to funding issues. A spokesman said Weatherhead’s donation would not affect the outcome of the Charity’s project.
The university has also received national recognition for its health research. Last month, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited Tulane’s top campus to announce $23 million in funding for cancer detection technology developed by Tulane researchers.
School of public health
Tulane officials said they hope the latest gift will raise the school’s public health profile.
US News and World Report ranked Tulane 12th among public health schools in the country this year, behind schools such as Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and Emory University.
School of Public Health Dean Thomas LaVeist, who serves as the President’s Chair for Climate in Health Equity, described Weatherhead as a “quiet, unassuming person” with extreme devotion to Tulane. He said his gift will equip generations of students to “help heal our world,” attract competitive students and faculty and expand their research.
“The health problems of the South are national and global challenges, and nowhere is there greater promise than right here in our own backyard,” he said.
The gift will be used to establish research areas for cancer control, climate change and health, health equity, health policy, infectious diseases, epidemiology, workforce development of health and the use of artificial intelligence in public health research.
“Through his support, Tulane will continue to identify causes, make connections and find the strategies needed to improve people’s health today and into the future,” said Tulane Board Chair David Mussafer, who called the gift “life-changing and life-saving.”
The school will be named the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
A long-term giver
Celia Scott Weatherhead earned a degree in theater in 1965 from Newcomb College, a women’s college in New Orleans that merged with Tulane’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2005. She and her late husband Albert Weatherhead III gave Tulane millions of dollars. like other institutions of higher learning across the country.
In 2009, the Weatherhead Foundation pledged $50 million to Tulane — at the time the largest ever awarded to the school — to establish up to 10 endowed professorships. A subsequent donation of $50 million established the Climate Scholars Program, which covers tuition, books, materials, room and board and other expenses for students pursuing public careers.
Weatherhead serves on the Public Health Dean’s Advisory Council, the school’s top advisory group, and is a continuing member of Tulane’s board. Last year he received a lifetime achievement award for his service to Tulane.
His latest donation is the largest gift in Tulane’s history, according to university officials who did not disclose the exact amount.
“Improving the health of all members of our community — regardless of their economic background — has always been Celia’s passion,” Tulane President Fitts said in a statement, adding that the donation will help “drive excellence in education, research and innovation.”
The Weatherhead Foundation was founded in 1953 after the success of the Weatherhead family’s industrial businesses in Ohio, including Cleveland Faucet Co., Weatherhead Co., a World War II munitions auto parts manufacturer, and Weatherchem, a which makes plastic. dispenser top.
The foundation focuses most of its giving on higher education, including gifts to Harvard University, the University of Texas-Houston, Case Western Reserve University and Columbia University.
Other donors have made significant gifts to Tulane in the past. In 2019, the family of John W. Deming, a 1944 graduate of the medical school, donated $25 million for clinical and translational research, which helps scientists apply discoveries made in the laboratory to help patients.
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