The Sweeney Student Excellence Program
Investing in the Medical Leaders of Tomorrow College of Medicine
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T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f I l l i n o i s at C h i c a g o
Opening doors for future lea T h e R a y m o n d N e s t e r S w e e n e y, M D ’ 6 8 Sc h o l a r s h i p P r o g r a m
“The Sweeney Student Excellence Program Dean Azar will help ease the financial burden of a medical education so that we can
The University of Illinois College of Medicine is
train skilled, compassionate and committed physicians
daunting burden of debt on medical students of modest means.
who have the option to pursue a career in academic medicine or provide high-quality health care where it is needed most.”
Dimitri T. Azar, MD, MBA
Dean, College of Medicine
one of the nation’s largest and most diverse medical schools. By opening doors to the medical profession for talented students from many different communities and economic circumstances, the College fosters the development of a diverse physician workforce that is better equipped to provide sensitive, compassionate care in our multicultural society.
We are proud of this tradition of excellence, access and social responsibility;
yet dwindling state support — and a corresponding rise in tuition — has placed a
To repay this debt, too many of these graduates must abandon their dreams
of making a difference in academic, primary care or community medicine in order to pursue more lucrative medical specialties — a trend that is creating a critical shortage of primary care physicians, family physicians and physicians practicing in medically underserved communities.
The Sweeney Student Excellence Program — named in honor of College
of Medicine alumnus and benefactor Raymond Nester Sweeney, MD ’68 — was established to help ease this burden of debt for the top medical students in each entering class.
When fully funded, this scholarship program will help ensure that the
brightest minds in medicine — including students from under-represented groups — will have the option to pursue a world-class medical education at the University of Illinois and serve in the areas where they can have the greatest impact.
ders in medicine
Irfan Hussain > S w een E y S c h o l ar Irfan Hussain suffered from childhood asthma, which landed him in the hospital several times. Fascinated by the human body, he wondered what triggered his asthma and what made his medicine effective. His curiosity about health and disease later compelled him to pursue a medical education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine — a dream made possible by The Sweeney Scholarship.
“Ever since I learned that tiny
things we cannot see with the naked eye could make us sick, I was really intrigued,” he says today.
Hussain is also passionate
about serving others. “My recent volunteer work in the physical therapy department of the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System has prepared me to work unselfishly to improve my patients’ lives and inspired me to serve my community in the field of public health.”
Private support is more impo to the future of medicine than Over the past decade, the amount of student indebtedness among College of Medicine graduates has doubled — from an average of nearly $92,000 per medical student at our Chicago campus in 2003 to more than $184,000 in 2013. Why the steep rise in student debt? In 2004, the state covered approximately
14 percent of the College of Medicine’s operating costs. Today, it covers approximately seven percent.
Catherine Duncan-Staley > S w een E y S c h o l ar As a lab technician at the University of CaliforniaDavis, Catherine DuncanStaley enjoyed working
As state funding has declined, tuition costs continue to rise. The annual cost of
with physicians on clinical
tuition, fees, books and supplies, housing, food and transportation for a second- or third-
studies involving diabetes
year medical student has risen from $22,838 in 2003 to over $79,000 today. Out of the 1,343 students enrolled in the College of Medicine in the 2012-2013 academic year only 185, or seven percent, were awarded scholarship support toward the cost of tuition.
Medical school seemed like a natural next step and a Sweeney Scholarship made
Scholarship funding has become an urgent priority. An increased philanthropic
and cardiovascular health.
partnership with alumni and friends is essential if we are to continue to provide an affordable, world-class medical education for students driven to advance the field of medicine and enhance the lives of patients in Illinois and across the nation.
the College of Medicine a clear choice for the California native. “It gave me the opportunity to do something I’ve always dreamed of.”
Duncan-Staley hasn’t
yet decided on a specialty, but emergency medicine and
The Widening Gap
anesthesiology are high on her list, along with trauma surgery.
The graph below shows the drop in state funding for the College of Medicine and the corresponding rise in tuition costs between 2000 and 2013. By 2010, tuition revenues had exceeded state funding for the first time in the College of Medicine’s history. Tuition increases have not fully offset the decrease in state funding. University administrators are forecasting even slimmer state appropriations for the foreseeable future. Seeking a sustainable solution to this growing need, the College of Medicine is committed to increasing its endowment to provide much needed student scholarship support. I l l in o is S tate F u ndin g and T u iti o n Total Enrollment FY00 over 67,000 $1,000
has awakened a desire to give back to her medical school alma mater to help the next generation of aspiring scientists. “Maybe someday,”
Total Enrollment FY13 over 77,400
she says hopefully, “there Tuition $1,012
will be a Duncan-Staley Scholarship.”
800 700 ( in m illions )
Reflecting on her
scholarship, she notes that it
physicians and biomedical
F Y 2 0 0 0 – F Y 2 013
900
600
General Tax Funds $643
500 400 300 200 100 $0
FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 TUITION
FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 GENERAL TAX FUNDS
S our ces : Budget Summary of Operations. State include GRF and all other state fund appropriations. State for FY02-FY13 exclude $24.9 million for Health Insurance. State Surveys are included in State beginning in FY09. Assumes 3% inflation in FY13.
rtant ever before
Advancing Medicine through the Sweeney Student Excellence Program Your gift to establish a scholarship through the Sweeney Student Excellence Program is a tangible symbol of your commitment to medicine and your belief in the promise of tomorrow’s medical leaders. By supporting the Sweeney Student Excellence Program, you will have a direct impact on the future of medicine. Your generosity will:
• enable the College to continue to recruit the nation’s top medical school candidates;
• allow high-performing students to focus on their dreams and goals, rather than their medical debt;
• increase the number of physicians and scientists from underrepresented groups; • enable more College of Medicine graduates to pursue careers in academic medicine; • address the approaching physician shortage by enabling more graduates to pursue careers in primary care and family medicine; • help fulfill the College’s mission of social responsibility by enabling graduates to enhance the health and well-being of disadvantaged populations in medically underserved communities; • open doors for generations of future physicians and prepare them to serve in Illinois, the nation and the world. Whether your intent is to honor a loved one, express gratitude for the scholarship you received as a student or give back to your alma mater for the outstanding education that launched your career in medicine, your gift will shape the future of medicine.
How Alumni and Friends Can About Raymond Sweeney The Sweeney Student
To fully fund the scholarship endowment seeded by a portion of Raymond Sweeney’s estate gift, the College has embarked on a $40 million fundraising initiative.
Our objective is to increase the number of full-tuition recruitment scholarships, as
well as partial-tuition scholarships, through philanthropic partnerships with alumni, parents and friends. Ultimately, it is our goal to offer some level of financial assistance to a majority of the students in each medical class.
Excellence
Program is
student recruitment and support medical education by enabling the College to offer
named in
competitive recruitment packages to some of the nation’s most gifted medical school
honor of the late Raymond
When fully funded, The Sweeney Student Excellence Program will strengthen
applicants. We are seeking gifts at the following levels to achieve this goal:
Nester Sweeney, MD ’68. The son of a policeman who grew up in modest
Endowed Scholarships *
circumstances, this College of
Your gift to endow a scholarship will be invested in an endowment fund. The income
Medicine alumnus attributed his
generated by this endowment will be used to fund medical scholarships in perpetuity.
success as a radiologist to the “excellent, affordable education” that he received at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
In gratitude, he left his
medical school alma mater one of the largest estate gifts in the College’s history. His gift was used to establish the Raymond Nester Sweeney, MD ’68 Endowment Fund, which supports medical excellence at the University of Illinois through student scholarships, educational innovation and faculty professorships.
• $100,000 endows a partial named medical scholarship • $300,000 endows a half named medical scholarship • $600,000 endows a full named medical scholarship
Non-Endowed Scholarships* These current-use gifts may be combined with endowed funds to support a medical student scholarship.
• A named annual scholarship may be established with an annual gift beginning at $2,500, with a four-year commitment • $25,000 will fund a named, one-year medical scholarship • $50,000 will fund a named, two-year medical scholarship • $100,000 will fund a named, four-year medical scholarship For more information about establishing an endowed medical scholarship or a nonendowed scholarship, please contact our Office of Medical Advancement at (312) 996-4470 or Give2Med @uic.edu. Also visit us online at medicine/uic.edu/giving.
* Naming opportunities are available to recognize an individual, a family, a medical practice, a corporation or a foundation.
Help
“I was born in Malaysia
“The University of Illinois opened the door for me to a wonderful career in medicine. Now that the university needs my support to train the next generation of physicians and researchers, I am Carole and William H. Kaufman happy to respond. It would be a loss and a shame to see extraordinary talent and potential go undeveloped because highly qualified students of modest means cannot afford the cost of a medical education at the University of Illinois.
I support scholarships —
and encourage my fellow alumni to do the same — so that the College of Medicine can continue to recruit exceptional students from every community and equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to become the medical leaders and innovators of tomorrow.”
and graduated from the College of Medicine in 1971. My education at the University of Illinois has made me what I am today. To show my appreciation, K.M. Tan I donate money every year for two travel fellowships and a travel endowment to introduce Illinois Medicine students to medicine in other countries and other cultures. It is my hope that these fellowships will open the eyes of senior medical students who pursue electives overseas and show them that, in medicine, as in so many other endeavors, we are a global community. I urge my fellow alumni to support today’s medical students in a way that has personal meaning for them. Whether it is a fellowship or a scholarship, the
advancement of medicine — locally and globally — depends on our collective support.
K.M. Tan ’67, MD ’71 Established the K.M. Tan Endowment
William H. Kaufman, MD ’51 Established the Dr. and Mrs. William Kaufman Endowed Medical Scholarship with his wife, Carole
Why We Give
Chicago
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Peoria
Office of Medical Advancement (M/C 792)
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Rockford
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Urbana-Champaign
1747 West Roosevelt Road, Suite 302
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Chicago, Illinois 60608 -1203