Bequests Totaling $5.4 Million Received by School of Nursing

Columbia University School of Nursing has received three large bequests totaling $5.4 million. The gifts bring the School's endowment to over $40 million, the highest of any nursing school, and includes 10 endowed chairs, also the most in a nursing school. These new gifts are primarily for financial aid, including the largest single gift the School has ever received, in the amount of $4.4 from the Frances L. Somers estate. The remaining gifts are from the Elise Fish and Jacqueline Webb estates. "We are need blind in our admissions process, and these gifts will substantially assist us in providing the $3 million in financial aid grants our students receive each year," said Dean Mary O'Neil Mundinger. "We are enormously proud of our growing alumni support. We celebrate the opportunity such support gives promising young men and women who have chosen nursing as a profession and who will someday be alumni.