Or develop a life-saving treatment for strokes? How would you like to preserve knowledge of the classics? Or expand the boundaries of computing? You don’t have to be a scientist or researcher. You don’t have to spend years in the laboratory or classroom. You can do all these things and more with an endowed gift to UB.

    Biogen, a leading international biotechnology company, helped the search for a cure for multiple sclerosis when it established the Irvin and Rosemary Smith Chair in Neurology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. The chair honors a former Biogen executive and his wife while it enables Lawrence Jacobs, M.D., a UB professor of neurology and an internationally recognized authority on the treatment of multiple sclerosis, to continue his groundbreaking research.

    This gift and many others like it have played a key role as UB rises into the top ranks of research universities. More than any other gift, an endowed gift to UB is a gift that keeps giving forever. An endowed gift keeps alive the memory of those to whom it is dedicated. Most important, endowed funds assure that support for the university, and for its students and faculty, will continue in perpetuity.

    Just as exciting, the opportunities for endowed giving are many. If endowed chairs assure that leading faculty will have the freedom to teach and perform important research, endowed undergraduate and graduate scholarships and fellowships offer many UB students a unique opportunity for study, research and discovery.

    In 1995, the Cecil J. and Violet W. Newton Scholarship Fund was established to provide scholarships for pharmacy students. Created through gifts of appreciated securities, the fund honors the donors, especially Cecil, a UB pharmacy graduate and a pharmacist throughout his career. Since her husband’s death, Violet Newton has continued to give generously to the fund. With her gifts now totaling $2.1 million, she is already helping many young pharmacy students realize their dreams of a UB education while perpetuating the memory of her husband.

    Best of all, endowed gifts can be made in many ways, including outright gifts, bequests, gifts of appreciated assets, and through planned giving. With planning and creativity, even modest gifts can become lasting legacies that will benefit UB, honor cherished memories and people, and become a permanent part of the university’s rich traditions.