Bequest and gift add $70 million to VCU
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Virginia Commonwealth University received the largest-ever cash gifts to both organizations totaling $115 million. Approximately $45 million of the bequest will go to VCU to support medical research.
The gifts are a result of trusts created in the 1950s by Arthur Graham and Margaret Branch Glasgow. The foresight that the Glasgows showed 60 years ago will help VCU’s research into the cure and prevention of cancer and other degenerative diseases.
The gift marked the second substantial donation this past year. James and Frances McGlothlin donated $25 million to the VCU School of Medicine — one of the largest in the university’s history. In recognition of the gift and the McGlothlins’ longtime support of the School of Medicine, the new medical education building now under construction, and scheduled for completion in spring 2013, will be named the James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin Medical Education Center.
The donation was made in recognition of Harold F. Young, M.D., director of the Harold F. Young Neurosurgical Center at the VCU Medical Center. Young also is founding chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, a position he has held for more than half of his 38-year tenure at VCU.
The McGlothlins describe Young and his team as “guardian angels” for them and countless other patients who have benefited from their skill, talent and dedication to the health care profession. The couple’s extraordinary generosity will help ensure that the VCU School of Medicine realizes its goal to educate physicians in the spirit of this talented and compassionate surgeon and his team.
