COLUMBUS – The OSU Wexner Medical Center and the university’s College of Medicine are benefitting from $15 million worth of gifts from two of central Ohio’s most prominent families.
The Jay & Jeanie Schottenstein Family Foundation has pledged $10.15 million to create the Jeffrey Schottenstein Program for Resilience, which will address the mental health needs of students, 73% of whom nationally experience a mental health crisis during college.
The donation was inspired by Jeffrey Schottenstein’s efforts to address the mental health crisis facing young adults on campus and remove the stigma attached to them, family and university representatives said.
The gift also funds an endowed chair of Psychiatry and Resilience in the College of Medicine that will be held by Dr. K. Luan Phan.
The Robert F. Wolfe and Edgar T. Wolfe Foundation, meanwhile, has made a $5 million grant to endow a chair for the position of chief clinical officer position at medical center.
The Wolfe Foundation Chief Clinical Officer Chair will honor Dr. Andrew Thomas, current chief clinical officer and the first person to be named to the chair, foundation and university officials said.
Thomas has been instrumental in the Wexner Medical Center’s and the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response.
When Thomas retires, the chair will be renamed the Wolfe Foundation – Dr. Andrew M. Thomas Chief Clinical Officer Chair.
The Wexner Medical Center board and the University Board of Trustees will have to approve the both gifts at their November meetings.