Continuing Education
For three decades, trustee emerita and Board of Advisors chair for the School of Medicine, JoAnn Giffuni Wellner, J63, has been deeply engaged with Tufts. Now she’s extending her impact with a flexible $1.5 million gift that the school can use to either endow a full professorship for a senior faculty member or create the school’s first two endowed junior professorships. If this plan is approved by the trustees, the dean can use the gift at his discretion. The Kenneth and JoAnn G. Wellner Professorship is the school’s first response to the Tufts’ Professorship Partnership Challenge and will be matched by $1 million from the university. The challenge is one of the top priorities of Brighter World: The Campaign for Tufts, and Wellner is a member of the medical school’s campaign committee.
Wellner’s gift commemorates her late husband, who died in 2011 of a neurodegenerative disease. “I can’t think of a better way to honor Kenneth’s memory than through endowed professorships,” Wellner said. “My husband’s tireless optimism in the face of great difficulties continues to inspire me. This gift speaks to his spirit and to our belief that research is critical to advancing modern medicine.”