Why We Give

AN “INNER FIRE” Engleman’s boundless curiosity meant he “was always doing, always learning,” said Farber. “In medical school, he read Richard Feynman for fun—he was obsessed with quantum physics.” A car enthusiast, Engleman enjoyed tooling around Boston in his VW Thing. “He had that inner fire.” Feteiha agreed: “Mark was an out-of-the box thinker. His ideas were way ahead of the curve. Whatever he loved, he loved to the fullest.”

PAYING IT FORWARD Engleman served in the U.S. Air Force as a flight surgeon before his residency in radiation oncology. He would go on to become an award-winning medical director at Texas Oncology Plano West. “People go to medical school because it’s a real calling; they love it, and Mark loved it,” Farber said. “So, there was no gesture other than a scholarship that made sense—one that would live on in perpetuity. It’s a way of helping others in the way that we were helped by Mark.”

HEALING PROCESS Gifts that honor a person’s legacy, Farber said, “bring out the best in humanity” and help the living cope with grief and loss of a loved one. Classmates will celebrate the memorial scholarship at their 25th reunion in May 2020. “We can now start thinking about how this scholarship will help students in the future, and about the joy it will bring to Mark’s family,” he said.

A CLASS ACT “When Mark died, it galvanized a lot of people who wanted to commemorate him,” Feteiha said. That impulse to honor Engleman also bolsters “an institution that all of us have great respect for,” he added. “We all share gratitude toward the school for giving us the tools to become doctors and successful people.”

Make a difference. To donate to the Mark A. Engleman, M.D., Class of 1995 Scholarship, visit giving.tufts.edu/M95scholarship.