Trustee Families Donate $22 Million
Two Board of Trustees’ families have given Wesleyan $22 million, including a $12 million gift by the family of Board Chairman Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09.
The gifts will benefit financial aid and Wesleyan’s endowment.
The gift from Boger, and his wife Amy Boger, M.D., P’06, P’09, will establish the Boger Scholarship Program and the Joshua Boger University Professorship of the Sciences and Mathematics. The first recipient of the chair appointment is David L. Beveridge, professsor of chemistry.
“This gift shows tremendous leadership and generosity on the part of the Boger family,” says President Roth. “The endowed professorship in particular reinforces Wesleyan’s strong tradition in the sciences and mathematics. We thank the Bogers for their support of Wesleyan and their commitment to making it accessible to worthy students.”
Joshua Boger is the founder of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and retired as the CEO in May 2009. Prior to founding Vertex in 1989, he worked for more than a decade in pharmaceutical research at Merck, where he developed an international reputation as a leader in the application of computer modeling to the chemistry of drug design and was a pioneer in the use of structure–based rational drug design as the basis for drug discovery programs.
Boger holds a bachelor of arts in chemistry and philosophy from Wesleyan and master’s and doctoral degrees in chemistry from Harvard University. He is the author of more than 50 scientific publications, holds 31 issued U.S. patents in pharmaceutical discovery and development, and has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia on various aspects of drug discovery, development, and commercialization.
Boger is chairman of the New England Healthcare Institute, a non–profit, healthcare–policy research organization based in Cambridge, Mass.; vice–chair of the Board of Fellows of the Harvard Medical School; co–chairman of the Progressive Business Leaders Network, a non–profit, non–partisan business organization; and chair of the Board of the Celebrity Series, which is Boston’s premier performing arts series.
Amy Boger is a professional ceramic artist, concentrating in conceptual art that inhabits the border between sculptural and functional ceramics, with a particular attraction to humor. She is a retired pediatrician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Boger holds a bachelor of arts in American history and literature from Harvard University and an M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
The $10M anonymous gift from another trustee family will go exclusively to financial aid endowment.
“All the donors hope that making their gifts to financial aid will inspire others to follow suit,” says Barbara–Jan Wilson, vice president for University Relations. “Especially in this economy, providing financial aid to those who could benefit so much from a Wesleyan education has immediate and lasting impact.”