The first recipients of dozens of new, fully funded health science scholarships will be attending classes at Old Dominion University this fall, but they haven’t been notified yet. They haven’t even been selected.
That’s because the main support for those scholarships — two gifts totaling $40 million — were announced just Friday afternoon during a ceremony celebrating the long-awaited merger of Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University, which will become official on July 1.
Leaders announced the name of the program will be the “Macon and Joan Bullock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University.”Kathy Lewis, community engagement liaison for ODU, said the program will be the largest health sciences center in Virginia and will award more than 50 degrees, some of which cannot be earned anywhere else in the state.
Sentara Health, a longtime supporter of EVMS and a key partner in the merger process, plans to commit $350 million over 10 years to the combined health sciences program, Lewis said.
After the event, EVMS President Alfred Abuhammad and ODU President Brian Hemphill He spoke about the long road to the integration, the support he received from the board of directors, and his own collaboration.
“From day one, we shared a vision to work together to make this happen,” Abuhammad said.
Hemphill called it a “catastrophe.”
“We’re obviously a very complex organization,” he said. “We had to get our egos out of the room and just come together.”
Speaking at the ceremony, Sentara Health President and CEO Dennis Matteis said he recently received a memo that described the integration talks as “‘intense at times.'”
“That’s an understatement,” Matteis told a packed conference room on the third floor of The Main in Norfolk, laughing, “but it got us to where we needed to be.”
In addition to financial support, Sentara has committed to doubling its physician training slots in Virginia, recognizing that many physicians will practice medicine where they completed their training. The state-funded model gives the combined ODU-EVMS institution a solid foundation for future generations, Masseis said.
“This consolidation is crucial to reducing health disparities and improving health services in a region that has long struggled to gain an economic footing,” Matteis said.
The $40 million announced Friday comes from a $20 million donation from Dennis and Jan Elmer, the couple who founded Priority Automotive, and another $20 million from philanthropist Joan Block, wife of the late Dollar Tree co-founder Macon Block. Lewis said some of the money from the latter will go toward the Barry Museum’s expansion. Dennis Elmer is the founder of Priority Automotive.
While there are some differences between the scholarship programs – the Dennis and Jean Elmer Health Scholars Program, the Dennis and Jean Elmer Nursing Scholars Program and the Brock Opportunity Scholarship – they all aim to provide opportunities for promising students who have ties to the community and intend to stay after graduation.
ODU’s Macon and Joan Block Virginia Health Sciences includes the EVMS School of Health Professions, the Joint School of Public Health, the Elmer College of Health Sciences, the Elmer School of Nursing and ODU’s Eastern Virginia School of Medicine.
Not all 56 degrees will be available immediately because schools are in discussions with various accrediting agencies about requirements, but the roughly 5,000 students enrolled for the fall semester will not be affected, Abuhammad and Hemphill said.
Have a health care or science story, question or concern? Contact Katrina Dix at 757-222-5155 or katrina.dix@virginiamedia.com.
