Gift to Establish Endowed Chair at IU South Bend

(Image courtesy of IU South Bend)

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Indiana University South Bend is using a $1.7 million gift from the Vera Z. Dwyer Charitable Trust to establish its second health sciences-related endowed chair. The donation will create the Vera Z. Dwyer Bicentennial Chair of Palliative Care, with the goal of ensuring that palliative and hospice care "will continue to grow and evolve as an asset to the community."

A national search for a candidate to fill the position will begin in 2017 and the university plans to have that person begin in 2018. The university says the endowed chair will allow for the advancement of opportunities for practice, education and research in palliative and hospice care.

"We believe education and training in palliative care will become increasingly important in the coming years with an aging population in our community," said David Kibbe, vice president at Indiana Trust and Investment Management Co., which manages the Dwyer Charitable Trust. "Our hope and expectation is that students in the Dwyer College of Health Sciences will be better prepared to help manage the pain and symptoms of those facing progressive or incurable illnesses."

IU South Bend Chancellor Terry Allison says the position will serve as a "national model of excellence for training a region’s health professionals to ensure that the most ill and vulnerable patients and families receive ever improving care."

The gift is the latest in a string of donations from the Dwyer Charitable Trust. In 2014, the trust donated $5.85 million to support the university’s College of Health Sciences, which was renamed the Vera Z. Dwyer College of Health Sciences, in what was the largest single philanthropic donation in IU South Bend’s history. The gift included funds to create and endow the Dwyer Distinguished Chair in Advanced Nursing Practice.

That same year, the trust pledged $1 million to establish the Dwyer Scholarship in Healthcare. All of the donations are a part of Indiana University’s "For All" Bicentennial Campaign.