2 Board of Trustee Families Give $22M to Wesleyan

David PesciMarch 3, 20106min
Wesleyan Board of Trustees Chair Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 established the Joshua Boger University Professorship of The Sciences and Mathematics as part of a $12M gift to Wesleyan. Pictured, at left, Boger congratulates David Beveridge, professor of chemistry, who is the first recipient of the chair appointment.
Wesleyan Board of Trustees Chair Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 established the Boger Scholarship Program and the Joshua Boger University Professorship of The Sciences and Mathematics as part of a $12M gift to Wesleyan. Pictured, at left, Boger congratulates David L. Beveridge, professor of chemistry, who is the first recipient of the endowed professorship appointment. (Photo by Olivia Bartlett Drake)

Wesleyan announced $22M in gifts by two of its Board of Trustees’ families, including a $12M 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 $12M 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 will be David L. Beveridge, professor of chemistry.

“This gift shows tremendous leadership and generosity on the part of the Boger family,” says Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78. “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 Incorporated (NASDAQ: VRTX) and retired as their 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 a master’s and doctorate degrees in chemistry from Harvard University. He is the author of over 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.

Along with being Chairman of Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees, 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.

He serves on several additional boards including the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), where he is Immediate-Past-Chairman; the Harvard Board of Overseers; The Hastings Center, a the leading independent bioethics research institute, located in Garrison, N.Y.; the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts Foundation; the Science Advisory Council of WGBH, one of the nation’s premier public broadcasting stations, in Boston, Mass.; the Museum of Science in Boston; the Longy School of Music Board of Visitors, in Cambridge, Mass.; the Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board; the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center; the Dean’s Advisory Group of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; the Harvard College Overseers’ Committee to Visit the Business School; and the MIT Corporation Visiting Committees to the Department of Biology and to Whitaker College/Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

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 University of Pennsylvania.

The $10M anonymous gift from another trustee family will go exclusively to financial aid endowment.

“All the donors hope that making the gift to financial aid will inspire others to follow suit, not necessarily anonymously and perhaps not with 10 or 12 million dollars, although that or more would certainly be welcome,” says Barbara Jan Wilson, vice president for University Relations. “Especially when finances are tight, providing financial aid to those who could benefit so much from a Wesleyan education, remains something that can have an immediate and lasting impact.”