If we had a million dollars...
Note from the director about "over the top" donationsDear Potential Donors,I have chosen to list all people who have provided acknowledged gifts of $500. or more as our Top Line Donors. This modest level was chosen because I am deeply impressed by the generosity of some people of limited means. These include our department's recent graduate who returned all of what she received from her distinguished dissertation award to support MIDIS, the young man who donated 10% of his Bar Mitzvah money, and the international student whose donation was more than a month's salary back home. Combined, all donations--no matter how modest-- go a long way toward MIDIS students' doctoral training expenses, enriching their educational experience by allowing them to present their findings at scientific meetings, or providing short-term research opportunities to jump-start the careers of other trainees from disease endemic nations. But clearly, larger donations will help us achieve our goals faster. Some donors choose to remain anonymous and others like recognition. If you would like to be acknowledged more specifically for your larger gift, or would like to post a message with your acknowledgment, just let me know. We have some donors just waiting for you to make such a request so they will be "not the only one" in these categories.Specific trainee expenses that you may support with your larger donation include opportunities similar to those described U of M Graduate Program support page, with the important difference that your MIDIS support would be targeted specifically for the biomedical education of international trainees. For example,$3000 could support an international trainee in a post-undergraduate laboratory internship, allowing a student with excellent academic credentials to experience laboratory research and decide whether or not a career in basic research is right for him or her. A pledge or gift of $50,000 or more will create a named donor endowed fund and is eligible to be matched by President Coleman's Challenge (note that whereas the President's priority is to support American students' experiences abroad, her office confirms that programs that do the inverse will be eligible if higher-level donations are made) And if you have even halfa million dollars...details will need to be worked out with the development office, but it should be possible to endow a permanent named student fellowship position that would allow the full support of an international trainee in our graduate program in perpetuity. Other named endowments for partial scholarships or other MIDIS trainee expenses can be arranged through your generosity. Please contact me or the U of M Development Office to discuss options.
Why support us when donations to an agency that provides food or medicines to disease-ravaged peoples could provide more immediate benefits? We believe that MIDIS provides a complement to other relief efforts, and that continuing to train biomedical scientists is essential to global health and well-being in the long term.
And why support trainees from disease endemic nations when the best American citizen trainees are already supported to learn the job? It is obvious to most of us that even though the end result might be similar, Iraquis, and not Americans, must govern Iraq. In contrast, it might seem that medicine and health should be more objective, and whether it is a European or an African who develops the vaccine that Africans will test does not matter. However, when I witnessed the global outpouring of support for Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-born astronaut in space (who unfortunately never returned), it reminded me that who scientists are is important to the global psyche. Supporting the biomedical research training of a young man or woman from a disease endemic nation will help realize this particularly dedicated young person's dream of a life devoted towards cures for the world's worst infectious diseases: bettering their worlds and ours.
Sincerely,
Alice Telesnitsky
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Graphic provided by Michigan graduate student Santiago Lopez