The Gentle Doctor Benefit is a
long-standing tradition within the College of Veterinary Medicine
at the University of Missouri. Funds generated from this non-profit
gala are used to support the College
and its students. Currently, funding from the Gentle Doctor Benefit
is being applied toward an endowed scholarship fund for veterinary
medical students. The interest from the endowment provides a much-needed
scholarship to an incoming student each year. Our endowment is just
over $241,000 after the 2009 Gentle Doctor Benefit. This allows
us to give a scholarship of about $7,000 each year. We would like
to increase the endowment so that we can provide a more significant
scholarship to a student each year or provide more than one scholarship.
For the past three years, we have been able to provide $100 scholarships
to EACH member of the incoming class to help with the cost of a
text book. This is very exciting, and our hope is that we will be
able to continue this practice. By providing this scholarship to
each student, the Gentle Doctor Benefit is able to touch the lives
of all of our students rather than just one per year. Although it
is not a large scholarship, it helps out with the cost of required
textbooks and makes the burden just a little lighter for all of
our first year students. They have been grateful for this assistance.
In recent years, tuition has risen beyond the rate of inflation,
in part due to state budget cuts. MU veterinary graduates incur
an average debt load over $100,000. To encourage the best and
brightest students to attend MU, we need to ensure that sufficient
scholarship funding is available. The Gentle Doctor Benefit Endowed
Scholarship Fund will better enable the College of Veterinary Medicine
to meet the goal of providing as many scholarship opportunities
to as many students as possible.
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