Former Texas Gov. Bill Clements gives UT Southwestern Medical Center $100 million gift
June 13, 2009
Former Texas Gov. Bill Clements is giving $100 million to UT Southwestern Medical Center, the largest single gift in the institution's history and perhaps the biggest one-time financial pledge to any civic body in Dallas history, UT Southwestern officials will announce Friday.
Written by BOB MOOS, Dallas Morning News
Former Texas Gov. Bill Clements is giving $100 million to UT Southwestern Medical Center, the largest single gift in the institution's history and perhaps the biggest one-time financial pledge to any civic body in Dallas history, UT Southwestern officials will announce Friday. The donation comes with no restrictions on its use, a rarity for a gift of such size, medical center officials say. Clements, who's 92 and lives in Dallas, said in a written statement that he hopes the university can leverage his donation to attract other contributions. "My goal in supporting UT Southwestern," he said, "is to help encourage and advance scientific discovery and innovation, prepare the next generation of physicians for Texas and the nation, and ensure the delivery of world-class medical care." Bill Solomon, chairman of the Southwestern Medical Foundation and a lifelong friend of Clements', said the former governor and retired oil-and-gas executive called him unexpectedly two weeks ago to discuss the unprecedented gift. "I was overwhelmed because the gift had not been solicited," Solomon said. "But it's entirely consistent with the Bill Clements I've always known. He wants UT Southwestern to become one of the world's great medical centers." Most gifts to the medical center are designated for specific purposes, such as for the research or treatment of particular diseases, but Clements' no-strings donation leaves open a wide range of possible uses, UT Southwestern officials said. Solomon said the record-setting gift comes at a time when the foundation has seen giving slacken because of the recession and because many longtime donors had participated in its $773 million fundraising campaign completed in 2007. Clements' $100 million pledge will be paid over four years, Solomon said. The Southwestern Medical Foundation board will work with UT Southwestern leaders to determine how the money will be spent, he said. Podolsky said his goal is to use the Clements gift "strategically in truly transformative ways" to advance the institution's research, education and clinical mission. No decisions have been reached, but the money could be used for research in promising areas of science, additional faculty, more scholarships or new clinical training facilities, he said. Podolsky said the $100 million donation is one of the most generous gifts to a U.S. medical school in recent years. Baylor College of Medicine in Houston received $100 million donations from energy entrepreneur Dan Duncan in 2006 and from philanthropists Robert and Janice McNair in 2007. Clements' pledge, which Southwestern Medical Foundation and UT Southwestern officials will announce at an 11 a.m. press conference Friday, follows two other significant gifts he has made to the medical center. In 2006, he gave $10 million to complete a clinical and medical research building, which has since been named the Bill and Rita Clements Advanced Medical Imaging Building. And in 1998, Clements contributed $1.25 million to help fund the medical research of newly appointed and promising faculty members. The medical center's biggest benefactors have been philanthropists Harold and Annette Simmons, who have given $177 million over the years. UT Southwestern, which ranks among the top academic medical centers in the country, annually oversees 3,500 research projects, trains 4,400 students, residents and fellows, and provides care to 97,000 hospital patients. It boasts four Nobel laureates, three of whom are active faculty members. Clements' ties to UT Southwestern go back five decades to when he and other Dallas civic leaders persuaded the late Dr. Charles Sprague, a college classmate of his, to become dean of the medical school. Recalling how he and Sprague had been lab partners in a chemistry class at Southern Methodist University during the 1930s, Clements once joked, "The class was pretty tough, but our friendship continued through life." Clements was Texas' first Republican governor since Reconstruction, serving from 1979 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1991. Before entering politics, he enjoyed success in the oil-and-gas business. In 1947, he founded SEDCO, which became the world's largest oil-and-gas drilling contracting company and merged with Schlumberger Limited. In 1985, he retired as chairman. Today, Clements raises cattle and pursues his interest in history. His personal library contains 8,300 volumes, most of which are about Texas and Southwest history. His wife, Rita Crocker Clements, served as a UT System regent from 1996 to 2007. She is the mother-in-law of Jim Moroney, publisher and chief executive officer of The Dallas Morning News. The Clementses were honored by the Southwestern Medical Foundation in 2000 for their support of health care, medical education and research.
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