First MUSC endowment for psychiatry
announced
A proposed endowed chair will be named after a nationally
acclaimed psychiatrist, marking the first time MUSC would have
established an endowment for psychiatry, according to the MUSC
Office of the President. Naming the new endowed chair after Layton McCurdy, M.D., College of Medicine dean emeritus and distinguished university professor, was due to McCurdy’s accomplished career. The president's office has begun an initiative to establish the endowed chair and will launch initiatives to raise money to match funding for research. The endowed chairs are elite faculty appointments that carry a stable, guaranteed source of funding to support the chairholder’s work. It is the most prestigious honor the university confers upon a faculty member.
Dr. Layton and Gwen
McCurdy.A chair is established by a pool of philanthropic funds totaling $1 million, which is then invested into a managed fund. The interest income accumulated is used to cover the chair’s annual salary. Therefore, the initial core portion of the endowed chair fund exists indefinitely, creating a permanent means of support.
“To be recognized by one’s colleagues, friends, and professional associates through an endowed chair is the greatest academic honor that a person can receive and therefore carries special meaning,” McCurdy said. “The story of chairs is an old one that goes back to the very first days of a university in medieval times, and I am deeply touched and honored to have been recognized.”
“To honor Layton McCurdy with this endowment is to honor the practice of medicine itself. Layton is an exemplary physician; compassionate, generous, dedicated, and wise. Layton’s selfless exercise of these gifts at MUSC has healed many and instructed many more. It is my privilege to help extend his magic to a new generation,” said Peter Whybrow, M.D., director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human behavior at UCLA.
A letter to faculty from the College of Medicine dean, Jerry Reves, M.D., and MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D, stated, “Not only has Layton McCurdy had formative and unparalleled leadership roles at MUSC, but he has also been a widely admired leader in the fields of psychiatry and academic medicine at large. … In all likelihood, the information above is not news to you, since so many of us have been the beneficiaries of Layton’s leadership, collegiality, mentorship, and good friendship.”
“I think endowed chairs are such a marvelous way to support academic medicine. They carry name and distinction and with the addition of endowed chairs to recruitment efforts, they often make the case. They add money and support for great clinicians and researchers, but also huge recognition and dignity,” McCurdy said. “They are powerful. A hundred years from now they will still be around as a source of support for great work in the 22nd century.”
A native of Florence, McCurdy earned his medical degree from MUSC in 1960 and completed a psychiatric residency at the University of North Carolina. He served with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md., and accepted his first faculty appoint-ment at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
In 1968, McCurdy was named professor and chairman of the MUSC’s psychiatry department, where he remained until 1982. He assumed the post of psychiatrist-in-chief and professor at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Upon his return to MUSC in 1990, he served as professor of psychiatry as well as vice president for medical affairs and dean of MUSC’s College of Medicine. After retiring in 2001, McCurdy remained actively involved in several high-priority projects for MUSC. In 2005, Gov. Mark Sanford appointed McCurdy the chairman of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, a post he continues to hold.
McCurdy’s reputation as a leader in academic psychiatry covers the entire nation. He has held many positions of leadership with the country’s top psychiatric organizations including: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, American College of Psychiatrists, Association for Academic psychiatry, Association of Chairmen of Departments of Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Diagnosis and Assessment, and the NIMH Advisory Council.
McCurdy also has received numerous honors and awards from civic, academic, and professional societies.
To help establish the Layton McCurdy Endowed Chair, call Terry Stanley at (800) 810-MUSC or mail a pledge or tax-deductible gift to The Layton McCurdy Endowed Chair, c/o Health Sciences Foundation of MUSC, 18 Bee Street, P.O. Box 250450, Charleston, SC, 29425.
Employees wishing to make a gift designated can also do so through the Yearly Employee Support (YES) Campaign. Employees can make their gift by filling out a pledge form and sending it to the Health Sciences Foundation, 18 Bee Street, PO Box 250450, Charleston, SC 29425 or send through campus mail to the foundation. The form can be found online at http://www.musc.edu/catalyst/2006yespledgeform.html.
Also, employees will receive a campaign brochure through campus mail. (Checks should be made payable to the HSF/Dr. Layton
McCurdy Chair Fund).
Friday, April 21, 2006
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