NEW YORK – Columbia University’s medical school announced on August 22 that P. Roy and Diana Vagelos were donating $400 million, the largest gift its history. The gift follows a $250 million donation they made in 2017, after which the school was named Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The headline reads: “After Some Columbia Donors Pause Gifts, Medical School Gets $400 Million” and the prologue to the article by Joseph Goldstein notes: “The donation is the largest the medical school has received and comes after other donors pulled back because of Columbia’s response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.”

In the article Goldstein writes that the donation “comes at a critical time for the university, which spent much of the last school year convulsed by protests over the Israel-Hamas war. The university’s handling of those protests led some major donors to pause their contributions to the school.”

Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, recently stepped down and Dr. Katrina Armstrong was named interim president – she is also the chief executive of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, which includes the medical school.

The article reports that “in an interview… Dr. Armstrong said that the Vagelos gift should not be viewed in the context of the protests and controversy that defined university life over the past year.”

Armstrong declared: “This gift has been fundamentally focused on driving science and driving our impact, in our mission…That is their singular focus,” she said of the Vageloses.

She also noted that “P. Roy Vagelos, a medical doctor who graduated from Columbia in 1954, was committed to science and the promise it holds for human health… Dr. Vagelos had a major role in the development of statin drugs that decreased cholesterol at Merck, where he served as chief executive. Under his leadership the company also helped expand the availability of ivermectin by giving it away for free to some countries, dramatically reducing river blindness in parts of Africa and Central America.”

The Vageloses’ 2017 gift to the medical school underwrote financial aid for students with the greatest financial need. The article adds:  “The Vageloses have given more than $900 million to Columbia’s medical school, which its officials said made them ‘the most generous donors in Columbia University’s history… On Thursday, Dr. Armstrong called the Vageloses ‘stalwarts of Columbia.’”