Wayne State University will publicly launch its “Wayne First” Capital Campaign at a May 24 kick-off ceremony on the main campus. The ceremony will include an announcement that the university has received a total of $251 million in donations to date. The capital campaign goal is $500 million.
Two individual gifts totaling $24 million were given by California businessman Nick J. Labedz in honor of WSU alumnus Dr. Richard J. Mazurek and by Yousif Ghafari, also a Wayne State alumnus.
“We applaud Nick, Yousif, and all the generous donors who have shown a commitment to this campaign and see the value of investing in education and endowing Wayne State’s future for years to come,” said Wayne State President Irvin D. Reid. “Their gifts and others have pushed Wayne State to the halfway mark of our $500 million goal for the Wayne First Capital Campaign. We are excited about reaching this milestone and believe this establishes a positive tone for the campaign.”
The funds generated from the capital campaign will be used in several areas including:
* Support of student academic programs and scholarships, research and community outreach.
* Increasing the number of endowed chairs and professorships.
* Supporting new construction and renovation.
Labedz’s $15 million gift is the largest individual gift ever made to the university. It goes to the Wayne State University School of Medicine in honor of noted physician Mazurek, who was born and raised in Detroit. Mazurek earned his medical degree from Wayne State in 1961 and settled in Los Angeles. Labedz’s gift, which honors Mazurek, will go to the construction of the Richard J. Mazurek, M.D., Medical Education Commons, a state-of-the-science education facility where students will be trained in the art and science of medicine.
“It’s appropriate to give back to Dick’s medical school that he was so proud of — in the college from which he graduated — to serve an area to which he devoted his life,” Labedz said. “And now to embody his legacy through the medical education facility envisioned and realized. We are carrying on the very thing that is ‘Dick Mazurek.’ This gift, this new paradigm in medical education, is an outgrowth of him — an evolution of the man. It all makes sense.”
Ghafari, a prominent metro Detroit businessman and chairman of Ghafari Associates Inc. in Dearborn, has pledged $9 million to Wayne State. The money will be used to support the new Engineering Development Center and endowments for student programs and scholarships, as well as endowments in mathematics, engineering and medicine. The university’s North Residence Hall will be renamed in honor of Ghafari, who is also a Bloomfield Hills resident and member of the capital campaign steering committee.
Ghafari, who immigrated to the United States from Lebanon in the early 1970s, enrolled at Wayne State in 1972 where he would earn three degrees. Ghafari earned his bachelor’s in mathematics in 1974; a master’s in applied mathematics and computer applications in 1975 and a master’s in chemical engineering in 1977. He became a U.S. citizen in 1978.
“When I first came to the United States to attend college, I didn’t have any idea of where to go,” Ghafari said. “My uncle suggested I go to Wayne; it wasn’t far away, it was affordable, and they accepted me. Just a few years later I had the education I needed to become a licensed engineer and start a company. Wayne State provided me with an excellent education I could not otherwise have had
access to or afforded. It gave me my start in the United States and I am very grateful.”
Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 12 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.
Further information, including the Press Kit components, may be obtained by visiting http://waynefirst.wayne.edu/media_kit.php
*Editor’s Note: The kick-off celebration will take place on Tuesday, May 24 at 3 p.m. on Anthony Wayne Drive between Warren Avenue and Kirby. The gifts will be announced at 4 p.m. Photo and interview opportunities will be available during the gift announcement program.