Woburn Advocate September 8, 2004

Cummings Foundation makes $50 million commitment to Veterinary School at Tufts
By Michael Marotta/ Staff Writer

Shortly after acquiring two of Cummings Properties most vital entities through donation last month, Cummings Foundation, Inc. will now join up with Tufts University in a $50 million partnership scheduled to be announced today.

The deal with Tufts' School of Veterinary Medicine will see a newly formed subsidiary, Veterinary School at Tufts, take over complete fiscal responsibility for the graduate school.

The announcement comes less than a month after the donation of the 59-acre Cummings Park and West Cummings Park to the Cummings Foundation as part of a large-scale charitable donation of most of the family's real estate assets. Last month's donation brought Cummings Foundation's net work to more than $400 million.

Bill Cummings said that the Foundation was moved to support the University's affiliation proposal, primarily due to the strong entrepreneurial spirit of Tufts' senior administrators.

"Every university needs resources to sustain its vision," Cummings said. "This collaboration will support vital capital needs of one of Tufts' most important schools."

Cummings also noted the steadily growing quality of Tufts' teaching staff and its outstanding reputation as important factors that were considered.

Under the affiliation agreement, Tufts University will retain much of the overall responsibility for managing the Veterinary School and will continue to maintain sole authority to select and employ all faculty and staff, make all determinations regarding admissions and enrollment of students, and determine all aspects of the academic program, as well as, of course, to confer all degrees. It will also maintain total responsibility for all federal grants, tuition policies, financial aid awards, and all public and privately sponsored research, according to Foundation director Denis Cleary.

Cummings Foundation will then operate all other aspects of the school, specifically focusing on financial and real estate issues, and has committed a minimum of $50 million in financial support, he said.

According to Cleary, nothing in the day-to-day operations at the 585-acre country campus is expected to change as a result of the new affiliation. Students, professors, administrators, and researchers alike will continue in their ordinary routines at the School, with no interruption of any sort.

Cleary said the $50 million financial commitment to Tufts University is, by far, the most significant action of the Foundation since its inception in 1986. He also said it ranks among the largest private commitments to any American university.

"Tufts is deeply grateful for this extraordinary vote of confidence," Tufts' President Lawrence S. Bacow said. "This is historic - by far the largest in our history. We shall invest these resources wisely to strengthen this great university."

Bacow noted that the Veterinary School will be renamed Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, in a ceremony to be held next spring. The chief benefactors of Cummings Foundation are Bill and Joyce Cummings of Winchester. Bill is the president of the Foundation, and both he and Joyce serve as active members of its Board of Trustees.

Cummings said that veterinary medicine has become an increasingly important area of study within the scientific community, particularly in Massachusetts. Largely due to the rapid expansion of the biotech industry, the need for veterinarians in the Commonwealth has grown at a disproportionately high rate when compared to other areas of the country.

"Any place animals are used in vital medical research," Cummings said, "veterinarians are required to be on-site."

Cummings happens to be intimately familiar with the growth of the biotech industry, as the firm he founded reportedly leases a large percentage of its eight million square feet of commercial space to biotechnology and medical research firms.

The Woburn-based firm has 260 full-time employees.

Consistent with the new alliance, Cleary noted that Bacow and Veterinary School Dean Philip C. Kosch, D.V.M., Ph.D., have become trustees of Cummings Foundation. He also said that Bill Cummings' son-in-law, Jason Morris, a cell biologist, who is an associate professor at Fordham University and a Foundation trustee, was named as the first new overseer of Veterinary School.

Under the affiliation agreement, the Foundation is responsible for appointing a majority of all members of the Veterinary School's Board of Overseers. Three other new overseers appointed by the Foundation work within the Cummings organization: Patricia A. Cummings of Arlington, Eric S. Anderson of Woburn, and Denis J. Cleary III of Boston. Patricia Cummings, a 1997 Tufts graduate, is Bill Cummings' daughter, the Associate Executive Director of New Horizons at Marlborough, and a Foundation trustee. Anderson, who recently returned from military service in Iraq, is an operations division manager at Cummings Properties, and Cleary is an attorney at Cummings Properties and serves as the pro bono executive director of the Foundation.

While two of the other Foundation trustees are Tufts graduates, and Bill Cummings also is a Tufts trustee emeritus, none currently has any active role at Tufts. Cleary said that all votes authorizing both the financial commitment to Tufts and other future arrangements were completed prior to Bacow's joining the Foundation's board of trustees.

Since its formation in 1986, Cummings Foundation has benefited primarily from the contributions of Cummings family members and companies established by Bill Cummings. Cummings' largest company, Cummings Properties, LLC, was founded in Woburn in 1970 and reportedly serves approximately 1,700 business and professional clients in 10 area communities.

Cummings Foundation is reportedly now one of Boston's larger private foundations. The Foundation also owns and manages New Horizons at Choate, a retirement-living community at 21 Warren Avenue, Woburn, and another, much larger retirement community in Marlborough, MA. About 120 residents currently reside in the modestly priced, but highly regarded Woburn assisted living facility, almost all of them now from the greater Woburn area. The community's executive director, Rob Nigro, said that New Horizons' admissions program is highly preferential in favor of Woburn residents.

The Foundation also sponsors the McKeown Scholarship Program in Woburn and seven other local communities where Cummings Properties has interests. Since 1997, more than $1 million has been awarded to local area students. Additionally, the Foundation contributed $1 million in July for a new building toward the North Shore YMCA in Beverly.