alumnus provides one of stritch’s largest endowed scholarships
Norma Carroll, RN, and Bruce J. Carroll (ssom ‘44)
A $2.47 million endowed scholarship from a 1944 alumnus of the Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM) will ensure more students have access to tuition funds and will support more diversity within the student body.
The Bruce J. Carroll, MD, Endowed Scholarship is one of the largest endowed scholarships provided to Stritch to date. “Our student debt is high, and the cost of living in Chicago contributes to the problem,” says John M. Lee, MD, PhD, SSOM dean. “This scholarship is a wonderful gift because it will help us offset these costs and attract a more diverse student body.”
The scholarship comes as a bequest from the estate of Bruce J. Carroll, MD, who died in 2002, and his wife, Norma Carroll, RN, who died in 2004. “It was Bruce’s desire, and Norma’s as well, for the money to go toward scholarships for students with financial need,” says Barbara Eodice, executrix of the Carrolls’ estate and second cousin of Mrs. Carroll. “Bruce grew up in a working class family and had to work very hard to get through medical school financially.
His background inspired him to start the scholarship so that future doctors could receive more assistance and not have to struggle as hard as he did.”
Dr. Carroll was a vascular surgeon at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center
in Plainfield, NJ; Mrs. Carroll was head nurse of the surgical wing at the
same hospital.
Stritch will use $470,000 of the Carroll gift during the next four years for scholarships. The remaining $2 million will be used to create an endowed scholarship, with the interest to be available for additional scholarships in
the near future.