Giving

Feinberg Celebrates Scholarship Impact While Kicking Off $200 Million Fundraising Campaign

By Lauren Robinson

Scholars at the 2026 Commitment to Scholarships luncheon.

In May, donors and medical students assembled at The Peninsula Chicago to honor the transformative power of scholarships and mark the launch of a new $200 million campaign at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“The competition for top students among our peer institutions is fierce, as many of you are aware. Strong scholarship support allows students to choose a path guided by passion and purpose, not financial pressure,” said Marianne Green, MD, chair and Raymond H. Curry, MD, Professor of Medical Education, vice dean for Education, and co-director of the Center for Medical Education in Digital Healthcare and Data Science.

The new campaign seeks to raise an ambitious $200 million in scholarship funds by 2032. But thanks to many generous donors present at the luncheon, Green noted, Feinberg is already $36 million into that goal.

Attendees heard from two such supporters: Kevin Hicks, PhD, stepson of the late Charles “Charlie” Snorf, ’58 MD, ’63 GME, who spoke on behalf of his family, and Sean D. O’Connor, MD, clinical assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, who spoke about the grateful patient who established a scholarship in his name in 2018.

First-year medical student and Medical Alumni Scholar Cecile Schreidah shared the story of her journey to Feinberg.

Hicks spoke of his stepfather’s sense of indebtedness to his mentors and his profound desire to pay forward his good fortune to the next generation of medical students.

“My stepfather’s commitment to this scholarship was sourced in his awareness of the debt he had incurred to his mentors at Northwestern, who gave him the great gift of believing in him before he fully believed in himself,” Hicks said of Snorf, namesake of the Snorf Medical Student Scholarship. “Charlie knew that he could best meet his obligation to these professors by extending his philanthropy to the next generation of medical students, just as his teachers had helped him in part to pay forward their own debt to long-gone mentors.”

O’Connor also spoke to attendees, sharing gratitude for the patient who established the Sean D. O’Connor, MD Scholarship and for all his patients, students, and fellow faculty members who have inspired him to be a better clinician and educator throughout his 25-year career at Feinberg. He and his wife, Gail, as well as many patients, have donated generously to the scholarship since its inception.

“Today is about commitment and about supporting scholarship. Gail and I, along with my patients, want to support this scholarship and make it grow, so that by 2032, the scholarship will be able to help a medical student going into a primary care residency get the support and financial relief that they need,” he said.

Today, Feinberg’s scholarship endowment is $294.8 million, with over 71 percent of medical students receiving scholarship assistance thanks to thousands of donors who have made outright and estate gifts. The school aims to one day increase its endowment to $800 million and provide free tuition to all its students.