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UVM Larner College Of Medicine Remembers Benefactor

Dr. Robert Larner
Peter Blacksberg
/
University of Vermont
Dr. Robert Larner

The man for whom the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine is named has died at age 99 in California.  Officials at the UVM Larner College of Medicine are remembering Dr. Robert Larner as a humble and generous benefactor who wanted students to benefit from his philanthropy.
Over the past 30 years Dr. Robert Larner and his wife Helen made donations to the University of Vermont that total nearly $100 million.

Larner was born in Burlington in 1918 and was the first member of his family to go to college.  He received his MD from the UVM College of Medicine in 1942. After serving in World War II he settled in Los Angeles and invested in real estate.

In the 1980’s Dr. Larner began making donations to UVM. He created the Larner Loan Fund to provide low-interest loans to UVM medical students.  He then made donations to enhance medical education.  Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education Bill Jeffries says Larner never forgot how UVM nurtured his education.   “He came from very humble beginnings and the university took a chance on him and helped to fund his education and got him started along the away. And he never forgot that.  And so as he went through life and achieved considerable success he started to look back at those people and institutions that helped him.  And he was in a unique position of having made very judicious investments and was able to accumulate a considerable personal fortune. But he wanted to make sure that that opportunity was given back to many other students like him.”

UVM Dean of Medicine Rick Morin says Larner is the only 99-year-old he knew who regularly communicated via email and remained fascinated with new technology.  “He was really smart, really inquisitive. He was really in to the newest technology. You can see that in what we’re doing with the endowment he’s provided us with. We’re investing it explicitly in the newest techniques and the newest technologies in medical education. He was just inquisitive and always thinking about what the next thing was.”  

In April 2016, the Larners donated $19.7 million in commercial property and cash to School of Medicine.  At the time their overall donations totaled more than $33 million. Then in September a new donation of the commercial property and cash valued at $66 million was cited as the largest private philanthropic commitment ever to a public university in New England. It made the Larners  the most generous donors in the history of the college.  The medical college was renamed the UVM Larner College of Medicine.  Dean Morin says Larner wanted it to be the best medical college in the country.   “I never asked him for any money.  He always volunteered it.  He said ‘what are you going to do next?’ And when you explained that he’d say ‘well then how much would that cost?’ And he would hammer me down by about a third usually and then he’d say okay let’s do it. He was just genuine and straightforward and loyal in general to people but in particular to this college.”

A dedication ceremony for the college is scheduled for Friday. It was planned before Dr. Larner died. Members of his family will attend to see a portrait of Dr. Larner and his wife and plaques unveiled.
 

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