FGCU on Friday received the largest philanthropic gift in its history — $22 million.
The donation came from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation to the Marieb College of Health and Human Services.
The college's Dean, Dr. Shawn Felton, believes this will put FGCU on the map as a top training facility in the area.
“This is incredibly important. The gifts that the Marieb Foundation has provided to us will allow us to further advance the technology we’re implementing into the college and further future-proof our students in terms of their training, their learning, so that they’re ready for tomorrow's force while we’re training them here today,”
FGCU’s long-standing partnership with the foundation is rooted in the university's connection to Dr. Elaine Nicpon Marieb — a distinguished human anatomist, renowned textbook author and extraordinary philanthropist.
Between 2011 and 2017, Dr. Marieb contributed more than $17 million to FGCU, a demonstration of her deep commitment to advancing health and human services education.
"Dr. Marieb was the No. 1 textbook author for anatomy and physiology. So she spent her career in education, which is why we wanted to stick with education," Libby McHugh, a trustee for the Marieb Foundation, said Friday. "She started off at a community college and then moved on to writing all of these textbooks that really had such an impact on all of these students. So for healthcare, not only does it fit with Elaine's passion, but it's also something that's desperately needed down here in order to train that next generation of nurses and healthcare professionals."
McHugh added that it's somewhat of a desert in Southwest Florida for medical education.
"So the more that we can produce really educated, topnotch healthcare professionals, the better off we all are as a community," she said.
Dr. Marieb died in 2018, and the Marieb Foundation has enabled the continued growth of the university's College of Health & Human Services through her legacy.
“This is a defining moment for Florida Gulf Coast University and the Marieb College of Health & Human Services – one that elevates the trajectory of FGCU for generations to come. This gift directly translates into expanded opportunities for our students, faculty and research, and it will strengthen the future of healthcare in the Southwest Florida community and beyond," said FGCU President Aysegul Timur.
The funds will be used to complete Academic Building 10, which will be named in Marieb’s honor and is expected to be completed in fall 2028.
It will also advance technological simulations that give students experience doing ultrasounds, measuring vital signs, and even performing surgery.
“We also have our simulators that kind of replicate a real-life scenario. They talk, they blink, they kind of give real-life responses," said Barry Walters, a graduate student who has been working in the physicians lab to prepare for his career in orthopedics. "You can program the different ways that they actually have murmurs or have lung issues and stuff like that. Those are amazing because it basically can replicate an entire scenario.”
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