$200,000 scholarship bequest made to VCU School of Pharmacy
A $200,000 bequest from the estate of Joyce Pusey Clement will provide scholarships to VCU School of Pharmacy students for years to come.
Clement began supporting the school in 2008 when she donated $25,000 to create the S.B. “Jack” Clement Scholarship in memory of her late husband and in honor of his devotion to pharmacy.
The couple met in Richmond when he was a pharmacy student at the Medical College of Virginia and she was working for C&P Telephone. They wed in 1956, a few months after he graduated, and renewed their vows on their 50th anniversary. Sadly, Jack Clement died the next year.
Recognized for her generosity during the school’s 2009 Galen Dinner for leadership donors, Clement said, “I know Jack is looking down at us this evening with much love and appreciation.
“I’m planning to add to Jack’s scholarship fund,” she added. “I know he would be pleased.”
In an interview later that year, she noted that she’d been able to establish the scholarship because – although her husband had put a great deal back into his drugstores – they both had saved and invested their earnings.
Over the next three years, she added $10,000 to the scholarship fund and let the School of Pharmacy know that she had included the scholarship in her estate plans.
Pharm.D. students Meghan Thompson, Toni Larson, Kelly Beth Cain, Hosay Muhammad Sharif and Skylar White, each of whom has received a Clement Scholarship, can attest to the value of financial aid.
“I felt very honored and privileged to receive the Clement Scholarship because I am the first person in my family to graduate college and to attend professional school,” said White.
“I hope one day to give back in the same way because this scholarship is a key piece of the puzzle needed to help me to fulfill my dreams.”
On July 27, 2013 — six years, to the day, after her husband’s death — Clement died at age 80. Her obituary noted that she had “led a life of dedication and service to her family, community and church and left lasting legacies to benefit generations to come.”
Those lasting legacies include her bequest to the S.B. “Jack” Clement Scholarship fund, said School of Pharmacy Dean Joseph T. DiPiro.
“I’m always so grateful,” he said, “when I learn of an alumnus, friend or family member who has established a legacy through an estate gift. As I begin my tenure here at the School of Pharmacy, I am happy to know that gifts like this one will help ensure a strong future.”
Categories Alumni news, Student news