Featured Giving Opportunity: The Alumni Reconnect Campaign

Michael Lawrence Zollicoffer, or “Dr. Z” to anyone who knows him, is passionate about life, medicine, people and his University. A 1985 graduate of UNC’s School of Medicine, he can be found, quite literally, at his inner-city Baltimore practice day or night. If there is someone who needs him, he’s going to be there.

Dr. Z embodies the commitment of his pioneering father, Dr. Lawrence Zollicoffer ’62, the medical school’s fourth minority graduate, and brings that passion to bear on the medical school’s most recent initiative: the Alumni Reconnect Campaign, or the ARC.

We sat down with Dr. Z to get some perspective on the effort:

Q: What is the Alumni Reconnect Campaign about?

A: The ARC aims to re-engage medical school alumni in the life of their professional school and the life of Carolina again. Primarily aimed at our minority alumni, we want to rebuild those relationships, bring them back to campus, encourage and elicit their support for key programs that help bring minority students here and provide them the tools to succeed.

Q: What programs are we talking about specifically?

A: We want to improve medical education for all students at UNC with a specific focus on increased opportunities for minority and underserved students. Three key areas we’ve identified are:

• The Medical Education Development (MED) Program—a joint effort of the schools of medicine and dentistry that provides an intensive educational experience and challenging opportunity to gain insight into the realities of attending medical or dental school.

• The Zollicoffer Symposium —expanding on the Zollicoffer Lectureship, this event is a three-day celebration meant to bring minority alumni back to campus and encourage their involvement and support.

• 
  The Zollicoffer Lectureship was established in 1981 by the UNC chapter of the Student National Medical Association with the support of the medical school dean. It was named in honor of my father, Lawrence Zollicoffer, M.D. (1930-1976, pictured), the fourth African-American graduate of the UNC School of Medicine and founder of the Garwyn Medical Center in Baltimore, Md. The Baltimore community recognized him as a supporter and activist in the struggle for civil and human rights. Throughout his life, he exemplified qualities that students admire and hope to emulate as future physicians.

• The Loyalty Fund—the annual fund of the UNC Medical Alumni Association that provides an unrestricted resource designated primarily for student scholarships and educational activities for which no other funding source exists. The Loyalty Fund provides vital financial support for student programs, such as the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), teaching professorships, the Health Sciences Library, and medical alumni outreach.
  

Q: What goals have you established?

A: We are determined to increase medical school alumni engagement and support, especially among the beneficiaries of these wonderful programs. Of course, we want to raise significant funding of at least $250,000—though I think we can do better—to help advance these programs as well as position them to be self-sustaining.

But more than that, we want to motivate our alumni to become involved with the school again, to develop those relationships with each other that most certainly make for great health care professionals, and to want to give of their resources, including their time and talent as well as their financial resources.

To me, giving of yourself, of your time and making that commitment is an unbelievable resource whose impact on future doctors really can’t be exaggerated.

Q: How does this effort coincide with the missions of the School of Medicine and the University?

A: Simple. Both the University and the School of Medicine are charged with educating and serving the people of the state and communities at large. To do that well, you must start at home.

In my opinion, the Alumni Reconnect Campaign epitomizes perfectly what our school and this institution are all about. We must lead. We must be catalysts for change. We must not be complacent, but aim higher, represent well and leverage all the resources at our disposal.

Q: Carolina graduated more than 500 minority physicians between 1950 and 2000, yet only about 200 of them have ever made a financial gift to the University. Far fewer have made major gifts of $10,000 or more. How will ARC address this?

A: Like any good doctor, we’re going to get personal. We’re going to reach out and touch our alumni, find out what motivates them, look for what is important to them. We’re going to communicate, and most important, listen to their ideas, their thoughts, their questions and their concerns. That’s the Reconnect part.

We need our alumni to commit themselves, to commit their time and their brain trust. Then I feel sure the support will follow.

In my opinion, the Alumni Reconnect Campaign epitomizes perfectly what our school and this institution are all about. We must lead. We must be catalysts for change. We must not be complacent, but aim higher, represent well and leverage all the resources at our disposal.

Q: Why do we need the ARC now?

A: Because we stand to lose so much if we don’t do it. Right now there are only 80 slots in the MED program, yet we’ve received in excess of 500 applications just this year. To me, that’s potentially 420 fewer doctors in the pipeline at a time when there is a significant shortage and a marked increase both in the number of people needing care and those gaining access to health care.

Also to give future doctors the choice to practice the type of medicine they want wherever they choose. Unfortunately, physicians often feel compelled to choose a specialty that carries a high rate of return for no other reason than they need to repay their medical school loans.

That’s no way to choose the path for the rest of your life. We want to encourage and enable those who want to pursue family practice in an underserved area to focus on that, not on what it’s going to cost them if they do.

That’s why we need to challenge ourselves to be bold and creative thinkers, and to simply help give back the opportunities that we received in preparing for our life’s work.

Being a doctor is a life-long commitment, a way of life. It isn’t just a job or even a career. It’s an investment in caring for those who need it, especially if they can’t care for themselves.

What better investment is there than in talented young people who not only want to make their future better, but ours too?