Alumna's Bequest Seals Passion for Helping Students

This story was published in the September 2024 issue of The Philanthropist, a newsletter for supporters and friends of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Read past issues here.

When Bonnie Typlin, ’74 MD, graduated from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 1974, she was grateful to not be completely saddled with student loan debt, yet wary of the years ahead needed to pay back the remainder.

Her experience is a common one for aspiring doctors. Now, more than ever, Dr. Typlin said, medical students often face a mountain of debt in addition to the trials of training to become a physician. “Needless to say, I was unable to buy a home or do costly travel most of those years” after graduation, she said.

To help others facing similar barriers, Dr. Typlin and her husband, John Kaiser, of Tucson, Arizona, made a bequest benefiting the Class of 1974 Scholarship and the Council of One Hundred (C100), a Northwestern Alumni Association group that helps female and nonbinary students and graduates build successful careers. Scholarships are a top priority for the medical school, and Dr. Typlin said she was inspired by others who have made outright or estate gifts to support them.

As a student, Dr. Typlin’s scholarship gave her the financial break she needed to obtain her medical degree at Northwestern, where she had earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She went on to complete her residency at Nationwide Children’s Hospital at The Ohio State University, then led a successful career as a pediatrician. Still, she recalled, she finally paid off her student loans at only a month shy of age 40.

Dr. Typlin’s planned gift follows a long history of supporting scholarships and students at Northwestern. For more than 30 years, Dr. Typlin has advocated for and donated to scholarships, and she is a founding member of the C100 established in 1993. She has also been an active member of the Medical Alumni Association, serving as president from 2007–2009.

The Class of 1974 Scholarship has been a passion project for Dr. Typlin, as she and her classmates began organizing to fundraise for the scholarship in the early 1990s. While it was challenging at first, she said, her classmates were able to drum up enough support through phone calls and letters to forge ahead with the scholarship’s inception.

“It’s been a feel-good thing,” she said of the hard work of her class, which this year celebrated its 50th reunion. “The response has been great, with many people giving annual donations to the scholarship.”

Today, Feinberg’s scholarship endowment amounts to $251.2 million through outright and estate gifts, with the goal of reaching $800 million. This has become a competitive necessity as other top institutions also aim to provide financial assistance to all students.

C100 Support

Dr. Typlin’s bequest earmarked for the Council of One Hundred will benefit the Trailblazer Award administered through the Summer Internship Grant Program (SIGP). Through SIGP, awardees receive funds for unpaid summer internships to further their career exploration in the US and abroad.

Today, the awards amount to $3,500 each to cover interns’ living expenses including food and housing. The Council sponsors up to 25 female and nonbinary students each year.

“I feel as if this is a career opportunity that they would otherwise not have, and those career opportunities often get them jobs because they [then] have work experience,” Dr. Typlin said. “That’s why this program is so meaningful to me—because I know how hard it is to snare a job in your desired field.”

While the C100 initially comprised 100 successful alums, today it is made up of 200, all of whom are nominated annually by the previous cohort and represent a wide range of graduation years, cities, and professional backgrounds. Together, the alums provide mentorship and networking opportunities to women and nonbinary students.

Dr. Typlin was involved with the group from the very beginning, when Northwestern University President Arnold Weber, PhD, became aware that women graduates were often having more trouble landing jobs than men and were less likely to come back to the University to attend alumni events, teach, donate, or otherwise get involved. “In some ways, women alums were a lost population,” Dr. Typlin said.

So, President Weber brainstormed with others at the University and prominent alums, and ultimately created the council of 100 alumnae—top executives from public, private, corporate, and nonprofit organizations—to connect with undergraduate seniors and recent female graduates to help launch their careers after graduation.

“It was another example of multi-generational, multidisciplinary Northwestern people who didn’t know one another at first, but who over the years bonded into a very coalesced, successful group and have given a lot back to the University, not just financially, but also in terms of continuing education for young alums and mentoring people in jobs and other volunteer support,” Dr. Typlin said.

For more information about supporting scholarships, please contact Larry Kuhn at larry-kuhn@northwestern.edu or 312-503-1717.