A recently disclosed $200,000 planned gift from a West Virginia University School of Pharmacy alumnus will boost future scholarship opportunities for students.
The gift made by Michael P. Clay will support his namesake scholarship, which he previously established to benefit students within the School. To date, the Michael P. Clay Scholarship has provided financial support to 10 School of Pharmacy students.
“Similar to a very generous number of our alumni, Michael Clay has chosen to invest in the future of pharmacy by providing funds for deserving student pharmacists,” William Petros, dean and Gates Wigner Endowed Chair at the School of Pharmacy, said. “Scholarships not only provide essential resources for students but also allow them to pursue the wide range of opportunities open in our profession.”
Clay, a Charles Town, West Virginia, native, graduated from WVU in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy. His positive experiences with local pharmacists during his high school job at Peoples Drug Store, now CVS Pharmacy, motivated him to continue working for the company after graduating from college and moving to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
At the time, Peoples Drug Store required all of their pharmacists to be managers, but Clay quickly found out he was not interested in pharmacy management. Rather, he enjoyed the science and what pharmacy taught him about how medicine affects the human body.
One of Clay’s previous preceptors at Peoples Drug Store had moved to the INOVA health care system, and she helped him transition from retail pharmacy to a job in hospital pharmacy. Despite some initial trepidation, it ended up being everything he was looking for in a pharmacy career. Clay remained with INOVA and its associated hospitals until he retired in 2020.
Clay understands the importance of financial assistance firsthand. He is one of four kids in his family, all close in age. This made it difficult for the family to financially support three of the four children going to college at the same time. If it was not for the financial support he received from scholarships and the University, Clay would not have been able to complete his education.
“The scholarships I got while in school made it possible to maintain my life there and to actually be able to afford to go to school,” he said. “Without those, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for me to make it through five years at WVU.”
Because he enjoyed such beneficial and rewarding experiences at the University, Clay wanted to leave a gift in return to help students with financial burdens.
“I just felt that I've received so much positive and professional benefit from having gone to WVU. Again, if I hadn't gone to school there and discovered pharmacy, I wouldn't be in the same place that I am now,” he said. “If I gained so much, I thought that I really need to leave something that reflects my thanks for having received what I did. I know there are others who do not have these opportunities or are unable to reach their goals, but this gift will help make it happen for them.”
During his time at the University, Clay was a member of Rho Chi Pharmacy Honor Society. He still resides in Alexandria, Virginia, but he said the state of West Virginia will always be his home.
Clay’s gift was made through the WVU Foundation, the nonprofit organization that receives and administers private donations on behalf of the University.