$10 million Brody family gift expands scholars program, supports future doctors, lifts total giving to the university past $35 million
East Carolina University has received a $10 million gift from longtime benefactors David and Laura Brody of Raleigh and Hyman and Stacy Brody of Greenville to dramatically strengthen the Brody Scholars Program and underwrite the education of future physicians who will serve communities across North Carolina.
Announced jointly by ECU and the ECU Health Foundation, the transformational commitment deepens a philanthropic partnership with the Brody family that now totals more than $35 million in cumulative giving to the university.
Approved by the ECU Board of Trustees, the gift will be recognized through the naming of the new 195,000‑square‑foot Brody Center for Medical Education, a $265 million state‑funded facility scheduled to open for the 2027–28 academic year. The seven‑story building, connected to the existing Brody Medical Sciences Building, will feature state‑of‑the‑art simulation spaces, large learning studios, a new anatomy lab, collaboration areas and outdoor gathering spaces, and will enable the Brody School of Medicine to expand its class size from fewer than 100 students to 120 per cohort.
The Brody family’s new investment will be added to an existing endowment exclusively dedicated to the Brody Scholars Program, which currently provides full tuition, fees and enrichment opportunities for four years of medical school to a select group of students. At present, 12 students are enrolled as Brody Scholars and 147 alumni have completed the program; university leaders say the enhanced endowment will ensure the scholarship’s long‑term sustainability and expand its capacity to attract top talent committed to primary care and service in rural and underserved communities.
In a joint statement, cousins Hyman and David Brody emphasized that their family’s philanthropy is building upon major public investments already made by the North Carolina General Assembly and the UNC System Board of Governors to secure the state’s health‑care future. The Brody School of Medicine, named in 1999 in recognition of the family’s prior generosity as the first ECU school to carry a donor’s name, has since earned national recognition for producing physicians who choose primary care and remain in North Carolina to practice, particularly in eastern counties with persistent shortages of medical professionals.
ECU and ECU Health leaders describe the naming of the Brody Center for Medical Education as both a tribute to decades of family engagement and a strategic investment in facilities designed around student success, interprofessional learning and community impact. With flexible lecture and banquet‑style studios that can seat up to 500, advanced gross anatomy and clinical skills spaces, and new areas for small‑group study and cohort gathering, the center will anchor an expanded pipeline of physicians trained to address health disparities in eastern North Carolina and beyond.
University officials underscore that the convergence of state capital funding and private philanthropy represented by the Brody Center project is reshaping ECU’s ability to fulfill its mission of improving regional health outcomes. By pairing a larger, modern medical education facility with an augmented scholarship endowment that removes financial barriers for high‑achieving students, ECU aims to recruit, train and retain more doctors who will choose to practice in communities that have historically struggled to attract adequate medical care.