Our school began in 1807 as the College of Medicine of Maryland. It started as a proprietary school essentially owned and run by a group of local distinguished physicians including John Beale Davidge. Classes were taught in their homes initially but in 1812, a new building for the school was begun without any state or public funding. At the end of the same year, the College of Medicine of Maryland was rechartered as the University of Maryland.
In April 1892, a fund to benefit the school was established by the Medical Alumni Association. The first meeting of the Trustees was held in May 1893 and its charter was drawn up later that year. The initial Trustees were elected by the Alumni Association and included Dr. Samuel C. Chew who was then president of the Alumni Association and had previously served as Dean of the school. The Trustees were charged with subsequently electing their own members and officers.
From the very beginning, The trustees considered themselves entirely independent of the authorities of the University of Maryland as well as the Alumni Association despite what has now been a longstanding, close working relationship. By 1902, the balance of the fund was $1136. Originally entitled the Trustees of the Endowment Fund of the Faculty of Physic of the University of Maryland, a 1904 act of the General Assembly of Maryland granted a name change to the one that is currently used. It also granted succession in perpetuity to the Trustees.
With the growth of the fund in the early years there developed some legal entanglements for the Trustees. There was discussion about consolidation of the funds managed by the Trustees with those of the Regents of the newly established University Maryland. The Maryland State College of Agriculture in College Park had merged with the medical school in 1920 to become a state institution. In 1929, the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill which essentially reaffirmed the incorporation of the Trustees of the Endowment and attempted to assure their succession in perpetuity.
A 1938 Dr. Frank Bressler gift essentially doubled the size of the fund with a $280,000 donation for the construction of a new medical school building as well as the purchase of the necessary equipment for education and research. The new building was originally on Greene Street and would bear his name. Years later in 1982, the Bressler name was relocated to the new and much larger facility on W. Baltimore St. in keeping with the requirements of the Memorandum of Understanding between the donor, the Trustees and the school.
The 1950s saw the Maryland General Assembly pass a bill which was intended to subvert the independence of the Trustees and their responsibility for the funds. It would have instead placed them with representatives of the state by way of the Board of Regents of the University. Challenging this act in court, the issue was carried all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which in 1955, denied a petition certiorari on behalf of the Board of Regents, thus reaffirming the independence of the Trustees.
In the 60 plus years since then, there has been a very cordial and cooperative relationship between the 3 independent entities–the Trustees of the Endowment, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the Medical Alumni Association of the School of Medicine.
By the end of 2021, the fund totaled just over $140 million, making over $4 million available to the school annually.