Understanding the urgent need for a larger scholarship endowment at the GTU, Mrs. Barbro Osher, Chair of the Bernard Osher Foundation and member of the GTU President's Advisory Council, endorsed the gift.

Currently there are 1,300 graduate students enrolled in the GTU consortium, with more than 350 enrolled in GTU doctoral or common master's programs. The GTU is able to provide financial assistance to address only 60% of the tuition needs.

Many GTU students must acquire loans or work outside their study areas due to inadequate financial resources. The Osher Foundation gift will bring relief to many talented students and it will ensure the continuation of the GTU‚s excellent doctoral programs. The GTU Scholarship Endowment is designed to provide student support in perpetuity. Recipients of the Scholarship funded by the Bernard Osher Foundation will be named "Osher Scholars."

"Words cannot express enough the gratitude we feel toward the Bernard Osher Foundation for their generous support of the GTU in this $1 million scholarship grant" said GTU President James A. Donahue. "We are grateful to Bernard and Barbro Osher personally for their continued leadership. This grant makes it possible for the students of the GTU to continue their important educational endeavors in this unique interreligious environment."

"We are delighted to partner with the GTU in the significant work being done in interreligious dialogue and collaboration by its students as they prepare to be leaders in the church, in education, in politics, in this world- a world that is becoming increasingly complex as it becomes increasingly smaller through the power of the media and technology." said the Honorable Barbro Osher, Chairman of the Bernard Osher Foundation.

The Bernard Osher Foundation, founded in 1977 by Mr. Bernard Osher, seeks to improve life by providing support in higher education and the arts. Chairman Barbro Osher is a member of the Graduate Theological Union's President Advisory Council. She is also Consul General of Sweden in San Francisco, President of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, and Owner and Publisher of Vestkusten, a Scandinavian periodical. She and her husband Mr. Bernard Osher are active philanthropists supporting a variety of Jewish philanthropic organizations in addition to the arts and education.