$1.5 Million Gudelsky Gift Establishes Endowed Professorship In Business

by Joyce Shelfo
Published Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2011

One step in keeping with Lynn’s strategic plan to become one of America’s most noted small universities is to strengthen the faculty. Endowed faculty positions have a transformative impact on academic quality because it helps the university retain the most dedicated and talented professors

Before she passed away in 2007, Martha Gudelsky established the Homer Gudelsky Endowed Professorship at Lynn University to honor her late husband. After her death, her family completed the final funding of this endowment and renamed it to memorialize Martha Gudelsky as well.

The Homer and Martha Gudelsky Endowed Professorship in Business provides Lynn’s largest academic college, the College of Business and Management, with a permanently endowed faculty position.

When Martha established this endowment in 2006, she was asked why the family foundation selected Lynn as a recipient of its generosity. “We saw tremendous possibilities with Lynn,” she said. “Over the years we’ve watched it grow and transform from an all-girls, Catholic school to a university. Everyone on our board has been to Lynn at one time or another and was very impressed with what they saw there.”

Born in Baltimore, Md., Homer Gudelsky was the president and CEO of the family’s aggregate businesses in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, but was perhaps best known to the public for his innovative and significant real estate developments in the region, including Tysons Corner Regional Shopping Center (Northern Virginia). He and his wife, Martha, established The Homer and Martha Gudelsky Family Foundation, Inc. in 1968 to contribute to charitable programs devoted to improving health, education, the arts and the community.

Supplementing the $1.5 million Homer and Martha Gudelsky Endowed Professorship in Business, the descendants of Homer and Martha Gudelsky are perpetuating their family’s philanthropic legacy with an additional $300,000 endowment devoted exclusively to student scholarships. The Martha Gudelsky Memorial Endowed Scholarship provides financial aid to those students who demonstrate exemplary talent and leadership potential, but need financial assistance in order to afford an education at Lynn University.

John Gudelsky, Homer and Martha Gudelsky’s son, president of The Homer and Martha Gudelsky Family Foundation, and president and CEO of the family’s businesses, recently commented, “We are pleased to complete mom’s vision for a fullyfunded endowed professorship at Lynn University.” Regarding the Gudelsky family’s additional endowment for student scholarships, John Gudelsky added, “We are also delighted to honor mom’s passion for helping especially worthy students who are in need of financial assistance in order to realize all their potential.”

Through these two endowments, this extraordinary family has helped secure Lynn University’s future success in two critical ways: helping the university attract and retain the most talented professors and by helping the university attract and educate the most promising students.