Jonas Eshelman ’50: The Largest Gift in College History

McDaniel College has announced the largest gift in college history along with the unveiling of the public phase of a $50 million comprehensive capital and operational campaign in support of McDaniel’s current strategic plan.

Both announcements were made during the college’s Founders Society Gala held on campus on Friday, Oct. 10. Nearly 200 members of the McDaniel community were in attendance, including trustees, alumni, and parents, as well as business and community partners.

A landmark estate gift of approximately $15 million from the late Jonas Eshelman ’50 marks the largest in the college’s history. It will be used to establish an endowment that will fund initiatives to enhance academic excellence and support the college’s unrestricted priorities. This includes a new Endowed Professorship in Computational Innovation and Emerging Technologies, made possible by a $2 million matching grant from the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative Fund (MEIF), as well as upgrades to classrooms and lab spaces.

Eshelman, who died in 2023 at the age of 95, grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, and served in the U.S. Navy before enrolling at what was then Western Maryland College, where he majored in Economics. He later moved to Baltimore, where he worked as a retail business manager and real estate investor, before retiring in West Palm Beach, Florida. He also was an avid landscape oil painter.

The Eshelman gift gives us tremendous momentum as we head into the public phase of our ‘Reaching New Heights’ campaign.”