PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing officially launches a $60 million fund-raising campaign, "Where Science Leads," on Nov. 30 with a celebration marking the naming of the Nursing Building for Claire M. Fagin, dean emerita.

That evening, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell will be honorary co-chair of a gala with Midge Rendell, Pennsylvania's first lady and Nursing overseers chair, as gala chair.

A $5 million gift from The Annenberg Foundation as well as significant support from Carol Ware Gates and the 1675 Foundation have marked the campaign thus far.

"We at Penn are extraordinarily proud of our School of Nursing and its impact on nursing education and health care around the world," Penn President Amy Gutmann said.  "We launch this campaign knowing that we can - and we must - make a better future for nursing and health care."

"We are at a fundamental crossroads," Penn Nursing Dean Afaf I. Meleis said, "faced with serious and substantial challenges in health care while also poised on the brink of health-related discoveries, technologies and opportunities that promise to impact our lives in transformational ways.  Penn Nursing has always stood at the forefront in moments like these and our 'Where Science Leads' Campaign is about responding now as we have always responded: with solutions."

The campaign is co-chaired by Penn Nursing Board members Pedie Killebrew and Andie Laporte.

The gala at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be co-chaired by former Penn Nursing Board chairs Peggy Mainwaring and Vivian Piasecki.

Claire M. Fagin served as dean from 1977 to 1992 and transformed the nursing profession through emphasis on research and nursing science.  From 1993 to 1994 she was Penn's interim president.

Fagin established a number of centers, including the Center for Nursing Research, that have produced a generation of Penn researchers who have made significant contributions.

She most recently served as director of the John A. Hartford Foundation National Program "Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity."