Ithaca College to use $1 million donation for physician-assistant program scholarship

“This incredible gift from Manley and Doriseve Thaler will allow learners to gain critical skills and expertise with a lessened financial burden,” Susan Salahshor, assistant professor and director of the physician-assistant program, said. “Our community is deeply grateful to the Thaler family for their commitment to supporting this innovative new program.”

Ithaca College on Thursday formally opened its physician-assistant program facility at 215 East State Street in downtown Ithaca.

Launched in the fall of 2021, the 27-month program leads to a master’s degree in physician-assistant studies. It is designed to train students to provide a range of responsibilities in this “fast-growing field.” Ithaca College cites the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as indicating job growth in the field is expected at 31 percent between 2018 and 2028.

The school’s program — which emphasizes mental and behavioral health training for rural settings — has been granted accreditation-provisional status from the Suwanee, Georgia–based Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA).

The 30 students involved in the program’s first cohort (Class of 2023) hail from 14 states and hold undergraduate degrees from institutions as near as Ithaca College and Colgate University and as far as the University of Colorado and Arizona State University.

Nearly half of the class received no financial contribution from their families and had to borrow loans to cover tuition, housing, food, and other needs, “further illuminating the crucial importance” of the PA program endowed recruitment scholarship, the school contends.

About the donors

The donation from the Thalers is but one of the family’s many contributions to Ithaca and Ithaca College that span generations, the school said. Manley’s father, Louis Thaler, was founder and senior partner of the Thaler & Thaler law firm, the City of Ithaca attorney from 1940 to 1941, and president of the Tompkins County Bar Association from 1944 to 1945. An amateur violinist, Louis Thaler married Rachel Shulman, a native Ithacan who was awarded a scholarship to study piano at what was then the Ithaca Conservatory of Music.

The “legacy of the Thalers’ love of music lives on today” thanks to Manley, president and director of The Thaler Howell Foundation, Inc. of West Palm Beach, Florida. To date, the foundation has endowed three Ithaca College concert series, “ensuring that outstanding artists will always perform for the Ithaca College community and the residents of the surrounding area,” per the school’s news release.