Dear OU Family,
There are moments in the life of a university that do more than just mark progress. They fundamentally expand the horizon of what comes next.
Today is one of those moments.
I am profoundly grateful to announce an historic $150 million gift from Harold Hamm – the largest single gift in the history of the University of Oklahoma – to advance health education, research, and discovery across our Health Campus and accelerate the groundbreaking work of the OU Health Harold Hamm Diabetes Center.
In recognition of Harold’s extraordinary generosity and the lasting impact of his philanthropy, our Health Campus in Oklahoma City will be named the Harold Hamm Health Campus at the University of Oklahoma.
With this gift, Harold becomes the largest individual donor in OU history, with his lifetime giving to the university approaching $250 million. But as remarkable as those numbers are, they do not begin to capture Harold’s impact on our university, our state, and our nation.
Harold is one of Oklahoma’s great visionaries. His life story is distinctly Oklahoman and uniquely American – rising from humble beginnings in rural Oklahoma to become an entrepreneur whose ideas and determination helped reshape an industry and strengthen our nation. Throughout his life, Harold has demonstrated a rare ability to see not only the challenges in front of us, but what could exist on the other side of them – and then act with the conviction necessary to get there.
Nearly two decades ago, he brought that vision to one of Oklahoma’s most persistent health challenges.
After his own diagnosis with Type 2 diabetes, Harold became determined to change the trajectory of a disease that affects far too many Oklahoma families. In 2007, his lead gift helped establish the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center around an audacious goal: to improve the lives of those living with diabetes while pursuing the discoveries that could one day lead to a cure.
His commitment has extended far beyond that initial investment. He established the Harold Hamm International Prize for Biomedical Research in Diabetes, the world’s largest international prize of its kind and widely regarded as the “Nobel Prize” of diabetes research. And he took his fight against diabetes to Washington, advocating for more affordable and accessible insulin and lending his voice to the Affordable Insulin Now Act and the broader effort to cap patients’ out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 per month.
What has happened since offers powerful evidence of what can be accomplished when vision is matched by sustained investment and powerful performance. Harold’s support has helped build the research talent, technology, and infrastructure behind a nationally recognized diabetes research enterprise – recruiting leading scientists, accelerating discovery, and expanding the capacity to confront this disease at a scale few institutions can.
That instinct – to recognize where the right people, ideas, and determination can produce extraordinary results – has defined Harold throughout his life. He knows what it looks like when the pieces are in place to do something consequential.
Today, Harold sees another defining opportunity – and he sees it here at OU.
Over the past five years, Oklahoma has made an unprecedented commitment to improving the health of our people. Together, state and federal leaders, tribal nations, philanthropic and health care partners, researchers, educators, and many others have helped strengthen an academic health system with greater capacity than ever before to address challenges that have burdened our state for decades. The five-year transformation of OU Health, which we celebrated just this summer, has become one of the most remarkable academic health system transformations in the country – and perhaps the clearest example of what that collective commitment can make possible.
At OU, that momentum has fueled dramatic research growth, attracted world-class talent, and led us to launch Project 200 – an ambitious effort to recruit approximately 200 leading researchers in areas where discovery can have an outsized impact on Oklahoma and the nation, with health among its major areas of focus. All of it advances a Strategic Plan that places lifting the health of Oklahoma at its core.
Harold sees what that collective effort has created, and more importantly, where it can lead. He sees a university with the people, momentum, and ambition to change the trajectory of health in our state, and he has chosen to invest boldly in what we can accomplish together.
Of his $150 million gift, $50 million will propel the next era of research and discovery at the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center. The remaining $100 million will help educate more of the health professionals Oklahoma urgently needs, recruit leading researchers, and give them the tools and infrastructure to pursue discoveries that can improve and save lives.
That is why the naming of the Harold Hamm Health Campus represents far more than recognition of an historic gift. It reflects a shared belief in what can happen here – and a commitment to turn the extraordinary momentum now underway into better health for generations of Oklahomans.
Importantly, this gift is not an endpoint. It is a catalyst for what comes next.
Harold’s investment dramatically expands what is possible – and challenges all of us to think bigger about what we can accomplish together. We have an obligation to meet this moment with the same ambition Harold has demonstrated throughout his life. That means educating the health professionals Oklahoma urgently needs. It means recruiting researchers capable of making breakthroughs that alter the course of disease. It means accelerating those discoveries toward new treatments and cures. And it means bringing the full strength of this university to bear on health challenges that have caused needless suffering in our state for far too long.
Harold, on behalf of the entire OU Family – and on behalf of the countless Oklahomans who will benefit from your vision and generosity – thank you.
Your name on our Health Campus will honor all that you have done for this university. But its greater significance will be measured by the lives changed for generations to come – because you saw this moment and chose to act.
Today, we celebrate what your extraordinary generosity makes possible. Tomorrow, we begin the work of making the most of it.
Live On, University,
Joseph Harroz, Jr.
President
