Board of Councilors members Patricia Will and Mercedes Kerr have arranged for the first industry-created endowed scholarship at the USC Leonard Davis School. Will, the founder and CEO of Belmont Village Senior Living, and Kerr, the president of Belmont Village, have been active and supportive board members for several years. The Belmont Village Senior Living Endowed Scholarship Fund will support students studying senior housing who plan to work in the industry in the United States.
“We are thrilled to support Leonard Davis School students interested in senior housing,” said Will, who founded Belmont Village, L.P., in 1997 with the aim of creating a place that would “foster a sense of independence in each of [the] senior residents, no matter where they were in life.” A highly decorated senior living industry executive, Will was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by McKnight’s Senior Living.
“We are pleased to have Belmont Village and the USC Davis School, the national leader in aging education, policy and research, teamed up to help prepare our country’s future leaders in senior housing,” Kerr said. Prior to joining Belmont Village as president in 2019, Kerr was executive vice president of business development at Welltower, Inc. She was appointed to Governor Gavin Newsom’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which was formed in response to the creation of California’s Master Plan for Aging in 2019. Kerr serves on the committee alongside Donna Benton, research associate professor of gerontology and assistant dean of diversity and inclusion at the Leonard Davis School.
“I’m very grateful to Patricia and Mercedes for their leadership, partnership and generous support,” said Dean Pinchas Cohen. “The Belmont Village Senior Living Endowed Scholarship will make a big difference in the lives of future Leonard Davis School students [and] senior housing and its residents for decades to come.”
If you would like more information on how to help provide student support at the Leonard Davis School, please call David Eshaghpour at (213) 740-1360.
