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Jerome Fisher, Emeritus Trustee

Jerome FisherJerome Fisher, W’53, Honorary Emeritus Penn Trustee, died June 23 in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 85.

Through his leadership and philanthropy, Mr. Fisher helped the University of Pennsylvania both honor its past and innovate for the future.

Mr. Fisher served the Penn Board of Trustees and its Development Committee during his tenure, 1996-2000. He was also a member of the Penn Medicine Board, the Wharton School’s Undergraduate Executive Board and Board of Overseers and the College House Advisory Board.

He made many gifts to transform Penn’s physical and academic landscape. The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, which he endowed in 1995, is a renowned model of interdisciplinary learning that paved the way for signature Penn programs such as the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business and the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management.

His gift to name the Jerome and Anne Fisher Fine Arts Library, a national historic landmark (Almanac October 20, 1992), helped restore the grandeur of the University’s first library building and secure its vitality for future generations.

As one of the lead donors of the four-year Quadrangle Renewal Project, he helped Penn transform the Quad into a vibrant neighborhood of College Houses designed to build community and foster learning outside the classroom. As a result, the Fisher-Hassenfeld College House and the Fisher-Hassenfeld Gate are now a lasting testament to his generosity.

He impacted students and faculty on an even more personal level by spearheading a Trustee Challenge program for scholarship donations, creating the Anne Fisher Graduate Fellowship in Architecture, supporting the Arthur H. Rubenstein MBBCh Professorship at Penn Medicine, and the Jodi Fisher-Horowitz Professorship in Leukemia Care Excellence at the Abramson Cancer Center in memory of his late daughter, Jodi, who predeceased him in 2009.

Mr. Fisher, along with his wife, Anne, was a well-known philanthropist who championed many organizations. Mr. Fisher worked with his daughter, Jodi, to co-found the Fashion Footwear Association of New York’s Shoes on Sale gala and shoe sale to support breast cancer research. It became the shoe industry’s largest fundraising event, and they were honored by FFANY as Humanitarians of the Year in 2003 for their efforts. That annual event has provided significant to advance the work of Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center.

Mr. Fisher had long been a leader in America’s shoe industry. The son of a successful shoe manufacturer, he worked in his father’s factories as a teenager, sold shoes while he attended Wharton and wrote a thesis on the demise of the New England shoe manufacturer. He went on to co-found Nine West, which he developed into one of the country’s leading shoe designers and retailers. 

He is survived by his wife, Anne, a former PennDesign Overseer, his sons, Marc and Jeffrey, and his grandchildren, Elizabeth, C’10, Alexandra, C’01, Jared, C’13, Adam, C’06, Amanda, C’08, Samantha, Harrison, Lauren and Tate.

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