RISING TO THE CHALLENGE: THE QUIET CONTRIBUTORS
Baltimore, Maryland – February 1, 2010 – Unless you stumbled upon
it, you probably wouldn’t
know about the Hodson
Scholars Luncheon. For
decades, it’s been an annual tradition on the Homewood campus,
bringing administrators, faculty and a
select group of students together each
December to acknowledge and celebrate
a remarkable ongoing relationship that
stretches back more than half a century.
At the most recent luncheon, executives of the Hodson Trust—a charitable
organization that exclusively supports
just four Maryland educational institutions—announced awards totaling more
than $1.74 million to The Johns Hopkins
University for scholarships, research in
oncology and nephrology, and publication of The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot.
The contribution brings total Hodson
Trust giving to the university to nearly
$72 million since the first gift was made in
1958, leading university President Ronald J.
Daniels to observe that “there are few other
philanthropic organizations whose legacy at
Johns Hopkins has been as profound and
wide-ranging as that of the Hodson Trust.”
Provost Lloyd Minor, Hodson Scholar Andrew Farber-Miller, Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholar Ashela Bean, Hodson Trust Chairman Gerald Holm and President
Ronald J. Daniels at December’s Hodson Scholars Luncheon.
Through 2009 the Hodson Trust has awarded
more than $217 million to Johns Hopkins,
Hood College, St. John’s College and Washington College, the four Maryland schools it supports in honor of its namesake, Col. Clarence
Hodson, a Maryland resident who pioneered
the concept of making small loans available to
ordinary working-class Americans. In 1914 he
established the Beneficial Loan Society, which
eventually became one of the nation’s most
successful lending institutions. Its trademarked
jingle—At Beneficial, TOOT TOOT, You’re
Good for More—remains instantly recognizable
to generations of Americans. The company
became part of Household International, now
HSBC, in 1998. The Hodson Trust was settled
in 1920 with shares of Beneficial by members
of the colonel’s family with the express intention that it would be devoted to supporting
education.
Over the course of more than half a
century, the bulk of Hodson Trust giving to Johns Hopkins has been in the
form of undergraduate scholarship aid,
which currently falls into two categories. Hodson Scholarships are merit-based
awards that cover roughly two-thirds of
the cost of tuition each year for four years,
and are offered to prospective students
who both demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and make outstanding contributions beyond the classroom.
Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholarships
are need-based awards aimed specifically
at underrepresented minorities and are
intended to relieve a prospective student of the loan portion of his or her
total financial aid package. This year,
82 students hold Hodson Scholarships,
and 26 others are Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholars. According to Hodson
Trust Chairman Gerald Holm, the focus
on students of extraordinary promise is
intended to bring a better future for all.
“We are confident that we are investing
in students who will make the most of
their educations and go on to change the
world for the better,” he says.
The annual Hodson luncheon is a
celebration of those exceptional students. All Hodson Scholars and Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholars are invited,
along with the university president and
provost, Hodson Trust board members
and guests, and some faculty. Each year,
one Hodson scholar and one Success
scholar are asked to speak about what
scholarship support has meant for their
time at Johns Hopkins.
Hodson Scholar Andrew Farber-Miller,
a senior who spoke at the December
luncheon, says that he tried to convey
the unparalleled opportunity the Hodson
scholarship afforded him. “Coming to a
prestigious university like Hopkins is a
tremendous opportunity and challenge,”
he says. “The Hodson Scholarship made
it possible for me to take advantage of
all that Hopkins has to offer inside and
outside the classroom. The financial benefits were significant for me. Not having
to hold a job during the academic year
gave me the freedom to concentrate on
my studies and also gave me the time to
be able to make a contribution to the
Hopkins community in other ways. The
prestige associated with the scholarship
provided an extra incentive for me to
strive for excellence in everything I have
done here.” After graduation in May,
Farber-Miller plans to enroll in post-baccalaureate training and then go to medical
school. At Johns Hopkins, he has participated in extracurricular activities related
to his public health major, fraternity life
and basketball, and he is an active volunteer with his hometown fire department.
Bill Conley, dean of enrollment and
academic services, says of the scholarships, “The Hodson Trust enables us to
look at the cream of admitted students
and encourage their enrollment. Our
pool of candidates is as strong as any
pool at any school. These scholarships
give us an opportunity to shape the class,
and are a tremendous inducement for the
students to choose Hopkins,” he says.
“The fact of the matter is that we have a
very low scholarship endowment relative
to our peers, and what scholarship dollars
we have are a critical tool in the recruitment and retention of students.”
The trust’s generosity to Johns Hopkins has taken many other forms over the
years, most notably with the construction
in 2002 of the Homewood campus’s Hodson Hall, a $15 million, 44,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art academic building
that also houses the university’s board
of trustees meeting room. In addition,
the Provost’s Undergraduate Research
Awards—which have become an integral
part of the undergraduate learning experience on the Homewood campus—were
sponsored and eventually completely
funded by the Hodson Trust.
In 2006, the trust broke new ground by
agreeing to support the research and publication of an eight-volume series of the
complete prose of T.S. Eliot. “This project
will transform people’s notions of Eliot,”
predicts Kathleen Keane, director of the
Johns Hopkins University Press. “The
Hodson Trust made a very innovative and far-sighted grant that will enable us not only
to publish the papers but to fund the scholarly work needed to put it together. This is
a truly transformative project that simply
wouldn’t have happened without their support.” Ronald Schuchard, a renowned Eliot
scholar and a professor at Emory University,
is leading the project, which will also allow
the Press to develop the electronic edition of
The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot.
“Overall, the Hodson Trust has been just
a huge benefactor to Johns Hopkins,” says
senior admissions officer John Birney, who
relies on the Hodson Scholarships to help shape incoming undergraduate classes.
“It’s not only the scholarships but also
their support of things like the Provost’s
Undergraduate Research Awards, the
construction of one of our most advanced
classroom buildings and so much else.
They do a lot of good for Johns Hopkins
that often goes unrecognized. But this is
how much Hodson means to us: They are
a great addition to the Hopkins family.
Plain and simple, we couldn’t enroll these
exceptional students without their help.
These students wouldn’t be here without
the Hodson Trust.”
Author: Mike Field
Photo Credit: Will Kirk
