The following scholarships were established during the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

The Stanley and Daphne Cobham Memorial Fund
This fund is established by Professor Rhonda Cobham-Sander, Ph.D., in loving memory of her parents, Stanley and Daphne Cobham.

Stanley Cobham was a native of Barbados. Although he aspired to a career in academia, he was unable to afford a university education. He eventually became an accounting clerk and moved to Trinidad to be closer to his wife’s family. Before his untimely death at the age of 44, he instilled in his four daughters a love of learning and a deep appreciation for literature, music, and the visual arts.

Daphne Cobham, who was trained as a teacher and librarian, returned to the workforce as an elementary school teacher after her husband’s death. She retired in 1975 and devoted the next twenty years of her life to tutoring children and adults who had difficulty reading. She is remembered in Trinidad as a pioneer in the field of special education.

Reflecting her father’s intellectual passions and ambitions, the scholarship gives preference for students of the arts or humanities, as well as students who identify as neurodivergent, and/or have been diagnosed with a learning disability.

Professor Cobham-Sander taught at Amherst College, retiring in 2025 from her position as the Emily C. Jordan Folger Professor of English and Black Studies. Her much-cited scholarship focuses on Caribbean and African literature and feminist theory.

The Rose Jessie Lukoff room

Dr. Deborah Panitch made a $25,000 gift to the veterinary technician department. The gift will go toward the renovation of the department’s location on the Marieb Building, specifically the rabbit room. Dr. Panitch chose to name the room in honor of Rose Jessie Lukoff, a friend and veterinary technician who sadly passed away.

Thomas Ewing and Marilyn London-Ewing Charitable Fund

Thomas Ewing and Marilyn London-Ewing gifted a $25,000 grant to support the Itsy Bitsy Child Watch Program (IBCW). The gift will support the relocation and expansion of the child watch program as it moves from the Marieb Building into the Frost Building. With its new location and an instructional staff member, the IBCW will have the capacity to serve more student-parents, offer extended hours of care, and provide quality early learning experiences to more children.

We thank members of the Frost Society for their vision in naming the HCC Foundation in their estate plans through a will, trust, retirement plan, life insurance policy, or life-income gift. Their thoughtfulness will enable future HCC students to succeed and allow the college to Educate. Inspire. Connect. for generations to come.

†Deceased