Scholarship Dinner Breaks Fundraising Record

A group of 280 University friends, benefactors and community members gathered in April to raise a record-setting $754,000 for student scholarships at the Montclair State University Foundation 2016 Annual Scholarship Dinner.

“The money we have raised for student scholarships will ensure that qualified and talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances, will have the opportunity to receive a top-quality Montclair State education,” said President Susan A. Cole.

Montclair State University student dancing at 2016 Annual Scholarship Dinner.
Entertainment included student performances from Danceworks 2016.

The funds raised support the University’s Second Century Scholarship Fund and the newly established Creative Talent Award Scholarship Fund. While the Second Century Fund provides financial assistance to hundreds of students of limited economic means, the Creative Talent Fund will provide merit-based aid to creative and performing arts students in the College of the Arts.

The evening also honored two prominent Essex County residents and business leaders: Helane Becker, managing director at Cowen and Company and a frequent CNBC and Bloomberg TV airline industry commentator, and Robert Gregory, founder of the Imagination Management Group and former chief business officer at Atlas Development Corporation.

Cole presented Becker, a 1979 Montclair State graduate who is also a member of the Feliciano School of Business Advisory Board, with the University’s Margaret and Herman Sokol Award for Alumni Achievement and Civic Leadership.

Gregory, chair of the College of the Arts Advisory Board, received the Rose and John J. Cali Award for Business Leadership and Community Engagement.

“We are pleased to honor two remarkable and dedicated champions of Montclair State University,” said Cole.

Guests were treated to performances of excerpts from Danceworks 2016 by students in Montclair State’s Department of Theatre and Dance.