Rashida A. Hodge Establishes $1 Million Scholarship for VI Public School Graduates

Full NCSU scholarship covers tuition, fees, and housing for Virgin Islands public high school graduates, honoring Hodge’s grandmother and fostering the next generation of leaders.

Graduates of Virgin Islands public high schools now have a new opportunity to fund their tertiary-level education, with the creation of the Rashida A. Hodge Scholarship Fund, established by its namesake Rashida Hodge, a board member of the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands. The fund will offer a full scholarship to North Carolina State University, Ms. Hodge's alma mater. Recipients of the undergraduate scholarship will have tuition, fees and housing fully covered for the duration of their program.

Ms. Hodge, who earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial engineering at NCSU, said earlier this month that “giving will forever be my positive disruption of choice.” The endowment, says Ms. Hodge, “allows me to give Virgin Islanders an opportunity to further their education at the very place that was formative to my development and career.” She created the fund in honor of her grandmother Ioline Hodge, whose “legacy of giving and faith” most shaped her granddaughter. “I think of who my grandmother could or would have been had she received opportunities for education and exposure,” Ms. Hodge remarked. “In every way, my success is her success.”