Scholarship Banquet Highlights Generosity and Gratitude

More than 140 scholarship donors and their guests joined just under 100 cadets and members of the VMI Foundation Board of Trustees Saturday, March 22, 2025, in the Hall of Valor in Marshall Hall for an event centered around generosity and gratitude: The VMI Foundation Scholarship Banquet. This annual event is held each spring in conjunction with the Foundation Board of Trustees meeting in recognition of the many donors who endow scholarships and the cadets who benefit from their substantial support in the form of both need- and merit-based aid.

Welcoming guests to the banquet was Dorcas Wilkinson, Foundation Board of Trustees member and widow of the late retired U.S. Air Force Col. Spencer Wilkinson ’66. She began her remarks by explaining how the support of donors long ago had made a VMI education possible both for her husband and his brother, Robert “Bob” Wilkinson ’65.

“Neither Spencer [nor] Bob would have been able to attend the Institute had it not been for the scholarships that they received when they were cadets,” she stated. “When the time was right, Spence and I and then Bob and his wife, Mary Lee, made the decision that we wanted to thank those scholarship donors from many years before, and we invested in our own endowed scholarships here at VMI.

“We recognize that those donors who made those gifts so many years ago had really transformed our husbands’ lives and our family’s lives, and we were very grateful for that,” Wilkinson continued. “As endowments are established in perpetuity, we are gratified knowing that our scholarships are going to benefit cadets like these young men and women assembled here today for many, many generations.”

Relationships, too, are often kindled by donors’ generosity, as many donors form deep and abiding bonds with their cadets—bonds that may continue long after those cadets have departed barracks. Wilkinson noted her longstanding friendship with fellow banquet attendee U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Quincy Murphy ’15, a recipient of the Wilkinson scholarship when he was a cadet who is now earning a master’s degree in environmental engineering at Old Dominion University, and she highlighted the most recent Spencer W. Wilkinson Endowment Scholarship recipient, Cadet Eufenuel-John “E.J.” Buna ’27, an electrical and computer engineering major from Virginia Beach, Virginia.

“These young people and all of the cadets gathered here today and across post are the reasons that my family and I give to VMI,” Wilkinson stated. “It is inspiring, as we have heard before. I once asked a generous philanthropist why he had given for so many years to his alma mater, and he responded because it feels so good, and I think it feels especially good today for those of us who have made gifts to VMI. We’re surrounded by these cadets, hearing their stories, learning about their successes, their challenges, their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations.”

One of those former cadets, Col. Dan Harrison ’05, Ph.D., is now a professor of chemistry. In his remarks, Harrison emphasized how receiving scholarship support first impacted his life and then set him up to help the next generation of deserving young people. “The work I do now as a VMI faculty member, and the time I can spend with cadets, is a direct consequence of your generosity,” said Harrison, a physical chemist who specializes in researching renewable energy sources.

Harrison related that when he came to VMI as a first-generation four-year college student, his father’s advice was, “Keep your head down and your chin up.” Following that advice proved fruitful, and soon, Harrison was rewarded with some awards and chemistry scholarships.

“I was honored and grateful then, but I’m especially grateful now for those awards,” Harrison related. “They lit a fire under my seat, something I never experienced beforehand, and they inspired me to work harder and think deeply about my career, which led me to doing undergraduate research at VMI, which was very well funded by donors. That’s where I found my calling, and that experience inspired me to go to graduate school for a doctorate in chemistry.”

Since 2013, Harrison has been back at VMI teaching and mentoring cadets, and in that time, he’s mentored 25 cadets conducting undergraduate research, 12 of whom are co-authors on peer-reviewed publications, and developed three new chemistry courses. In addition, he’s twice been honored with the Wilbur S. Hinman Jr. 1926 Research Award in the natural sciences for research with cadets and twice received the Jackson-Hope Award for Excellence in published scholarly work.

Most recently, Harrison has been working as a fellow with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, more commonly known as DEVCOM ARL. “I was able to very rapidly apply my knowledge base that I’ve developed over the last 10 years to collaborate with ARL and develop new molecular architectures to solve Army objectives,” said Harrison. “I anticipate that we’ll publish four papers out of this work alone with cadets in the next year or so.”

None of this, Harrison stressed, would be possible without the generosity of donors. “Today serves as an encouragement for me to do my best for cadets, teaching them skills and modern methodologies and technologies on the cutting edge of science,” he stated. “Among the gifts that I have received from you is the gift of the classroom full of purposeful and talented cadets. At this stage, I have taught more than 800 students. Your philanthropy brings brilliant students to VMI.”

Following Harrison to the podium was Cadet Knight Bowles ’25, who has worked extensively in Harrison’s lab and who, as of mid-March, was putting the finishing touches on his Institute Honors thesis in chemistry. “Overall, I’d like to think of your financial generosity as an act of opening doors for cadets, because an open door is actually how I got to meet Colonel Daniel Harrison,” said Bowles. “Back in 2023, I took general chemistry lab with Colonel Harrison, and as a biology major, I constantly found myself in his office asking for help on course assignments. Fortunately, Colonel Harrison always had this office door open, ready to help his students.

“Little did I know that my initial time with Colonel Harrison in his office, struggling with the basics of chemistry, would lead to me working in his own laboratory throughout the entirety of this academic year.”

Bowles stressed that the donors’ generosity enables cadets to do more than they thought possible—and in many instances, scholarships enable potential cadets to choose a VMI education. “I’d like to thank you for the support that you all provide us with day in and day out throughout our cadetships,” he stated. “While this support may be quantified with the dollar sign for us cadets, we truly cannot place a value on our gain from your financial generosity. It extends far beyond dollar signs.

“Because of your selflessness, I’ve been able to share smiles, laughs, and tears with [fellow cadets] and make memories that I will hold on to forever,” he said. “Your support is also evident in the academic stars that we wear on our sleeves and the chevrons that we wear on our shoulders. By providing us with a VMI education, you have exposed us to countless opportunities to develop as leaders and scholars.”

See More Photos