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Paving the road ahead with scholarship endowment
When Brittney Kocman lost her mother before starting high school, she discovered running worked as a means of therapy, helping her to move forward, one step at a time, one day at a time. Now that she’s a Roadrunner, running is moving her toward a degree and a future she says wouldn’t be possible without a scholarship.
Kocman, a member of the women’s cross country and track teams who plans to go to graduate school for biomedical engineering, is one of the first four student-athletes at Metropolitan State University of Denver who will benefit in the years to come from the newly established Molly and Rob Cohen Athletic Pacesetter Scholarship Program.
“Playing college soccer was always a dream of mine,” said Javier Arellano, a sophomore broadcasting major and new Cohen-Jordan scholar, jointly named in honor of former MSU Denver President Stephen Jordan. “I’m a first-generation college student. It was important to continue academically; my parents didn’t get the chance to do that.
The Cohen family announced the gift from the Rob and Molly Cohen Family Foundation on Friday, Sept. 22 at the Regency Athletic Complex – itself the product of a public-private partnership that exposes Denver youth to higher education through athletics.
Jessica Thummel’s journey to become an internationally published novelist included an important chapter at MSU Denver. Thummel won the prestigious 2016 Dundee International Book Prize for her debut novel, “The Cure for Lonely,” which tells the coming-of-age story of Sam, a transgender man who moves to San Francisco amid the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
Supporters 70½ years old or older can give a tax-free gift up to $100,000 from their IRA to the MSU Denver Foundation. Please contact Kyle Backlund at 303-615-2040 with any questions or to notify us you have made or plan to make an IRA Rollover gift. Gifts for 2017 must be settled by Dec. 31, 2017.
