THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409060044
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
When he was 10 and growing up in rural Lancaster County, Gerald L. Cooper lost his father to a heart attack. It was 1945, the year World War II ended.
His mother, a teacher, returned to work to make ends meet. When he reached ninth grade, his mother, thinking he needed an environment with strong male role models, wanted to enroll him at a nearby Episcopal boarding school.
But on her modest teaching salary, she couldn't afford it. The school, Christchurch in Middlesex County, opened the door with a full scholarship. It was Cooper's first exposure to financial aid.
It was not his last.
As the new executive director of the Tidewater Scholarship Foundation, Cooper, 59, now heads an organization whose purpose is to help financially strapped families send their kids to college.
Since it was formed in 1988, the nonprofit foundation, also called ACCESS, has guided about 4,500 students in Norfolk and Portsmouth through the dizzying maze of paperwork and bureaucracy to track down more than $22 million in financial aid.
The majority of students receiving aid are African American and grew up in low-income families - a segment of society most in need of education but least able to afford it.
Those who know Cooper best say helping others achieve the dream of a college education is his idea of a dream job.
``Somebody helped Gerald Cooper become a successful person from very humble beginnings, and he's been dead set ever since trying to find ways to help other people,'' said Nat Irvin II, vice chancellor for development and university relations at Winston-Salem (N.C.) State University, a historically black college where Cooper worked as director of development before moving to Norfolk.
``Gerry is not one who sipped from a silver spoon,'' Irvin said. ``If you asked him to write down his philosophy, it would be that education should be available for all who desire it and are willing to work for it.''
Cooper is a rolled-up-shirt-sleeves kind of a guy, a country boy at heart, whose home base is now a 10th-floor office in the Norfolk public schools administration building on East City Hall Avenue.
Since his early years, the importance of education has been a determining factor in his life. His mother saw to that.
``She instilled in me the belief that life's opportunities begin with education and that one doesn't have to be wealthy to be successful and make a contribution to society,'' Cooper said.
He also learned that there's no reason to feel ashamed to request financial help to attend school. That's especially true these days, when annual tuition, room and other expenses - even at Virginia's state-supported universities - total about $10,000.
Cooper got himself into the University of Virginia with a combination of financial aid and sweat, waiting tables and working odd jobs on campus. In his last semester at U.Va., however, Cooper came up $600 short.
He persuaded his dean to lend him the money, on condition he repay it when he could. With that show of faith, Cooper in 1958 earned an English degree. He paid off the debt when he got his first job teaching English at his alma mater, Christchurch.
Both of Cooper's sons earned college degrees through a mix of loans, financial aid and work-study programs. His wife, Prior, who is working on a degree in massage therapy, also benefited from education aid.
``Financial aid is something you need or earn, and it doesn't make you different from anyone else,'' Cooper said. ``I feel my experience is not that unique. We're a typical middle-class family in which we had some financial need.
``I still believe that young men and women should be encouraged to establish who they are on the basis of their willingness to work and to achieve at the highest level that they can reach.''
Cooper began his new job in July. He succeeded Bert R. Hindmarsh, a former high school principal who had held the position since the foundation's creation. Hindmarsh retired in June.
An exciting aspect of his new job, Cooper said, is that ACCESS serves as a bridge between public education and the private sector.
``That's the wave of the future,'' Cooper said. ``There was a time when public and private didn't cross paths. Those days are gone.''
The Tidewater Scholarship Foundation's board recruited Cooper largely because of his fund-raising expertise, said Anne B. Shumadine, a Norfolk lawyer and board president. After six years of relying on the support of a small core of generous sponsors, the ACCESS board wanted to broaden its financial base, she said.
Shumadine said Cooper's work in education and his track record raising money for previous employers gave him an edge. More than 300 people applied for the executive director's job in a nationwide search.
``We had some very impressive candidates,'' Shumadine said. ``There were not that many people with both the educational background and the fund-raising ability that we were looking for.''
Cooper said he views his marching orders as a way for the foundation to help more families.
``If we're going to reach more students, we're going to need more money,'' he said. ``I'd like to see us continue that upper level of support from our larger contributors but also include businesses, foundations and individuals who would like to support us at a lower level, from $1,000 a year to $30,000.''
From 1982 to 1987, Cooper established local connections working as vice president for development at Regent University in Virginia Beach, then still in its infancy.
``He got us going forward,'' said Bob Slosser, retired president of Regent. ``He's very savvy and knowledgeable about how educational institutions function.''
Cooper's rural roots in Lancaster, a small Northern Neck town, imbued him with a sense of history and small-town values. A freelance writer on the side, Cooper recently had an article about the virtues of Virginia's soft-shell crabs published in Pleasant Living magazine.
``Neighbors knew one another and helped one another,'' Cooper said of his hometown. ``It was the role models who were so important - the teachers, the principal, the librarian or the coach.''
His old stomping grounds were the homeland of such American icons as Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. A map of historic sites in Lancaster County hangs in his office, along with his diplomas for his bachelor's degree and a master's in guidance and counseling he earned from the University of Virginia.
Modern society still has much to learn from America's founders, Cooper said, particularly where education is concerned.
``Thomas Jefferson had a real belief in the ordinary person,'' Cooper said. ``He wrote that the hope for this country is an educated citizenry. It seems to me that it's part of the American tradition that people can move themselves upward through education. We need action based on those strong traditions.''
Later in life, when he was hired as the first white director of development by Winston-Salem State University, he found that his experiences were remarkably similar to those of many of his African-American colleagues, despite their racial and cultural differences.
Cooper said he discovered a close kinship with Clarence ``Big House'' Gaines, one of the winningest basketball coaches in America before he retired last year. Gaines grew up in rural Kentucky.
``Coach Gaines and I frequently talked about what kids need today and what helped us growing up, many years ago,'' Cooper said. ``The fact that he grew up as an African American in Paducah, Ky., and I as a white in rural Tidewater, Va., didn't seem to be important differences.
``Rather, it was the fact that we both had family who loved, taught and disciplined us individually at home, and teachers and principals who did the same thing when we got to school. Somehow, we always knew that home and school would be `in cahoots,' and that friends and neighbors would be aware of us, too.''
Years before he arrived at Winston-Salem State, Cooper helped open an educational door for black students. In 1968, at the height of the civil rights movement, Cooper was part of a team that racially integrated Woodberry Forest School near Orange, Va., a traditionally all-white college prep boarding school. Cooper directed fund raising there for 11 years and helped expand financial aid to students.
At Winston-Salem State, he was one of only a handful of white administrators. He learned how it felt to be a minority in a majority world.
``The shoe was a little on the other foot,'' Cooper said. ``I think that to understand people we need to have experiences that are similar to theirs.''
He gained a new appreciation of race relations, he said, and became convinced that understanding between the races can only be reached through shared experiences. For that reason, he said, historically black colleges that actively recruit white students hold a great potential for increasing racial harmony.
While in Winston-Salem, Cooper helped lead a $23 million fund-raising campaign, the largest and most successful in the university's history, vice chancellor Irvin said.
``It was very ambitious and we were able to achieve things we were never able to before,'' Irvin said.
As head of ACCESS, Cooper said, he wants to build on past successes and explore the possibilities of breaking new ground.
One goal is to establish a mentor program, recruiting students who've passed through the ACCESS program to advise those just getting into it. He also wants to look at the merits of expanding the program into other Hampton Roads cities.
``It's a great opportunity,'' Cooper said. ``I believe that it's the responsibility of our society to see that people get the opportunity to be what they can be. I just think this is one of the great hopes we've got for changing society.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Staff photo by Lawrence JAckson
Gerald L. Cooper, executive director of Tidewater Scholarship
Foundation
KEYWORDS: TUITION SCHOLARSHIP COLLEGE by CNB