Hodson Trust Announces 1995 Gifts


     It was kind of unusual for a 75th birthday party. The
honored guest was giving presents instead of receiving them.

     The Hodson Trust, established 75 years ago last week by Col.
Clarence Hodson, chose that occasion to announce this year's
gifts to the four Maryland independent colleges and universities
it supports.

     The total this year: $4.77 million, a record for the trust.
The total over three-quarters of a century: $61.8 million,
divided among Johns Hopkins, Washington College, Hood College and
St. John's College in Annapolis.

     Hodson's relationship with Hopkins is one of the
university's most important with any private philanthropy,
interim President Daniel Nathans told Finn M.W. Caspersen,
chairman of the trust and of Beneficial Corp., the company
founded by Clarence Hodson.

     It's important, Nathans said, because of Hodson's "long-term
commitment, because of the specific purposes for which its gifts
are applied and because of its creativity in stimulating new
programs."

     Hopkins' share of this year's Hodson gift is $1.368 million,
Caspersen said. Of that, $250,000 is in cash, supporting the
Oncology Center, the Provost's Awards for Research and
Excellence, the Center for Technology in Education and a new
Continuing Studies-Medicine joint program on information
technology for healthcare providers.

     The rest is a gift to the Hodson Scholarship Foundation, an
outside managed endowment, to support both minority scholarships
and the Beneficial-Hodson merit scholarships program for Homewood
undergraduates.