Ms Sylvia Yap, Mr Hochstadt and NUS President, Prof Tan Chorh Chuan
“The wise old saying, ‘Give the man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ always rings true to me,” says Mr Herman Ronald Hochstadt, who established the Hochstadt Scholarship in The Humanities at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore (NUS).
Indeed, education has a special place in the lives of many members of the Hochstadt family. Mr Hochstadt’s father dedicated his entire working life to education in Singapore, serving as a school teacher, then school principal, and finally, as a senior Ministry of Education official. Mr Hochstadt’s three sisters were also all school teachers, as was his daughter, initially. He worked briefly as a tutor himself in the University of Malaya in Singapore and later University of Singapore, both predecessor institutions of NUS, from which his wife graduated and where she served as chief librarian. Mr Hochstadt later became permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and deputy chairman of the Vocational & Industrial Training Board.
Mr Hochstadt attributes his success to his family’s help and support and wants to commemorate the family name with the Scholarship, which will benefit outstanding students majoring in Humanities subjects including English Language, English Literature, Theatre Studies, History and Philosophy.
“I was taught from young by parents, other family members, and teachers at St Andrew’s School where I had my primary and secondary schooling, that I should contribute whatever I could and whenever I could to deserving causes. And I have been doing so ever since I started working,” shares Mr Hochstadt.
“It is only fitting, in fondness, gratitude and memory, to give in my retirement to NUS which since its predecessor days, nurtured me, my late wife, my daughter and her husband, and my son into whatever we did become and helped us achieve whatever we did achieve. And especially for me to give back in support of undergraduate study of the Humanities at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from which Peggy, Karen Lynn, Erwin Wei-Sung and I all graduated ourselves.”
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Article reproduced with permission from NUS Development Office.