Alumnus Aaron Rand gifts CCNY $30k to establish scholarship fund and award in memory of grandson Elan Ganeles, pictured here.
Aaron Rand, an alumnus of The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, gifted the college $30,000 to help students in Spitzer School’s Bachelor of Architecture Program. A total of $25,000 of the gift is used to establish The Elan Ganeles Endowed Scholarship Fund, and $5,000 will be used as an annual award for a student to receive The Elan Ganeles Annual Scholarship Award. Both the fund and award are in memory of Rand’s late grandson, Elan Ganeles.
Ganeles was born and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut and double majored in sustainable development and neuroscience and behavior at Columbia University graduating in 2022 on the dean’s list. He was 26 when he was tragically killed on February 27, 2023 on his way to a friend’s wedding in Jerusalem, and Rand wanted to honor and keep Ganeles’s legacy alive with the creation of the scholarships.
The Elan Ganeles Endowed Scholarship Fund will be given to a first-generation junior or senior in the B. Arch degree program who shows financial need, and a student who receives The Elan Ganeles Annual Scholarship Award will be awarded $5000 for the 2024/2025 academic year.
“When I was a student at CCNY, I was a resident of Rockland County and drove to school parking behind Shepard Hall. I had to pay tuition for undergraduate and graduate courses and had to work at least 15 to 20 hours a week to pay my expenses. I was not able to spend as much time on my coursework as I would have liked and had to prioritize my time on courses that were most meaningful to me,” said Rand. “I want this scholarship to allow the students who receive this award to be able to focus on his or her coursework without being burdened to seek employment and spend their time so that they can succeed in all their coursework.”
The Spitzer School is a premier, public school of architecture in New York City, and the undergraduate architecture program gives students the opportunity to learn to design individual and complex groups of buildings, deepen their knowledge of architectural history, and explore the built environment all through the lens of the urban landscape—NYC.
"We are grateful to Mr. Aaron Rand for empowering our students to pursue their dreams with the same genuine goodness and intellectual curiosity that characterized his late grandson, Elan,” said Annika Lüdke, director of corporate relations and foundation grants in the Office of Institutional Advancement, Communications, and External Relations. “Mr. Rand's commitment to lift our students' financial burden will support future architects to make the world a better place."
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